I Run Away with the Earth to Save the World [Unlimited Flow] - Chapter 135

Si Jiayang: “Do they seriously have zero concern I might poison them?”

He wouldn’t actually do it, but he definitely wouldn’t hesitate to toss in a little anesthetic or sedative if needed.

Jing Qizhen glanced at him. “Well, this time you didn’t get the chance.”

The potato pancakes this time had been made on the spot with leftover noodles and potatoes.

Si Jiayang nodded, admitting, “True. I should’ve added something. If I had, those survivors would’ve passed out in a daze after eating instead of just running off.”

As it stood, evidence showed that even if something had been added, Yun Shuanghua had eaten it with no issue. And with anesthetics, effectiveness often depends on body weight.

The March Hare was clearly much larger than a typical person and even ignoring the fact that it was a creature from the erosion area, the dosage effective for a human likely wouldn’t even reach the threshold to affect it.

In the earpiece, Lu Lingxi continued. “The second-floor bathroom window is closed, no signs of it being opened or climbed through. The survivors probably didn’t leave from there.”

Manman followed up. “When we came in, even though Little Lu had unlocked the inpatient building door, the chain was still hanging outside. If someone pushed the door open from the inside, they’d definitely have knocked it down.”

Metal chains are relatively soft and once dropped, it would be very difficult to reposition them to exactly how they were before.

Lu Lingxi thought back. “The chain didn’t look any different when we arrived. I would’ve noticed otherwise.”

Jing Qizhen concluded, “Then the survivors didn’t leave through the main door either.”

Wang Feizhou, having seen them use a rope ladder from a second-floor window earlier, said softly, “Unless it’s an emergency, most people would just use the stairs, even if they have tools like rope ladders.”

Jing Qizhen chuckled. “True.”

Someone like Lu Lingxi, Yan Hong, or Gu Leshan could easily scale pipes from windows since they were trained. Jing Qizhen could too, technically, but as someone who valued his life and wasn’t specially trained, he wouldn’t do anything risky unless it was truly necessary. The same went for Si Jiayang, Manman, Wilcox, and even Wang Feizhou, where common sense prevailed.

While they were talking, Jing Qizhen pulled out his phone and opened the surveillance camera they’d set up in the first-floor bathroom earlier. The current feed showed nothing, but as he scrubbed back through the footage, he soon found the silhouettes of the survivors.

Jin Guijuan, standing next to him, glanced at the screen and blurted out, “They jumped out of the bathroom window?”

Jing Qizhen: “Yep. Same way we came in. What a coincidence, huh?”

Old Xiao hesitated. “Should we go out and search for them now?”

Jing Qizhen shook his head. “No need to rush. Judging by the timestamp, they’ve already been gone for a while. Even if we chase them now, it won’t help much. Better to check their ward first and see if there are any other clues.”

Old Xiao thought about it and agreed. Rather than chasing after the survivors blindly, it would be more efficient to search for clues. Maybe among those clues, they’d find information about what the survivors believed to be safe hiding spots.

The room was fairly large, so the group spread out, each taking a section to examine closely.

Lu Lingxi and Wilcox had also returned from checking the bathroom and joined the search effort.

Perhaps because several survivors had lived in the room, it was extremely messy. But with a thorough, almost raid-like, group search, all kinds of scattered items were quickly uncovered.

After about ten minutes, the group laid out everything that seemed potentially important onto the table.

A thin diary with many pages torn out, yet the trash bin had no sign of those missing pages.

A cracked mirror held together with the hospital’s opaque white medical tape, the kind used to secure IVs. It looked quite odd.

A newspaper that had been crumpled, smoothed out, and crumpled again so many times that the entire page was wrinkled and the printed text had blurred.

An old-fashioned folding fruit knife with a slightly warped handle, rust around the hinge, and what appeared to be traces of blood in the handle’s grooves.

Jing Qizhen picked up the newspaper first.

Although much of the ink had smudged and details were hard to read, the large headlines were still relatively clear.

After scanning the main titles, Jing Qizhen suddenly paused. “There’s a report about a serious car accident from a few days ago. I think it matches the case of that corpse in the morgue who died in a car crash.” He quickly pulled up the photo he had taken of the morgue’s death register, which listed the deceased’s name and ID number.

Jing Qizhen said, “It should be this person. The article doesn’t give a full name, but the surname, gender, and age match.”

Wang Feizhou leaned over to take a look and nodded. “Yeah, it sounds like the same case. The injuries described in the news line up too.”

Old Xiao added, “The news was from five days ago, so the accident must’ve happened before that. Based on the time the body was brought to the morgue, the patient must’ve been sent to Binhai City’s Second Municipal Hospital for emergency treatment, but in the end, they didn’t make it.”

