Lin Xiaoman's nails dug into my arm like talons, her breathing ragged as a broken bellows. Every word she gasped out reeked of blood and desperation.
*"It's Xiao Ya's writing… She's alive! She escaped!"
Her eyes burned into the empty hospital bed as if she could mentally reconstruct her sister's flight path.
I wasn't nearly as optimistic.
Prying her ice-cold fingers loose, I scanned the three corpses on the floor.
All female. Hospital gowns. B3 Ward wristbands.
Their necks twisted at unnatural angles, pupils dilated, faces frozen in terror—yet not a single sign of zombification.
Too clean.
Clean like disposing of medical waste.
Crouching, I examined the nearest body under the dim emergency lights. No skin under the nails. No torn clothing. Just one precise cervical fracture—no collateral damage.
This wasn't a struggle.
This was an execution.
"Don't trust white coats,"I murmured, tracing the bloody words on the wall. My gaze flicked to Lin Xiaoman's own stained lab coat. "You're certain this is your sister's handwriting?"
She flinched, her conviction wavering before hardening. "Yes! Xiao Ya always drags the last stroke long!"Her voice was shrill, self-hypnotizing.
I didn't argue. Those rushed, gouged characters weren't a plea—they were a warning carved with dying strength.
Whoever wrote them might already be dead.
And Lin Xiaoman was still wearing a white coat.
The cloying stench of antiseptic and blood thickened the air. The alarms had stopped, leaving silence more unnerving than screams.
"It was Director Wang!" Lin Xiaoman suddenly clutched my sleeve. "This afternoon, he ordered all staff evacuated from B3 for 'sterilization.' Didn't even monitor the patients!"
"Wang Zhicheng?"
"East Zone's chief! He led the mutation inhibitor trials—my sister was in the first test group—"
The puzzle snapped together.
The mapped route. Du Qiang's outposts. The pre-positioned guards.
This wasn't an outbreak.
This was a systematic purge.
They were erasing failed experiments.
And my deal with Du Qiang had accidentally triggered it.
Click.
A metallic snick from down the hall froze us.
Returning cleaners? Or Wang's second wave?
I yanked Lin Xiaoman behind the door. Footsteps approached—leisurely, assured—then halted outside.
Through the crack, I glimpsed polished oxfords and the hem of a white coat.
The figure didn't enter. Just waited. Lin Xiaoman trembled violently against me.
Then—the white coat turned toward the corridor wall. A gray metal panel. A blinking red light.
Surveillance.
My veins turned to ice.
Who killed those women? Who took Xiao Ya? Who scrawled that warning?
The answers were in that little steel box.
When the white coat finally left, I stared at the panel, my resolve crystallizing.
Time to stop following clues.
Time to hunt.