13 – Narrow Escape

Chapter 13: A Narrow Escape

The last person to descend the ladder following the firefighters was Xie Qingcheng.

By the time he descended, the flames had begun to push toward the rooftop. The smoke was so thick that no one could even keep their eyes open. As soon as his feet hit the ground, rescue workers rushed over to check if he was injured.

Through the crowd, he spotted Xie Xue surrounded by medical staff. Xie Qingcheng hurried toward her.

“How is the patient?”

“Excuse me, but how are you related to the patient…?”

“I’m her brother.”

“Ah, please don’t worry. The patient is safe. Her vital signs are stable. She’ll wake up soon once the medication wears off.”

Only then did Xie Qingcheng breathe a sigh of relief.

The paramedic scanned the tall man, who was bare-chested after having removed his upper garment. It is human instinct to be captivated by beauty; looking at the handsome man, she felt her work efficiency spike instantly.

However, Xie Qingcheng was unaware of how neat his back looked or how seductive the slender line of his waist was beneath the belt. True to his reputation as a cold-hearted stickler, he had absolutely no interest in his own appearance. Nor was he conscious of the gazes of those around him.

This time was no different. Regardless of whether the paramedic was staring intently at him, having confirmed Xie Xue’s condition, he simply looked toward the Qingkang Psychiatric Hospital, which had become a sea of fire.

Mixed emotions surged as he gazed at the rooftop being devoured by flames. He could see patients who hadn’t been rescued panicking in front of the windows, screaming and frantically pounding on the iron bars.

“Help me!”

“Save me! The fire is coming this way!”

“I don’t want to die yet… help me! Help us, please save us!”

The iron bars installed to prevent patients from jumping out had become a fatal obstacle in this emergency rescue situation. The means to quickly rescue them by placing ladders against the windows had been cut off. Consequently, firefighters had to risk their lives to enter the building, unlock each room, and carry out rescues.

The desperate screams sounded exactly like ghosts wailing. As if Jiang Lanpei’s curse had come true, Qingkang Psychiatric Hospital had transformed into a living hell.

Inside a ward closest to the warehouse where the fire started, an old man wailed incessantly. However, he was calling for his parents. He was an elderly man who had been admitted after his children pushed him into the hospital because he frequently lost his mind and suffered seizures.

Perhaps he vaguely sensed that his children would only be happy once he was dead.

The only people who had loved the old man deeply were his deceased parents. Thus, just before he died, he wailed like a child, calling for his mother and father over and over.

A firefighter tried to break the window, but it was already too late. The old man’s room was too close to the point of origin. Under the gaze of countless eyes, the old man, engulfed in flames, froze in place with one hand stretched out beyond the iron bars.

No one knew whether, in his final moment, he ended his life as an old man abandoned by his children, or as a child longing for his parents.

The firefighter’s lips trembled as he turned toward the crowd.

“The keys! Did anyone bring the keys out when they escaped?”

“I-I don’t know… does anyone know…?”

“They’re hanging in the director’s office on the third floor!”

Once again, with a deafening explosion, shards of glass and splinters of wood flew in all directions.

A rescued caregiver stood up and spoke.

“Firefighter, you can’t go back in under these conditions! It’s too dangerous!”

“That’s right… to save those people… it’s already too late…”

Someone else muttered, adding to the sentiment.

“Those people are all critically ill… the patients in the high-floor wards have such severe symptoms that even if you save them, it’s useless…”

The surrounding area erupted into a chaotic stir.

Amidst that turmoil, a lone figure stood apart, looking up at the burning building. Then, he passed the north gate and headed deep into the brush where no one was paying attention.

Watching this, Xie Qingcheng froze in shock.

He Yu?

“Sorry, but let me borrow some gas masks.”

After assessing the fire situation, Xie Qingcheng snatched two gas masks and ran toward where He Yu had gone.

“Excuse me! Sir!”

The paramedic finally snapped back to her senses. Dammit. No matter how handsome he was, this kind of recklessness was unacceptable! She shouted,

“What do you think you’re doing! You cannot enter the fire scene!”

However, Xie Qingcheng ignored her call and accelerated his pace, staring at He Yu’s back like a cheetah.

He had never dreamed that this man would return to the fire scene. —What on earth was he planning to do?

