Chapter 365: Awakening

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

The sound of the vital‑signs monitor came from far away, filtered through several cotton‑like layers, muffled and dull.

Qin Zhixia's eyelashes twitched twice.

The first twitch was a reflex of the muscles. The second was when consciousness truly was pulled out of that chaotic darkness, like a drowning person finally feeling the water's surface.

She opened her eyes.

The ceiling was white. The light was soft. The air smelled of disinfectant mixed with some medicinal scent she couldn't identify. A retention needle was stuck in her right wrist, and a transparent IV line let liquid drip slowly.

Federation‑standard top‑grade care ward.

She recognized this ceiling. She had once suffered a minor injury in Bu Lie Dian, and after returning she had lain in a ward of the same specification for two days. At the time she found the bed too soft and fled the next day.

Now the reason she can't stay lying down isn't the bed.

It's her right knee.

Memories returned faster than the pain. Bone City. White bones. Ouyang Feng's face, twisted beyond human shape. Then came the sound of shattering, a shockwave, the final image before consciousness was ripped away.

Qin Zhixia propped herself up on the bed rail and sat up.

A sharp, dense sting emanated from the interface of the right‑knee exoskeleton, a very specific pain—not sour, not throbbing, but the metal‑bone junction grinding and tearing, reminding her: your knee hasn't healed yet, don't move.

She ignored it.

Cold sweat slid from the corner of her forehead, dripping along her jawline onto the light‑blue Patient Gown, leaving dark spots. Her back was straight. Clearly jointed fingers gripped the edge of the bed rail, fingertips whitening, clenched for a few seconds then released.

She began to survey the ward.

The curtains were drawn tight. On the nightstand sat a glass of water gone cold and a stack of unopened nutrient packs. In the corner, a rack held her Black Combat Suit, washed and neatly folded, and the Tail‑Head Snake pistol rested in a tray beside the suit.

How long?

She looked down at the retention needle on the back of her hand. The bruising around the puncture was yellowish, indicating it had been in for at least four days.

The door opened.

There was no knock. The person who pushed the door in needed no knock—no one in this building would stop him.

Wei Gong walked in.

His Zhongshan suit was buttoned to the topmost button, his waist as straight as poured reinforced steel. But Qin Zhixia noted a detail: the old man's dark circles were far heavier than she remembered, a ring of bluish‑gray around the eye sockets as if drawn with a charcoal pencil, making his whole face look five years older.

The two stared at each other for three seconds.

Wei Gong's mouth twitched, and what finally came out of his throat wasn't words but a sigh.

Qin Zhixia had never heard Wei Gong sigh in her life.

Not when an agent died in the line of duty. Not when Ouyang Feng defected. Not when Chicago was erased by a nuclear bomb. In this old man's lexicon, there is no word for "sigh"; he only has "what's the next step."

So when that sigh fell into the ward, it was heavier than any battle report.

"Good to be awake," Wei Gong pulled a chair up to the bedside and sat down, the chair leg scraping the floor with a short squeak. He didn't ask how she felt, didn't utter any idle words about resting.

He went straight to speaking.

"While you were unconscious, the world turned upside down outside."

His tone was flat—so flat that Qin Zhixia's lower spine felt a chill. Wei Gong only used this weather‑report style when matters were gravely serious.

"How much do you recall of the Bone City battle?"

"Ouyang Feng lost control and merged with the Wish Bottle." Qin Zhixia's voice was hoarse, her throat sounding sanded, "Liang Wen employed Rewind, Jiang Yuan arrived, defeated Ouyang Feng… I don't know what happened after that."

Wei Gong nodded.

"Ouyang Feng has been contained. His current form of existence is a sword—the Spinal Sword, handed over to Jiang Yuan."

Qin Zhixia took two seconds to digest the information: Spinal Sword. Form of existence. Containment.

Each term she recognized individually, but stringing them together made her stomach churn.

"After Bone City, the Blood Moon descended."

