Chapter 185
by Need_More_SleepChapter 185: Still Fresh
In the county hospital hallway, midday or late at night, you’d often find family members sprawled across chairs, fast asleep.
Rural areas lacked major hospitals, forcing people to seek care in county or city centers—and space was always tight. No spare beds for every caretaker.
Summer wasn’t so bad. The corridors stayed cool, and metal chairs didn’t freeze your backside.
The real nuisance? Night owls blasting videos on their phones. Most would lower the volume if asked, but the stubborn ones… Well, let’s just say tempers flared.
Just as exhaustion finally dragged people under, a crowd flooded in.
Hundreds of wounded. Severed limbs. Blood everywhere. A nightmare scene.
And just as many escorts—mostly fellow Superhuman Police officers. At this hour, only comrades-in-arms could rally so fast.
Many in this line of work kept it secret from family. Trust aside, imagine a kid bragging to friends and painting a target on their backs…
Even with everyone seated, not a single chair remained free.
Yiwen sat on the floor, knees hugged to her chest, staring blankly at the tiles. A bloodstained gift box turned slowly in her hands.
Her clothes were splattered with fading red, though she didn’t seem to notice.
My Xiaoliu… She wouldn’t…
No amount of comfort changed one fact—maybe only Yiwen knew this.
Before catching Mi Xiaoliu, she’d checked the clock tower: 10:40.
By the time doctors took Mi Xiaoliu, it was 11:20.
No… I’m sorry… This is all my fault.
Her last words had been so cruel—and Mi Xiaoliu still gave her the gift…
Yiwen slapped herself hard.
Two colleagues grabbed her wrists.
More stretchers rolled out. The others tensed, dreading a body—and what Yiwen might do next.
“Governor’s dead. Rumor says he ruined someone’s family first. Lots of Fanzui City cops back that up. No proof now, but with that many bullet holes… must’ve been personal.”
“Huh? Then why’d we protect him? I lost an eyelash shielding him!”
“Tch. Kid, you’ll see worse. The killer’s dead too. No clue how HQ’ll spin this.”
“Seriously? If he’d just explained, we wouldn’t have—”
“Oh shut up. Since when do we take criminals at their word? You’re a cop?”
“Ugh…”
The elevator dinged. Enoch tiptoed over, offering Yiwen a paper bowl.
“Silence. Brought you supper.”
Yiwen shook her head.
“Silence, rest. Xiaoliu will be okay.” Enoch’s eyes lingered on her tear streaks.
He didn’t believe it either. That tiny frame, a bullet through the heart… Could she survive?
Yiwen kept shaking her head. Sleep was impossible. Her mind stayed empty.
“Take my seat.” The intuition-user completely unharmed stood.
Others followed suit.
Yiwen kept shaking her head. “Who fired the gun?”
Suddenly, the hallway fell silent.
Everyone knew what she was asking.
In the pouring rain, the directionally-challenged girl had desperately searched for a hospital while clutching the bullet-riddled girl in her arms—only finding one after her accomplice gave directions before escaping via time-stop.
The victim was just thirteen years old. A pretty little thing.
“I did.” Someone actually stepped forward.
A reinforcement officer from Fanzui City—Devil.
“YOU MOTHERFU—!”
Yiwen cranked her gravity field to max. The others, anticipating this, immediately restrained her, dragging her toward the stairwell. Even with multiple people holding her back, she nearly broke free—thankfully, someone present could counter her ability.
Her curses echoed down the hallway.
The Devil, pressed flat by the gravity, rose to his feet and coughed blood behind his mask. Calmly, he limped toward the reception desk for treatment.
Not his first rodeo.
“Why’d you do that?” Others eyed him strangely.
“If I hadn’t shot, would she have let the target escape?” Devil replied impassively.
“Did you have to aim for the heart? She’s just a kid! Probably forced into it!”
“Heh.”
—
“Heat-resistant scales, thermal vision, anti-manipulation defenses, venom glands, bioelectric cells, and muscle structures even doctors have never seen… If not for the Black Element corruption, given time, he might’ve turned himself into a silicon-based lifeform.”
“So he’s dead?”
“Dead.”
“I see…” Officer Chen held the phone, gazing at the ceiling with regret for his predecessor. “What about Mi Xiaoliu? Her foster mother is worried.”
“Stable for now, but still unconscious.” Humpback Whale recalled Wei Shi’s final words and withheld details—like how the bullet wounds vanished post-removal, or how her body healed itself.
Gotta bribe the doctors later.
“Did her heart stop at any point? Or her brainwaves fluctuate—even for a second?” Heli snatched the phone.
“I’m not a doctor. How would I know?” Humpback Whale frowned. “Who are you?”
“She’s Mi Xiaoliu’s foster mother.” Officer Chen reclaimed the phone.
Investigations showed Heli was just an ordinary school nurse—aside from legally owning an entire building, nothing unusual.
But what kind of question was that? Who cared about the process? She survived, didn’t she?
“The bullet didn’t pierce her heart—even though it was an anti-materiel round,” Humpback Whale said. “But I doubt anything happened mid-transit. The doctors said she was salvageable, though… something weird did occur.”
Probably something even Yiwen hadn’t noticed.
While frantically flying to the hospital under Hayato’s guidance, Hayato had initially planned to follow—but for some inexplicable reason, changed his mind.
“When she ran into the hospital, people she passed said she ‘whooshed’ by—like an old lady slipping past. But when they looked back, she was moving at normal speed, while everyone else nearby seemed frozen.”
“What are you talking about?” Officer Chen was baffled.
This brute’s explanation made no sense.
“It’s like she slowed down everything around her,” Humpback Whale mused. “A nurse she bumped into got stuck mid-stride—leg raised, black. Even the papers she knocked loose hovered motionless until Mi Xiaoliu was far away… About a six-meter radius.”
Exactly Yiwen’s maximum ability range.
Officer Chen zeroed in on the “black” comment.
“Security footage showed people could move—just extremely slowly. Like taking an hour to write a single character.” Humpback Whale lacked better phrasing.
“Honestly? If Mi Xiaoliu was affected too… then by the time she arrived, the body was probably still fresh?”
[Translator’s Note: See the index page for this Novel if you want to see the Amazon Link for the eBooks.]
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