Chapter 608: Monster

"What is it?" The few of us present were each harboring a ghost in our belly. I had secretly kept Gu Tongtong's death certificate and was already feeling guilty, so being suddenly stared at by Zhang Heng instantly made me uneasy.

Zhang Heng didn't speak. His pale lips trembled slightly.

Noticing his strange behavior, Chen Mo, who had been flipping through the medical records, also looked up. "What are you two..."

He cut off mid-sentence. His reaction was even more exaggerated, his cheeks draining of color in an instant.

Both Chen Mo and Zhang Heng were looking in my direction, but neither of their gazes landed on me. They were looking behind me!

Cold sweat rolled down my temples. I swallowed hard as countless terrifying thoughts flooded my mind.

My fingers brushed the Ghost Ring as I formed a hand seal. Leaning forward, I channeled Pre-Heaven True Qi into the acupoints behind my ears, ready to react instantly at the slightest disturbance.

My ears didn't catch a single sound, but my nose picked up a bizarre stench. It smelled like rotten pork that had been soaking in water for far too long.

"Drip, drop." "Drip, drop."

The sound of falling water droplets drew closer, exceptionally clear in the dead silence of the operating room.

Zhang Heng and Chen Mo didn't dare move a muscle, having seemingly forgotten how to breathe. They looked like gazelles sized up by a lion, radiating fear from the very bottom of their hearts.

I couldn't see behind me, but watching the expressions of the two men in front of me was a torture all its own. I wanted to turn my head, consumed by a desperate curiosity to know exactly what was back there.

Twisting my neck, I had never been as cautious in my life as I was right then. My head turned in minuscule increments, like the hour hand of a clock, terrified of triggering a sudden attack from whatever stood behind me.

The atmosphere in the operating room was suffocating. As my line of sight slowly shifted, the corner of my eye seemed to catch something.

'A white coat? Is it a doctor's uniform?' The thought had barely formed in my mind when a potent stench violently washed over me!

"Run!"

Zhang Heng yelled from the other side of the table. Without a moment's hesitation, he spun around and fled.

Chen Mo followed closely behind him. Clutching a thick stack of death notices, he sprinted toward the exit without looking back.

"Fuck! You guys!" Our newly established alliance crumbled instantly in the face of danger, everyone fleeing for their own lives. Chen Mo and Zhang Heng didn't just have no intention of helping me—they hadn't even bothered to give me a warning. They bolted clean away, plainly abandoning me as a sacrifice to buy themselves time to escape.

I had almost gotten a look at the thing behind me, but after Zhang Heng and Chen Mo pulled a stunt like that, I didn't dare linger for a split second.

Planting a hand on the table, I vaulted right over it. Pumping my legs, I sprinted out of the department as if my life depended on it.

Gusts of foul wind battered my back. As I retracted my supporting hand, I blindly swiped at the table, hoping to grab as many documents as I could. That split second of greed nearly cost me my life.

The moment my fingers touched the files, something slimy stuck to them. It was warm, like the blood of a living person, yet upon closer feel, it was like touching the skin of an amphibian.

My fingertips recoiled on pure instinct. I decisively dropped the files, hit the ground, ducked low, and charged out the door.

"Bang!"

The floor shook. The thing behind me had actually lifted the surgery table—which was over one and a half meters long—and hurled it at the department exit with all its might to seal off my escape route.

'It knows how to use tools? It has intelligence?' I didn't have time to think any further. Thanks to my cultivation of the Profound Truth Mental Method, my physical fitness was far superior to that of an ordinary person. I bent my body at an impossible angle and slipped out through the department door the very moment the table smashed down.

"That was close!"

Zhang Heng and Chen Mo were sprinting madly ahead, while I chased frantically after them. 'These two bastards didn't even blink before selling out a teammate. Especially Zhang Heng. He saw it coming and didn't even give me a heads-up.'

That bizarre stench wafted over again. I muttered a curse; now was not the time to settle the score. I kept my head down and fled for my life along the route we had taken to get here.

After leaving the Central Operating Room, I headed straight for the pitch-black emergency stairwell. With Zhang Heng and Chen Mo clearing the way ahead, I wasn't worried about stumbling into any traps.

Physically speaking, I was in much better shape than a medical student like Chen Mo. Zhang Heng, on the other hand, genuinely impressed me. It was as if the gossip reporter had wind under his feet; his speed was astonishing.

Plunging into the pitch-black stairwell, the benefits of my Judging Eye and Breath Listening became apparent. The darkness barely affected me, and my speed surged, allowing me to instantly overtake Chen Mo, who still needed light to see his way.

Seeing that he had fallen to last place, his face went ghastly pale in terror. In truth, it came down to a very simple principle.

When the thing behind us caught up, it would take time for it to completely kill a person. Thus, the three of us didn't need to run incredibly fast; we just needed to outrun the slowest person!

Under the threat of death, Chen Mo didn't even bother with lighting anymore. He bounded down two or three steps at a time, utterly panicked.

The Central Operating Room was on the seventh floor of the Diagnostic and Treatment Building. Taking this route down hadn't felt long when we first arrived, but right now, it seemed like an endless Yellow Springs Road.

