Любовь, пожалуйста, не расцветай

Глава 10

"Huh? What?" I didn't react.

"Where do you plan to go during this time?" He Xi asked another question.

"The appointment is at 12 o'clock, and I still have three hours. I want to go to Xinjingyuan, even though I can only stay there for a little over an hour." At this point, I finally understood what He Xi meant by the previous sentence, and quickly took out my business card and handed it over.

He Xi took it and put it in the pocket of her leather jacket.

"What's your phone number?" I took out my phone to write it down.

"64725222."

"Such an easy-to-remember phone number, but what about the area code?"

"021."

"Oh? You own a house in Shanghai?"

"Ruijin Hotel switchboard operator, do you know which room I'm staying in?"

I was speechless and dejected, so I hailed a taxi.

"Are you angry?" He Xi, who was sitting in the back seat, asked me after the car had been driving for a while.

“No, I was thinking about that little girl, Tongtong,” I said.

He Xi stopped talking, and after a while, she handed me a piece of paper.

It had an email address and a phone number starting with 22 written on it.

I shamelessly flashed a smile, thankfully she was sitting in the back and couldn't see it.

"22? Where is that?"

"Geneva, Heller International headquarters. I'm hard to reach by phone, and I don't reply to emails often."

The following sentence is typical of He Xi's speaking style, so I automatically filtered it out.

Rembrandt came out to greet us with two sets of protective suits, one of which was a sky-blue suit that He Xi had brought herself and had been stored at the rescue center after being disinfected yesterday.

Rembrandt was somewhat surprised to see that I and He Xi appeared together for two consecutive days.

"And what a coincidence that you ran into her again?" Rembrandt asked me quietly.

I didn't know how to answer, but He Xi heard me.

"We came together," she said.

"Ah." Rembrandt looked at me with a puzzled expression, but he didn't press the matter further.

Tongtong is dead. Just this morning.

The death toll is now twenty-two, almost double yesterday's number. Thirty-one more people are waiting in the makeshift cells underground.

Sixty-seven people still live in the three infected buildings. What awaits them is unknown.

The medical team received three new nurses, but one of them was no longer able to work. This morning, she witnessed a patient die before her eyes for the first time, splattered with blood. She collapsed to the ground in shock, her hand cut by the sharp corner of the wire bed, and her protective suit ripped open. Everyone prayed for her, including me.

The problem wasn't with the blood of the deceased, as there was no longer any Fan's virus there (this novel was first published on M and will be published by Jieli Publishing House this April. Please do not delete if reposting). However, she had come into contact with many patients who were just entering the hyperactive phase while wearing protective clothing, and the outer layer of her protective clothing itself was dangerous.

She was only twenty years old and had volunteered to come here.

Today I didn't have close contact with patients anymore, so I was able to deliver things to the residents that they needed, like the things I saw yesterday: water, biscuits, rice...

They would ask me how I was doing, how dangerous it was, and how long I would have to stay in quarantine.

I told them again and again that everything was under control and there was absolutely nothing to worry about. Rembrandt told me to say that.

After delivering supplies to the safe zone, it was time to go to the three infected areas. One family needed rice, and the man who opened the door had disheveled hair.

"Doctor, I don't really need anything." He stared at me intently. "I just want to ask you in person how my wife and daughter are doing."

I threw down the rice and fled in panic.

This was an hour and a half that left me breathless.

At noon, Du Qin arrived at the small restaurant we had arranged to meet.

She insisted on finishing the Taiwanese braised pork rice she ordered before talking about it, and only ate half of it before stopping.

"It's painful to recall that incident; I'm afraid I'll feel nauseous." She drank another half cup of black tea before beginning her story.

Fifth, the dagger in the darkness

On the morning of August 19, 2005, a news article titled "A Miracle Occurs at Ruijin Hospital: Fatal Illness Mysteriously Recovers" was published in the social section of the Shanghai Morning Star newspaper.

Du Qin went to check on the protagonist of this report. In her opinion, the old man was completely cured. No wonder he had been clamoring to be discharged from the hospital these past few days.

The door to the private ward was closed. Du Qin turned the doorknob and locked it.

She knocked on the door.

There was no movement inside.

She knocked harder, started turning the doorknob forcefully, and began shouting, but the ward remained silent.

Du Qin sensed something was wrong. She recalled the incident and confirmed that the patient had not been discharged. She then prepared to go to the head nurse to get the key.

As soon as she let go of the handle, the door was suddenly pulled open inwards.

Du Qin was startled; standing in front of her was a massive body.

She recognized the fat man; he was Cheng Gen's son, Cheng Weiping.

"Ward rounds. Why lock the door if there's nothing wrong!" (This novel was first published on M and will be published by Jieli Publishing House this April. Please do not delete if reposting.) In the hospital, she didn't care about the noble status of the people using the special care wards and said loudly in a shrill voice.

