"Oh my, they lost contact," Shangguan Jun murmured to himself, standing by the grimy window, a faint radio crackle in his hand. He turned back to Wu You'ai, lightly brushing her sweat damp cheek with the back of his fingers. "So, how does your own meat taste? Be honest."
Wu You'ai's gaze was a little unfocused from pain and exhaustion, but her voice held a bizarre clinical detachment. "A bit tough. Chewy. Not much flavor. Tangyuan are still better."
"Here is some good news for you, then. The entire team that went to bomb your precious villa has gone dark. Complete radio silence. The people in that villa aren't simple. Alright, I should get going." He sighed, a theatrical sound. "Should I kill you or not?" Shangguan Jun hesitated for a moment, tapping his chin. "Forget it. You are the first person under my hand who never gave up a single word, not even a scream I'd call genuine. I hope you can last until rescue arrives. I will come back for you next time. We'll continue our… dialogue." He gave a slight, mocking bow and slipped out the door, vanishing into the dark corridor.
…
If not for the distinctive, faded floral blouse and the pockmarks on the woman's bloated face, Jing Shu would never have imagined this was the same auntie who had publicly begged for water, voice cracking with desperation, on that first distribution day.
There was no surprise about the fate of the other hostages they found. They all shared one grim commonality. Every single one had been tortured to death. And each death was different, drowning, blade work, bone breaking. It was obvious the perpetrator was obsessed with trying new methods, refining his craft.
Then what about Wu You'ai? What unique torment would she be suffering? Since Wu You'ai was specifically connected to the villa, would she be singled out for something… special?
Crack, crack.
The sound was Jing Shu's own knuckles tightening in her gloves. Even Yang Yang, standing beside her, kept quiet now, wary of provoking this woman whose aura had shifted into something cold and lethally focused.
A faint, barely audible sound came from the next room, a low, pained murmur. Jing Shu dropped Zhang Qiang's collar, letting him slump to the floor, and rushed over in a single, fluid bound. Her heart hammered against her ribs. The person tied to a metal table in the center of the room, murmuring incoherently, was none other than Wu You'ai.
In the deep dark of the room, Wu You'ai didn't seem to have suffered overtly bloody, gory abuse, at least Jing Shu didn't see fresh blood splattered on the walls or floor. But there was a strong, sickly sweet smell of charred meat and burned hair hanging in the air.
"She is breathing." Jing Shu's voice was a husk of itself. She pulled a sharp knife from the Cube Space and sawed through the thick ropes binding Wu You'ai's wrists and ankles. Wu You'ai sucked in a sharp, ragged breath as the pressure released. "Hurts… everywhere…"
"Where does it hurt most?" Jing Shu's heart lurched. Had he used one of those invisible, internal tortures, like saline injection or air embolism?
Wang Dazhao hurried over with his flashlight, the beam unsteady, followed closely by Yang Yang and five or six armed police officers. Others fanned out to sweep the remaining rooms and seal the building exits.
In the stark, unforgiving beam of the flashlight, Jing Shu finally saw the full extent of the damage. Wu You'ai's legs, from mid thigh down, were charred a horrible black, the skin blistered and split, wrinkled like overdone pork rind. Three large, deep patches of flesh were simply missing, the underlying bone visible in places, white against the black. Coupled with the overpowering scorch smell and drips of hardened red wax on the floor and table, it was clear, candle roasting, applied with cruel patience.
Yang Yang said, voice low, "Shangguan Jun probably didn't get anything useful out of her and didn't have time to finish the job before his team went silent, so he ran. A professional. Leaves no loose ends unless forced."
A flicker of warmth, fierce and proud, ignited in the cold pit of Jing Shu's chest. Maybe Wu You'ai had saved herself by her sheer, stubborn refusal to speak. She had held on, buying the precious minutes they needed.
Wang Dazhao's hand shook so hard he nearly dropped the flashlight. He had thought that killing a dozen people in the Bi Ri raid had made him tough enough for this world. He hadn't expected there were even fiercer, more refined monsters out there, men who treated agony as an art form.
Yang Yang arched a brow, examining the wounds with a critical, almost appreciative eye. "Most of the flesh on both legs is necrotic, third degree burns. They will have to be sawed off. If not, the infection will spread to her bloodstream and kill her within days. With medical resources this scarce, such a major surgery is nearly impossible now. The infection risk post op would be a death sentence."
Yang Yang's meaning was simple and brutal. In the pre apocalypse, with a sterile OR and IV antibiotics, she'd need immediate double amputations. Now it was even more hopeless. She was as good as dead.
"Time will only make it worse. The dead tissue will rot, poisoning her. The burn surface will expand as infection sets in. Pain from burns this extensive will torment her conscious every second for the twenty six days or so it takes to die. She will beg for death long before her heart stops." He stated it as a fact.
"Do you know an anesthetist? A surgeon?" Jing Shu asked, her voice deadly calm, her eyes never leaving Wu You'ai's ashen face.
"I know one nearby. He has a little anesthetic and surgical tools stocked away. A vet before all this. You will need to pay with something scarce, like real food. Do you want to give her a mercy death now, or do you want to numb her for a few easier days? Do not hope for amputations. Even if you numb her and we hack the legs off, the post op care, sterile dressings, antibiotics, pain management, doesn't exist in Wu City right now." Yang Yang laid out the bleak options.
