Chapter 60: North Plateau

Chapter 60: North Plateau

Half an hour later, outside the small building, a few team members in raincoats were met only by Deputy Chen.

Some team members couldn’t help but ask about the situation.

“She’s not feeling well, so she’s staying in today. We’ll stick to the regular patrol schedule.”

“Not… feeling well?” The team member who asked seemed to have a sudden thought, and their expression shifted slightly.

Before leaving, Chen Fa glanced at the closed main door of the small building. She pulled down the brim of her rain hat and neatly said one word, “Go.”

Inside the building, Shu Fu slowly sat up from the sofa only after the sound of footsteps outside had faded away.

Whether the mission was delayed or there was a glitch, since the time limit was 24 hours, she decided not to leave Shan Shui Residence fourth building just to be safe.

Since the mission came so unexpectedly and she didn’t have a better excuse, she decided to fake a stomachache, making three trips to the bathroom in half an hour to convince them to let her stay behind.

The trick of pretending to be sick worked with people who didn’t know her well, but it wasn’t necessarily effective with Chen Fa. Chen Fa was smart and knew her well.

She didn’t know if Chen Fa had seen through her poor acting, but Chen Fa neither exposed her nor asked further questions. It was almost as if Chen Fa was letting her make those repeated trips to the bathroom just to verify that she was serious about staying behind.

Feeling a bit desperate, Shu Fu just lay down on the sofa and played up her weakness.

She felt Chen Fa’s hand touch her forehead, and then Chen Fa told her that she would be back by lunch. If she was hungry, she could help herself to anything in the kitchen or cabinets.

Shu Fu mumbled an unclear response, and Chen Fa soon left.

Now alone in the living room, still dressed for outdoors, she sat on the sofa and felt a little silly.

She looked around the room and slowly furrowed her brow. Would anything unexpected happen here within the next 24 hours?

If something happened to the building while Chen Fa was out on patrol, and I ended up saving Chen Yuezheng or protecting the team’s supplies, would Chen Fa start to suspect something?

As it turned out, she was overthinking.

The entire day passed quietly, and by the evening, Chen Fa had completed all her patrol work smoothly. Nothing happened inside the small building.

Before going to bed, Chen Fa came over again and asked, “Do you want to come along tomorrow?”

Since Shu Fu hadn’t received the mission completion prompt yet, she didn’t dare relax and told Chen Fa she would give her a definite answer the next day.

The next day, after the 24-hour mark passed, her wrist device remained silent, showing that the mission was still active. She hesitated for a moment, and when Chen Fa asked if she wanted to go out today, she once again weakly collapsed on the sofa.

Chen Fa sighed. “Get some rest,” she said, still not asking much, just patting Shu Fu’s shoulder before quickly heading out for patrol.

Shu Fu kept up the act of being sick for three days. Eventually, even Chen Yuezheng came down to check on her, concerned. “Have you been having diarrhea for three days? Did you take any medicine? Not taking medicine is not okay; you’ll get dehydrated…”

“…I’m fine, it stopped a while ago…” Shu Fu, who had been subsisting on porridge for three days because of her “stomach issues,” weakly lifted her pale lips and muttered.

“Ah, I’m feeling better, but look at you… You’ve lost so much weight!” Chen Yuezheng lovingly touched her face.

Shu Fu, who had been sneaking extra meals in her room at night because of her supposed “stomach issues,” was at a loss for words.

Chen Fa seemed to have gotten into a routine; these last two days, she didn’t ask Shu Fu if she wanted to go out together. She was putting on her raincoat. For ease of movement, team members on patrol would wear split raincoats with buttons in the front, the raincoat and rain pants separate, making it a bit troublesome to put on.

As she dressed, she informed both Chen Yuezheng and Shu Fu that she needed to go to the power plant in the mountains to the northeast that day. The road was difficult to navigate, and it would take a long time for a round trip. She estimated she wouldn’t be back by lunchtime and would likely return in the afternoon at the earliest.

