Chapter 251

Linjiang Yiyuan surgery building.

Lin An slowed his speed, feeling quite moved as he gazed at the battle traces left on the ground.

The ground was cracked, and glass on the right side lay shattered all over.

Except for the zombies taken away by Mo Ling, it seemed as if nothing had changed.

In the early morning, the hospital building was deathly silent and chilly.

"Lin Dui, had a third-rank mutant appeared here before?"

"Behind him, Gao Tian vigilantly scanned the surroundings, the composite bow on his back now in his hand."

Lin An nodded, the dark blue mist in his eyes flashing briefly.

"I'm not entirely sure either, but that monster's attack style resembles a third-rank, and its strength should also count as third-rank."

Even before entering the hospital, he had activated Judgment Eye to scan the surroundings, confirming that no other zombies or mutants were present.

It seems the red-clothed girl, after being scared off by the black dragon, never came back.

When he first encountered the red-clothed mutant, his mental strength was insufficient to break through the mutant's mental barrier, and he only obtained??? information.

Therefore, Lin An could only judge it as third-rank based on its attack method.

Although looking back now, the red-clothed mutant's mental strike seems somewhat weak.

Of course, perhaps it was because, in its eyes, I was merely an ant back then, and that mental strike was just a casual blow.

"Let's go in."

Lin An set aside his doubts, waving his hand to signal Gao Tian to follow him.

He intended to check the red-clothed girl's ward, hoping to obtain some useful information.

After all, for a third-rank mutant, any lingering clues are extremely important.

Especially since it might still be in Linjiang City...

"Ding-ding-ding"

The speed of going up the stairs was extremely fast, and the dim hospital hallway resembled a scene from a horror film.

Room 317.

Relying on memory, Lin An quickly found the ward he had kicked open before.

With lingering fear, he still remembered that, after violently kicking the door open, the first thing he saw was the red-clothed girl floating in midair.

He stepped inside.

Dust covered the floor inside the room, a faint rotten smell mixed with a moldy odor.

The ward was for two people; to the left of the entrance was the toilet, and in the center of the room stood two blue hospital beds.

Near the window, beside the bed where the red-clothed girl lay, there was a simple folding bed, apparently for family members to stay and care for her.

Unlike the first time when he fled in shock, this time Lin An carefully observed the entire room, trying to find some useful information.

The hospitalization card above the bed head: Xuan Ziyi, female, 14 years old, cerebral glioma, frontal-temporal lobe pathological changes, severe neural degeneration, suspected mid-stage Alzheimer's.

In the bedside cabinet's white plastic bag holding the CT scans were four brain CT films, plus a contract, a color photo, and a leave-of-absence application.

Lin An silently pulled out a thin CT slice from the bag and glanced at it casually.

On the black-and-white X-ray scan, the black dots representing the lesions were distributed across the brain layers like dense stars.

"Lin Dui, what is this?!"

Gao Tian stepped over, curiously examining the X-ray in Lin An's hand, and instinctively pointed at the large black patches distributed on the white brain layer.

Lin An pondered for a moment, then slowly spoke:

"A neural glioma is a fairly common malignant brain tumor."

"For grades one and two, there may still be a chance of recovery after tumor removal."

"But the malignancy shown on this film has already reached grade four."

"And grade four is already considered high-risk, basically leaving little chance of survival."

Gao Tian startled at the words; he had heard Lin An say before that this was the ward where the red-clothed mutant had lived before death.

So, was that child already near death before death?

"Whoosh-"

The thin sheet swayed.

After putting down the X-ray film in his hand, Lin An furrowed his brows tightly.

Could a 14-year-old get a brain tumor? Normally this disease is common in middle-aged and elderly people.

How could a child contract such a disease?

He was well acquainted with this disease purely because An Jing Tian's father had died from it.

Moreover, is the severity of grade four, the highest risk, perhaps too high?

He had carefully examined the film; the black dots were mostly distributed in the brainstem and neural control areas.

If lesions of this disease appear in those areas from the onset, they basically affect normal life, possibly causing vomiting, cognitive disorder, even paralysis.

Lin An noted the hospitalization period.

The little girl named Xuan Ziyi before her death had been hospitalized only seven days before the apocalypse broke out.

Was it due to insufficient parental concern, with them continually failing to notice the abnormality?

Or was the progression of the lesion beyond imagination, jumping directly from low risk to high risk?

Between the two speculations, Lin An leaned more toward the second.

There was a folding bed beside the hospital bed, indicating that family members had been staying to care for her.

A third-rank mental-attribute mutant, a brain tumor...

For now he couldn't confirm his thoughts; Lin An continued to flip open the A4-printed contract and leave-of-absence application.