Wei Gong gave her no time to process. In the next five minutes, he described, in the most concise sentences, a world entirely foreign to Qin Zhixia: Sai Men activated the Blood Moon game, Fourteen Divine Gifts scattered across the city, the Anomalous Ones clashed, the TV Tower Weird Domain, Sai Men Wish Bottle succeeded, the old world's Rules collapsed, S-Class Anomaly Domain erupted worldwide—

Each item warranted top‑priority briefing. Wei Gong linked them together like a single thread, shoving them into her mind in one breath.

Qin Zhixia's expression barely changed. Her Crimson Phoenix Eyes were half‑closed, as if listening to a work report. Yet her right hand resting on her knee trembled—not from fear, but a muscular stress response to the information overload.

"The Iron Curtain Plan has been launched, and seventeen regions worldwide have signed a joint agreement," Wei Gong paused, then retrieved a palm‑sized portable projector from a pocket of his Zhongshan suit and placed it on the nightstand.

He didn't turn it on immediately.

"The video below was sent back from the front line three days ago," Wei Gong said, looking at her. In his perpetually clouded old eyes, something flickered at that moment, indefinable as anger or something else.

"You need to watch it."

The projector powered up. Blue‑white light fell on the white wall opposite the ward, the image jittered a few times then steadied.

—From the perspective of the enforcement recorder.

The footage was grainy, tinted with the characteristic teal of night‑vision filters. Air‑raid Shelter. Flames. Crowds. The breathing of Special Forces members came through the audio, heavy and rapid.

Qin Zhixia recognized that tactical formation: diamond advance, front shield, rear gun, a standard CQB array. The signature tactic of Special Forces Team One, rarely ever defeated.

Then that person appeared in the footage.

On a high platform. A black robe.

A hood covered the upper half of the face, revealing only the chin and a strip of neck. Qin Zhixia furrowed her brow—the contour of that chin gave her an indescribable sense of familiarity, but the lighting was too dim for her to grasp.

Cultists charged. Gunfire. The clink of spent casings hitting the ground. Screams.

Qin Zhixia's pupils showed no reaction to the gunfight footage. She had seen scenes ten times more horrific. Yet her focus remained fixed on that black‑robed figure—the person never moved from start to finish. Standing on the platform, hands behind the back, watching the slaughter below as if observing a rehearsed performance.

Ninety seconds.

All twelve Special Forces members fell.

The image shook a few times, the perspective was lowered—the recorder's wearer fell. Then a pair of hands pulled the recorder from his hand, wiping the bloodstain on the lens with a cuff.

The frame steadied.

A face came up close to the camera.

Flames from the side flashed across, illuminating every detail of that face: a crew cut. dark circles. wax‑yellow skin tone. The corner of the mouth held a slight but unusually precise smile.

"Hi."

The person waved at the camera.

Qin Zhixia's breath stopped.

Not a metaphor. It really stopped. The air in her chest was frozen, and the diaphragm forgot how to contract.

She recognized that face.

She knew it too well.

That face had been sitting opposite her desk for three years. Every morning that face appeared at the briefing holding instant coffee, the dark circles always deeper than the day before. When investigating a paranormal site, that face would shrink its neck, eyes wandering, muttering, "Qin Team, this is too weird."

Xiao Zhang.

The soldier she brought out. The most timid, most talkative, most ghost‑afraid, yet always charging at the front line of Intelligence gathering, that greenhorn.

In the frame, Xiao Zhang dropped the recorder, turned and walked deeper into the tunnel. The believers knelt en masse on the ground, foreheads pressed against blood‑soaked mud. The video ended amid a shower of shattered snowflakes.

The projector's fan was still spinning, its blue‑white light striking the blank wall, and there was nothing.

The ward was very quiet.

Lord Wei said nothing. He was waiting.

Qin Zhixia stared at the white wall for a long time.

Her hand, still on her knee, stopped trembling. Ten fingers curled one by one, forming a fist, the nails digging deep into the flesh of her palm.

Something at her chest broke. Not belief—belief had shattered once when her father Qin Yongchang had an accident and then re‑stitched itself. This time it was another thing, more personal, harder to repair—

It was trust.

