Chapter 210: Chapter 174: Jin Xueli: The Loyalty-Outsourcing Kai Family?
The conversation that followed between Jin Xueli and Morando was a disjointed affair, snatched in the fleeting moments between running, dodging, scrambling for their lives, finding cover, and occasionally striking back.
Of course, we’ve cut out the fluff.
Had it been recorded verbatim, it would have been littered with gasps for breath, CRASHES, the sharp screech of shoes scraping across the floor, and pointless shouts like, "Aah!" "It’s coming!" "Over there!" "Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"—not to mention a colorful variety of curses aimed at the resident.
For several minutes, the slender patient didn’t once let out that dizzying, nauseating scream. It just kept swatting at the two of them like flies. Thinking back on it later, Jin Xueli could only come up with one explanation.
’It must be because residents are intensely curious, right?’
If you see two people arguing loudly on the street, no matter who you are, you can’t help but perk up your ears and listen in. Residents are born from humans, so it’s not surprising they’d inherit that same nosiness.
Whatever retreat plan Morando might have had was laid completely bare as the two of them argued while they fled.
"I’ve been wanting to leave," Jin Xueli said, her words also coming in fits and starts. "So... what? I grab Chaisi’s feet, you get his shoulders?"
Despite the chaos, Morando still managed to shoot her a look reserved for complete idiots.
"Setting aside the fact that the resident would never give us time to carry a person... do you really think I’d help you save the man I’m here to assassinate?"
"What’s your beef with him? Do you have to kill him? Killing people is bad for business, you know. Think about it."
The slender patient’s arm shot out like a frog’s tongue. Jin Xueli dodged it, and it hit nothing but air. As Morando replied, its attention shifted to her.
"I don’t have some blood feud with him—and it’s none of your business anyway. You just met him, right? Why are you willing to die for him? Tsk. Just as I’d expect from my old senior..."
"Senior? You two went to the same school?"
After receiving a confirmation—and another "caring" attack from the resident—Jin Xueli said between gasps, "I came here today to save him. Now he’s hanging right there, and you’re telling me to just turn and walk away? What kind of half-assed job would that be?"
"Half-assed keeps you alive! Whole-assed gets you killed!"
"That’s not the point! What the hell did I even come here for? I could’ve just stayed home and slept, and I’d still be alive, wouldn’t I?"
"Exactly!" Morando sounded like she was about to explode. "I wish you were at home sleeping! No one invited you to come meddle, you know!"
"I’m not so sure about that... You’re the one who used me as bait. So now I’m on your senior’s side."
Between these retorts, Jin Xueli dove and rolled, snatching up a hammer from the floor. She swung it up just in time to smash the hand striking at her. Since the effect of each square diminished after the first use, she had switched to a "leftist" square this time, sending the resident stumbling back a few steps with a cry of pain.
"Since I got here, I’ve been beaten, I’ve fought for my life, and I’ve been psychically attacked by that thing! I’ve been through all this suffering, and now you want me to just give up? How could I be okay with that? Was it all for nothing?"
Even as she yelled, Jin Xueli was still on the move, reaching out to grab the small figure in Chaisi’s mouth. She couldn’t even afford to be grossed out by how slimy it was, only to experience a new kind of revulsion: the tiny figure felt like it had grown right into Chaisi’s tongue. Her tug didn’t even budge it.
Now The Death of Marat was sticking out its tongue.
"...Have you ever heard of the sunk cost fallacy?"
Morando glanced at Chaisi, and her cheek twitched. Her expression seemed to say, ’You might as well just let me kill him.’
"I know, so what?" Jin Xueli said. "I’ll ask you this: who made me incur all these ’sunk costs’? Whoever’s responsible for sinking them is responsible for dredging them back up."
"...The resident."
The slender patient grunted, "Hm? Nonsense. The real culprit is clearly you."
"See? Even the resident understands basic logic better than you do!"
That, apparently, was the last straw for Morando.
Just as Jin Xueli was once again attacked by the "reasonable" resident, Morando simply turned and strode toward the door to the ward. "If you won’t go, I will," she tossed over her shoulder. "I’m canceling the connection. Good luck."
"Hey?!"
Jin Xueli rolled under Chaisi’s hospital bed, dodging the attack by a hair’s breadth. Morando’s words sent a jolt of panic through her. "Wait! Hey!"
Truth be told, she didn’t really expect Morando to stop.
But Morando did stop at the door.
Her hand on the doorknob, she stood motionless for almost a full second.
After a moment of shock, it dawned on Jin Xueli: Morando hadn’t opened the door because she couldn’t.
Frowning, Morando looked from the door to the slender patient. For a split second, she seemed to think the resident was holding the door shut with one of its long arms.
Both Jin Xueli and the slender patient grew curious and asked in unison, "What’s going on?"
"...Someone’s holding the door from the other side. I can’t pull it open."
As she spoke, Morando gritted her teeth, put her back into it, and yanked the door hard. She seemed quite strong, but the door didn’t move an inch.
"Who’s outside the door?" Morando demanded.
"Mmm... there’s a scent..."
The slender patient stared at the door, sniffing the air deeply a few times, all while launching a few half-hearted attacks at Jin Xueli. It felt like a person just punching the clock at work.
But Jin Xueli was under the hospital bed, forced to roll back and forth to dodge the resident’s attacks, desperate to know who was outside, and terrified of letting that little figure burrow completely into Chaisi’s mouth... For a moment, it felt as if her concentration had been hit by a bomb, scattering it into a million pieces. She had no idea what to deal with first.
Just as she was at her wit’s end, her gaze swept over and she suddenly noticed the locked wheels on the legs of the hospital bed.
’That’s right... I can do that, too.’
She didn’t know why, but this was a good opportunity—for several seconds, no one in the room spoke, and even the resident wasn’t bothering her.
Into the silence, a familiar female voice suddenly spoke from the crack of the door.
The voice was right up against the outside of the door, asking eerily, "Excuse me... is Jin Xueli in there?"
Morando and the slender patient turned their heads towards her in unison.
"Han Liuyue!"
Pleasantly surprised, Jin Xueli started to get up, only to forget she was still under the bed and promptly smash her head. THUMP. "I’m here! Chaisi’s here too! What took you so long? How many people did you bring? Get in here and help!"
But it fell silent outside the door.
For some reason, in the long, almost solid silence that followed, neither the humans nor the resident spoke.
"Um... is that someone you know?"
Morando had already turned and walked back. She finally broke the silence, standing in a corner far from the slender patient, and said in a low voice, "Are you sure?"
Jin Xueli was taken aback for a moment. "She’s from the Kai Family. I know her."
"Do people from the Kai Family... have a habit of pressing their noses and lips to the crack in the door when they talk?"
’What?’
Outside the door, Han Liuyue spoke again.
This time, prompted by Morando’s question, Jin Xueli heard it too, clear as day—when the voice sounded, it seemed to have a strange texture to it. It made her almost able to imagine how Han Liuyue’s cheek was squashed against the doorframe, her nose and mouth jammed into the crack, her hot breath dampening the wood as her voice seeped, bit by bit, into the ward.
"...You can’t come out just yet."
Han Liuyue said eerily from the crack in the door, "Want to leave? Make sure Chaisi Monroe is safe and sound. Bring him with you, and I’ll open the door."
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