Mental Illness Evolution Manual - Chapter 96

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It felt like an eternity, but finally, the tremors above stopped. Lu Mingqiu opened her eyes. There was still a lot of dust floating in front of her, but thanks to the energy-saving lamp that was still working, she could see.

On the arm that was supporting her, blood was trickling down the skin, mixing with the mud and ash on the ground, forming a dark red mess.

Strange emotions surged through her body. Lu Mingqiu took a deep breath, exhaled, and tried to stay calm, “Don’t move yet. There’s a clear space ahead. I’ll crawl out.”

The person on top of her didn’t say anything.

If she couldn’t feel the other person’s heartbeat, she wouldn’t have considered the worst-case scenario… she really didn’t know what to do.

After a while, she suddenly realized that the reason the other person wasn’t speaking was because she couldn’t hear.

When the explosion happened, the sound was deafening. At that time, you either had to cover your ears and close your mouth, or open your mouth and not cover your ears.

She knew to do that, so her eardrums weren’t severely damaged. After resting for a while, she could hear.

Did Yan Xianchuan know?

She reached out and covered the other person’s back of the hand. The other person moved her fingertips.

That’s great, she’s still conscious.

A sense of relief welled up in her heart. Lu Mingqiu used her index finger to write on the other person’s back of the hand, repeating what she had just said.

“ I’m fine,” Yan Xianchuan wrote.

How could she be fine?

Lu Mingqiu gritted her teeth, she used her elbow to support the ground, which was covered in sand and gravel, and moved forward.

They were lucky. The collapsed underground pipeline had left a small space, about two meters long. Further ahead, it was blocked by huge rocks and twisted, collapsed iron sheets.

The height wasn’t very high, it could only accommodate an adult sitting up.

After Lu Mingqiu crawled out, she looked back, her eyes instantly turned red.

A slab of stone was pressing down on Yan Xianchuan’s lower back. One end was embedded in the ground, the other end was leaning against the stone wall. There were also many rocks burying her lower body, she couldn’t see what was behind.

That’s why she had sunk down, because something had hit her.

Her face was very pale, the kind of paleness that came from losing too much blood.

“Can you move? Can I pull you out?” Lu Mingqiu wrote on the ground, “You can talk, I can hear you.”

“I should be able to,” Yan Xianchuan said thoughtfully, “This stone is stuck, it’s not pressing down very hard. But my legs are buried.”

“…I’ll try to move them,” Lu Mingqiu lowered her eyes, hiding all her chaotic and complex thoughts, “Hold on a little longer, okay?”

Yan Xianchuan stared at her intently, her pure black eyes were filled with a deep, quiet tenderness.

“I’m really fine.”

Her voice was calm, like the surface of a still sea.

Lu Mingqiu didn’t write anything else. At this moment, her throat felt like it was stuffed with cotton. It was a good thing she didn’t have to speak, otherwise, she really doubted whether she could keep her voice steady.

She crawled back. Fortunately, because of her profession, she was slender, she could squeeze into the gap between the other person and the wall. She leaned forward, reached out her arm, and pushed the stone that was pressing on Yan Xianchuan’s legs to the side.

During this time, she inevitably saw Yan Xianchuan’s terrible condition.

Her entire lower body was pressed against the ground. Blood stained her clothes and flowed all over the ground.

For the first time, Lu Mingqiu realized that red was indeed the most vivid and striking color.

She tried to straighten her arm, her fingertips pressed hard, and finally moved a piece of gravel. Once one moved, the others were easier to pry. Soon, she had cleared most of the rocks that were pressing on her left leg.

With some space, she squeezed in further, but this time it wasn’t so smooth. The stone was stuck by something, she couldn’t push it no matter what. Her current posture wasn’t good for exerting force.

Lu Mingqiu had to retreat. She wrote on the ground, “Try to move your leg to the left. I’ve pushed the stones on the left away.”

“I can’t move,” Yan Xianchuan paused, “I have no feeling in my lower body. My spine might be broken.”