“Lunch will be the same as usual. Xiao Fu, just open the door for the team member when they deliver it. Oh, and remember to hand over the thermos cup Tang Ping brought yesterday to the team member to take back.”

Shu Fu agreed to Chen Fa’s instructions one by one, understanding what Chen Fa was implying. “Don’t worry, I can still handle opening the door… Grandma’s still not fully recovered, so she’s staying in her room to rest… Be careful on the rainy mountain roads.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll have other team members with me. You take care of yourself,” Chen Fa said, tucking her usual collapsible baton into the sleeve of her raincoat, pulling down the hood, and heading out the door.

The morning was quiet, much like the previous days. Chen Yuezheng did some light exercises on the second-floor balcony and came down to check on Shu Fu before returning to her room just before noon, avoiding the team member delivering lunch.

Just after eleven, there was a knock at the door.

Outside, besides the team member delivering the meal, stood Tang Ping in a white shirt.

He held an umbrella and raised the thermos cup, speaking calmly. “I’m here to deliver medication.”

“You came yesterday,” Shu Fu reminded him, as the medication was never delivered daily but every other day.

Tang Ping looked at her, and slowly, a kind of medical concern appeared in his usually emotionless eyes. “I’m here to give you your medication. I heard you’ve been sick for several days.”

Shu Fu frowned slightly as she looked at him.

**

The team member delivering the meal sensed the strange atmosphere. He put down the meal box and left quickly.

Tang Ping continued to look at her, and behind the sudden display of concern, there seemed to be another emotion mixed in.

Shu Fu examined him closely. Was there… a hint of excitement?

Creepy… What’s wrong with him?

“I’m not sick,” Shu Fu said, picking up the thermos cup he had placed on the table and handing it back to him.

“Your complexion is terrible. How can you say you’re not sick?” Tang Ping took it, switched hands, and placed it back on the table.

Shu Fu didn’t waste words and directly wiped off the foundation on her lips with her finger, revealing her naturally rosy lips underneath. “It’s fake. My sister and I were just playing around. You can leave now.”

Tang Ping seemed to freeze for a moment, but soon, he smiled.

Since Shu Fu had moved into Shan Shui Residence, she had seen him many times, but this was the first time she saw him smile.

He didn’t seem to smile often, as if his facial muscles lacked the practice, so when he did smile, it looked especially unnatural and odd, making the viewer feel a bit uncomfortable.

He turned toward the door, and Shu Fu thought he was leaving, but instead, he closed and locked it with a click.

When he turned back, he was holding a black object in his hand.

“Lying children deserve punishment,” he said in a strange tone, pressing a button on the object, causing a crackling electric spark to appear at the front.

Shu Fu raised her eyebrows. It was a stun gun.

Tang Ping took two steps toward the table and slowly pushed the thermos cup toward Shu Fu. “I don’t care if you’re really sick or faking it. Either way, drink it. Drink all of it.”

Shu Fu inconspicuously withdrew her finger from her left wrist. She picked up the thermos cup and shook it. “What’s inside?”

“Drink it.” This time, the smile disappeared from Tang Ping’s face.

Shu Fu raised the thermos cup. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the cup, which he had touched, carried a faint, lingering foul smell like the one on him.

"If you tell me to drink it and I just drink it? What can you do if I don't?" She raised the thermos, her tone defiant.

Tang Ping's expression darkened, and without another word, he pressed the stun baton, sending crackling sparks toward her.

"You asked for this!" Shu Fu, who had been prepared, stepped back two steps and then hurled the thermos at him with all her might.

The stainless steel thermos didn’t break easily, but it hurt when it hit him. When it landed, the lid popped off, spilling the yellowish-brown liquid all over the floor and staining his white coat.

Tang Ping looked down at his clothes, instantly enraged. He swung the stun baton left and right, aiming for Shu Fu again and again.

His expression and movements were fierce. If it were the old Shu Fu, who hadn’t learned self-defense, she might have been intimidated. But now, she could spot weaknesses in each of his moves.

She waited for the right moment, dodged his right-hand stun baton, grabbed his wrist, and yanked it hard, twisting it.