The sale contract and the withdrawal application were both dated the day before the apocalypse outbreak, and the contract's party A bore only a woman's signature.

The house sold for not much, likely because it was an old house.

The information on the sale contract verified his guess.

A family willing to sell their house for treatment would not neglect the child.

As for the school on the withdrawal application, it was Linjiang City No. 1 Middle School.

A color photo was clipped in the withdrawal application; the photo shows a girl in a red dress holding a doll, smiling sweetly, with a young woman standing behind her, who appears to be her mother.

In the lower‑right corner of the photo is a line of yellow printed text: "Linjiang Park Polaroid."

The photo shows only the mother and daughter, which matches the single signature on the purchase contract.

Lin An quickly reached a conclusion.

This was a single‑parent family.

He had previously taken AnXia and An Jing Tian to the park to play, where there were many small vendors offering photo services.

Each photo cost ten yuan, and the Polaroid stamp in the lower‑right corner confirmed this.

With a husband present, there was no need to waste money on a vendor, and selling a house normally requires both spouses to sign.

He exhaled slowly, Lin An's eyes flickered as he pieced together the Red‑Clothed Mutant's life before mutation.

Xuan Ziyi, 14, with excellent grades, attended Linjiang Middle School and came from a single‑parent family.

The family's circumstances were not good; her mother cared for her alone, and after falling ill she had to sell the house and move to the hospital to stay with her.

Brain tumor, neurodegenerative disease, Alzheimer's.

All three diseases are related to brain tissue and are common among middle‑aged and elderly people.

Brain tumors cause fainting, death, and paralysis.

Neurodegeneration causes cognitive disorder and irrationality.

Alzheimer's impairs memory, making one forget everything familiar.

This means the little girl likely already suffered incontinence, total paralysis, and memory loss before turning into a mutant.

Could the combination of these three have caused Xuan Ziyi to mutate into a third‑level Red‑Clothed Mutant when the apocalypse broke out?

That seems somewhat far‑fetched.

Just as player levels rise gradually, so do monster levels.

Aside from a tiny fraction of mutants with unknown causes, most mutants advance by devouring humans or absorbing polluted spiritual energy.

Thus, it is truly hard for Lin An to fathom how a girl named Xuan Ziyi could reach third level so early in the apocalypse.

Normally, third‑level mutants would not appear for at least several more months.

Lin An carefully placed the information he had found into his ring and fell into silent thought.

Meanwhile, Gao Tian curiously rummaged through boxes and cabinets, trying to find more leftover items.

In his past life, most factions had speculated about the mutants' origins, but never arrived at a definite conclusion.

The only thing people can be certain of is that a mutant's traits are often related, to varying degrees, to the host's pre‑infection condition, obsession, and occupation.

Take the typical second‑level mutant, the Double Blade Butcher: before infection it was a butcher who caught the virus, then became a mutant under unknown conditions.

They usually retain a penchant for cutting flesh.

And like the common Licker, such mutants usually enjoyed ball sports or had superb physical fitness before infection.

If we reason this way...

A flash of sudden realization crossed Lin An's eyes.

Thus reasoned, a third‑level Red‑Clothed Mutant might also inherit some of Xuan Ziyi's traits from before her mutation.

Just as the Red‑Clothed Mutant recoils from a black dragon, this in a sense indicates a lack of judgment.

If monsters have any other weaknesses, they are likely to be prone to amnesia, paralysis, and impaired mobility.

Combining the scene of his first encounter with the Red‑Clothed Mutant, Lin An grew ever more confident in his judgment.

It floated in mid‑air, barely touching the ground.

Suddenly, he had an epiphany.

Damn it!

The red‑clothed girl is fundamentally not a psychic‑power mutant!

Lin An recalled that when the red‑clothed girl removed her necklace, she flung it away using psychic power.

From start to finish it never moved on its own; it drifted solely by psychic power.

This also explains why its psychic‑impact damage is so low...

The Red‑Clothed Mutant is merely forced to use psychic power to drag its body along, not to hover as a psychic‑power mutant habitually does!

But if it isn't a psychic‑power mutant, how could it have mastered this technique!?

Before Lin An could investigate further, Gao Tian suddenly pulled a pair of glasses from the toilet, his face wearing a strange expression:

"Captain Lin, I found a pair of gold‑rimmed glasses at the bottom of the washbasin, and there's a birthday card in the trash can."

"The card is for the little girl; her birthday is the day the apocalypse broke out…"

Lin An turned his head and saw that the frame in Gao Tian's hand was unusually familiar.

His heart skipped a beat.

He recognized it—those were the glasses Chu An used to wear.