Reborn As A Doomsday Villainess-Chapter 230: The infection(3)
Chapter 230: The infection(3)
"If I had an injection I can withdraw some of her blood. But there’s nothing of sort here.."
[I can help you with that. Use this to extract her blood and place it in this vial. I’ll take care of the rest..]
Ruihuang nodded as the injected appeared in his hand.
[Check her neck. That’s where the rot started..]
Ruihuang nodded, turning her neck gently..his eyes widened when he saw the blackish vein like mark on her neck, which was quickly spreading to her back.
Her skin looked bruised beneath it, almost blistered in spots.
His eyes darkened.
"This wasn’t here minutes ago."
[It’s accelerating.]
He pressed the injector to the base of her neck and drew a vial of blood. The liquid inside was unnaturally dark, the red muted with ugly streaks of black, like smoke trapped in syrup.
He corked the vial and handed it over just as Lingquan’s small frame began to glow. ƒree𝑤ebnσvel-com
With a flare of pale light and a crackle of system particles, Lingquan shifted, his feline form unraveling midair.
A humanoid figure touched down with light boots against the floor, lean and lithe, with silver hair tousled like mist, and the same pale gold eyes glowing faintly in his angular face.
His clothes were simple: a high-collared, half-jacketed coat in graphite black, sleeveless with intricate lines glowing along the cuffs.
Thin gloves covered his fingers. In his hands, he now held the vial of Qingran’s blood.
Ruihuang blinked once but didn’t comment. "So that’s your other form."
Lingquan nodded. "I don’t use it often. But being a cat’s not exactly helpful for fine motor work or... synthesizing anti-rotants."
Ruihuang stepped aside. "Go. I’ll keep her stable."
Lingquan’s expression tightened. He knelt beside Qingran for one second, brushing his gloved fingers lightly over her brow. "Don’t let her slip. I’ll be back as soon as I get a result and hopefully an antidote..."
Without another word, Lingquan turned, and in a flash of light, vanished from the apartment.
He has gone back to his own section of the space to analyze her blood.
Back in the room, silence fell once more.
Qingran stirred.
Her fingers twitched against the sheets. Sweat rolled down her temple.
Then..
A soft, pained whimper escaped her lips. Her legs shifted. Her breaths came shallow and ragged.
Ruihuang moved immediately. He slid down beside her, pulling the now-damp cloth over her brow again.
Her skin was hot to the touch, hotter than before.
He checked her pulse. It was thready, he knew her blood pressure must have shot up.
Then her eyes flew open.
But they weren’t her eyes.
One iris still gleamed its usual shade, but the other had darkened, the sclera tinged faintly grey, unnatural, fevered. She gasped, staring past him, her lips trembling.
"Don’t let them take me... please... I told them I didn’t want to go, I told them..."
Her hand reached upward, grasping blindly, not for Ruihuang, but for something that wasn’t there. Her entire body shook.
"Hey.." Ruihuang said calmly, catching her wrist before she could hurt herself, "You’re not there anymore. You’re safe."
She thrashed suddenly, eyes wide with terror. "No! The glass—Yizhou’s hand—it wouldn’t let go—!"
Ruihuang pulled her into his lap, pressing her back gently to his chest. He pinned her arms to prevent injury.
Her hair clung to her cheeks, damp with fever. Her whole frame trembled in his hold.
He didn’t speak again.
He just stayed there, holding her tightly as she struggled against phantoms only she could see.
And slowly, after what felt like hours, she slumped back, unconscious once more.
Her breaths leveled out, but they were still hot.
The black veins had crawled further now, nearly across her shoulder blade.
Ruihuang’s jaw clenched.
"You better work fast, Lingquan."
A sudden hum of static filled the air.
Ruihuang turned his head sharply.
In a shimmer of pale light, Lingquan reappeared at the far end of the room, his coat fluttering as the system particles dispersed around him.
His silver hair looked slightly tousled, and for once, the usual confident gleam in his eyes was gone, replaced by something grim.
Ruihuang stood immediately. "Did you get anything?"
Lingquan didn’t answer right away. He looked past him at Qingran lying on the mattress, her skin slick with sweat, face pale but brow still furrowed in fever.
Then his gaze dropped to the black veins creeping along her collarbone.
"...I couldn’t find out what it is," he said finally, his voice tight. "I analyzed the sample in three different sequences. It’s not viral. It’s not bacterial. It’s... something else. The infection is foreign, like a corrosion embedded directly into her system nodes. The closest reading I got said it’s related to the Rift."
Ruihuang’s eyes narrowed. "You mean the tear in the sky??"
Lingquan nodded once. "Yeah. That Rift. It’s not just the environment it affected. It’s... bleeding through other things. Her system is trying to purge it, but it’s like the corruption is baked into her code now. Whatever got injected into her, it didn’t just infect her body. It tangled with her coding."
Ruihuang looked back at Qingran, who had begun murmuring again, her head shifting weakly side to side.
Then Lingquan said softly, "The antidote was never meant to be medicine."
"What?"
Lingquan stepped forward, kneeling and reaching into the inner lining of his coat.
He pulled out a small silver case and popped it open, revealing a single translucent pill glowing faintly blue, like a core of frozen light.
He looked up, meeting Ruihuang’s eyes.
"Whatever’s in her is stopping me from healing her directly. It repels system interference. But you’re different. You’re outside the system. You’re stable. If you give it to her, if you are the one who helps her, it might bypass the interference."
Ruihuang took the pill without hesitation.
"What is it?"
"I’ve placed fifty percent of my healing functions into that capsule," Lingquan said. "Hopefully this should do the trick to cure her.."
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