82: Chapter 82 Hold on for one more minute

The hospital room was deathly quiet, and everyone held their breath.

Head Nurse Shen Ning's palm lit up, starting as a blurry, unstable ball of white light, which then grew larger and brighter.

Its texture condensed from a mist into a liquid orb of light, slowly rotating in her palm, becoming increasingly brighter and denser.

Its edges, white to the point of turning blue, projected rings of light into the air, casting a glow on the four walls of the room and turning everyone's complexion an unreal shade of pale.

When the light fell upon Qin Qingru's arm, she jerked her body upward—not from pain, but from the violent reaction of the virus sensing something it detested.

Under the illumination of that beam, the grey-green veins began to twist. Xu Wanning could see clearly that those lines were wriggling inside Qin Qingru's blood vessels like living creatures.

Forced by the light, they accelerated their deformation; their edges blurred, curling, shrinking, and disintegrating. With every segment that vanished, Qin Qingru's body convulsed violently.

The back of her head pressed hard against the headboard, the tendons in her neck stretched to the point of breaking, and a muffled, irrepressible groan escaped her lips.

"Hold her down." Sister Chen's calm voice came from behind her mask.

Xu Jingping and Xu Yu stepped forward simultaneously, each holding down one of Qin Qingru's shoulders, while Xu Wanning and Old Qiao held down her legs respectively.

Qin Qingru struggled violently beneath the three of them—not out of conscious resistance, but purely due to involuntary frenzy.

Red welts were seared onto her arm under the beam of light. In some places, the skin began to develop tiny, dense blisters. These transparent blisters would swell on the surface of the skin, only to be scorched back down by the heat of the light, over and over again—a shocking sight.

Head Nurse Shen Ning's complexion paled at a rate visible to the naked eye; her lips faded from their normal rosy color to light pink, and then to a deathly white with almost no color at all.

Sweat began to break out on her forehead, beads of it trickling down her temples and dripping onto the collar of her white coat.

Her palms were trembling with increasing frequency, and the intensity and range of the ball of light began to fluctuate, flickering on and off.

"Five minutes." Sister Chen glanced at the electronic watch on her wrist, her voice sinking. "Hold on for one more minute, Head Nurse Shen Ning, just one more minute."

Currently, the medical center had only recruited Head Nurse Shen Ning as a Light-type Ability User, and there was only one Healing Ability User, Song Yunqing. If their supernatural abilities were exhausted before they could save the patient, then there would truly be no hope left.

Head Nurse Shen Ning didn't speak, but the muscles in her arm bulged suddenly, blue veins popping from her wrist all the way to her elbow. The light in her palm flared up again just as it was on the verge of dissipating, stinging everyone's eyes so they couldn't keep them open.

Under this intensified radiation, the grey-green veins disintegrated even faster. They retreated from the elbow to below the elbow, from the wrist to the area around the wound, finally struggling and wriggling at the edges of the wound before shrinking into a few scattered grey-green dots, which then extinguished one by one.

"Song Yunqing, go!" Sister Chen practically roared.

Head Nurse Shen Ning withdrew her palm at the same moment, taking two steps back before her back hit the wall. She slid down the wall to a sitting position, gasping for air.

Like paper just pulled out of water, half of her vitality had been drained in those short six minutes. No one went to help her; everyone was unable to free their hands.

Song Yunqing placed her hands on Qin Qingru's wound. Her Supernatural ability wasn't as visually stunning as Head Nurse Shen Ning's; there was no light, just pure transparency, and no sound—it was quiet and calm.

The upturned flesh around the wound slowly shrank, and the everted edges gradually closed toward the center. The small blisters burned by Head Nurse Shen Ning's light orb also flattened, the liquid inside reabsorbed by the tissue, and the skin surface slowly became smooth.

The color of the wound also gradually returned from the blackened, dark red it had been after the bite to a normal, fresh red.

Healthy, vibrant blood refilled those blood vessels that had once been occupied by the virus. Qin Qingru's breathing slowly calmed down, she stopped struggling, her limbs relaxed, and she lay flat on the surgical bed.

The grey-green veins on the back of her hand had completely vanished, leaving only some faint red burn marks on the skin.

Song Yunqing also had sweat on her forehead, but it wasn't as pronounced as Head Nurse Shen Ning's. She closed her eyes, her lips moving as if reciting something silently, and her palms moved slowly over Qin Qingru's wound.

The flesh half a centimeter below her palms continued to heal slowly under her guidance. The deepest tooth mark in the wound was gradually filled with new granulation tissue, and the skin at the edges closed together, forming a long, fresh scar.

Sister Chen bent down and shone a flashlight into Qin Qingru's pupils, then clicked an electronic thermometer against her forehead.

Glancing at the displayed value, a hint of relaxation appeared in the eyes above her mask. "Vital signs are stable."

She exhaled behind her mask, "Body temperature is dropping, 37.8 degrees, heart rate has stabilized, blood pressure is up—the infection should be under control."

In the operating room, no one spoke. It wasn't that they didn't want to; it was that everyone had been drained of energy by the tension of the last few minutes, a lump in their throats making it impossible to speak.

The one who broke the silence was Qin Qingru. She turned her head, blinked her swollen eyes, and saw Head Nurse Shen Ning slumped by the wall, Song Yunqing still continuing to treat her, her husband and son holding her shoulders, and Xu Wanning and an unfamiliar doctor holding her legs.

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out the first time; her throat had been locked by spasms. She swallowed, tried a second time, "Ningning, am I... did I not... die?"

The sentence was spoken in broken fragments, the voice so soft that it couldn't be heard without listening closely.

Xu Wanning took a step forward, looking down at her. "Yeah, you didn't die. You're fine now."

Qin Qingru's tears fell like a broken string of pearls. "That's great, that's great."

There was no sobbing, no wailing; she just lay there, letting her tears flow uncontrollably, crying quietly yet torrentially.

From the moment she was bitten until she closed her eyes to wait for death, she had thought of many things, but now, finally, she didn't have to think about those anymore.

"Didn't die, didn't die." She repeated while crying, her voice trembling violently, her lips quivering.

The people around them couldn't help but have their eyes turn red as well.

Sister Chen and the others were receiving a patient bitten by a zombie for the first time. They had all been doctors and nurses in hospitals before and had seen too much injury and illness, having grown accustomed to life and death, but they still couldn't help but feel happy at saving a life.

Xu Yu turned his back and quickly wiped the corner of his eye.

Xu Jingping coughed, turned around, and wiped his tears silently.

Head Nurse Shen Ning, leaning against the corner of the wall, was helped up by Sister Chen. The corners of her mouth curled up; it was her first time using her Supernatural ability to save someone, and the feeling wasn't bad.

Xu Wanning stood by the bed, waiting for Qin Qingru's tears to gradually subside before turning to ask Sister Chen, "Does she need to stay here for isolation and observation?"

"Yes, at least forty-eight hours. There might still be residual virus. If we notice anything unusual, we can provide help immediately," Sister Chen nodded. "After forty-eight hours, if there's nothing unusual, you can go home."

"Okay." Xu Wanning looked at them gratefully. "Thank you."

"Sister Chen, another casualty has arrived!" The voice of the young nurse from earlier rang out from outside again.