A Chilling Feeling

Yu Bei 162 Army Hospital. This was Lin Shu's first time staying in such a hospital. Outside the special care ward building, there were even soldiers with rifles standing guard.

"So I took that pill?" Lin Shu was wearing a hospital gown, lying on the hospital bed. Her whole body was covered in bandages, only her eyes visible. Her voice was extremely weak.

She felt her entire body was sore, aching, numb, and itchy, but she didn't dare to scratch. The itch went deep into her bones. This feeling was truly unbearable and painful to the extreme.

She felt as if she had grown taller. Although she hadn't measured herself, she knew her original height wasn't tall, but it had been rapidly increasing during this time. When she lifted her arms or moved her legs, it felt as if this wasn't her own body; the proportions and sensations were too different.

"That's right. Your situation was critical at the time. When you met with the people from above, you immediately applied, and we didn't expect it to be approved so quickly!" Zhou Yang's wounds hadn't healed yet, and his arm was still in a sling around his neck, but he was already wearing his uniform, seemingly back in work mode.

He sat by the hospital bed, looking at his young subordinate, who wasn't much older than his own son, and seeing that she was in good condition, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Yes, it seems truly miraculous. The doctors and experts were all stunned by your condition. However, you'll probably need to cooperate with their regular check-ups for a while." Zhou Yang peeled an orange and placed it on the table.

"So, I've become a guinea pig?" Lin Shu joked. She felt very lucky to be alive.

"No, no, no! Just regular check-ups! This is a society ruled by law now, so what you're thinking won't happen. Besides, the origin of this medicine is too peculiar, and its effects are too miraculous. No one knows if there are any side effects or harm, so this is also for your own good."

Speaking of this, Zhou Yang's words took a turn as he remembered something.

"Oh, right. The people who ambushed us have been identified. It's said to be a bounty worth 200 million yuan issued by the Cross Bloodstain Web. The person responsible for organizing the operation is a guy nicknamed Black Seven. Remember the arms smuggling case we've been investigating? Black Seven is the mastermind behind that organization. This time, he was finally caught and directly killed."

"Cross Bloodstain Web?" This was the first time Lin Shu had heard this name.

"Yes! It's an alliance organization composed of large and small arms contractors. To be precise, it's not the kind of organization we imagine. It's a platform. As long as you are recognized, arms contractors of all sizes from around the world can sell their weapons and ammunition on it. People with needs can communicate directly with them on it, negotiate prices, and place orders."

"From weapons and ammunition to launch a war, to a few pistols and rifles, you can find sellers on it. As long as you have money, you can buy planes, tanks, and cannons on it, because behind these arms dealers are actually governments of various countries, and some are even directly the governments of some small countries in Africa or the Middle East."

"Later, the Cross Bloodstain Web was not only used for arms trading, but also for illegal transactions such as assassination missions, hunting dark targets, intelligence trading, hiring mercenaries, hiring bodyguards, and so on. There are all kinds of sellers and buyers. The Cross Bloodstain Web only provides the platform and partial guarantees. Transactions are negotiated and discussed by both parties."

"But you rarely see them in the country, so most people don't know about them."

"How did the news leak? How could the other party seize such a good opportunity to know what we were transporting and which route we were taking?" Lin Shu thought for a moment and asked the question that had been on her mind many times.

"Look!" Zhou Yang opened his phone and showed it to Lin Shu. She saw a Weibo headline that read, "Three Goat Temple Abbot Rejuvenates, the Era of Cultivation Has Completely Arrived."

"A Taoist priest in the temple posted the matter online. Well! And he wasn't the only one. After all, it's the age of internet information."

Zhou Yang's face was full of helplessness, and even Lin Shu gave a wry smile. When the incident happened, they thought about it repeatedly, even wondering if the news had been leaked internally. No one expected the result to be like this.

"Do you know who issued the bounty?" Lin Shu thought of her colleagues who died in the explosion again.

"This? I'm afraid it's very difficult!"

Zhou Yang hesitated and said slowly. Then he patted Lin Shu's shoulder, picked up his briefcase, and stood up. Although his wounds hadn't completely healed, there were more things waiting for him to deal with.

"The matter ends here for now, Xiao Lin! You should rest well during this time, take care of your body, and we'll talk about anything else later."

Lin Shu suddenly remembered something and called out to Zhou Yang, "Oh, right, Team Leader!"

Zhou Yang turned around, "What is it? Is there anything else? I have an important meeting to attend later, it's about the restructuring of our team. When you come back, you might find that everything has changed drastically."

Lin Shu hesitated for a moment before saying, "When I was unconscious, I had a strange dream! This dream was very real, very bizarre!"

"A dream?"

As soon as Zhou Yang heard the word "dream," he immediately stopped. After a series of supernatural events, he had become extremely sensitive. Even some events involving gods, demons, and ghosts that he had never believed in before, he began to investigate slowly, absolutely not daring to say they didn't exist.

Zhou Yang sat down and looked at Lin Shu solemnly, "Tell me about it? What kind of dream was it?"

Lin Shu slowly sat up, her eyes becoming hazy, "I... I should have been, should have been close to death at that time. In a daze, I seemed to have entered a world full of mist."

"..."

"It seemed to be an ancient book recording the fate trajectories of all things in heaven and earth and all life. And this page recorded my fate. I saw at the bottom of the page of the ancient book, which was as large as a mountain, four blood-red ancient seal characters written - Lifespan Exhausted!" Lin Shu recalled the scene again, still feeling cold all over. The terror of having her fate and life controlled and toyed with surged in her heart again.

Zhou Yang looked into Lin Shu's eyes and could see how shocking the scene was, enough to completely crush a person's mind and will.

"I looked up and felt the presence of something like a god or demon vaguely watching me from above the clouds. A white jade brush, like a pillar supporting the sky, reached down from the clouds, erased the four words 'Lifespan Exhausted,' and added a sentence - Extended Lifespan by One Hundred and Twenty Years!" As Lin Shu finished speaking, her chest heaved constantly. The giant hand above the clouds seemed to be casually scribbling on her fate.

With just a light stroke, it could control her life and change her destiny.

The feeling of trembling and horror swallowed her brain and soul, causing her body to tremble violently. She couldn't help but hug herself and curl up on the hospital bed.

"Xiao Lin, don't be afraid! Don't think too much. You are still alive now, living well!"

"Perhaps all of that was just a dream!"

Zhou Yang immediately stood up and comforted Lin Shu. Although he couldn't personally experience Lin Shu's feelings, just listening to her description gave him a creepy feeling.

Zhou Yang solemnly wrote down what Lin Shu said, but he didn't take it all as true just because Lin Shu said so. He only collected it as a piece of information and wouldn't report it or tell anyone else.

Because all of this could just be Lin Shu's imagination. In a near-death situation, people always see strange things and associate them with the underworld, Hell, and some ancient legends and myths, which is also very normal.

But there was also a possibility, if, if everything Lin Shu saw was true...

Thinking of this, Zhou Yang couldn't help but shiver all over, feeling a chill down his spine.