"Look at you, still wasting resources even after you're dead. Wasting water and electricity—we haven't even charged you for utilities. We're already being saints here," Nie Yizhou scoffed, his mouth never stopping.
Yun Xiaoxiao sauntered over and plunged a knife into Li Sanqing's head.
"Bang!"
Suddenly, an abrupt gunshot rang out.
"Chen! You're bleeding so much!" Nie Yizhou cried out in panic.
Yun Xiaoxiao's heart tightened as she quickly turned around.
She saw Lu Chen, who had been fine just moments ago, now slightly hunched over, clutching his abdomen. Crimson blood was seeping steadily through his fingers.
Beads of sweat had formed on his forehead, and his breathing had become labored.
Yun Xiaoxiao's lips trembled as she rushed over to him.
Suddenly...
"Whoosh!"
The sound of a bullet cutting through the air grew louder as it approached.
It came with unstoppable force and momentum!
Yun Xiaoxiao's brow furrowed as she prepared to dodge.
However, a figure quickly lunged towards her, shielding her in his embrace as they rolled to the ground.
"Big brother!" Yun Xiaoxiao's pupils quivered as she looked at Lu Chen, whose cheek now bore a bloody graze from the bullet.
"Someone's ambushing us!" Nie Yizhou looked around but couldn't spot anyone.
He furrowed his brow and quickly ran towards Yun Xiaoxiao and Lu Chen.
Just as his hand was about to reach them, another bullet came speeding towards them.
He didn't have the lightning-fast reflexes of Lu Chen and the others to dodge bullets.
So, he took the shot head-on.
Enduring the intense pain in his arm, he let out a muffled groan but didn't dare hesitate. He grabbed the two and quickly vanished from the spot.
The moment the three disappeared, a young man on the rooftop of the highest building in the abandoned prison lowered his sniper rifle.
He turned to look at a middle-aged man sitting in a chair nearby, who was absently fiddling with a jade ring on his finger.
"Master Jiang, they've escaped."
The middle-aged man's expression fluctuated between light and dark.
"You stay here with your men and keep watch. If they dare to come back, kill the big one outright. For the little one, just break her legs. You know what will happen to you if you let them escape again."
"Yes, sir!"
"As for Li Sanqing..."
"He's already dead. What's the point in mentioning him? A good-for-nothing who couldn't even succeed at a simple task."
"......"
Nie Yizhou transported Yun Xiaoxiao and Lu Chen to the foot of a mountain several kilometers away from the abandoned prison.
He stopped to look around, then teleported again.
They arrived at a low-lying brick house.
Black bricks and tiles, with a mud fence.
Outside the yard was a large patch of cabbage, with two chickens leisurely walking around, occasionally pecking at the leaves.
As soon as they appeared, a hunchbacked zombie hurriedly walked out of the house.
Though "hurriedly" might be an exaggeration, as it was quite slow.
It was the zombie of an elderly woman in her seventies or eighties.
Yun Xiaoxiao apologized briefly before dispatching it.
She and Nie Yizhou then helped Lu Chen into the house.
Although the house was dilapidated, the interior was neat and tidy.
However, it hadn't been cleaned in a long time, and a layer of dust covered the tables and chairs.
After helping Lu Chen into the bedroom, Yun Xiaoxiao quickly took out a new bedsheet and spread it on the bed.
Only then did they lay him down.
It wasn't that she was overly concerned with hygiene, but both Lu Chen and Nie Yizhou had been shot, and an infection would be disastrous.
"I'm exhausted. I need to rest for a bit," Nie Yizhou panted.
After helping Lu Chen onto the bed, he collapsed on the other side.
Seeing this, Yun Xiaoxiao quickly took out the necessary items to treat gunshot wounds: medicine, bandages, tweezers, and the like.
She first did a quick bandaging job on Nie Yizhou to ensure he wouldn't bleed excessively.
Then, she went to Lu Chen's side, preparing to remove the bullet first.
His injury was more severe and in a critical area. If not treated promptly, it could be life-threatening.
But Lu Chen gritted his teeth and sat up.
"It's fine. I'll do it myself," he said, using all his remaining strength. Large beads of sweat rolled down his face.
He was already nursing old wounds, and now he had a new one.
The fact that he hadn't passed out from the pain already made him far tougher than the average person.
But Yun Xiaoxiao could tell from his trembling hands that he was probably at his limit of endurance.
Letting him remove the bullet himself would only hasten his death.
"Big brother, be good and lie down. I can help you," Yun Xiaoxiao said, her eyes serious and her tone brooking no argument.
She wasn't joking.
In her previous life, she had treated such gunshot wounds more than once.
Lu Chen locked eyes with her for a few seconds.
Finally, he lay down.
"Alright."
Although having a five-year-old child help remove a bullet sounded like an impossible fantasy, something in her determined expression made him want to trust her, just this once.
At worst, he'd lose a bit more blood.
As Lu Chen pondered this, he felt soft dressing moving around his abdomen, seemingly to stop the bleeding.
Then, cool saline solution washed over the wound.
The intense pain made his fingers instantly clench into fists.
If he hadn't reacted so quickly earlier, that bullet would have hit a vital spot, likely killing him on the spot.
"Bite on this," Yun Xiaoxiao said, offering him a clean towel.
He didn't hesitate, immediately biting down on it.
Watching Yun Xiaoxiao skillfully treat the wound, his gaze grew more intense.
How could such a young child know how to treat a gunshot wound, and so proficiently at that?
She also possessed extraordinary martial arts skills, eerily similar to his own style.
Most importantly, some of the moves were ones he had created himself.
Unless he had personally taught her, he couldn't fathom how she could have learned these techniques.
But he definitely hadn't taught her.
Moreover, sometimes her methods of doing things were quite similar to his, like her thorough approach to eliminating threats.
And then there was her inexplicable familiarity and trust in him...
All of this led him to a certain speculation.
A hypothesis that seemed impossible, yet was the only way to rationalize everything.
He pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind, planning to find an appropriate time to get to the bottom of it.
Yun Xiaoxiao removed the bullet, applied medicine, and bound the wound with bandages.
She also re-dressed his old wound that had started bleeding again.
Then, she treated the graze on his face from the bullet.
After finishing everything, she walked over to Nie Yizhou.
"Your turn."
Nie Yizhou opened his weak eyes.
"Okay... but be gentle, please."
Yun Xiaoxiao nodded sincerely.
What followed was a series of pig-like squeals echoing through the room.
Anyone who didn't know better might have thought Nie Yizhou was being tortured.
Yun Xiaoxiao swore to heaven that she was being as gentle as possible.
But this man had been wailing dramatically from the start, and she was quite exasperated.
She had never seen a grown man so afraid of pain.
She remembered when she was eleven in her past life, shot by bad guys, and had to treat her own wound.
She hadn't even let out a single whimper.
"You're such a crybaby. Are you even a man? Hold it in, no more howling!" Yun Xiaoxiao glared at him fiercely.
She looked as if she might jab him with the tweezers if he dared to make another sound.
