Chapter 110: Zhou Qian in the Hospital
The Flower City Hospital building was a mixture of old and new. You could still see the patches on the walls and floors where repairs had been made. The building had been roughly divided into several major departments. The [Mutant Detoxification Unit] was on the right side of the first floor, directly connected to the emergency room.
Six years after the catastrophe, people no longer rushed to the hospital for every little ailment. As a result, the outpatient area was surprisingly empty.
Huai Yu could even hear the urgent footsteps of their small group—an eerie sound that chilled her to the bone.
She followed two members of the Defense Force in a light jog, not paying attention to what lay ahead. It wasn’t until they reached the end of a long corridor that she was stopped in front of a hospital room.
The soldier at the door verified her identity before opening it. “The medical pod can only be opened for three minutes. Say what you need to say quickly. If it stays open too long, the antivenom serum inside may react with the air.”
“These medications are precious. More importantly, they help ease his pain.”
“If the neurotoxin spreads unchecked, he won’t make it.”
Though the explanation was clear, the soldier’s tone carried a deep sense of regret, as if the outcome had already been decided.
Huai Yu nodded vaguely. She took a deep breath and entered the room.
The room wasn’t the sterile, white kind typical of hospitals. The equipment and walls bore the marks of long-term use, like something from before the disaster.
Instead of a hospital bed, a medical pod stood in the center of the room.
It was a rare piece of technology Huai Yu had seen since waking up, but it wasn’t sleek or high-tech as she’d imagined. Rather, it was desperate and pitiful.
The pod was filled with thick, green fluid, and a figure lay motionless within—his face unrecognizable. Only a faint outline could be seen.
Over his mouth, nose, eyes, and ears was a special apparatus, likely a filtration system to help him breathe in the nutrient fluid.
Huai Yu stood still. When the two soldiers asked, “Shall we open it now?” she nodded silently.
With the press of a button, the curvature of the pod adjusted, and Zhou Qian’s face slowly rose to the surface. The chaotic tubes and masks retracted.
“Hurry,” one soldier urged. “His body is full of neurotoxin. Every minute out of the fluid is agony.”
He didn’t even need to be awakened. The moment he was removed from the fluid, the pain would bring him back to consciousness.
If the doctors hadn’t said tonight was the final window, they wouldn’t have disturbed his last bit of peace.
Huai Yu didn’t know all the details, but she had already guessed most of them.
Holding tight to her bag of locust flowers, she knelt at the pod and pressed her cheek close, whispering softly, “Brother.”
Zhou Qian’s eyelashes fluttered. He opened his eyes in the pod.
The pain made it hard for him to focus. His gaze was blank at first, barely able to see anything, but he instinctively muttered, “Little Yu…”
As he spoke, dark black veins began spreading across his neck—fine like spiderwebs. The lines were consuming his nerves and blood vessels, making his face twitch involuntarily. He winced in pain and gasped.
Huai Yu squeezed her eyes shut. The words she had rehearsed countless times died in her throat.
She had meant to ask, What can I do to save you? Or, Why did you leave that for me?
Instead, she forced a tearful smile and said, “Brother Zhou Qian, I picked lots of locust flowers—they’re fragrant and sweet. I saved a big bag for you—look!”
She pressed the packet of dried flowers to the glass.
Zhou Qian exhaled shakily. His eyes were blurry. He couldn’t see anything. His body jerked under the restraints from the pain.
Then his voice came softly through the pod, “Little brat…”
“I don’t like sweet things.”
The hideous black webs had already reached his lips and nose. Huai Yu’s voice cracked, and she trembled as she choked out, “Don’t talk, don’t speak anymore. Brother, I’ll leave the medicine. You rest now…”
Her hands fumbled over the unfamiliar buttons, then she turned to shout for the others.
Just as the door opened, Zhou Qian’s voice rasped out again:
“Little Yu…”
“Take me to the Rose Corridor.”
“Hah… whether it’s my ashes or… my body… My sister’s there. I don’t want to stay here. It’s too quiet… far too quiet…”
Beep—
Beep—
Beep—
A sharp alarm blared from the pod. Doctors rushed in, pushing Huai Yu aside, hitting emergency controls.
Mechanical arms reattached to Zhou Qian’s face, adjusting the pod’s angle. The green serum surged, drowning the black veins on his face. His vacant gaze locked on Huai Yu until the fluid overtook him.
Huai Yu pounded the pod’s surface.
“Brother! I’ll take you away! I’ll take you with me—”
His face vanished beneath the fluid. She stood there, pale as a ghost, until an older man gently tapped her shoulder.
“You’re Huai Yu?”
She looked up—silent, dark eyes meeting a stranger in a Defense Force uniform. She couldn’t tell his rank and didn’t care.
“You’re the plant-type ability user who lives near the Rose Corridor, right?”
Huai Yu nodded.
The man tried to smile, barely managing a slight curve of the lips. He bent down, picked up the fallen flowers.
“This is the strongest antitoxin serum we have. It’ll last until 7 p.m.”
“According to Zhou Qian’s wishes, we’ll give him a slow-release painkiller at 6 p.m., and then…”
The man paused, then said as casually as he could, “Could we ask you to bury him by the Rose Corridor?”