"Fine. Call him. If he comes within five minutes, he gets half a pig. At ten minutes, only a pig leg. Over twenty, don't bother showing up. I will go grab some tools from the car." Jing Shu tossed the words to Wang Dazhao, who nodded frantically, and strode out of the room, his boots echoing on the concrete.
Yang Yang rolled his eyes but placed the call anyway on his secure radio. This woman had been playing dumb and cute with her 'coincidence' story before, but now her true colors were revealed. The shift in her aura was abrupt and total. Now she was cold, absolute, all command. It felt like if anyone disobeyed or questioned her now, she would tear the world apart.
With Yang Yang's personal pickup promise, the man, a wiry fellow named A Lan, arrived in eight minutes, panting. Only a pig leg remained as the reward, but he was still visibly delighted, his eyes gleaming at the mention of pork.
"This is Jing Shu," Yang Yang said by way of introduction as she returned, not from the car but from the stairwell, carrying a nondescript duffel bag.
"This is the anesthetist, A Lan," Yang Yang added.
A Lan, a ponytail bouncing behind him and a surprisingly limp wrist gesture, purred, "Well now, need anesthetics? I have more. Good stuff. Give me another pig leg and they're all yours."
"Deal. I will take everything you have," Jing Shu said without hesitation, accepting the small case of drugs A Lan produced from his own bag. After quickly confirming the dosages and usage with him, she had Wang Dazhao help prop Wu You'ai up enough to drink a mixture of Spirit Spring and clean mineral water. Then, with gentle, efficient movements, she rinsed the horrific wounds with more water, clearing away loose debris and wax. Finally, under A Lan's guided instructions, she administered a calculated dose of anesthesia into Wu You'ai's less damaged arm. Wu You'ai's pained murmuring ceased, her body relaxing into a heavy, drugged sleep.
Everyone in the room watched, a mix of horror and morbid curiosity about what Jing Shu would do next. Was she really going to attempt surgery here?
A Lan clucked his tongue after a closer inspection of the burns. "With burns like these, depth and area… amputation is the only medical logic. You're just prolonging."
Before he could finish the sentence, Jing Shu brought a scalpel from her bag down and began to pare away all the clearly necrotic, dead flesh with swift, precise strokes, slicing off the dead skin around the edges of the wounds as well. There were three gaping holes already. In Jing Shu's steady hands, large swaths of ruined, cooked flesh came off in minutes, revealing more viable, though severely damaged, tissue beneath. Several young officers gagged and stumbled from the room to vomit. Yang Yang, on the other hand, watched with intense interest, leaning in, and even pointed out a few spots of remaining necrosis she had missed.
By rough estimate, Wu You'ai might be several jin lighter now from the removed tissue alone.
"My word. Are you saving her or finishing the job? Without follow up care, antibiotics, skin grafts, she won't make it," A Lan blurted, his professional detachment cracking.
"Shangguan Jun was sloppy. He didn't clean all the necrosis, left pockets that would have poisoned her faster. She was going to die from sepsis anyway. This is a dying horse being treated like a living one. Sometimes you cut to save." Jing Shu's tone was flat, analytical. She pulled out more items from her duffel, pre packaged sterile gauze, tubes of antibiotic ointment, rolls of bandage, even a few precious sealed syringes of broad spectrum antibiotics. She hadn't gone to the car at all; it had all come from the Cube Space, prepared for such a contingency.
The looks around her turned deeply complicated, awe, fear, confusion. Wang Dazhao, seeing the doubt, tugged down his own collar, revealing the thick, healed scar on his neck. "She saved me the same way when my neck was cut open. Dug out the rotten bits, stitched me up. I'm still here." That testimony, from a survivor, finally put some credibility back in Jing Shu's account.
During the gruesome debridement, Jing Shu had used an eyedropper to place one single, precious drop of No. 3 Spirit Spring directly onto each of the deepest wounds on Wu You'ai's legs, then fed her another drop orally. As long as she didn't die outright, missing some flesh was infinitely better than missing entire limbs. Whether she would ever walk properly again was a question for another day. Survival was the only current objective.
When she finished the brutal cleaning and applied the ointment and dressings, Jing Shu sat back on her heels and exhaled, a long, slow breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
"She will sleep for a few hours. When the anesthetic wears off, the pain will be… monumental. It will likely knock her out again on its own," A Lan said quietly, packing his now empty drug case.
Jing Shu had accomplished the most urgent task, stabilizing Wu You'ai. Shangguan Jun had slipped away this time, a ghost in the machine, and the faceless boss, 'Zero Eight,' still loomed. Jing Shu hated wolves hiding in the dark. She would have to find a way to pull them all into the light and burn them out.
Afterward, Jing Shu traded for all the remaining anesthetic and surgical supplies A Lan had hidden, enough for perhaps seven more major procedures. She paid without flinching with four more pig legs from her unseen reserves. To secure continued cooperation on Zhetian intelligence and deter any immediate retaliation, Yang Yang "assigned" a patrol car to stand guard near Xishan Villa around the clock, a visible show of force. Jing Shu sent over an entire pig, minus the four legs already traded, as a gesture of thanks and to ensure their bellies were full and loyal. The economy of the apocalypse was brutal, but straightforward.