“Why don’t you try to pull me out?”

After Yan Xianchuan said this, the underground fell silent again.

The other person didn’t answer for a long time, she just sat there blankly. Yan Xianchuan suddenly had a bad feeling. Could it be that her upper body and lower body were about to separate?

Couldn’t she even be dragged?

No, no, if that were the case, she would have already met the main god again. It must just be very bad.

If she wasn’t afraid that her force might make the situation uncontrollable, she would have crawled out long ago. She had lost too much blood, Yan Xianchuan thought dizzily, I can’t die yet.

I still want to live.

Heartbreak is a very simple emotion. With Lu Mingqiu’s ability, she could easily express heartbreak in many different ways. It was a basic skill for an actor.

But when the accident actually happened to someone close to her, she lost all expression, her mind went blank.

Lu Mingqiu controlled herself. She had important things to do now. She had to stay rational, she had to keep thinking.

No wonder… no wonder when she asked her just now, she said “I should be able to.” It was because she didn’t know what was going on at all.

Calm down, stay calm.

“…I can push it away,” Lu Mingqiu wrote down this sentence and crawled back.

She reached out and grabbed the other person’s left leg pants, she dragged them to the side. Through the gap, she finally managed to see the situation on the other side.

A piece of iron sheet was sticking down diagonally, it had cut through her calf and was flattened by the rocks, pressing down on it. But it was still connected to the water pipe above, so she couldn’t push it to the right.

To pull Yan Xianchuan’s right leg out, she had to push the stone to the left.

Lu Mingqiu thought for a while, she retreated, she lifted the other person’s shoulders and carefully moved her upper body to the right.

Fortunately, as the other person had said, the stone on top of her was stuck. Moving her like this didn’t encounter any obstacles.

Lu Mingqiu forced herself not to look at the blood flowing from her back, not to let herself be distracted. Then she squeezed back from the left, reaching out to the edge of the stone.

Her muscles were thin. To maintain her beauty, her strength was only slightly higher than the average adult. Compared to other well-trained Resistance members, her strength was very weak.

She also knew her limitations, so she focused more on training her skills. That’s why she was the best sniper.

Trying to move this huge rock in a posture that wasn’t good for exerting force was like climbing Mount Everest for her.

Lu Mingqiu wasn’t someone who liked to give up. Besides, she had a reason to succeed.

If it didn’t work once, she would try again. She adjusted her breathing and looked for a better point to exert force. Her fingertips were cut by the sharp, rough edge of the stone. She was like she wasn’t injured. Her nails were broken and cracked, drawing bloodstains on it. But she showed a look of joy, because she had finally moved the stone, she moved it away from Yan Xianchuan’s right leg.

With the stone no longer pressing down, Lu Mingqiu reached out and grabbed the iron sheet. Ignoring the sharp edges, she lifted it upwards with all her might.

A grating sound echoed as she struggled to lift the sheet. The other arm that was supporting her on the ground even trembled slightly involuntarily.

It felt like an eternity, but finally, the iron sheet left Yan Xianchuan’s right leg, revealing the exposed flesh and the bone-deep wound.

Blood flowed out like a stream, endlessly. How could one person have so much blood in their body?

Lu Mingqiu pressed her lips together tightly, she quickly retreated, adjusted her posture, and wrapped her arms around Yan Xianchuan’s chest again, pulling her backwards.

She didn’t stop until she reached the relatively dry and open space. She let Yan Xianchuan lie on her lap, carefully taking off her coat and bulletproof vest, leaving only the bloodstained undershirt.

Then she took off her own dusty and dirty coat, then her bulletproof vest, revealing the clean shirt underneath. Then she took off her shirt, leaving only her underwear.

Lu Mingqiu pulled out the dagger from her waist. She first cut off the fabric at the neckline, wiped the sand and dust off her hands, then carefully cut the shirt into strips. Holding it, she gently lifted Yan Xianchuan’s clothes on her back, trying to wipe away the bloodstains. She then took a small bottle of hemostatic spray from her waist bag and gently sprayed it on the wound. Finally, she quickly bandaged her wound.

