Monster - Chapter 74
Chapter 74: The One Left Behind
"Do you want to go back? Or come with me?" After injecting Lin Sandie with antibiotics, Lou casually put the bracelet she had pulled from the monster onto her wrist. It provided three minutes of immunity to thermal weapons—truly a divine artifact. In Lou's assessment, it was a magical item ranging from B- to A-class.
Is she like this with other women too? Lin Sandie wondered.
"I'll go back and check first," Lin Sandie replied, lowering her head to fasten the cuffs of her shirt. Her hair was a bit messy, falling on either side of her neck. The collar of her shirt, which Lou had just unbuttoned, revealed her slightly protruding collarbones.
Fortunately, the suit seemed to have some special function. Lin Sandie just brushed it a few times with her hand, and it was as clean as new. She wasn't in a hurry to go back, instead taking her time to tidy up her appearance at her own pace.
Lou stood to the side, a constant smile on her face, quietly observing her until painful screams echoed.
"Chen Xiao!!! Where are you?!!" a man shouted sharply, his voice growing closer as he ran in their direction.
"Another monster. I'll go deal with it. You can take the small gate in the back and loop around to find your teammates." Lou pointed in a direction and gave Miu the crow a look, signaling it to follow Lin Sandie.
She wasn't sure if there were any other monsters besides these two wandering Taiyin Village, and she couldn't let those disgusting things harm Lin Sandie again.
With that, Lou walked off in the direction of the shouting monster. Behind her, Lin Sandie straightened her tie, hesitated for a moment, then turned and left in the direction Lou had indicated.
Lou had the ability to infuriate her to the point of explosion, but it was undeniable that when she appeared, Lin Sandie felt a sense of security, as if all problems were no longer problems.
No matter what they encountered, Lou could smooth over any difficulty with a smile on her face.
Lou's arrival made Taiyin Village, which had been spine-chillingly eerie just a moment before, fall silent. Lin Sandie also calmed down completely. She switched her night-vision light back on, rounded a few streets, and headed back the way she came. Taiyin Village wasn't large, and it didn't take her long to find the ruined house where she had encountered the first monster.
The house had almost completely collapsed. The ground was littered with bullet casings and bloodstains. The two coffins that had been in the middle of the room were smashed, spilling two sets of dry bones. Lin Sandie merely glanced over, confirming that Mike had already left.
Leaving the ruined house, Lin Sandie continued toward the courtyard where they had camped for the night. But when she arrived, the place was deserted. The campfire was still burning, and several sleeping bags had been left behind, but the pickup truck was gone.
Had she been left behind?
Lin Sandie didn't feel angry, just a little confused. As if in answer to her thought, two high beams appeared in the distant valley, swaying as they hurried down the mountain.
"We don't even know if Lin Sandie is dead! Why would you abandon her?!" Yan Zhi, finally understanding what had happened, flew into a rage. Sitting in the back seat, she was on the verge of grabbing the steering wheel.
In contrast, Xiang Nan, who had always seemed to be on good terms with Lin Sandie, just drove in silence, his face flushed red.
Mike, in the passenger seat, clutched his still-bleeding abdomen. His lips were deathly pale, and beads of blood trickled from his whitened eyes.
"Stop the car! Go back for Lin Sandie!!!" Yan Zhi roared.
"Can you just shut up?! Even the captain almost died! Not to mention there are two more of those monsters! Do you think you're not dying fast enough?!" Xiang Nan yelled back. He felt Yan Zhi was being completely unreasonable.
"Dying is better than being scum who abandons a teammate!!" Yan Zhi lunged forward, trying to snatch the steering wheel from Xiang Nan's hands.
"Stop fighting..." Mike said weakly. He raised a hand and knocked out Yan Zhi, who was leaning forward to grab the wheel.
"We'll regroup at the bottom of the mountain. I'll come back for Lin Sandie."
In Taiyin Village, Lou found Lin Sandie, dangling the other bracelet.
"The others left?"
"It seems so." Lin Sandie showed no emotional fluctuation.
"Then will you come with me?" Lou asked, looking at Lin Sandie with a beaming smile.
"Although I've temporarily controlled the impulse to kill you, that impulse hasn't disappeared," Lin Sandie said with considerable honesty and integrity. The thought of harming Lou, stemming from the bottom of her heart, was constantly boiling in her mind. It was only because she had always been very self-controlled that she could temporarily suppress this tumultuous idea, but it remained a very fragile balance.
Given Lou's infuriating personality, Lin Sandie had no confidence she could control herself indefinitely.
"Is that so? Phone, do you have a way to remove the 'Scorpion' for Lin Sandie?" Lou pocketed the other bracelet and took out the red phone that had originally belonged to Yan Ting to ask.
Why remove it?
The red phone's screen typed out the rhetorical question character by character, wearing an expression of schadenfreude. Having inherited Yan Ting's traits, the phone displayed a twisted possessiveness toward Lin Sandie.
Lin Sandie feeling a murderous desire toward Lou, the one trying to steal her away—wasn't this a wonderful thing? The red phone even wanted to play a clip of "Today is a Good Day."
