Chapter 00018: The Fleeting Life of Mortals (Thanks to the Leader Who Is Not an Old Dog)
# The Fleeting Life of Mortals (Thanks to the Leader Who Is Not an Old Dog)
Chapter 18
Novel: Above Destiny
Chapter 18: The Fleeting Life of Mortals (Thanks to the Leader Who Is Not an Old Dog)
After leaving the hospital room, Wen Wen did not walk far.
She simply went up two flights of stairs, turned a corner, and entered the empty conference room.
Tong Hua was sprawled on the table, deep in sleep, snoring away with several files clutched in her arms, clearly unaware of how many late nights she had pulled.
As for whether she stayed up late to play games or do work, that was up for debate.
Bang!
Wen Wen slammed her fist on the table, jolting her slumbering subordinate awake.
“What happened? What happened?” Tong Hua jumped to attention, grabbing her phone. “Who made that sound?”
The dark screen did not show any game; instead, it reflected Tong Hua’s expressionless face.
Leaning closer, she gently reminded, “If you stay up late again, I’ll smash your phone, understand?”
“I wasn’t sleeping! I was awake! I’m awake!” Tong Hua wiped her face, trying hard to appear bright and refreshed, but only succeeded in highlighting her dark circles.
Proudly, she raised the files in her hands. “I’ve cleared it all up.”
“Then let’s hear it,” Wen Wen said, sorting through the files. “What’s the background?”
“The main ones you asked about last night, that woman called Zhu Hong, thirty-one years old.”
Tong Hua had only patted the files but knew everything like the back of her hand. “On the surface, she’s an operator of two chain restaurants and a KTV, but that’s just for show. Her real identity is linked to the Spring Town Fellowship… she’s the mistress of the second-in-command of the Quan City Gang, rumored to have once worked as a hostess. After latching onto Chen Xingzhou, she got involved with her current partner… but her partner is quite twisted, never mind that—it’s not important.”
“In any case, after Zhu Hong contracted blood lust syndrome, the first one she feasted on was him, and from there, it spiraled out of control, nearly consuming all her friends.”
“In just two weeks, she reached the fifth stage where her body began to mutate, fully turning into a grotesque species. At this point, she could be considered a mutated ghoul. Among the infected in Yacheng, over half were infected by her. Following this lead, Xiao An, Old Zhang, and I worked the whole night and captured over twenty of them!”
Ignoring the exaggeration in “we killed them without mercy,” Wen Wen asked plainly, “How did you handle it?”
“According to your rules, Wen Jie, anyone who has taken a life gets executed. Those who haven’t reached the third stage are sent to the sanatorium for forced treatment—our company covers the expenses, detailed bills are right here…”
Wen Wen didn’t even glance at the stacks of bills, casually tossing them aside.
“Is there anything else?”
“Also, regarding the name that Ji Jue mentioned—the old man who attacked him... I have the details here.”
Tong Hua searched through the papers for a moment, pulling out two more sheets and sliding them over.
A simple life story unfolded.
Chen Lusheng, male, seventy-one years old, a scavenger.
In his youth, he was a drifter and a tough guy, indifferent when his wife left him.
After his mother died, he finally tried to change but it was too late.
He did odd jobs, from bricklaying to plumbing, had a bit of savings over the years, and opened a scrap yard, recycling appliances for a living—barely scraping by.
That was the dull life of a lower-class person, unremarkable.
Until… he found a child in a garbage heap.
She had a genetic disease, her body rotting, several fingers gnawed off by rats.
Everyone said she wouldn’t survive, but the increasingly taciturn old man silently spent an entire winter by her side, keeping her company.
They made it through.
But not for long.
These hard and joyful days lasted a mere seven years.
“Congenital immune system deficiency; during the period after the cataclysm, newborns might face conditions like this. Wealthy families can afford surgery in the central city, while those too poor will die young. Even if they bankrupt themselves, they can only seek conservative treatment at places like Jici Hospital—clinging to life as best they can.”
Tong Hua sighed, “When I visited, the neighbors said he had been sick for several days, hadn’t come outside—he must have been teetering on the brink of losing control for days. Before that, he borrowed from every friend, mortgaged his property, and found lenders to gather a considerable sum—all for his daughter’s hospital payments.”
Wen Wen remained silent for a long time, then quietly asked, “Did his daughter know?”
“She’s already dead.”
Tong Hua pulled out another death report from the file: “It happened just the night before last—massive internal bleeding, no chance of revival… she passed before he did.”
“…”
Wen Wen no longer spoke, her lips moving silently in the stillness.
She cursed under her breath.
Even though she had grown used to death, sometimes it was not fair at all.