Tang Ping cried out in pain, and the stun baton involuntarily slipped from his hand. Shu Fu seized his arm, trying to pin it behind his back. But suddenly, a thin syringe appeared in his left hand, and he stabbed it hard into her arm.

The medication was injected in an instant; this was Tang Ping's last resort—a powerful anesthetic.

Since joining this team, this was the second time he had used this trick. At this stage, powerful anesthetics were hard to come by, and this was his last dose. He hadn’t expected to use it on just a young girl.

He looked up, his expression even darker, filled with a mix of anger and anticipation, intending to enjoy the sight of his prey's fear and helplessness before they fell. He loved seeing his prey show this kind of vulnerable look; the prettier and more fragile they were, the more he felt the urge to destroy them.

But the next second, the world spun around him, and by the time he realized what was happening, his back had slammed hard against a nearby table. The old table shattered under the impact.

Tang Ping felt intense pain in his back, and then a heavy blow hit his face, causing him to spit out a mouthful of blood before slowly losing consciousness.

Before he lost consciousness, he saw the young girl looking down at him.

She looked perfectly fine, without a trace of fear or helplessness on her face.

"Dirty players get double the payback," she said, raising a chair above him.

Chen Yuezheng had been napping in her room and was startled awake by the noise in the living room. Too worried about Shu Fu to even grab her slippers, she hurriedly crossed the corridor and rushed down the stairs, just in time to see Shu Fu raising a chair to strike the man on the floor.

**

Bang—the man on the floor was completely still.

Shu Fu noticed the movement on the stairs and, while flipping Tang Ping like a dead fish and restraining his wrists, smiled at Chen Yuezheng. "Grandma, do you have any rope?"

"...Yes."

As Chen Yuezheng's voice fell, Shu Fu felt a slight vibration on her wrist.

With Tang Ping unconscious, the mission was finally over.

That day, when Chen Fa finished her remote patrol and returned to the building, wearing mud-covered rain boots and a rain-soaked coat, she found the first floor empty. However, noises from the second-floor corridor caught her attention.

Something was wrong!

She furrowed her brows and charged up the stairs without even stopping to kick off her rain boots. A baton slid out from her sleeve, and her expression turned cold and fierce.

But her forward rush came to a sudden halt at the top of the stairs.

From this position, she could see the second-floor corridor, where a worn rug had been spread out. Shu Fu and her grandmother were twisted together, each holding the other’s wrists and ankles.

Shu Fu was trying to secure Tang Ping’s wrists while Chen Yuezheng held his ankles, both of them working to keep him restrained.

"Grandma, is this how you lock it?" Shu Fu asked, trying to adjust the angle.

"Yes, yes! Good, that's it, from this angle, you can maximize your strength and achieve the effect of leverage!" Chen Yuezheng was a bit out of breath, but she had a smile on her face. "The person who taught you self-defense is quite skilled. The moves may be few, but they are the most useful and suitable for you... But it seems you haven't practiced enough on your own, so some movements aren't quite perfectly executed... Remember, the joints of the human body have their weaknesses. You must know how to find the right angle and strike in one go to disable your opponent."

As Chen Yuezheng spoke, she suddenly applied a reverse lock, flipping Shu Fu, who had been holding her, onto the carpet. "—This will completely incapacitate the other person."

"Ouch, ouch... I got it... Grandma, you're amazing... that hurts, it hurts..."

Chen Fa: ...?

Shu Fu, pinned face down on the carpet, happened to see Chen Fa at the bottom of the stairs. "You're back! Hey, there's so much mud on your rain boots..."

Five minutes later, after changing her shoes, taking off her raincoat, locking the front door, and dragging along the tiles, Chen Fa followed Shu Fu into the bathroom on the first floor. Tang Ping's mouth was stuffed, and his hands were bound behind his back, lying in a disheveled and awkward position next to the toilet.

His hair was disheveled, his glasses were broken, his lips were stained with blood, and his face was bruised and swollen. His once-pristine white coat was now crumpled and smeared with blood and mud.