"See? It's always like this," Lou said, holding the red phone closer to Lin Sandie as if to complain.
"..." Lin Sandie took the red phone and asked it, "Is there a way to remove it?"
Not at the moment, San San~
The red phone's screen grew a few shades brighter, typing out the words in a lighthearted rhythm. But soon, another line of text appeared.
But it can be shielded, preventing the Rose Society from issuing any more compulsory missions through the 'Scorpion.'
"Then shield it for now," Lin Sandie said, handing the phone back to Lou.
The moment the phone was handed over, the entire screen went dark.
"You don't want it?" Lou found this strange. After all, the phone functioned better in Lin Sandie's hands.
"No." Lin Sandie's reply was quite heartless.
Feeling the phone grow a little heavier in her hand, Lou smiled and put it back in her pocket. She noticed that Lin Sandie's eyes had been red this whole time and said casually, "How about I treat your wound for you?"
Lin Sandie nodded. Once her nerves relaxed, she felt the pain in her brow bone more acutely, making her want to tremble all over.
Finding a place to sit in the original courtyard, Lin Sandie hugged the night-vision light and let Lou lift her hair and begin cleaning the blood from the wound with rubbing alcohol. What she didn't know was that in Lou's eyes, with her own eyes now brimming with tears, she truly looked like a fragile, beautiful piece of porcelain.
But Lou knew this was just an instinctive physical reaction, not a sign that Lin Sandie was actually that fragile. So she just cleaned the wound gently without making any teasing remarks.
"The cut is right at the tail of your eyebrow. If it scars, you could shave a slit in it. Super cool." Lou blew gently on the wound to help it dry faster.
"I don't want to," Lin Sandie said, a surprisingly childish remark. The cooling sensation from the wound made her fingers, which were tightly gripping the night-vision light, relax a little.
Lou's movements paused for a beat. She looked down at Lin Sandie, whose eyes had now disengaged their scanning state and returned to their original, lighter color. Under the soft glow of the night-vision light, a thin layer of light seemed to drown within them.
"Lin Sandie, you'll get me excited like this," Lou said with a smile, her seduction blatant.
"..." Lin Sandie remained silent and motionless, like a crashed computer. Her face flushed red first, but after the 'Scorpion' devoured her sense of shame, her expression became calm as she looked back at Lou.
"Don't you find it strange? We look exactly the same."
"Not at all. I find you very charming, a completely different type from me. The moment I see you, I'm filled with interest."
This time, Lin Sandie's "crash" lasted even longer. It wasn't until Lou waved a hand in front of her face a few times that she snapped out of it. Having regained control of her emotions, her voice was flat. "Boring. I'm not interested."
"Alright." Lou smiled at Lin Sandie again and began applying medicine to the wound on her brow. Though she was full of flirtatious talk, she rarely ever actually took advantage of Lin Sandie.
After all the commotion, it was almost 9 p.m. Lou didn't bother looking for another spot. She walked over to the campfire Xiang Nan had built and took out a camping pot to start cooking noodles.
"Are you hungry? I haven't had dinner yet. Want to join me?"
"Yes." Lin Sandie walked over and found a rock to sit on next to Lou.
After being fitted with the 'Scorpion,' her behavior had become more direct than the old Lin Sandie, stripping away many useless emotions and thoughts to prioritize her own self-interest.
Dinner was very simple: just a packet of instant noodles with some luncheon meat. Considering Lin Sandie's obsessive-compulsive tendencies, Lou let her eat first after it was cooked. Perhaps feeling she already owed Lou too many favors—whether out of resignation or an "in for a penny, in for a pound" mentality—Lin Sandie immediately took the handle of the outdoor pot and began to eat.
"What happened when you came to the Disorder Land?" Lou stoked the campfire, making it burn brighter. Seeing the bloodstains still on Lin Sandie's face, she found them a bit of an eyesore. From the first moment she'd seen her, Lin Sandie had always been impeccably clean. Her current appearance was a bit like her own down-and-out look from her early days on missions.
Lin Sandie ate until she was about half full, then handed the noodles back to Lou before telling her what had happened since she arrived in the Disorder Land, including how the 'Scorpion' had been hastily installed on her back.
When she heard Lin Sandie say it was Kang Yi who had instructed the doctor to prioritize installing the 'Scorpion' on her, Lou immediately felt a pang of guilt. Could it be because of what I said to Kang Yi back then? "You just wait, you damn straight girl!" Did that cause this trouble?
She had indeed wanted to teach Kang Yi a lesson for breaking her rabbit charm, but she never expected that before she even got the chance, Kang Yi would make a move on Lin Sandie first, simply because of her connection to Lou. Wasn't that too twisted?
"What's wrong?" Lin Sandie asked, seeing the strange look on Lou's face.
"...Nothing. I'll help you find a way to remove the 'Scorpion.'" Lou lowered her head and ate her noodles. She had really caused Lin Sandie too much trouble without even realizing it.
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