“The painkiller lasts only an hour. It’ll still hurt, but less than if he were outside the pod.”
“Once the toxin reaches his brainstem…”
He took a deep breath, his voice soft and light. “Would you help us?”
Huai Yu numbly nodded.
As he turned to leave, she asked, “His sister… Was she killed by the Rose Corridor?”
He paused, then answered, “No.”
“At the time of the disaster, her brain was taken over by a potted mutant orchid. She died completely. Zhou Qian wouldn’t give up—tried to take her to the wilderness, even hurt two comrades.”
“That’s when the Rose Corridor suddenly sprouted, stopping him just as he was about to be taken over.”
“The roots spread too quickly. The orchid and his sister’s body were buried and crushed…”
“He wasn’t a qualified soldier back then. That’s why his rank stayed at [Captain] all these years.”
“But during this last wilderness mission, he personally extracted a spider’s venom sac… The Imperial Research Institute is studying it day and night. Sooner or later, an effective serum will be developed.”
“Huai Yu, I’m telling you this because—”
“Being born in this era means every death is anonymous, but also heroic.”
“So… let him choose where to rest.”
…
The man came and went quietly. Huai Yu never remembered his face.
But his instructions were carried out precisely. Painkiller prepared. Injections loaded. Mobile stretcher ready…
Once everything was loaded onto the ambulance, a doctor checked the time.
“It’s time to go.”
“We’ll inject the painkiller before removing him from the pod. It won’t remove the pain completely—just ease it a little. It lasts an hour at most.”
Huai Yu nodded. She knew this hour was all she and Zhou Qian had left.
She clutched her shirt. In the pocket of her pajama top, shaped like a cute cherry, she squeezed a multicolored ball—small but urgent.
…
Time ticked by. Zhou Qian’s pod was loaded onto the medical vehicle.
Huai Yu boarded silently, feeling the transition from the city’s smooth roads to the bumpy wilderness. She looked unusually calm.
But the calmer she seemed, the fiercer the fire in her eyes. Her pale face was cold as ice, casting a heavy silence over the whole vehicle.
“Five minutes left,” the driver announced.
Doctors and nurses drew the curtain, inserted the injection into the slot, began removing the pod’s serum, dressing Zhou Qian as neatly as possible…
Five minutes later, Zhou Qian was transferred to a field stretcher with four large wheels that rolled easily over the grass.
He grimaced in agony, spasming again as the black webs surged across his skin.
…
At the edge of the Rose Corridor, the team stared at the towering wall of flowers, then at frail Huai Yu—full of disbelief and admiration.
Someone finally said, “We’ll deliver his belongings and points in three days.”
“Please take care of the rest.”
Huai Yu tightened her grip on the stretcher’s handle and bowed.
“Thank you. There’s a bag of dried locust flowers in the car. I meant to give them to him, but now…”
She smiled faintly. “There’s a lot in there. I hope you like them.”
She turned and walked away without looking back. Petals from the corridor drifted down like snow, gently falling on her.
The Defense Force and medics started to speak—but a sharp edge of a petal sliced across a sleeve.
They stepped back in silence and watched as Huai Yu’s figure vanished over the hill.
…
On the other side, out of sight, Huai Yu grabbed the stretcher and sprinted.
Zhou Qian was still strapped down, not from movement, but to prevent him from falling during pain-induced spasms.
She didn’t wait—dragged him to the door and shouted, “Zhou Qian Zhou Qian Zhou Qian!!!”
Hands trembling, she pulled out the colorful scare-ball Keta Rō had used against the spider and stuffed it into his mouth.
Then she took it out, crushed it, and poured it in again.
Not stopping to check the spiderweb veins, she ran inside, dumped all of Keta Rō’s colorful dragon-root balls, picked one, tossed it into water, and watched it dissolve into murky liquid.
Then she ran out with the cup and forced Zhou Qian to drink.
“Cough… cough…”
The sedative in the painkiller was too strong—he choked violently but didn’t wake up, only breathing harder.
Still, he swallowed the water and the residue.
She dropped the cup, grabbed two more balls, three—threw them into a basin and stirred furiously.
Then poured handfuls of water over his face.
“Zhou Qian! Wake up! This has to work! Keta Rō’s amazing—it has to work!”
“You’re so pathetic right now, if you don’t wake up, I can’t fix this!”
She began to calm, the hopelessness from earlier replaced with sharp focus, though her voice still trembled, “Keta Rō! Keta Rō! Come check! Did I use it right?”
Keta Rō didn’t appear.
But Huai Yu paused—was it her imagination, or had the black spiderwebs stopped spreading?
It worked!!!
She was overjoyed. Another splash of water. Then she ran inside, soaked a towel, and slapped it on his face.
Next, she lit a fire, boiled more water, dragged out a bathing tub, tilted it to the ground…
Then she hauled Zhou Qian into it and pushed the tub upright.
He groaned in pain, still barely conscious. But Huai Yu kept calling, “Zhou Qian Zhou Qian Zhou Qian—”
—
Author’s note:
May take time off during Dragon Boat Festival. No stockpile, writing daily for the freshest content.
Goodnight.
Fictional, fictional, fictional! Triple emphasized: don’t map this onto reality.