Probably because he had been unconscious for a while, he was beginning to show signs of waking up. Chen Fa frowned, took the stun baton from Shu Fu's hand, turned it to the maximum power, and gave him another jolt.

Before Tang Ping could fully regain consciousness, he started convulsing and remained unconscious.

"He thought I was sick too, so he came after me. What are we going to do now?" Shu Fu was worried that her beating of Tang Ping might cause trouble for Chen Fa. After all, she was the deputy captain of the team, and Tang Ping was a relatively important doctor in the team.

"No, he didn't come for you," Chen Fa said, looking down at Tang Ping with disgust, before stepping on his face a couple of times. She then looked back at Shu Fu and slowly sighed, "He came for... the mysterious illness."

**

A few moments later, Chen Fa poured herself and Shu Fu a glass of water and sat down on the sofa in the living room.

She told Shu Fu that she didn't know much. It had been when they had just retreated from Lucheng. She had recently joined the team and only knew that someone in the team was sick. She had seen the sick person back then.

One was a team member, and the other was a family member of another team member. At a rest stop on the highway from Lucheng to Hexi Town, they got off the vehicle with family support to get some air. Both were wearing masks, and Chen Fa couldn't see their faces clearly, only their bloodshot eyes above the masks.

Probably because they were sick, the two walked unsteadily, even with support, and moved very slowly. Their eyes looked dull and lifeless.

Chen Fa had just joined the team and wasn't familiar with the others, so she didn't stare too much. However, others who were closer to them approached with concern. The sick individuals didn't respond much, their eyeballs moved slowly, and they remained dazed.

Before anyone could ask further, those supporting the patients pulled their rain hoods low to cover their faces and led them away.

At that time, both Chen Fa and those who had asked felt something was off.

It was just a cold and fever, so why did they look so dazed and lifeless, without saying a single word?

It was only later that Chen Fa learned that it wasn't an ordinary cold and fever.

Fever, unable to speak, dullness, gradually unable to recognize people around them...

Chen Fa's understanding of this disease only went so far because later, their entire convoy arrived at Hexi Town. The family members of the patients declined visitors, stating that their loved ones needed rest. At that time, the team still had resources, including cold and fever medicine.

Chen Fa assumed that with rest and medication, the patients would recover soon.

But on the second night after arriving at Hexi Town, she began to hear shrill screams from other small buildings, sometimes echoing for what felt like hours. For some reason, the patients' condition seemed to have worsened.

Worse, a few days later, new patients appeared in the team, all showing the same symptoms, starting with a cold and fever.

At first, they were just sickly but could still recognize people and remained conscious, but gradually, the fever kept spiking, and their condition began to deteriorate similarly.

During that time, the team was filled with fear and anxiety, with everyone fearing for their own safety.

That was when Tang Ping appeared. He was indeed a doctor, carrying a briefcase, and found their team leader, Zhou Feng. At that time, Zhou Feng's girlfriend, Cheng Can, was also sick, and the team's stock of medicine had dwindled to almost nothing after so many days of consumption.

The patients had recurring high fevers in the early stages, and without medication to reduce the fever, it could be life-threatening.

Tang Ping claimed to be a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, knowledgeable about herbs and acupuncture, and said he could help reduce the fever."

That night, Tang Ping stayed at Captain Zhou Feng's townhouse. Chen Fa remembered hearing piercing screams from the captain's place, but they quickly died down.

After that night, Tang Ping earned Zhou Feng's trust. Zhou Feng had the team clean out an unoccupied cottage for Tang Ping to live in. Tang Ping kept to himself, only going out to gather herbs or deliver medicine to the sick.

If Tang Ping could truly cure the sick in the team, Chen Fa would have been grateful. In these chaotic times, forming a stable group was no easy feat. Hexi Town, being remote and resource-poor, wasn't worth the trouble for larger, more violent groups, making it a temporary refuge.

Tang Ping did manage to stabilize the patients who would scream at night, but he didn't cure them. Those patients only became quieter at night and still didn't reappear in front of everyone.