“No more ward rounds, never again,” Cheng Weiping said softly.

"Move aside." Du Qin frowned.

Cheng Weiping made way for Du Qin, who pushed and squeezed in.

Cheng Gen lay on the bed, his eyes wide open, his face ashen, his mouth agape, and half of his tongue sticking out.

Du Qin screamed in the screechest voice she could muster, and Cheng Weiping covered his head and slowly squatted down.

The police arrived quickly and handcuffed the son who had strangled his father.

Patients in the next ward said they had heard loud arguments before, but they never expected something like this to happen.

At noon, the police matter came to a close, and the head nurse instructed Du Qin to move the body to the morgue. Du Qin complied.

At nine o'clock on the morning of the 20th, another patient Du Qin was caring for also died; he was a late-stage liver cancer patient. She felt incredibly unlucky, having to go to the morgue twice in two days. It's worth noting that Ruijin Hospital has a fairly low mortality rate.

The morgue door is usually locked. Du Qin inserted the key and turned it a few times before she realized the lock was open.

"Which guy forgot to lock the door?" she cursed, her voice echoing in the dimly lit hallway. Actually, she was a little scared.

She opened the door, turned on the light, and pushed the car inside.

Suddenly, her heart clenched, and she opened her mouth, but was too terrified to scream.

One of the freezers containing corpses was opened.

Du Qin released the handle of the cart and pushed it back a few steps. At that moment, all she could think about was getting someone else to come quickly.

But if she just called someone over like that, what if it wasn't anything serious, and someone just forgot to turn off the door? Wouldn't she become the laughingstock among her girlfriends? She had a feeling that the possibility of that was very small, but she still had to go up and check first.

She picked up a broom from the doorway and slowly walked toward the open freezer.

It looks like the spot where she pushed Cheng Gen yesterday!

Du Qin stopped in her tracks, remembering Cheng Gen's tongue lolling out.

Just one look, just one look. She kept telling herself, gripping the bamboo handle of the broom tightly with both hands, raising it to her forehead, slightly hunching over, and starting to walk forward again, little by little.

There was a person lying there, his head facing Du Qin. She saw it; his eyes, which he couldn't close, had turned into a blue tongue. It was Cheng Gen. A little further ahead, she saw his neck, his bare chest and stomach.

Oh no! What is that?!

Du Qin took a big step back and plopped down on the cold cement floor, the broom already fallen in front of her. Then, she screamed at the top of her lungs again.

Cheng Gen's chest was slashed open with a sharp knife, all the way down to his abdomen. The muscle tissue was pulled apart to expose his ribs. The ribs were hollow; his heart, liver, lungs, and all the other abdominal organs, even his intestines, were gone, leaving only an empty shell.

At this point, Du Qin's face turned deathly pale.

"Okay, stop for a second," I said. If I kept talking, she would probably really throw up the half-eaten braised pork rice she had just eaten.

"Thank you." Du Qin picked up the black tea, held the cup with her other hand, and took a sip.

“You’ll call the police soon, won’t you?” I said.

Du Qin nodded: "The police have been investigating, but there are still no results. I heard that the relationship between Cheng Gen and his son Cheng Weiping has always been very tense. Maybe it was Cheng Weiping who did it. In ancient times, if you hated someone so much, you would whip their corpse, right?"

"Wait, what day did you say that was? What day was the organ stolen?" He Xi asked.

"On the night of August 19th."

"August 19th," He Xi murmured softly.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"It's nothing," He Xi shook her head.

"That's all for today, thank you. (This novel was first published on M and will be published by Jieli Publishing House this April. Please do not delete if you repost.) I'll call you again if I have any further questions," I said to Du Qin.

“Na Duo, I want to see Cheng Weiping, do you have a way?” He Xi said to me as we went outside.

What do you want to see him for?

"Oh, I think, I want to ask him about Cheng Gen's condition when he got better."

“You should ask the caregiver; Cheng Weiping wasn’t with Cheng Gen at the time,” I said.

"For personal reasons, I'm very concerned about this case and want to know more about it. Can you help me?" He Xi said frankly.

I stared at her for a while, making sure she wasn't going to tell me anything more, before saying, "Okay. But I need to be there when you meet Cheng Weiping."

"Why did you think of me? Is there something that requires our Special Affairs Department's intervention? I've been so bored lately," Guo Dong said on the phone.

"Yes, I did need your help, but it seems that it has nothing to do with your Special Affairs Department at the moment." I told him about Cheng Weiping's case.

"I'll look into the case. Generally speaking, it should be possible to arrange for you to meet with the criminal."

"Then I'll have to trouble you. What's wrong? Haven't you had any unusual cases keeping you busy lately?" I asked casually.

"We're the most relaxed department right now. We originally thought we'd get some more exciting cases. But there's one strange thing: there's a neighborhood in Xinzhuang called Xiao Xin..."

"Xin Jing Yuan".