At Yu Bei 162 Army Hospital, this was Lin Shu's first time staying in a place like this. Outside the special-care ward building, soldiers stood guard with rifles in hand.
"So I took that pill?" Lin Shu was dressed in a patient's gown and lay on the hospital bed, her entire body wrapped in bandages. Only a pair of eyes could be seen, and her voice was incredibly weak.
She felt as though every inch of her body was aching, numb, and unbearably itchy, yet she didn't dare reach out to scratch. The itch seemed to burrow deep into her marrow. That sensation was truly excruciating.
She felt as though she had suddenly grown taller. Although she had never measured herself, she knew that her formerly unimpressive height had been shooting upward during this period. Whenever she raised a hand or moved a leg, it felt as though this were no longer her own body. The proportions and sensations were far too different.
"That's right. Your condition was critical at the time. When we met with the people from above, we immediately submitted an application. We never expected it to be approved so quickly!" Zhou Yang's wounds had yet to heal, and one arm was still hanging from his neck, but he had already put on his uniform and appeared to have returned to work.
He sat beside the hospital bed. Seeing that this young subordinate, who was only a little older than his own son, was currently in good condition, he finally let out a sigh of relief.
"Mm. It does look extremely miraculous. The doctors and experts were all stunned by your condition. However, you'll probably have to cooperate with their regular examinations for some time." Zhou Yang peeled an orange and placed it on the table.
"So I've become a lab rat?" Lin Shu joked. Having survived, she also felt incredibly lucky.
"No, no, no! They're only ordinary examinations! This is a society governed by law now. The sort of thing you're imagining couldn't happen. Besides, the origins of this medicine are far too strange, and its effects are far too miraculous. No one knows whether it has any side effects or harmful consequences, so this is also for your own good."
At this point, Zhou Yang changed the subject, as though he had remembered something.
"By the way, we've found out who ambushed us. Apparently, the Cross Bloodstain Web issued a two-hundred-million bounty. The person responsible for organizing the operation was someone nicknamed Black Seven. Do you remember the arms-smuggling case we'd been investigating? Black Seven was the mastermind behind that organization. He finally fell into our hands this time and was shot dead on the spot."
"The Cross Bloodstain Web?" This was the first time Lin Shu had heard the name.
"Mm! It's an alliance organization made up of arms contractors of all sizes. To be precise, it isn't the kind of organization we imagine. It's a platform. As long as they gain approval, arms contractors from all over the world can sell their weapons and ammunition there. People with a demand can contact them directly, negotiate prices, and place orders."
"From weapons and ammunition enough to start a war, down to a few pistols and rifles, you can find sellers there. As long as you have money, you can buy aircraft, tanks, and artillery there. The truth is, behind these arms dealers are the governments of various countries. Some are even directly backed by small nations in Africa or the Middle East."
"Later on, the Cross Bloodstain Web expanded beyond arms trading. Assassination missions, hunting contracts, intelligence sales, hiring mercenaries, hiring bodyguards, and all sorts of other illicit transactions could be conducted there. The buyers and sellers came from every walk of life. The Cross Bloodstain Web only provided the platform and some guarantees, while the two sides communicated and negotiated the deals themselves."
"But you rarely see them operating domestically, so most people don't know much about them."
"How did the information leak? How could the other side have known what we were transporting and which route we were taking, and even intercepted us at such a perfect moment?" Lin Shu thought for a while before asking the question she had pondered countless times.
"Look!" Zhou Yang turned on his phone and placed it in front of Lin Shu. She saw a headline on Weibo that read: "Three Goat Temple Abbot Returns to Youth—The Era of Cultivation Has Truly Arrived."
"A Taoist priest at the temple posted the matter online. Mm! He wasn't the only one, either. It is the age of online information, after all."
Zhou Yang's face was full of helplessness. Even Lin Shu gave a bitter smile. When the incident happened, they had racked their brains and even wondered whether the information had leaked from within. No one had expected the truth to be this.
"Do you know who issued the bounty?" Lin Shu once again thought of the colleagues who had died in the explosion.
"That? I'm afraid that'll be difficult!"
Zhou Yang hesitated, then slowly spoke. Afterward, he patted Lin Shu on the shoulder, picked up his briefcase, and stood. Although his wounds had not completely healed, even more matters were waiting for him to handle.
"That's all for now, Little Lin. Get plenty of rest and take care of yourself. We'll talk about anything else later."
At that moment, Lin Shu suddenly remembered something and called out to Zhou Yang. "By the way, Team Leader!"
Zhou Yang turned around. "What is it? Is there anything else? I have an important meeting to attend later, concerning the major restructuring of our team. By the time you return, you may find that everything has changed beyond recognition."
Lin Shu hesitated before saying, "While I was unconscious, I had a strange dream! It was incredibly real and incredibly bizarre!"
"A dream?"
The moment Zhou Yang heard the word "dream," he immediately stopped. After experiencing a series of supernatural events, he had become extraordinarily sensitive. Even those stories about gods, devils, and ghosts that he had never taken seriously before, he had begun investigating them bit by bit. He absolutely no longer dared claim that they did not exist.
Zhou Yang sat down and looked solemnly at Lin Shu. "Tell me about it. What kind of dream was it?"
Lin Shu slowly sat up, and her gaze began to grow hazy. "I... At the time, I should have been... I should have been close to death. In my daze, I seemed to have entered a world filled with mist."
"..."
"It seemed to be an ancient book recording the trajectory of fate for all things in heaven and earth and every living being. This page recorded my fate. At the bottom of the page in that ancient tome, which was as enormous as a mountain range, four ancient seal characters written in blood-red ink read—My allotted lifespan is exhausted!" Lin Shu recalled the scene once more, and her entire body still felt ice-cold. The terror of having her fate and life and death controlled and toyed with by someone surged up from her heart again.
Looking into Lin Shu's eyes, Zhou Yang could see just how shocking that scene had been—enough to completely crush a person's soul and will.
"I raised my head and felt that an existence resembling a god or devil was faintly watching me from above the clouds and mist. A white-jade brush, like a pillar supporting the heavens, reached down from the clouds and erased the words 'My allotted lifespan is exhausted,' replacing them with—Extended lifespan by one hundred and twenty years!" By the end of her account, Lin Shu's chest was heaving violently. That enormous hand above the clouds seemed to be casually scribbling over her fate.
With nothing more than a light stroke, it could control her life and death and alter her destiny.
That shuddering, horrifying sensation devoured her mind and soul. Her body began to tremble violently, and she instinctively hugged herself, curling up on the hospital bed.
"Little Lin, don't be afraid! Don't think about it too much. You're still alive, and you're doing very well!"
"It may all have been nothing more than a dream!"
Zhou Yang immediately stood up and comforted Lin Shu. Although he could not personally experience what she had felt, merely listening to her account gave him goosebumps.
Zhou Yang solemnly recorded what Lin Shu had said, but he did not take all of it as fact simply because she had described it. He merely collected it as a piece of intelligence. He would neither report it nor tell anyone else.
After all, it might have been nothing more than Lin Shu's imagination. When people were on the brink of death, they often saw strange and bizarre things. Thinking of the underworld, hell, and various ancient myths and legends was perfectly normal.
But there was another possibility. If—if everything Lin Shu had seen was real...
At this thought, Zhou Yang could not help shivering all over. He felt a chill run through him, cold with dread.