He Yu passed the north gate where the firefighters were gathered, grabbed a rope ladder that hadn’t been removed yet, and climbed back up to the rooftop he had just escaped. Xie Qingcheng followed him. It was already too late for others to follow; the flames had swallowed the rope, turning the bottom half into ash.

Crossing over the rooftop railing, He Yu looked beneath the water tank. There, a charred human form lay curled up, burning. It was Jiang Lanpei’s corpse.

He violently opened a door, assessed the flames, and then dashed toward the director’s office.

Watching He Yu, Xie Qingcheng wondered if he had gone mad. Though, of course, he was already a madman. The moment He Yu opened the fire door, Xie Qingcheng grabbed his arm, the veins in his neck straining.

“What are you doing! Do you want to die? Come down to the north gate with me right now! The fire hasn’t spread too severely yet, so it’s not too late!”

He Yu stared at his face as if he had encountered a complete stranger.

“Why did you follow me?”

This was no time for useless chatter. Xie Qingcheng glared with an imposing, sharp intensity.

“Fuck, I said let’s go down together!”

“No. This time is different. This time, I will save them.”

“What do you mean—”

“These people are my kind. Only I can save them. Only I can get them out. You heard what people were saying earlier. Even though that old man burned to death alive before their eyes, even though others are about to die, they said to just leave them be.”

He Yu’s gaze was somehow eerie.

His low voice continued.

“—That psychiatric patients aren’t worth saving. That it’s okay to abandon them when an accident like this happens. That they deserve to die.”

Staring into Xie Qingcheng’s eyes, he spoke. A sharp, cold sneer crept across his lips.

“Do you think so too, Mr. Xie?”

“They said that because it actually was too late… Think rationally! It’s impossible to save them by opening every single door one by one.”

Xie Qingcheng’s voice cracked messily.

“There’s no time.”

At that, He Yu fell silent. Instead, he shook off Xie Qingcheng’s hand with brute force and ran toward the office.

Fortunately, a large restroom was sandwiched between the office area and the area where the fire had spread significantly. At the time, the construction had been shoddy, using only tiles instead of wooden frames to save on materials; thanks to that, this area had become the safest spot from the flames.

Finding the bunch of keys in the office, He Yu headed toward some of the wards on the third floor where the fire had not yet reached.

“Help me…”

“Save me!”

“I don’t want to die yet… I don’t want to die!”

“Waaaah, did a demon start the fire? A demon started the fire!”

Cries erupted from both sides of the dark corridor where the lights had gone out. Of course, there were far more wards where not even a sound of weeping could be heard.

The room numbers were written on each long plastic tag hanging from the keys. He Yu grabbed the first bunch of keys he could reach and began opening the rooms.

By the time Xie Qingcheng caught up, the first room had already been opened. A woman with disheveled hair rushed out, screaming. For a moment, Xie Qingcheng’s heart sank. She was not an opponent who could be controlled in the first place.

Ordinary people lose their reason in such situations, so how much more so would those with mental illnesses?

The woman screamed and leaped toward the rising flames. Just as Xie Qingcheng stepped forward to stop her, He Yu reached out and pulled her back.

“Not that way!”

“There’s no way she’ll listen to you—!”

“Fire! Fire, aaaah!”

Amidst this chaos, a cold light suddenly flashed before Xie Qingcheng’s eyes.

He Yu had taken the knife he brought from the office and sliced his own palm.

Blood seeped from the freshly opened wound in an instant. Why was he doing this? In the moment of confusion, old data began to stir in Xie Qingcheng’s mind. Before he could even process that data, instinct made him shudder.

With wide eyes, he watched as He Yu detached one ring from the key bunch and soaked it in his blood. He Yu spoke to the woman in a low, firm voice.

“Open the door with this key, give the other keys to the people inside, and order them to open the other doors. Hurry as much as possible. The faster you hurry, the more patients you can save. Go, now.”

The woman, who had been convulsing in the horrific situation, became calm in her gaze the moment she smelled He Yu’s blood, as if she had been given a sedative.

It was a scene where He Yu’s blood triggered some reflex in the brain through the sense of smell, causing the subject to synchronize with his emotions.

