Chapter 321

The toxicity of the VX-3 is triggering the original, potent poison within her body at an alarming speed; the two forces are tearing at and devouring each other inside her.

"Needles... medicinal powder..." His voice was hoarse, as if polished by sandpaper. From a first-aid kit that had been corroded beyond recognition, he fished out the last few silver needles; their bodies glinted with a cold chill under the eerie green reflection.

There was also that small porcelain bottle, now bottomed out, with only a thin layer of dark green powder clinging to its walls—his final stock. As he moved to insert the needles, his hand trembled imperceptibly, and the cold sweat seeping from his temples grew denser and more profuse.

These few needles nearly drained the last trace of internal energy remaining in his body. Using a silver needle, he carefully scraped up all the powder, mixed it with the iron-tasting blood foam seeping from a bite on the tip of his tongue, and applied it with extreme gentleness to Xuanyuan Qing's cracked, peeling lips, hoping that even a tiny bit might seep through the mucous membrane, even if it could only buy a few minutes.

"Lin Shu... your back..." Xu Xiaochuan's voice carried an irrepressible tremor, and his stomach churned violently, nearly causing him to retch.

The sight was too horrific; fragments of his corroded, tattered combat suit were fused with charred, bright red flesh, as if a layer of skin had been forcibly stripped away and then repeatedly ravaged by boiling oil and strong acid, emitting a bizarre stench of scorched protein mixed with chemicals.

Lin Yu did not look back, merely leaning with difficulty against the cold metal wall, his shoulders heaving slightly from suppressed pain. "I won't die. Find a strip of cloth, as clean as possible, and help me press the wound."

Xu Xiaochuan's limbs felt weak, and he could barely stand steady. He rummaged frantically through a pile of musty-smelling debris nearby, finally finding a few greasy but relatively intact pieces of thick canvas.

He tore off his own sleeve, which was still somewhat clean, intending to wipe Lin Yu's wound, but upon seeing that mass of mangled flesh, he pulled his hand back abruptly. "Lin Shu... I... I don't dare touch it..."

"Even if you're afraid, you have to do it!" Lin Yu's voice turned suddenly stern, suppressing a trace of pain and weakness that could not be fully concealed. "The blood can't keep flowing like this!"

Xu Xiaochuan gritted his teeth hard and closed his eyes; when he opened them again, the panic in his gaze had been forcibly suppressed by quite a bit.

Mimicking how Lin Yu had treated his own wounds earlier, he used the cloth strip to dip into the few remaining mouthfuls of water in the canteen, wiped away the dust and filth at the edges of the wound with extreme gentleness, then folded the thick canvas into several layers, steeled his heart, held his breath, and pressed down with both hands!

"Ugh!" Lin Yu's body tensed violently in an instant, a dull, suppressed groan of pain escaping from deep in his throat, and beads of sweat rolled down his forehead and neck like broken strings of pearls. Xu Xiaochuan was so startled his hand shook, and he nearly let go.

"Tie it tight!" Lin Yu squeezed these two words through his teeth, his voice somewhat distorted.

Xu Xiaochuan was flustered and lost all sense of method, using the torn cloth strip and all his might to wrap around Lin Yu's chest and back, pinning the dressing down firmly and tying a crooked but exceptionally secure knot.

After finishing this, he himself felt as if he had just been fished out of water, drenched in sweat, and leaned against the wall, gasping for air as if in a state of collapse.

Lin Yu leaned against the wall, breathing rapidly with his eyes closed, his mind rapidly reconstructing the labyrinthine, complex network of the underground of this massive building.

The drainage system, the old civil defense works abandoned for years, the secret maintenance passages known only to a few old-timers... fragments of memories from twenty years ago and the desperate situation before him overlapped and intertwined crazily.

"Go," he opened his eyes abruptly, a flash of determination in their depths, pointing to a corner in the deepest part of the mezzanine, almost submerged by rusted iron racks and a mountain of trash. "Over there, there should be a maintenance hatch leading to the main drainage pipe."

He struggled to stand, the excruciating pain from his back making his movements sluggish and clumsy. Xu Xiaochuan hurried forward to support his teetering body.

Just then, the mysterious mark on Xu Xiaochuan's back throbbed and burned without warning, and an icy, bone-chilling cold surged straight up his spine to his scalp.

He stopped abruptly, as if nailed to the spot by invisible spikes, and stiffly turned his head to look into the impenetrable darkness in the direction they had come from.

"What is it?" Lin Yu immediately sensed his abnormality, his voice lowered and filled with vigilance.

"People... there are people..." Xu Xiaochuan's throat was dry, and his voice was shaking. "I feel... they're very close... and there's more than one..." He couldn't describe the feeling; it was as if there were several pairs of temperatureless, emotionless eyes in the darkness, coldly and precisely scanning them, carrying a hair-raising sense of oppression.

Lin Yu paused, tilting his head to listen intently. Aside from the faint, lingering echoes of distant alarms, their own heavy breathing, and the occasional "drip-drop" of water from the pipes overhead, the mezzanine was deathly silent. Yet, he did not question Xu Xiaochuan's intuition in the slightest. "Which direction?"

Xu Xiaochuan tremblingly raised a finger to point behind the pile of twisted, deformed iron racks to their front-left. "Over there... they are approaching... the speed is not slow, and it seems... they aren't making any sound."

Without waiting for Lin Yu's order, the two immediately changed direction. Xu Xiaochuan supported Lin Yu, while Lin Yu half-carried the nearly weightless Xuanyuan Qing, lowering their bodies and sneaking into the shadows of the massive pipes and abandoned equipment on the other side like wounded beasts, moving rapidly in the opposite direction of the threat Xu Xiaochuan perceived. Their footsteps were unsteady, kicking up choking dust with every step.

Finally, they found the maintenance hatch in the corner that Lin Yu remembered.

It was a circular iron cover, rusted nearly through, embedded firmly in the greasy, slippery concrete floor, its edges crusted with a thick, dark brown layer of unknown filth, emitting a musty, decaying odor. The two didn't care about anything else; they combined their strength, digging their fingers into the corroded gaps, and only after a teeth-grinding sound of metal friction did they manage to pry the iron cover open a crack.

Xu Xiaochuan found an abandoned iron rod to use as a lever, and together they exerted force, violently flipping the heavy iron cover open.

An indescribable stench surged out from below, so intense it nearly made them choke and faint on the spot. It was the smell of biogas accumulated in city sewers for a hundred years, countless rotting organic matter, and all sorts of pungent chemical waste stirred together and fermenting.

Below was pure, bottomless darkness, with only the sound of sticky water flowing "splash-splash," occasionally accompanied by "glug" and "drip" sounds, as if some viscous, disgusting liquid were churning and dripping.

"No time to hesitate! Jump!"

Lin Yu took one last look at Xuanyuan Qing, who was unconscious and pale as gold paper in his arms, shielded her more tightly against his chest, gritted his teeth, and without a moment's hesitation, was the first to slide into the bottomless darkness.