Manman, however, focused on something else. “So the survivor had access to a newspaper from five days ago.”

While a five-day-old paper isn’t particularly recent, it’s still within the range of ‘current’ news.

Jin Guijuan immediately understood. “You mean someone might’ve visited the patient recently and brought the paper?”

Manman nodded and added, “Or the patient could’ve gotten it from a doctor, nurse, or even a guard, or bought it themselves.”

Jing Qizhen’s eyes drifted to the old folding fruit knife and he suddenly thought of another possibility. He asked Wang Feizhou, “Didn’t you say that patients with schizophrenia can have sudden worsening of symptoms if triggered?”

Wang Feizhou replied, “That’s right.” Following Jing Qizhen’s gaze, Wang Feizhou also saw the blood-stained fruit knife and said, hesitating a bit, “Self-harm isn’t exclusive to schizophrenia, but it’s not unusual for patients like this. As for the mirror, some schizophrenia patients have a tendency to smile at their own reflection.”

Manman couldn’t help but comment, “Honestly, normal people do that too, especially while putting on makeup… But somehow, the way you say it makes it sound incredibly creepy.”

Wang Feizhou: “…” I didn’t mean to make it creepy, I swear! QUQ

Si Jiayang looked at the tape-covered mirror and speculated, “Maybe the mirror got broken not from an accident, but from an episode, like the patient was smiling at themselves, then suddenly had a delusion, saw something terrifying, and threw the mirror away in panic?”

However, Jing Qizhen picked up the mirror and, after a brief inspection, shook his head. “No, that’s not it. This kind of small mirror usually has a hard plastic shell. If you throw it in a panic and it lands on something soft, like a bed or a pillow, it probably won’t break. And if it hit a wall or the floor, even in a fit of panic, it would’ve shattered more than just this tiny crack. Judging by the damage, the impact point must’ve been quite low…”

Wang Feizhou had a sharp insight into this matter. “Isn’t it simple? Just combine both your theories. The patient was squatting on the floor, holding the mirror. Then they got startled, dropped the mirror, maybe it even hit their foot first and cushioned the fall a bit, then it rolled onto the floor and broke into just two or three pieces, but not completely shattered!”

Jing Qizhen: “…That actually makes a lot of sense. It reminds me of a joke.”

Wang Feizhou was caught off guard. “Huh? What joke?”

Jing Qizhen said, “A psychiatric patient was dressed in black, holding a black umbrella, squatting silently in a damp, dark corner of the courtyard. He refused to speak to anyone until one day, a psychologist dressed exactly the same, holding a black umbrella, came to squat next to him. After several days, the patient finally turned and asked, ‘Are you a mushroom too?’”

Wang Feizhou: “…”

Manman gave an expressionless assessment. “Little Jing, that joke was so cold.”

Wang Feizhou added, “Actually, that joke is about psychological intervention, right? The psychologist empathized with the patient to build rapport.”

Jing Qizhen replied, “I just meant to say that maybe patients really do like squatting. Kind of like how some people collapse and squat down to cry when they’re overwhelmed, it might be some kind of instinctive physical stress response.”

Wang Feizhou thought for a moment. “The way you focus on these details is oddly convincing.” And somehow, he really was convinced.

After all this talk, everyone caught on to the main point.

Jing Qizhen was clearly speculating that the survivor might be connected to the car accident and that it triggered them somehow…

Grandma Fang voiced the analysis out loud and Jing Qizhen gave a slight nod. “It’s just a theory for now. We still don’t know what role the survivor played.” Reorganizing his thoughts, Jing Qizhen continued, “Also, the fact that the patient had access to a newspaper from five days ago proves they’re still receiving information from the outside. So the trigger may not have been the accident itself. It could have been the news that the injured person didn’t survive.”

Manman added, “If we follow that train of thought, the survivor’s fear of medical staff while still refusing to leave the hospital makes more sense. Aside from being ill themselves, they might have a personal connection to the accident victim. They’re staying in the hospital, waiting for a result.”

Si Jiayang frowned slightly behind Manman. “But if that’s the case, does their fear of the medical staff come from their own trauma or from the fact that the injured person wasn’t saved? That might be hard to determine.”

Jing Qizhen said, “I lean toward the latter. When we met the survivor, they were clearly afraid of medical personnel, but didn’t show any obvious signs of having been harmed. Plus, when we disguised ourselves in surgical gowns in the old hospital building, we moved around freely. That probably indicates a subconscious trust toward doctors and nurses in the OR.”

After a brief pause, he added, “Also, as a patient with schizophrenia, their behavior isn’t fully in their control. When we first entered the inpatient building, the survivor chose to hide in a room. They couldn’t suppress their fear, but they still agreed to talk to us.

“When they encountered something they couldn’t comprehend, like the March Hare, they ran immediately!”