Taking the keys, the woman immediately ran toward another iron door.

The order had been given in the blink of an eye, but Xie Qingcheng felt a chill run through his entire body. Even his fingertips turned cold.

Case No. 4, He Yu. The supernatural ability that manifested upon reaching adulthood was…

It was still an unresolved ability, but the data file had the description ‘Blood Bone’.

There was a lack of clinical data on Psychological Ebola. The best they could do was run digital simulations based on the first three cases to estimate the general progression of the disease. However, one certain point was that patients afflicted with this mental illness possessed different supernatural abilities in addition to the basic symptoms.

In short, the virus mutated within the individual’s body. Since every person’s genes are different, the direction of the disease’s mutation also differed. These mutations progressed alongside the patient’s growth and tended to fully emerge and stabilize after they became adults.

The supernatural ability manifested in Case No. 1 was ‘Olfaction’.

The disease affected the olfactory nerves, making Case No. 1’s nose extremely sensitive. Normally, the area of the olfactory nerve in a dog’s body is four times that of a human, but Case No. 1 gained a sense of smell more than eight times that of an ordinary person upon the manifestation of the ability. Even the faintest scents mixed in the air stimulated her olfactory nerves and tormented her.

Cases No. 2 and 3 also manifested unique supernatural abilities just before they died.

And Case No. 4, He Yu, had not manifested any supernatural ability until Xie Qingcheng changed jobs.

Xie Qingcheng had thought that Psychological Ebola individuals did not absolutely mutate, and that He Yu might be that exception.

He had never dreamed that He Yu would be the most horrific mutation case estimated by data simulation.

‘Blood Bone’.

Under specific conditions, He Yu’s blood induces a paralysis-like effect in specific psychiatric patients. Like serotonin, it immediately calms the patient’s emotions, and simultaneously, like a drug, it stimulates the reward mechanism in the patient’s cerebrum, making the patient mistakenly believe that ‘by listening to these words, I can gain more.’ Thus, the patient is reduced to a ‘host’ and moves according to He Yu’s orders.

The results estimated in the lab at the time were mere conjectures. When the data simulated the ‘Blood Bone’ mutation, some researchers didn’t even believe it.

But now—.

The patients opened the ward doors one by one.

The speed was staggering. Every time a door was opened and a patient was saved, the number of people who could open doors increased by one. Before long, the psychiatric patients, each holding a bunch of keys, moved like trained soldiers stimulated by the blood.

He Yu navigated through them with a cold expression, like a mental leader controlling those patients. He soon reached the end of the corridor. It was the direction of the north exit, the only remaining escape route. The voices of firefighters were already faintly echoing from the entrance of the corridor. At this rate, they would soon ascend to the third floor and begin rescue operations.

At that moment, the flames at the end of the corridor surged close. The fire, roaring like a wailing dragon, drove the firefighters into this eerie corridor, accompanied by acrid toxic smoke and terrible heat.

There was no water here, so they couldn’t soak cloths to cover their mouths and noses. Now, they truly had to speed up.

Standing before the fire door, He Yu tilted his head and commanded all the patients.

“Crouch as low as possible, go down this way, and find the firefighters. Now.”

Like robots programmed with instructions, the patients rushed toward the emergency exit with incredible speed and order. The ‘controlled zombies’ that frequently appear in sci-fi movies seemed like nothing in comparison.

By the time the last patient had disappeared, the flames had drawn significantly closer. Because of the increasingly toxic smoke, they had to lie flat on the floor just to breathe. Meanwhile, Xie Qingcheng approached He Yu’s side with a very dark expression. Without a word, He Yu shifted his body slightly and let him into the emergency exit.

With a loud bang, the emergency fire door closed, momentarily blocking the flames that had reached within arm’s length.

In the darkness, almond-shaped eyes coldly stared at the shocked peach blossom eyes.

“Xie Qingcheng, don’t tell anyone.”

Despite being pale with shock, Xie Qingcheng silently handed a gas mask to He Yu.

“Put this on, and let’s get out.”

While the flames battered the fire door, He Yu and Xie Qingcheng descended following the rescued patients.

“Brother! Brother!”