Gradually, Chen Fa noticed that there seemed to be a unique bond among the team members who had sick family members, something others couldn't quite understand. It was as if they shared a mutual sympathy or a secret, leading to an unspoken understanding.

At that time, Chen Fa felt subtly excluded by the core members of the team. She didn't really care about having a voice in the team. After all, she had been voted as the deputy captain by others. She was willing to work harder with her own hands to obtain supplies. All she wanted was to get her grandmother through these times safely.

But something worse happened. Chen Yuezheng caught a cold and developed a fever after getting caught in the rain.

It seemed like overnight, Chen Fa noticed that the core members who had sick family members began to exhibit an aura unique to them.

After that, Tang Ping appeared again, just like today when he came to the door, holding a thermos cup, saying that it contained herbal medicine specially targeted at this disease.

Chen Fa didn't believe for a second that her grandmother had the same strange illness as the others. She was very clear that her grandmother had caught a cold and developed a fever because she got wet in the rain. Although she still had two spare cold medicines left, they were a drop in the bucket and wouldn't do much for Chen Yuezheng.

Even so, she didn't want her grandmother to drink Tang Ping's medicine.

Chen Fa explained to Tang Ping and refused to give Chen Yuezheng the medicine he brought, but her refusal was ineffective. The captain himself appeared and told Chen Fa that if she wanted to stay in the team, she had to accept Tang Ping's treatment like everyone else.

Otherwise, he would have to ask her to leave the team.

At that time, Chen Yuezheng was delirious with fever, and there was no way Chen Fa could leave the team on her own in such a situation.

So she changed her strategy and began to play for time.

Under Tang Ping's supervision, Chen Yuezheng drank the medicine twice. Each time, Chen Fa locked the door after Tang Ping left, went upstairs, and made Chen Yuezheng vomit the medicine.

It was an extremely painful process, especially since Chen Yuezheng was still sick. Chen Fa cried while inducing vomiting, until Chen Yuezheng had thrown up all the herbal medicine.

During those days, Chen Fa didn't sleep a wink. She had to patrol during the day, deal with Tang Ping, and at night, she had to watch over Chen Yuezheng, using various physical methods to bring her temperature down.

Afterward, Tang Ping personally went upstairs to check on Chen Yuezheng twice more. Her condition fluctuated, with recurring fevers, similar to the initial symptoms of other patients. Chen Fa would have Chen Yuezheng pretend to be dazed and mute when Tang Ping came up, but in reality, Chen Yuezheng remained fully conscious.

Later, Tang Ping proposed to take Chen Yuezheng to his own townhouse and take care of her 24 hours a day. Besides him, there were actually a few other patients in his townhouse, all lone team members without families.

She didn't believe Tang Ping was that kind-hearted, working so hard to care for the patients himself.

She was very suspicious of his real reasons for bringing those people into his residence. His townhouse was located at the far end of the cottages, quite a distance from the others, very secluded. Usually, no team members dared to visit him.

With the door closed, no one knew what he did to those patients inside, and no one cared, because they had no family members.

Of course, Chen Fa couldn't let Chen Yuezheng go there, but this time, she didn't outright refuse. Instead, she thought of various ways to subtly discourage him.

After that, new patients appeared in the team again, and Tang Ping's interest in Chen Yuezheng gradually waned. After that, he only delivered medicine and stopped going upstairs to check.

Day by day, she watched over her grandmother, enduring. Then one day, Shu Fu appeared with life-saving medicine.

"So, he really is a sicko," Shu Fu said, glancing toward the bathroom. "Only a sicko would get excited when others are in pain." But then Shu Fu paused, realizing something. "When your grandmother was sick, he was always restrained. Even when he wanted her to take the medicine, he would pressure you through the captain, right?"

Chen Fa understood what Shu Fu was implying.

Tang Ping, though a sicko, had always maintained a calm exterior and knew how to act indirectly.

But today, why was he acting so recklessly and without any regard for consequences when dealing with Shu Fu?

Chen Fa and Shu Fu locked eyes for a moment. "Shit," they thought simultaneously.