MM Racing Chapter 23 Wounded Evacuation
Chapter 23 Wounded Evacuation
My left arm hurts so much it feels like it's on fire, like fire is gushing out of the bones.
Li Ranmo's mind was hazy, one moment filled with images of bullets flying around the dock, the next with Shen Qiushui's deathly pale face, and then with the labels on the ten glass bottles in the tin box—"Typhoid Bacterium, Improved Strain, Type B-7".
The words on the label were flashing in front of his eyes, making him feel nauseous.
"water……"
His lips were so dry they were cracked.
Someone lifted his head and brought the warm porcelain bowl to his lips. He managed to drink two mouthfuls, the water dripping down his chin and wetting his neck.
"Slow down." It was Shen Qiushui's voice, very close, filled with barely suppressed exhaustion.
Li Ran opened her eyes with difficulty.
His vision was blurry for a while before it focused. He was lying on a hard bed, with old newspapers pasted on the roof beams above him. The windows were completely covered by thick curtains, with only a sliver of pale sunlight seeping through the gaps.
Judging from the sky, it looks like early morning.
He turned his head and saw Shen Qiushui sitting on a low stool by the bed, with dark circles under her eyes and her hair somewhat disheveled. She was still holding the chipped porcelain bowl in her hand.
"Where is this?" Li Ranmo asked in a hoarse voice.
"The place Han Xiuyun found is very secluded." Shen Qiushui put down the bowl, reached out and touched his forehead, her brows furrowing. "You still have a fever. Your wound is infected; it almost killed you last night."
Li Ran tried to move his left arm, but a sharp pain made him groan.
"Don't move," Shen Qiushui pressed him down. "The bullet has been removed, but the wound is too dirty and has become infected. Luckily, Han Xiuyun found a trustworthy doctor who cleaned the wound and gave you an anti-inflammatory injection in the middle of the night. Otherwise..."
She didn't finish speaking, but Li Ran understood.
These days, wound infections, especially gunshot wound infections, have alarmingly high mortality rates. Sulfaniol is more expensive than gold, and practically impossible to obtain.
"Doctor?" Li Ran asked silently.
"Hmm." Shen Qiushui lowered her voice. "He's one of our own, codename 'Old Zhong.' He's a very skilled doctor, but he left before dawn and can't stay long."
Li Ran nodded silently. He looked at his left arm; the wound was bandaged with clean gauze, but it still stung painfully underneath. The blanket covering him smelled of sunshine and was fairly clean.
"Where's the goods?" he asked.
Shen Qiushui pulled the tin box out from under the bed and opened it for him to see. Ten glass bottles and documents wrapped in oil paper were inside.
"He's hidden here," she said. "Han Xiuyun said Wang Qingnian has gone mad, and the whole city is searching for you. Every intersection, dock, and station is filled with inspectors carrying your portrait."
Li Ran closed his eyes and took a breath.
The fragmented images in his mind flooded back. He remembered jumping out of the air vent, firing the gun, the numbness in his left arm when he was shot, Shen Qiushui helping him run, and Ah Bing leading his men to chop and block the alleyway...
Then came a chaotic darkness and a persistent high fever.
"Did I...talk nonsense last night?" he suddenly asked.
Shen Qiushui paused for a moment, then nodded: "He said a lot. It was intermittent, and I couldn't hear some of it clearly."
"What did I say?"
Shen Qiushui looked at him with a complicated expression: "You keep repeating a few words. 'B-7,' 'water source,' 'three days.' And... 'plague,' 'cholera.'"
Li Ranmo's heart sank.
When he had a high fever, he lost control and vomited out some keywords from his past life's memories about the Japanese germ warfare. This was extremely dangerous.
"And another thing," Shen Qiushui's voice lowered, "you called out 'Captain' a few times, saying 'The intelligence can't be sent out.'"
The room suddenly became eerily quiet.
There were only the faint breathing sounds of two people.
After a long while, Li Ranmo opened his eyes again and looked at Shen Qiushui: "And what about you?"
Shen Qiushui didn't avoid his gaze: "What?"
