[Hello guys, I have completely corrected the previous Chapters and made huge changes. Please read again from Chapter 67 to get a better idea of the Chapters.]

Being tied to another person was never comfortable, and Bai Li had just spent a long time lowering them both down a building while supporting not only her own weight but Yan Cijin’s as well. Anyone could imagine how difficult that must have been, especially with the pressure on her injured hands. But the truth was, only Bai Li and Yan Cijin themselves knew the subtle emptiness they felt the instant they let go of each other. It was the kind of thing neither of them would have admitted out loud, and yet it lingered anyway. Bai Li made sure Yan Cijin was alright almost immediately after that, her eyes briefly flicking over her face, her shoulders, her posture. The question that came out of her mouth was simple enough, but it carried a kind of quiet care that stood out because it was Bai Li saying it. "Are you frightened?" she asked. Yan Cijin looked at her and could not help but think that Bai Li was worrying about her mental state while ignoring her own terrible condition entirely. That thought made her feel warm in a way that was hard to explain. It also made her want to smile, which she did only very slightly before nodding in reply. She was tired, and she would be lying if she said she wasn’t a little shaken by everything, but Bai Li’s concern still made her feel good.

Bai Li looked like she had just been pulled out of water. Her black vest was soaked through with sweat, her forehead and cheeks were damp, and her hands trembled uncontrollably now that the adrenaline had started to fade. Blood was slowly dripping from her black fingerless leather gloves, and the sight of it made the room feel even more real again, as if the past few minutes had only been held together by force of will. Bai Li threw her backpack to the ground and sat down beside it to rest, placing her Whisperfang inside the backpack before sending it into her soul space. Then, with a thought, she took out a kukri instead and laid it beside her where she could reach it instantly if needed. She had not felt much pain in her hands before, because when life was hanging in the balance, pain had a way of disappearing into the background. But now that the immediate danger had eased a little, it came back with a vengeance. The pain spread through her palms slowly, steadily, and combined with the exhaustion from the whole night and the strain of the rope descent, her face had gone somewhat pale. It was past seven o’clock now. The interdimensional market machine on the rooftop had disappeared, and the strange pull it created was gone too. The building had become relatively quiet in one sense, but not truly peaceful, because the zombies outside no longer had a clear target and were wandering around chaotically like headless flies. Some of them on the rooftop had even been knocked off by other zombies pushing and stumbling against each other, which only made the entire situation feel more unstable.

Because Bai Li had made noise smashing the glass, more than a dozen zombies had already been attracted to the doctor’s office itself and were now banging on the door. The thumping sound began to reverberate through the room one after another, low and relentless, making it impossible to pretend nothing was happening. Lin Da immediately glared at Bai Li and Yan Cijin, his earlier fear replaced by anger, and he snapped, "It’s all your fault! You attracted those monsters here!" Bai Li leaned back against the cabinet behind her and looked at him with complete coldness. The kind of cold that made people immediately feel smaller under it. "Even at a time like this, you’re still shouting," she said in a voice that carried no warmth at all. "I think you really want to bring all the zombies in. If I were you, I’d rather save my energy and block the door with these cabinets."

Lin Da immediately fell silent after hearing that. A shiver passed through him, and he could not help but remember the cold look Bai Li had just given him. It was the kind of look that made it perfectly clear she was not bluffing and would absolutely act if she needed to. He couldn’t help thinking that this woman was truly frightening, and for once, he swallowed his words instead of trying to keep talking. This doctor’s office was only about fifteen or sixteen square meters in size, with a single double door, which meant that as long as the door was blocked properly, the mindless zombies outside would not be able to force their way in immediately. That at least gave them a little breathing room for now, and it was enough for the room to shift from open panic toward a more controlled sort of survival, even if no one in it felt truly safe yet.

Hearing Bai Li’s words, Zhang Fan felt that they made sense, and after a short pause he finally nodded and lowered his voice a little, as if saying it louder might make the zombies outside hear him too. "She’s right. Blocking the door is fine. Everyone come and help." He immediately moved first, walking over to a long table that had been shoved to the side earlier and grabbing it with both hands. Lin Da hesitated for only a second before going over too, still looking a little shaken from what had just happened, and Ren Mingju’s assistant also followed after them. The three of them worked together to drag the heavy table toward the doorway, each step scraping across the floor with a rough dragging sound that echoed in the small office. The table was heavy enough that they had to stop twice and reset their grip, but no one dared complain. Outside the door, the zombies kept banging with dull, frantic force, and that sound alone was enough to keep everyone moving. Wang Li, however, did not help. He stayed in his chair like he was still in charge of something, pointing toward the door and directing the others to move more things over there. "Go get more stuff. That nurse and that patient too, both of you move quickly. What time is it? Stop standing around and do something useful." He sounded irritated, but the truth was obvious enough. He had no intention of lifting anything himself. He was perfectly fine sitting there and watching the others work while pretending to be in control. Bai Li glanced at him once, her eyes cold and flat, and then looked away like he was not even worth the effort of paying attention to. The whole room felt tense, cramped, and ugly, but at least the situation was shifting from immediate danger to temporary safety, and that small difference was enough for everyone to focus on blocking the door properly.

