What do you mean by saying that the corpses I sew are all ominous creatures?

I closed my eyes and felt the slight bumps as the ambulance tires rolled over the speed bumps.

The vital signs monitor in the carriage emitted a monotonous and regular "beep-beep" sound.

After the medical staff next to me gave my wound a quick rinse, they focused intently on Zhou Ming's condition, occasionally injecting some murky, specially made medicine into his veins.

Sitting across from me, Zhao Tie was wiping his shield with a stained towel.

He rubbed very hard, seemingly trying to relieve his inner anxiety in this way.

"Advisor Chen..."

Zhao Tie stopped what he was doing, looked up at me, and his rugged face showed a hint of apology and lingering fear.

"This time, we really owe you a lot."

"If you hadn't made it, Old Zhou's hundred or so pounds of meat would have surely perished in that desolate wilderness today."

I slowly opened my eyes and looked at him. His voice was gentle, without a trace of anger:

"This is a call I received personally from Director Lu. I was entrusted with this task, so I must do my duty faithfully."

Besides, you and I are old comrades who have been through life and death together, so we can't just stand by and watch you die.

However, your special operations team doesn't usually move this slowly.

I said this very calmly, without any accusation, simply stating the facts.

From the moment Lu Yan called me, to the moment I single-handedly stormed through Zhoujia Village, and then to the moment I fought Yan Kuan and the Living Dragon Corpse on the mountaintop, at least two or three hours had passed.

When Lu Yan was around, with the mobility of the Jiangcheng Branch Special Operations Team, even if Zhoujia Village was in the suburbs, they wouldn't have been delayed until I had already killed all the big monsters before arriving late.

Hearing my question, Zhao Tie gave a wry smile.

He reached up and scratched his head, then sighed.

"Alas, you don't know, our main force actually arrived at the outskirts of Zhoujia Village a long time ago."

The acting director personally led the team, and they brought plenty of equipment.

But...we're trapped.

"Trapped?" I raised an eyebrow slightly.

"yes."

Zhao Tie pointed to the thick darkness outside the car window.

"We encountered a thick fog as soon as we arrived at the village entrance."

That fog was really strange; visibility was less than two meters, and when you shone a strong flashlight on it, all you could see was a white blur.

What's even more infuriating is that the compass was spinning erratically, and all the electronic navigation systems in the bureau were malfunctioning.

We wandered around inside for over half an hour, unable to find the way into the village, and finally realized we'd circled back to the village entrance archway.

Upon hearing this, I understood.

That was a grand feng shui formation set up by Yan Kuan.

However, a question immediately arose, because I had a very smooth journey into the village.

I originally thought this formation was meant to allow entry but not exit, but I didn't expect that the people from the Folklore Bureau would be blocked outside when they arrived.

It seems I arrived at just the right time; Yan Kuan hasn't fully activated the formation yet?

Zhao Tie, unaware of my thoughts, paused, then continued with a hint of frustration in his voice:

"As you know, in our special operations team, when it comes to firepower suppression and close-quarters combat, none of the brothers are afraid of anyone."

But when it comes to the intricate work of finding the dragon's lair and breaking the formation, it all depends on Old Zhou alone.

Unfortunately, this time Old Zhou ran into trouble. We roughnecks were like dogs trying to bite a hedgehog in that thick fog—completely helpless.

"And then?" I asked softly.

"Later, the acting director got anxious and was preparing to have someone use heavy firepower to forcibly blast a path through."

Then, just as we were about to take action, the fog... suddenly dissipated on its own.

Zhao Tie recalled the scene at the time, his eyes still filled with disbelief.

"It's like being suddenly drained of everything."

Within minutes, the fog had completely dissipated, and even the gloomy atmosphere on the ground had largely dissipated.

Zhao Tie lowered his voice and added excitedly:

"What's more, just as the fog cleared and we were about to rush up the mountain, we bumped into two people who were running down the mountain in a panic."

Just those two you saw.

The two men turned deathly pale, as if they had seen a ghost, and ran away as fast as they could.

When we saw that things were not going well, we went up and took him down in a few moves, and then tied him up.

Later I learned that he was an accomplice of that evil practitioner on the mountain.

After listening to Zhao Tie's story, I leaned against the carriage wall and silently calculated the time in my mind.

The fog suddenly dissipated, which must have been exactly the moment I was on the mountaintop, using a scalpel to behead Yan Kuan.

Feng shui formations emphasize the interaction of qi (vital energy).

As the one in charge of setting up the formation, Yan Kuan's aura was connected to the core of the formation.

With his death, the core of the formation lost its leader.

Furthermore, when the living dragon corpse broke out of its coffin, the violent corpse energy and my baleful energy clashed violently at the mountaintop, completely disrupting the geomantic flow of Zhoujia Village, and the outer maze naturally collapsed on its own.

As for the Iron Man and the woman in the cheongsam, one can only say they were unlucky.

I scared them so much they ran down the mountain for their lives.

As a result, they ran right into a large special operations team that was already seething with anger, and were taken down before they even had a chance to resist.

"So that's how it is."

I nodded, my voice still gentle.

"Keeping those two alive is a good way to find out a lot of things."

Your trip wasn't a complete waste.

Zhao Tie nodded repeatedly: "Yes, yes, we are already very grateful to have brought Lao Zhou out alive this time. We owe it all to Consultant Chen."

Otherwise, if we force our way into the formation, Old Zhou probably won't even be left with bones or dust.

As they talked, the ambulance gradually slowed down.

The view outside the car window changed from a desolate suburb to a brightly lit city.

About forty minutes later, the ambulance drove silently into the backyard of Jiangcheng City First People's Hospital without sounding its siren.

But the ambulance did not stop in front of the emergency room building.

Instead, it drove directly into an underground parking garage with a sign that read "Internal passage, no unauthorized personnel allowed".

I've been to this place quite a few times, but many of those times I was carried in after losing consciousness.

As soon as the car door opened, a strong smell of disinfectant hit me.

The prepared medical staff rushed up with a stretcher.

Zhao Tie and several medical staff members hurriedly lifted Zhou Ming onto a stretcher and ran towards a heavy metal door deep in the basement.

"Advisor Chen, come with me. Your injury needs to be treated quickly." Zhao Tie turned and beckoned to me.

I followed him and walked through the metal door.

Behind the door was not an ordinary hospital corridor, but a heavily guarded special area.

Instead of the usual health posters, the walls were covered with intricate runes drawn in vermilion, and the overhead lights were much colder and harsher than those outside.

This is the Jiangcheng Folk Customs Bureau's dedicated ward in the city hospital, specifically for handling agents who suffer supernatural harm during missions.

I was led into a spacious operating room.