Zhang Heng took the lead, while Chen Mo and I stayed hot on his heels. Fear had unlocked the young medical student's potential. He was blindly shouting something—maybe cries for help, maybe the names of his loved ones. It seemed that in a life-or-death crisis, yelling such things helped relieve pressure and bring good luck.

It was a nice thought, but reality is always cruel and never plays by the rules.

"Thump!"

I heard the sound. Without even needing to look back, I knew Chen Mo had tripped in the darkness.

He seemed to have missed a step. His hand reached out to grab the stair rail, but the handrails in the abandoned building weren't sturdy. With nothing to support his weight, he tumbled straight down the stairs.

A miserable scream echoed through the stairwell as he fell right onto the landing below, landing squarely in front of Zhang Heng.

"H-Help me," he pleaded, reaching a hand out toward Zhang Heng. He tried to stand, but his leg seemed injured and slightly deformed. He made it halfway up before collapsing again.

He and Zhang Heng had stuck close to each other earlier; having both received notes, they got along quite well. His tone was full of pleading desperation.

But Zhang Heng didn't reach out to help. He didn't even look at him. He simply stepped right over Chen Mo's chest without slowing down in the slightest.

"Don't go! Save me!"

His cries echoed in the stairwell without a single response. At a time like this, no one cared about him.

'You can't blame anyone else for your own bad luck.' With Chen Mo falling down the stairs, I was dead last again. Feeling the stench drawing ever closer, I had no choice but to speed up.

"Help me! Save me!" Chen Mo flailed his arms. One of his legs appeared to be broken; even if I helped him up now, there was no way he could escape.

I remained completely rational from beginning to end. I took a step over him, watching his hands wave weakly in the air.

At that moment, Chen Mo descended into absolute despair. His eyes dimmed, losing all their color, and his face took on a dead, ashen hue.

"Cover your head!" I shouted as I stepped over him. Grabbing hold of his injured leg, I dragged him along like a sack of cargo and kept sprinting.

Chen Mo's body slammed repeatedly against the hard concrete stairs. Only now did he understand why I had told him to cover his head.

Bumping and jarring all the way down, our speed dropped significantly, but the building's exit was already very close!

After descending another two or three floors, we finally reached the bottom. The emergency door had already been kicked open by Zhang Heng at the front, allowing me to drag Chen Mo through without a hitch.

"Hurry! Hurry!"

The rushing wind and my heavy breathing mingled in my ears. Faintly, I could also hear a bubbling sound coming from a water tank somewhere. I didn't dare turn around, nor was I about to investigate any water tank at a time like this. All I wanted was to get the hell out of there.

"Hold on!" I mustered every ounce of my strength, gripping Chen Mo's leg like a vice. In one breath, I charged out of the Diagnostic and Treatment Building and sprinted another dozen meters. I only dared to stop when I spotted Zhang Heng hiding in the bushes.

Tossing Chen Mo aside, I slumped directly onto the ground, gasping for air. My lungs burned like fire, and my heart pounded wildly in my chest.

"Are you guys alright?" Zhang Heng, having crouched in the bushes for a good while, finally stood up. "That thing doesn't seem able to leave the building. We're safe for now."

"Safe, my ass. You sure ran pretty fast back there, didn't you?" I ground my teeth in fury, fighting the urge to punch him in the face. "What did you guys see anyway? Was it really enough to scare you that badly?"

"You didn't see it?" Zhang Heng asked, completely surprised.

"No shit! My fucking back was facing the damn thing. If my reflexes hadn't been quick, I'd have been killed by you two screwing me over!" As my breathing leveled out, I climbed to my feet and turned to look at Chen Mo.

Although I had dragged the young man out and saved his life, he was covered in bruises and scrapes. More critically, the leg that had initially only been fractured was now completely snapped from me hauling him; it hung limp and soft like a noodle.

"Are you... doing okay?" Tonight was destined to be incredibly dangerous. Having a broken leg in a place like this was practically a death sentence. "I didn't break your leg on purpose. You know how it was back there. Helping you walk or carrying you on my back would've slowed us down too much. If I did that, we both would've died."

"I know. Thank you for back there," Chen Mo replied softly. He knew that if I had ignored him and focused solely on my own escape like Zhang Heng had, he would already be dead inside that hospital.

He was just a student, after all, and actually felt guilty toward me now. Wiping the dirt and grass clippings from his face, he said, "I'm sorry. That was the first time I've ever seen something so terrifying. I panicked completely, which is why I didn't warn you and just ran for my life. I'm sorry!"

"Apologizing? There's no need for that." Chen Mo's sincere attitude actually made me feel a bit embarrassed. In truth, my motives for saving him hadn't been entirely pure.

First, saving an innocent person during a Live Show Mission would reward me with ten points. Second, by dragging him along, his life and death were entirely in my hands; if we encountered danger, I could toss him aside to serve as bait. But the most crucial point was that when I stepped over him, even as he desperately flailed his arms, he hadn't reached out to grab me. He hadn't hindered my escape just to survive himself. It was precisely this point that made me change my mind and decide to drag him out no matter what.

"Save the apologies for after we get out of here," I said, glancing between Zhang Heng and Chen Mo. "Now, can you finally tell me what the hell you saw in that operating room?"