Yan Cijin ignored the others completely and quickly crouched down beside Bai Li instead. The moment she saw the blood seeping through Bai Li’s gloves, her brows tightened, and her expression changed in a way that was easy to miss unless someone was looking carefully. If it had not been for saving her, Bai Li’s hands would not have been injured like this. Yan Cijin knew that clearly. She also knew that she needed to keep her own powers hidden, and she knew Bai Li was the kind of anomaly that could easily break the balance of her plans if she ever became a real threat to her. That was the logic she kept telling herself. The kind of logic that should have been enough to keep her emotionally detached. But when she actually looked at Bai Li’s hands, saw the blood, saw how badly she had been scraped by the rope, saw how tired she looked even while staying upright, it still did not feel good. Her chest felt a little blocked up, as if something was sitting inside it and refusing to move. She could not fully explain why. It was not like she was suddenly becoming soft. It was not that simple. But there was a strange pressure in her heart that had nothing to do with the room, the zombies, or the hospital. It was only Bai Li. Just Bai Li.

"How’s your hand? Let me see," Yan Cijin said softly. She wanted to touch Bai Li’s hand immediately, but her own hands were not clean yet, so she stopped halfway and pulled back with a little hesitation. Bai Li’s palm was obviously in pain. She was still carrying zombie blood on her body from the earlier fight, and Bai Li was clearly worried that some of it might get into the wound and cause an infection. Yan Cijin remembered that right away and quickly turned to Bai Li’s backpack. "There’s water, wet wipes, and a first aid kit in my backpack as well as a bottle of disinfectant."

"Okay," Yan Cijin said, hearing her and immediately taking the backpack over. She opened it carefully and found everything Bai Li had mentioned. Water. Wipes. The first aid kit. Even the disinfectant bottle. She first washed her own hands with the bottled water and then used the disinfectant on them, wanting to make sure no germs would get into Bai Li’s wound and make it worse. After that, she took out the wet wipes and held them in her hand while leaning a little closer. Bai Li had tied her baseball jacket around her waist earlier to reduce the friction from the rope against her skin, and because of that she was now left in just a black tank top over her underwear. The blood on her neck and wrists from the zombie fight had not been cleaned yet, and because she had sweated so much during the climb, she looked messy in a way that was very different from the sharp and controlled image she usually gave off. Her face was pale from exhaustion, but even like this, she still carried herself with that same hard, alert air that made people hesitate before coming near her.

Yan Cijin began with Bai Li’s face. She held the wet wipe gently and carefully started wiping the dried blood and sweat from Bai Li’s cheek and forehead. The first wipe turned dark almost immediately, stained with the faintly foul smell of zombie blood. Bai Li stood there without saying anything, but her shoulders had already tensed very slightly. Yan Cijin noticed that too, and she did not laugh or say anything teasing yet. She simply took out another wipe and continued, moving more slowly this time, as if afraid that even a little roughness might hurt her. She wiped along Bai Li’s jaw, then the side of her face, then lightly at the side of her neck. Her movements were careful enough that they felt almost intimate, not in a loud or obvious way, but in that quiet kind of attention that made the room feel smaller.

Bai Li noticed all of it.

How close Yan Cijin was standing.

How focused she looked.

How gentle her hands were.

And somehow that made her heart start pounding again.

It was not a comfortable feeling. In fact, it was the kind of feeling that made Bai Li strangely awkward, because she was used to fighting, used to pressure, used to danger, but not used to being handled so carefully by someone else. Yan Cijin’s eyes stayed on her face and hands, her whole expression serious in the way a doctor would be serious, but that did not make Bai Li feel less nervous. If anything, the focused attention made it worse. Bai Li could feel the beat of her own heart getting louder and louder in her chest, and for a moment she had the silly thought that if Yan Cijin stayed this close any longer, she might actually be able to hear it.

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To be continued.