Encounter

The old woman slowly relaxed, no longer panicking at being trapped in the vines. In truth, she had experienced being bound and unable to move before, and she did not even care that one of her arms had been severed.

Yu Jing looked at the doctor, Men Qian, with a strange expression. Though he appeared taciturn, he had actually accumulated many thoughts inside. He had found the old woman's weak point and directly shattered her mental defenses with his words.

"I didn't mean to hurt you, nor did I mean to hurt my granddaughter." The old woman grew somewhat agitated, and cloudy tears even welled from the corners of her eyes.

"Dissociative identity disorder?" Men Qian murmured softly.

"To understand your granddaughter's situation, could you first tell us where this inn came from?"

Men Qian first used a few simple questions to get the old woman talking. Rather than immediately asking questions that would provoke her nerves, he cleverly used a gradual approach to pry loose the important information locked away in her heart.

At the same time, Men Qian signaled to Yu Jing with his eyes, asking him to loosen some of the vines binding the old woman at key moments, thereby improving the efficiency of the interrogation.

"This mountain originally belonged to my old master's family. When the city expanded to this area, they built an Ability Institute complex at the foot of the mountain. My granddaughter's parents died when she was young, so I raised her myself. Attending the Ability Institute cost a lot of money, so I decided to build this inn on the mountain. Quite a few disciples would come here on weekends to stay at our Deep Mountain Inn because of the natural surroundings. The income was fairly good."

(The Deep Mountain Inn was actually located in the suburbs of an urban area in the Sixth District.)

"Later, when my granddaughter was accepted into the nearby Ability Institute, I had her help out here while I took care of her... I never imagined that this would be the worst decision I had ever made."

As the old woman spoke, sorrow and regret appeared in her eyes.

At that moment, Men Qian gave Yu Jing a signal, and the vines binding the old woman's body immediately loosened by more than half.

"What happened while your granddaughter was helping at the inn?" Men Qian asked seriously.

"My granddaughter would bring some male classmates from the Ability Institute here. The first time, I thought they were boys she was dating. After all, she was twenty, and had reached that stage... But the men she brought back were different every week. When I tried asking her about it, she would beat me severely, so I was too afraid to investigate further for a while."

At this point, everyone more or less knew what was happening on the surface.

But what had happened inside the Deep Mountain Inn was by no means as simple as it appeared.

Yu Jing thought to himself, A three-story inn with ten rooms on each floor was fairly large even in the nineties. Combined with its advantageous location near the Ability Institute complex, the inn's income should have been quite substantial... Besides, if this female ability disciple wanted to bring in customers and make more money, they should have been wealthy businessmen. There would have been no need to bring them to her own family's inn.

Men Qian, who was conducting the interrogation, had reached the same conclusion as Yu Jing.

"What did you discover in the end? What was your granddaughter's purpose in bringing those men here?"

At this critical moment, Men Qian suddenly changed the subject. What the old woman said next would be connected to the inside of the Deep Mountain Inn.

"Bang!"

At that moment, a loud crash came from the window.

The tightly locked iron window was torn open by the gale. The old woman, who had been about to answer the question, became terrified and uneasy at the sight.

Everyone present, including Men Qian, the new disciple from the Medical School who was unskilled in combat, held surgical knives in their hands. Suppressing their fear, they prepared for battle. Vines covered the inner spaces of the room's walls. As long as anything invaded from another location, Yu Jing would know immediately, so his attention remained fixed on the shattered window.

"Bzzzt!"

The television beside them switched on at that moment as well.

The screen looked down from above at the several people in the room. A pale-skinned woman was climbing in through the window. Yet according to the actual situation in the room, no one could see anything at all.

"Tell me, what happened in the end? Why did your granddaughter bring those men back? How did you die? And how did she die?"

At this critical juncture, Men Qian pressed the old woman to reveal the crucial information. On the television, the white-clothed woman had already crawled in front of the old woman.

"Upstairs..."

The instant she uttered those two words, the old woman's pupils slowly became unfocused, while the woman on the television placed a hand on the old woman's head. The old woman could no longer remain conscious, and sharp fangs were exposed through her torn-open mouth.

"Move!"

The moment Yu Jing said this, Yu Xiaoxiao had already drawn her dagger a step faster. She plunged it straight down through the top of the old woman's head, then slashed toward the position of the white-clothed woman on the television.

"Clang!"

The dagger was clearly cutting through empty air, yet it stopped as though it had struck something solid.

On the screen, the woman bit down on the dagger in Yu Xiaoxiao's hand. A murderous aura spread through the room.

Although Yu Xiaoxiao reacted quickly and pulled the dagger away to dodge, her arm was still severed completely as she retreated. Judging from the smoothness of the cut, it appeared to have been sliced open by fingernails.

Yu Jing took a single step forward and caught Yu Xiaoxiao in his arms, then positioned his body between the two of them, facing the woman shown on the television.

The murderous aura vanished.

The temperature in the room also rose back to normal, and the television changed back into a screen full of static.

"Phew..."

Yu Jing gasped heavily. Based on the information he had obtained, he had made a gamble, betting that this woman would not attack men on the inn's floors.

It seemed he had bet correctly!

Yu Xiaoxiao bit her lip slightly to endure the pain from her severed arm, but her eyes remained fixed on Yu Jing's face as he held her. A strange emotion welled up in her heart.

"Leave it to me! The severed arm is still here, and the wound is fairly smooth. If we operate in time, it won't leave any aftereffects."

Men Qian immediately came over and took Yu Xiaoxiao from Yu Jing. He meticulously and precisely stitched the wound, reconnecting the tendons, blood vessels, and nerves. He completed the entire procedure within thirty seconds.

At the same time, Men Qian cut off part of the fabric and took a section of the bedframe to make a brace.

"The Ability Institute took all my medical supplies. The only thing I can do right now is reconnect it like this; I can't repair it quickly. For the time being, Yu Xiaoxiao, you probably won't be able to use your right arm. Try not to cause further damage, either. Otherwise, the next repair will inevitably leave lasting aftereffects."

"Thank you."

Yu Xiaoxiao did not reject Men Qian's earnest and professional treatment. After softly thanking him, she bent down and picked up the dagger she had dropped.

Nearby, Jiang Pengyu stared at the engraved characters on the dagger, looking as if he had suddenly understood everything.

Yu Jing sat on the edge of the bed, habitually put on his hood, and pressed both hands together in front of him. "Everyone, let's gather and discuss this. I already have a general idea of what happened."