"Don't you find it strange to hear this?" Li Ranmo asked. "How would an ordinary military doctor know these things? And why would he call him 'Captain'?"
Shen Qiushui lowered her head, her fingers unconsciously twisting the hem of her clothes.
A few seconds later, she looked up and said in a soft but clear voice, "Because I'm not an ordinary nurse either."
She paused for a moment: "I was in charge of underground liaison and drug procurement in a part of western Nanjing. My superior's code name was 'Qingshan.' His last task for me was to approach and confirm the identity and safety of a comrade codenamed 'Scalpel' in the army hospital. 'Scalpel' was characterized by his superb medical skills, which he deliberately concealed, his excellent marksmanship, and his investigation into Wang Qingnian's drug smuggling operations with the Japanese."
Li Ran remained silent.
Shen Qiushui continued, "I've been observing you for a long time. Your suturing techniques, your familiarity with first aid procedures, are nothing like those of an ordinary returned student. And at the dock, at the Department of Health, your reactions to danger and your marksmanship... they're too professional. So professional that you don't seem like a doctor, you seem like..."
"Like a well-trained secret agent," Li Ranmo continued her words.
Shen Qiushui nodded: "But I can't be completely sure until last night, when you had a high fever and said those things. Those terms about germ warfare... an ordinary doctor couldn't possibly know that much detail. And you mentioned 'intelligence.' So, Li Ranmo, or should I call you...?"
"The scalpel," Li Ranmo said.
Shen Qiushui let out a long sigh of relief, her shoulders relaxing slightly, but her eyes brightened even more: "It really was you."
"And you?" Li Ranmo asked, "What's your code name?"
"Qiu Shui. That's my real name," Shen Qiu Shui said. "I don't have any special code name, because my identity as a nurse is the best cover."
The two looked at each other without saying a word.
But some things are different now.
All the previous probing, speculation, and covert observation were completely exposed at this moment. The pretense was gone, leaving only the naked and dangerous identity of comrades on the same front.
Trust used to be something that floated in the sky, but now it's grounded and feels substantial.
Just then, the sound of a door opening came from the main room outside, followed by Han Xiuyun's low voice: "Are you awake?"
Shen Qiushui got up to open the door.
Han Xiuyun slipped in, carrying a cloth bag. She glanced at Li Ranmo on the bed and grinned, "Your complexion is better than a dead man's. Old Zhong's cooking is quite good."
She placed the cloth bag on the table; inside were several still-warm sesame seed cakes and a small jar of pickled vegetables.
"We'll just have to make do. They're cracking down outside, and buying too much will attract attention."
Shen Qiushui took a sesame seed cake, broke it into pieces, soaked it in hot water, and prepared to feed it to Li Ranmo.
Han Xiuyun pulled up a chair and sat down, her face darkening. "Two pieces of news. One bad, and one worse."
Li Ranmo gestured for her to speak.
"The bad news is, Wang Qingnian has indeed gone mad," Han Xiuyun said. "The inspection team has blocked all roads leading out of the city, and they've added patrol boats to the waterways. They're checking every house, ostensibly to arrest communists, but really they're looking for you. They're offering a reward of five hundred silver dollars, dead or alive."
"And what if it's worse?"
Han Xiuyun pulled a crumpled little piece of paper from her bosom and handed it to Shen Qiushui: "One of my brothers works as a waiter at the teahouse next to the Health Department. This morning, he overheard Wang Qingnian arguing with two unfamiliar faces in a private room. He overheard a few words while delivering water and wrote them down."
Shen Qiushui unfolded the note and read: "The goods are lost, there's not enough time... We must expedite... New channel... Riverside test site... Start in five days at the latest."
After she finished reading, she looked at Li Ranmo.
Li Ranmo's face paled even more, but his eyes were chillingly cold: "They can't wait any longer. Losing this batch of reagents and documents might cause unforeseen complications, so they want to launch the bacteriological warfare plan ahead of schedule. 'Jiangbian Test Site'... probably refers to the experimental site they secretly set up on the outskirts of Nanjing."
