The night before the promotion

Chapter 80 Death
July 7, late.

Xiang Ji had been waiting in the corridor for a long time, and his worried eyes would occasionally look into the room through the glass window.

A medical cabin was placed in the center of the room. Li Weiyu was quietly soaking in the biological gel, with testing electrodes all over his body. The instrument next to him showed stable physiological data.

There were sounds of footsteps coming from the end of the corridor. Xiang Ji looked forward and saw Song Qiliang walking towards him at a fast pace, holding a cup of coffee and a lunch bag in his hands.

Ever since Li Weiyu fell into a coma, Xiang Ji and Song Qiliang have been guarding outside the ward. Even when they are resting, they take turns.

A series of events, inner pressure, and the reversal of day and night, all of these caused the two people's condition to gradually decline, like shiny metal covered with rust.

Song Qiliang habitually asked, "How is the team leader?"

"It's getting better."

Xiang Ji's voice was cold, just like his personality.

After Ucchusmo’s attack, although someone treated Li Weiyu’s wounds, his condition was still not optimistic.

The bullet entered Li Weiyun's collarbone and narrowly missed his heart, but the extremely deep wound still caused Li Weiyun to lose too much blood and fall into an endless coma.

Song Qiliang was lying on the glass window. He was usually cheerful, but when he saw Li Weiyu's condition, he couldn't smile at all.

"If I had..."

Song Qiliang wanted to say something, but the self-blame and sadness in his heart made him swallow the words back into his throat.

Xiang Ji comforted Song Qiliang, "You don't need to blame yourself. This is not your fault."

As the third actual participant in the entire incident and the only actual participant who remained unscathed, Song Qiliang, as a survivor, inevitably had many negative emotions in his heart.

"No...I still...how should I put it?"

A bitter smile appeared on Song Qiliang's face. He had a lot to say, but they were piled up in his mind in a mess and it was difficult to form orderly words.

He took two steps back, sat down tiredly on a bench nearby, and held the warm coffee in both hands.

“I think I’m still a little different from you.”

"how?"

Xiang Ji looked back. Although he was a new member, after spending some time together, Xiang Ji could sense the sentimentality hidden deep in Song Qiliang's heart.

"I am an armed avatar operator. I will never set foot on a real battlefield unless it is necessary. Yet you are stepping into that dangerous situation in person."

Song Qiliang said self-deprecatingly, "For me, it was just a simulated game, but for you it was a real battlefield."

"Perhaps, because we are in different positions and have completely different perspectives on things, this also leads to differences in our mindsets and ideas."

He smiled bitterly twice, "Xiang Ji, when you were working in Qingyuan City before, did you ever see a colleague die?"

Xiang Ji hesitated for a moment, then nodded and said, "Yes, I have seen it."

"I had just started working at that time and participated in an arrest operation."

Xiang Ji recalled calmly, "Originally this operation should have been very simple, just arresting a few smugglers. As long as we pulled out our guns and threatened them, they would squat down obediently with their heads in their hands."

"But the fact is, they were firing back at us, and their marksmanship was terrible, but there was still a stray bullet that happened to hit one of my colleagues in the neck."

Xiang Ji tilted his head, touched his neck, and pointed out the location, "It's here. The bullet penetrated the artery, causing heavy bleeding and death on the spot."

Song Qiliang tried to calm down and asked, "What does it feel like to witness death?"

"I don't feel anything."

Xiang Ji thought about it carefully and gave his answer, "If I have to describe it... it's like a gust of wind."

"A gust of wind?"

"Yes, a gust of wind that is invisible and intangible, it blows gently across your body, and you die."

Although he was talking about such a sad story, Xiang Ji still looked indifferent, as if he had no emotions.

"He fell against the wall without making any sounds or screams, nor did he utter any last words. He just looked at me and made a gesture that meant 'watch your flank'."

Xiang Ji paused for a moment, and then said, as if a doctor was issuing a death notice, "Then he died, lying there coldly."

"I have to admit that the first time I witnessed death, I was quite shocked, but after that, I got used to it... We just have to get used to it."

After listening to Xiang Ji's story, Song Qiliang silently raised his head and looked at the observation window in front of him.

He said, "Xiang Ji, I am a person who is very afraid of death."

In order to ease Song Qiliang's emotions, Xiang Ji said, "How scared are you."

"When I was a kid, I watched a TV series where a man was trapped in a sea of ​​fire but emerged alive. I naively thought that humans have two lives, one for death and one for another." Song Qiliang laughed with emotion. "To be honest, this really comforted me a lot until I began to understand what a hospital is and what rescue means."