Some people can stir up storms while alive and leave a mark when they die, but many others live in obscurity, and their deaths are quiet whispers.
Living, dying—it’s out of one’s control.
Sufferings, cries, despair, and tears—all extinguished in unnoticed silence.
“That’s why I detest this damn world.”
She closed her eyes.
In the northern district, she had cleaned up Zhu Hong's infection completely, curbing the spread of blood lust syndrome.
Yet the real source still lingered outside.
If it weren’t for Ji Jue exposing the Dragon Festival Society’s dealings, Wen Wen would still be in the dark for who knows how much longer.
With Tong Hua’s skills inherited from Matrix: Yesterday Revisited, anyone who had ever shown themselves couldn’t hide forever; they would eventually be unearthed.
But the current clues still weren’t fast enough.
Yet, more clues, weren’t they closer than they appeared?
Fifteen minutes later, the table in the conference room was cluttered with case files.
Several accompanying doctors were answering Wen Wen’s questions, while Tong Hua’s fingers skimmed between the cases and records—within the realm of good, the path of Ether was best at reading and observing the world's information and events.
With the hodgepodge of material laid out before her, Tong Hua's processing speed exceeded even legendary “quantum wave reading.”
Unfortunately, there was little of use.
After finishing, Tong Hua slowly shook her head at Wen Wen.
“Is that all?” Wen Wen frowned.
“Everything is here.”
The vice-director wiped his sweat, forcing a smile, “The income of Jici Hospital primarily comes from patient fees, much of which is raised through church donations. We haven’t attained a paperless system yet, and the number of illnesses is limited. The unusual test results and records of potential rabies cases you mentioned are just these.”
“What about anything else?”
Wen Wen pressed on, “Are there any other relevant materials? If you can’t retrieve them, we can go to the archives ourselves.”
The vice-director fell into silence, sighed heavily but ultimately said nothing.
Instead, a younger doctor hesitated for a moment before finally speaking up: “You must be concerned about bloodborne infectious diseases.”
Wen Wen raised an eyebrow, “How so?”
“…”
The doctor realized his slip and fell silent, noticing colleagues shooting him angry glances.
He bowed his head and took a shaky step back, his leg encumbered by a brace, a clear sign of his struggle.
But some words shouldn’t be spoken.
At least not as a hospital employee before the safety bureau.
“Your hospital is, after all, cooperating with the safety bureau on official matters. To be honest, I have no interest in those other messy matters.”
Wen Wen frowned, coldly warning, “I hope things don’t end up messy for everyone.”
“No, no, no, it’s not that we’re deliberately hiding something, it’s just…”
The vice-director sighed, “If we were to investigate bloodborne disease transmission, searching from the hospital angle isn’t wrong; it’s just that we often find ourselves powerless. Most people still have options and generally don’t come here for just endurance. They can’t afford it.”
He bitterly chuckled, self-mocking, “Because we can’t pay.”
The blood bank in Yacheng operates for profit, prioritizing private hospitals and upscale care facilities that can afford to pay.
Jici Hospital, barely surviving on church sponsorship, cannot afford the costly annual contract fees nor can the patients pay for blood by the gram.
Even during operations when blood is needed, they would usually choose… to bring their own.
After all, where there’s demand, there’s a market.
When the official blood bank is too expensive, those who can’t survive will look for alternatives, even if they're risky.
“Illegal blood banks?!”
Tong Hua was stunned, her eyes wide, “There are such things?”
Wen Wen kept quiet, her expression darkening.
Finally, realization dawned upon her.
This was why Jici Hospital was reluctant to mention it.
Who knew how many desperate patients depended on this lifeline? Even if it is risky, even if problems abound, sometimes not having this lifeline means certain death.
For a family like the Tong family in Yacheng, they owned countless properties and had stakes in multiple hospitals.
Places like illegal blood banks had nothing to do with her life.
Not to mention Wen Wen, who was even a gold member at the Hope Hospital; even if she were cut into pieces, as long as her head remained intact when she was brought in, those insane medics would piece her back together.
These gray areas in the medical field were far removed from her as a chosen one.
And those behind the scenes could unobtrusively spread the bloodlust virus within Yacheng through invisible conduits, planting it deep within the innocent suffering and despair, quietly germinating in the darkness.
Finally, they found it.
Another trace of their passage…
“Let’s go, Ah Hua.” Wen Wen snatched the car keys from the table and pushed the door open.
“Huh?” Tong Hua was confused. “Where to?”
“To find someone!”
Her voice echoed down the hallway, fading with metallic ringing lingering in the air.
“And then take out his entire family!”
(End of Chapter)