Vampire Bats

In short, doctors and nurses throughout the hospital had no choice but to wear double masks. As for the chorus of complaints?

Who dared criticize a mage from the General's Temple for performing a ritual to save lives?

Tang Changsheng stood in an unlit office, gazing through the window into the pitch-black night below.

He murmured, "They've smelled it by now, haven't they? When are they going to take the bait?"

Whenever the hot water in the wooden tubs cooled, it was soon replaced. The water ladled out after the patients had soaked in it had changed color. It was black and so foul with a fishy stench that a single whiff could make someone vomit up last night's dinner.

Nor could the water simply be poured away, lest it harm living things. It all needed special treatment...

The entire hospital was run ragged, and Dr. Chen Xin was no exception.

She was especially curious about how Tang Changsheng was treating the patients...

As far as she could see, there was no way Song Da and the others could be cured.

Yet as bucket after bucket of hot water was changed, they visibly improved. Even the bruise-like bluish-purple patches on their bodies seemed to be fading...

Chen Xin found it unbelievable. She could not work out what had caused their illness, how the treatment worked, or any of the rest of it!

To her, traditional medicine could not be explained by modern science. It seemed more like witchcraft.

That was the main reason she had gone abroad to study Western medicine.

But now Tang Changsheng's near-witchcraft methods were actually working...

As Chen Xin's thoughts ran wild, she suddenly noticed that fog had risen. It blanketed the grounds outside the hospital, and wisps of it were even seeping in through the windows and doors.

"Hey, why does it feel colder and colder? Did you turn on the air conditioner?"

"No! I feel it getting colder too..."

Hearing the nurses murmuring nearby, Chen Xin shivered despite herself. Dense goose bumps rose on her porcelain-smooth skin.

Wasn't it already April or May? How could the night be so cold?

Still wondering about it, Chen Xin started toward the window to close it.

A young nurse got there first. She glanced outside as she shut it. Fog swallowed the dim yellow streetlights until they were barely visible, lending them an ominous air that made her heart sink.

Just then, a strange noise came from above.

Before the young nurse could react, a flurry of wings sounded. A swarm of bats burst in and flew straight at her, clawing and biting at her face and head.

She let out a scream that tore from her throat. When she turned around, everyone saw that her entire face was streaked with blood and claw marks. One of her eyes had even been gouged out!

"Ah..."

Terrified screams rang through the duty room, one after another.

"Vampire Bats! They're Vampire Bats!" the doctors and nurses screamed, scattering in every direction.

By then, the swarm had spread out and was swooping at everyone.

Outside, bats massed like a black cloud and kept pouring in through the window.

Startled, Chen Xin could not help recalling the tales she had heard abroad...

The great swarm of bats in particular made her think of vampires.

But she had never encountered anything like this overseas, much less at home...

For a moment, it all felt absurdly unreal. Then the little creatures with blood-red eyes swooped at her.

Only then did she instinctively wave her arms to drive them away. Sharp pains struck her arms in quick succession, and then both arms went completely numb.

Her face drained of color as she realized what was happening. "Get out! Get out! These bats are venomous!"

In the chaos, Chen Xin suffered several more bites, but she led the others out of the duty room and locked the door. They could still hear the bats battering desperately against it.

A thin layer of fog drifted through the corridor, though no one knew whether it had come in from outside.

The temperature dropped further. Even the corridor lights had grown faint and feeble.

It felt disturbingly like a morgue...

Just as that thought crossed her mind, a figure lunged out wearing blue-and-white striped hospital clothes. Everyone jumped and was about to speak.

But Chen Xin's sharp eyes caught something wrong with the way the figure moved. "Watch out!" she cried.

The moment she shouted, the others saw it too. The patient's eyes had rolled back, showing only white, and his movements were unnaturally awkward. His face was twisted into a savage grimace!

Blood stained him all over, and he held a sharp scalpel.

Amid everyone's panicked screams, his hand rose and fell. The scalpel plunged into the neck of the nearest doctor, and blood sprayed...

At the brutal sight, the remaining five or six doctors and nurses screamed and scattered like startled birds and beasts.

But the patient, crazed as he seemed, fixed on Chen Xin and chased after her.

His body looked terribly uncoordinated, as though he suffered the lingering effects of a stroke.

Yet he moved with astonishing speed, a strange contradiction that defied description.

His face was hideously contorted. Killing Intent seemed to spread from him, making even the rain around him steam and twist.

He looked like a god of slaughter fresh from hell. Chen Xin was not the only one whose heart would have gone cold at the sight; anyone would have turned and run rather than resist.

Yet the patient caught up and seized Chen Xin's clothes. His hand was about to rise and fall again, her blood about to spray.

Then Tang Changsheng suddenly leaped out from nowhere. With a sharp shout, he struck the patient square in the chest with his palm.

Bang...

The tremendous sound was nothing like a bare palm striking flesh. It was more like a great cowhide drum being struck, shaking the air around them!

The patient flew backward seven or eight meters. Before he even hit the ground, a gray-black shadow flew out of his body.

"Ah?" Chen Xin saw it clearly. Doctors were supposed to stay calm, especially attending surgeons.

But she could not stop herself from crying out and instinctively grabbing Tang Changsheng's clothes.