Fortunately, after the Walnut Town accident, she had put the hemostatic spray in her usual waist bag. Otherwise, she would have been helpless now.

Yan Xianchuan had lost too much blood. If she didn’t stop the bleeding, it would be too late.

She didn’t know which wound was more serious, the one on her back or the one on her leg.

The wound on her leg was bone-deep, a large piece of flesh was missing. Lu Mingqiu’s hand holding the spray clenched silently. She gently wiped away the dust and blood around the wound, wrapped the shirt strips around it, and carefully bandaged it.

After doing all this, she put her coat back on before treating her own scratched right hand.

Finally, she picked up a clean cloth and carefully held Yan Xianchuan’s face, wiping the blood that had flowed out of her earlobe.

Compared to Yan Xianchuan, who was covered in wounds, she was almost completely unscathed. She hadn’t been hurt at all.

All the pressure, all the pain, had been bore by Yan Xianchuan alone.

The person in her arms had her eyelids half-closed, she was drowsy. Lu Mingqiu immediately patted her face and said in a hoarse voice, “Don’t sleep.”

She held her hand—it was so cold. She pinched her fingertips, her wrist, and felt her pulse.

“Don’t sleep, okay?”

Yan Xianchuan, as if she couldn’t stand it anymore, finally woke up. She slowly opened her eyes, “What’s wrong?”

Lu Mingqiu immediately showed a look of relief, she breathed a sigh of relief and wrote on her palm, “Talk to me, okay?”

The white light of the energy-saving lamp quietly illuminated the small space. Yan Xianchuan lay in her lover’s arms, her breath was filled with the strong smell of blood and dust.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

“No.”

“Are my legs still on my body?” Yan Xianchuan asked again, nervously.

Lu Mingqiu couldn’t laugh at all. She wrote word by word, “They’re fine.”

“That’s good,” Yan Xianchuan mumbled, “I don’t want to get a pair of prosthetic legs. The originals are better.”

“Why can you hear me talking, but I can’t hear you?” she asked in confusion, “Am I deaf?”

Her hearing was sharp, she was more prone to injury, and she didn’t know how to protect herself. Lu Mingqiu simply explained it to her, and finally said, “It will be cured when we get out. Don’t worry, it’s a minor injury.”

The injury to her spine was the major injury. She didn’t know exactly where it was injured or how serious it was. Modern medicine was already very advanced, there were almost no diseases that couldn’t be cured, but she couldn’t guarantee that everyone would recover to the same level of health as before.

Many people used prosthetics to regain their mobility. This was actually a shortcut.

What if she couldn’t recover?

How long would it take for the electromagnetic interference to pass and for rescue to arrive? If they missed the best time for treatment, the injury would worsen…

Lu Mingqiu suddenly closed her eyes, forcing herself not to think about it anymore.

Yan Xianchuan was lying on her stomach, she couldn’t see the expression on her face, she couldn’t guess what she was thinking.

Gaoshan City was located in the north. The weather was cold in winter, it was already below minus twenty degrees. The explosion released a lot of heat, but after the hot air rose, the ground became even colder.

They were underground, there was no cold wind, so the environment was actually quite good. But Yan Xianchuan had lost too much blood, she couldn’t keep her body warm. Lu Mingqiu could only hug her a little tighter.

The person in her arms was still chattering, “If only I could read lips, it’s so strange to chat like this.”

“I heard that deaf people can’t control their volume when they speak. Is my voice too loud or too soft? Can you hear me clearly?”

“It’s the same as when you talk normally,” Lu Mingqiu wrote.

After writing this sentence, her fingertips didn’t leave the other person’s palm. She paused, then continued to write, “Don’t do that again. It’s dangerous.”

“No,” Yan Xianchuan said, “If I hadn’t done that, you would have been in danger.”

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