"Five days." Shen Qiushui's voice tightened. "We must send out the evidence and expose this plan before then."
"How do we send them?" Han Xiuyun smiled bitterly. "They can't even leave the city. Wang Qingnian is now willing to kill a thousand innocent people rather than let one guilty person go free. You two are trapped like fish in a barrel..."
She didn't finish her sentence, but the meaning was clear.
Li Ranmo struggled to sit up, but Shen Qiushui quickly helped him up.
He leaned against the headboard, catching his breath. "Any news from Vice Dean Chen?"
Han Xiuyun's expression was a bit strange: "There is some good news that is not really good news. This morning, rumors spread in the hospital that you, Dr. Li Ranmo, died last night after being secretly treated for an infection from your gunshot wound."
Li Ranmo and Shen Qiushui were both stunned for a moment.
"Dead?" Shen Qiushui asked.
"Yes, the death certificates have all been issued," Han Xiuyun said. "The news was accidentally let slip by Vice Dean Chen's trusted nurse, and it reached Wang Qingnian's ears. Now Wang Qingnian is half-believing, half-doubting, but the intensity of the search seems to have eased a little; at least a lot of people have been evacuated from the vicinity of the hospital."
Li Ranmo understood.
Chen Qitai was using this method to lull Wang Qingnian into a false sense of security and buy him time.
"But it can't be hidden for long," Li Ranmo said. "Wang Qingnian won't really believe it until he sees my body. Moreover, his acceleration of the germ warfare plan shows that his main objective has shifted—from capturing me to completing his Japanese masters' mission as soon as possible and making amends."
He looked at the tin box: "These things are irrefutable evidence, but they've also become a hot potato. If they stay in Nanjing, they could be discovered at any time. They must be sent away, to the person in charge of this matter."
"Shanghai," Shen Qiushui said. "My superior, 'Qingshan,' recently moved to the Shanghai International Settlement. He has channels to directly hand over evidence to higher-ups, and even to get it published in the newspapers."
"The problem is how to get to Shanghai," Han Xiuyun scratched her head. "Fly there?"
Silence fell over the room again.
Li Ran stared at the roof beam, his mind racing.
The entire city is under lockdown, with strict checks on both land and water routes. Wang Qingnian is now focusing on medical supplies and suspicious individuals.
Disguise? Wang Qingnian's men had seen him and Shen Qiushui.
Force his way in? With that arm of his, he'd have trouble even lifting it, let alone firing a gun.
The timeframe is only five days, or even less.
Just then, a cacophony of footsteps and shouts suddenly came from the alley outside.
"Checking household registration! Open the door!"
"Everyone, come out!"
Han Xiuyun's expression changed, she suddenly stood up, rushed to the window, and lifted a corner of the curtain to look outside.
"Damn it, we found this alley!" She turned around, speaking rapidly, "We can't stay here any longer. You two, hurry up and go through the back door to my other backup location! The address is..."
She gave me a place name.
Shen Qiushui quickly closed the tin box, picked it up in one hand, and used her other hand to help Li Ranmo.
Li Ranmo gritted his teeth and endured the excruciating pain as he got out of bed. His vision went black for a moment as soon as his feet touched the ground, and he only managed to stay upright thanks to Shen Qiushui's support.
"Will it work?" Shen Qiushui asked anxiously.
"It has to work, even if it doesn't work." Li Ranmo squeezed out a few words through gritted teeth.
Han Xiuyun had already opened the small gate leading to the backyard: "Quick! I'll hold them off for a bit!"
Shen Qiushui helped Li Ranmo, carrying a heavy suitcase, and staggered into the backyard.
Outside the back door was an alleyway next to a narrower sewage ditch, piled high with rotten planks and broken baskets.
The sounds of the search team banging on the door and shouting came from the front room, growing louder and louder.
Li Ranmo glanced back at the window of the safe house.
Han Xiuyun stood behind the window, gestured for him to hurry up, and then pulled the curtains shut.
Five days.
A city under lockdown.
An accelerating conspiracy.
And two wounded and burdened underground workers.
Where is the road?