The two were the last to escape, welcomed by the firefighters. What greeted them was a half-broken sob. As soon as Xie Qingcheng took off his gas mask, he spotted Xie Xue, who had already regained consciousness and was running toward him in tears. She was in such a hurry that she had left the shoes the firefighter found for her far behind.

“Brotherrrr… Brother! Brother! Did you do that just to scare me to death? You were determined to kill me! I thought even you had abandoned me! I thought even you had abandoned me! Brother, waaaaah…”

Xie Xue lunged into Xie Qingcheng’s arms, hugging him so tightly his waist felt like it might break. Explosions and screams continued to echo everywhere. Despite their efforts, there were people they couldn’t save. Xie Xue, who had been so terrified that all the blood had been drained from her body, leaving only a thin layer of skin, steadied her sobbing breath as she inhaled Xie Qingcheng’s scent while clinging to his large frame. Only then did she feel her heart beating again and color returning to every corner of her body.

Tears falling in droplets dirtied her already blotchy face. Xie Xue wailed sorrowfully with her mouth open, shouting in a crushed voice.

“You can’t abandon me like Mom and Dad did! Don’t abandon me like Mom and Dad, Brother! I’m scared… I’m really scared… Hold me, hold me!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Xie Qingcheng was a man who kept deep and intense emotions at a distance. He cherished his family, but he didn’t express his affection well, and sometimes even manifested it in the form of criticism.

But at this moment, he reached his limit. He embraced his shivering younger sister, who was draped in a coat, and lowered his head to press his lips gently against her disheveled hair. His eyes reddened slightly.

“It’s okay, Xie Xue.”

After crying in Xie Qingcheng’s arms for a long time, Xie Xue spotted He Yu.

The heart that had barely calmed down collapsed again. Xie Xue burst into tears once more and lunged into He Yu’s arms. Or, more accurately, she pulled He Yu in and hugged him together with her brother. Consequently, He Yu ended up unintentionally embracing Xie Qingcheng.

A look of awkwardness crossed He Yu’s straight and handsome face. It was the first time in his life he had hugged a man this closely. It was even more uncomfortable because the other person was Xie Qingcheng. Looking at Xie Qingcheng’s expression, he figured the feeling was mutual.

However, both men endured in silence, considering Xie Xue’s dignity and emotions. Thanks to that, amidst this chaos, Xie Xue was able to continue their three-person reunion while hugging them.

“Help! Help me! There’s someone here! Over here!”

In front of the elevator doors of Qingkang Psychiatric Hospital, a middle-aged man with graying hair shouted in terror. He was the most senior executive at Qingkang, and he was currently using a wheelchair after breaking his leg while playing polo with Liang Jicheng recently. Had there been no business to handle today, he wouldn’t have even visited the hospital.

The man struggled desperately while sitting in the wheelchair. Urine flowed down his damp pant legs. For the first time, he realized how agonizing and terrifying a disease that robbed one of their freedom of movement truly was. The flames were surging toward him. Even though he knew it wasn’t the time to take an elevator—and that the elevator was broken—he pressed the buttons repeatedly like a madman.

“Hurry! Hurry… Help! Someone help me…! I’ll give you money, just save me… I have a lot of money!”

His cheek muscles twitched violently from the extreme tension.

It was then.

Had the heavens heard his prayers? A figure wearing a gas mask, appearing to be a firefighter, came sprinting up the pitch-black emergency stairs and discovered him slumped helplessly in the wheelchair.

The man shrieked like someone who had found a savior.

“Here! Save me! Help me!”

His nostrils flared frantically. Beads of sweat formed on his pale nose. In his pupils, constricted by excitement, the image of the man approaching with firefighting equipment was reflected.

The next moment, he froze. His pupils contracted sharply into tiny dots.

The man in the firefighting gear smiled coldly behind the gas mask. Then, he pulled the handle of the equipment in his hand. It wasn’t a fire extinguisher…

It was gasoline.

“You, you’re—.”

“Cheongkang is a landfill that can’t be managed. I am an employee of the cleaning company sent by those people.”

A heavy male voice echoed from beneath the gas mask.

“Keep that money safe and spend it slowly when you get to the afterlife.”

“No!”

Boom!

Gasoline and fire were hurled over a face distorted by extreme terror. The flames instantly devoured the face, which was twisted like Munch’s scream.