"I became deeply aware of the reality, and this reality took away an illusory life."

Once he started talking, Song Qiliang couldn't stop and an awkward smile flashed across his face.

"I did many childish things because of my fear of death. For example, one night when I was a child, I woke up from a nightmare. In the darkness, I once again clearly realized that everyone will die.

Then I looked at my mother sleeping beside me, and suddenly I became extremely scared, as if she would die in the next second. I was worried about that possibility, so I listened to her breathing all night until I fell asleep exhausted. "

Song Qiliang tried to cheer himself up. As an adult, he undoubtedly seemed a little too fragile, but he was indeed such a sentimental person.

"It's not easy to become an armed avatar operator. You need to undergo professional knowledge training and be tested for mental stability, etc."

"I like this profession. On the one hand, it's really cool, and on the other hand, it's very safe. It satisfies my desire to be a hero, but it also keeps me from being in real danger like a hero..."

Song Qiliang felt a headache and said embarrassedly, "I'm sorry. I should be considered an experienced person, but I'm still so naive about this kind of thing... This is the first time that death has been so close to me, and it happened to someone close to me, and it was related to my negligence."

Song Qiliang has always been thinking, if the person sent out that day was not a scout incarnation but an iron soldier incarnation, perhaps everything would be different.

But who could have predicted all this?

"I understand how you feel. Don't worry too much. It's nothing."

Xiang Ji sat next to Song Qiliang. He understood Song Qiliang's pain. With the birth of the incarnation body, the unity of consciousness and body was broken, and many things that had become customary in the past were being broken one by one.

No matter how much training an armed avatar operator like Song Qiliang receives in a training room, it is difficult for him to truly experience the disputes and conflicts on a real battlefield.

The two of them sat silently on the bench, waiting for Li Weiyu to wake up at an unknown time, or waiting for some other news. Anyway, there was nothing else they could do except waiting.

Song Qiliang asked, "How long do you think it will take for the team leader to wake up?"

"Not sure," Xiang Ji couldn't give an exact time. "The team leader is different from Doctor Zhou. He has not undergone any mental training, and his sense of 'self' is not as strong as his."

"Oh...I know that."

Song Qiliang heard the rumors about Zhou Si.

For most people, during the recuperation period after an injury, everyone would rather fall into a deep sleep, slowly wait for the body to heal, and fall into a beautiful dream.

But Zhou Si was different. He woke up from the medical cabin on his own initiative and struggled to escape, as if the dreamland he was sleeping in was a terrible hell for him.

It is hard to imagine what Zhou Si’s brain structure is like, which allows him to stubbornly maintain a clear self-awareness in such an extreme state.

The reversal of day and night and the surging emotions made Song Qiliang a little tired. He slowly lowered his head and narrowed his eyes.

Perhaps he had seen it wrongly, Song Qiliang suddenly noticed that Li Weiyu in the medical cabin moved. He tried to cheer himself up and rubbed his eyes.

At the same time, Xiang Ji had stood up, walked quickly forward, and pushed open the door of the ward.

Song Qiliang heard the beeping of the instrument alarm.

Inside the medical cabin, Li Weiyu was tumbling like a struggling big fish, rolling up delicate bubbles.

He grabbed the edge of the medical cabin and sat up with difficulty. Then he tore out the trachea inserted in his throat and spat out blood foam in pain.

"Team leader, you're safe, everything is fine."

Song Qiliang tried to comfort her in a hurry, but was pushed away by Li Weiyu. He had a gloomy face and frowned, as if he was suffering from unbearable pain.

The violent panting gradually subsided, and Li Weiyun asked in a hoarse voice, "How long have I been unconscious?"

Song Qiliang wanted to say something but was stopped by Xiang Ji.

Xiang Ji's tone was cold, and he repeated the words efficiently and accurately like a machine, "Dr. Zhou was captured by the Elysium. We are still tracking down his whereabouts, and you are already in a coma."

Li Weiyu's expression became extremely painful. He was trying hard to process this brief but important message and piece together the fragmented memories in his mind.

"Dr. Zhou... is missing?"

Li Weiyun murmured to himself, and then the last scene of the memory emerged in his mind.

In the dark clinic, Zhou Si handed the phone to me and gave me his final instructions...

Li Weiyun's eyes lit up, and he shouted at the top of his lungs, "Cellphone, Dr. Zhou's cell phone has a program to track BT-24!"

Xiang Ji was stunned for a moment, then he picked up his phone and dialed the number.

"Ms. Ruan! We have the whereabouts of Dr. Zhou!"

(End of this chapter)