It was the feeling that arose when she took Xiao Zhang on the first paranormal case, watching the kid, terrified to the point his legs went weak yet stubbornly helping her rummage through the Trash Can for evidence, thinking, "This person can handle it."

It was the awkward kindness in her throat when, before she went to Bu Lie Dian on a mission, Xiao Zhang slipped her a warm‑baby pack, his ears reddened, saying, "Don't push yourself against the cold over at Qin Team."

It was completely shattered.

Then the fragments sank, sinking to a very deep place, covered by something harder and colder.

Qin Zhixia raised her hand and pulled off the indwelling needle on the back of her hand.

The motion was crisp. With one pull, the adhesive strip and hair came off, the needle tip slipped out of the vein, a thin line of bright red ran down the back of her hand, dripping onto the light‑blue sheet. She neither wiped nor pressed it.

Lord Wei's gaze fell on that blood line, pausing for half a second.

"Your knee hasn't—"

"Lord Wei."

Qin Zhixia cut him off.

Her voice was low. After so many days of coma, her throat was so dry it seemed about to smoke, and the words she forced out had the gritty feel of sandpaper on metal.

But each word was swift and precise.

"Let me return to the unit."

Lord Wei gave no reply.

Qin Zhixia turned her head and stared straight at him. In those Crimson Phoenix Eyes, the earlier momentary tremor and pain had been frozen cleanly. The remaining thing, Lord Wei had seen—seen in the eyes of many who were preparing to die.

Tragic and heroic.

"Xiao Zhang is the person I brought out. His reaching this point is my responsibility," Qin Zhixia flipped the still‑bleeding hand over, palm up, blood flowing down along the life line.

"I will personally bring him"

She paused. Her Adam's apple rolled once.

"If he were bewitched by someone, I would pull him out of the mud pit. If he chose this path himself—"

The latter half of the sentence was bitten off between her teeth, her lips forming a thin line.

After two seconds, she finally spat out the half‑sentence.

"Then I will deal with him myself."

Her voice was soft.

But the tick of the vital‑sign monitor in the corner of the ward, after that sentence landed, suddenly sounded especially harsh.

Lord Wei slipped the portable projector back into its inner bag, his movements unhurried. He stood, the chair leg scraping a squeak across the floor. When he reached the doorway, his steps halted.

"Your Black Combat Suit is on the coat rack. The gun is there too."

He didn't look back.

"Tomorrow morning at eight, come to the third‑floor conference room."

The door closed. Footsteps in the Corridor faded farther away.

Qin Zhixia sat alone on the hospital bed. A sliver of light seeped through the curtain seam, not daylight—rather reddish, dim, as if something blocked the sun.

She lowered her head, looking at the needle hole on the back of her hand still oozing blood.

A blood droplet swelled at the wound's edge, glinting dark‑red under the lamp. She stared for a few seconds, then lifted the hand, grabbed the cup of ice‑cold water on the nightstand, and drank it in one gulp.

She set the cup down.

She lifted the blanket.

Barefoot on the floor, the pain in her right knee made her brow twitch, but she kept moving. She walked to the coat rack in the corner, reached for the clean black combat suit.

The moment her fingertip touched the fabric, her hand tightened.

In the tray beside the combat suit, the "Tail-Head Snake" pistol lay silently. The metal surface reflected half of her face: Crimson Phoenix Eyes, a loose high ponytail, black hair draped over half a shoulder, cracked lips, complexion so pale it lacked any color.

She picked up the gun, removed the magazine, checked the ammunition, and pushed a round into the chamber. The sequence flowed like clouds and water, as natural as breathing.

Click.

The sound of the hammer returning to position rang once in the empty ward.

Qin Zhixia slipped the gun back into her waist.

Then, looking at the blurry reflection on the metal surface of the tray, she retied her scattered long hair into a high ponytail—one loop, two loops, three loops—pulled tight, meticulous.

The ponytail whipped behind her head, carving a fierce arc as she turned.