Chapter 99
Lin Tu was glad she hadn't eaten—otherwise, the contents of her stomach would be joining the mess outside.
The contamination level in the corridor spiked to 32% in an instant. Lin Tu watched the surveillance feed as several doorknobs twisted, the people inside practically itching to open their doors. A few doors did swing open, heads poking out to investigate. Those who'd already stepped into the hallway saw their infection levels jump by 5% to 10% in the blink of an eye.
Lin Tu didn't hesitate about whether to go out and help. She decisively sent Xiao Hei to smash the fire alarm button in the corridor while she herself sprinted to the door and snatched up the landline phone—that phone had been pushed to the edge of the door during the Anju arrival, and Lin Tu had never bothered to move it since.
"Hello?" Lin Tu spoke rapidly. "Deck 4, Room 457—someone's being attacked! It looks like someone with the plague just went crazy. I saw it from a distance and didn't dare go near. You need to send people to contain him now!"
The moment she hung up, the fire sprinklers in the corridor kicked in automatically. Accompanied by the piercing wail of the alarm, the sprinkler heads spun and drenched the entire fourth-floor corridor until everyone looked like drowned rats. Those who'd opened their doors immediately retreated back inside, shouting as they went, "Which lunatic hit the fire alarm?!" From what they could see, there was no fire at all—just two people in the hallway.
And a few dozen seconds earlier, the man who'd been bitten by the infected patient was finally snapping out of his shock, screaming for help. How could he not recognize what was happening? Damn it—wasn't this exactly the kind of situation that only appeared at high infection levels?
Hadn't they just dealt with people like Jokel and Qiu Shisha a few days ago? How could there still be plague patients showing up, and with infection levels this high?
The man desperately tried to shove the infected patient off, but he felt his body go weak as if he'd come down with a fever—dizzy, achy, chilled to the bone, shivering uncontrollably. The virus invaded his body at terrifying speed, and the stench of rotten, oozing pus made his stomach churn. Under the assault from both inside and out, he couldn't hold back the bile rising in his throat. The acid that nearly came up was forced back down by his clamped mouth, only to leak out through his nose.
He was done for... The man was about to give up and lie flat when the piercing fire alarm rang out.
Water sprayed down from above like sweet rain, washing away the virus from his mouth and nose, rinsing the pus off the infected patient's body, and dispersing the foul stench that filled the whole corridor.
Behind her door, Lin Tu watched the corridor's infection level drop rapidly thanks to the sprinklers and let out a sigh of relief. She'd been worried the water would be as contaminated as Malin En had said, but now it seemed her guess was right—each floor had its own water storage, and only the lower two floors were affected by the contaminated source. That's why the authorities had been so reckless; the people on the upper four floors hadn't been affected at all.
The man's spirits rallied, and he found a surge of strength. He shoved the infected patient off him hard, scrambled away on hands and knees, then turned and ran for his life.
The cool water soaked the infected patient's matted hair, plastering it over his eyes and blinding him, keeping him from giving chase immediately.
Doors on both sides of the corridor opened again, men and women sticking their heads out to curse at the two making such a racket in the hallway. In no time, the whole corridor was in chaos like a boiling pot of porridge.
The infected patient lifted his head slightly, looking around in confusion. A raspy "Heh... heh... heh..." escaped his throat, but his vocal cords had been burned by the stomach acid he'd regurgitated, so no one could make out what he was trying to say. Lin Tu tilted her head, using the heightened senses granted by the [Human Evolution Liquid] to try and catch the words on his lips.
"Hey! I'm talking to you!" Just then, someone barked. "Are you the one who set off the fire alarm? Wanted a shower, huh? Come here, I'll help you wash! Just looking at you makes me feel like I'll catch something. If a plague source shows up on this ship, it's definitely you spreading it!"
Lin Tu heard it all clearly from her room and couldn't help but facepalm. Dude, get back in your room right now. If he actually goes after you, you won't be so cocky.
Provoked, the infected patient jerked his head up and fixed his gaze on the man. His sticky hair whipped back, revealing bloodshot eyes, a face red and raw from stomach acid burns, and the pus sac on the lymph nodes of his neck—already burst, but with the thick pus yet to fully drain, it still bulged large.
Their eyes met for a moment. The man's eyes went wide, and then a scream erupted from his throat at the highest decibel his lungs could manage: "Holy shit—plague patient!"
As the infected patient flew toward him, he slammed the door shut with a bang, leaving the infected patient staring at a closed door.
The others caught on and followed suit, slamming their doors shut in terror.
Lin Tu checked the surveillance feed. The soldiers had already reached the stairs on Deck 2. She breathed a sigh of relief, glad she'd reported it so quickly. Everything after this should be handled by the authorities—nothing to do with her, right? Relaxing, Lin Tu decided to have the Butler pull up the surveillance records to see where this infected patient had come from.
But just as she tossed her phone to the Butler, she heard a sudden "Thud!" from the direction of her door.
Lin Tu whipped her head around. The sound didn't stop—"Thud! Thud!"—like a severed head hung in front of the door, knocked against the wood in a rhythm that was both measured and utterly random as the wind blew it in the dead of night.
"He... he found us!" the Butler's voice trembled. It had built up a bold heart through the earlier disasters, no longer so afraid of monsters or death, but that was all predicated on the monster not being right outside the door!
On the surveillance feed now, the creature stood right in front of her door, pounding on it relentlessly. Even through the closed door, Lin Tu could feel a scorching gaze settle on her like something physical. Her phone buzzed with a message, and a notification popped up on the monitor—
[From the 'I Love My Home' Wind Chime: Good evening, Master. A quasi-C-level monster is attempting to break down your door. Do make sure you keep it closed~]
Lin Tu's thoughts immediately began to drift. With all those rooms in the corridor, why did the infected patient fixate on her room—so much farther away? What made her different from everyone else?
The image of the just-bitten man fleeing while the infected patient stayed rooted in place replayed in her mind. Could it be that the reason he hadn't chased the man wasn't because his eyes were blinded by wet hair, but because the man was already infected and no longer interested him—and in that moment, he'd spotted a better prey?
Like Lin Tu. The biggest difference between her and everyone else was that she'd protected herself perfectly. Her infection level was still 0%.
"Don't worry, the door won't break anytime soon." After all, it had been reinforced with 150 points—hardly some shoddy construction. "The real problem is, I can't let the soldiers find out, or they might force me out there to confront it."
Thinking fast, Lin Tu planned to send Xiao Hei into the corridor's lamp cover and short-circuit the bulb's tungsten filament to explode, drawing the infected patient's attention away.
Just then, another door not far away opened, and someone shouted: "Can't a person get any sleep at this hour? Yap yap yap yap yap! Have you no decency?! I was sleeping like a baby when you woke me up!"
That outburst sent the infected patient into a frenzy. He abandoned Lin Tu—that too-well-packaged, hard-to-crack delicacy—and lunged at the newcomer instead.
Lin Tu halted her control over Xiao Hei. At the same time, down the corridor, a squad of about a dozen soldiers finally arrived on the scene.
The lead soldier raised a gun and, without a moment's hesitation, fired a bullet straight into the infected patient's forehead.
A loud "BANG!" rang out—but the sound didn't come from the gun.
The muzzle was fitted with a silencer, so the shot sounded like a cabinet toppling onto a carpet—loud but not shocking. No, the deafening sound came from the infected patient's head—
His skull finally gave out under the immense pressure and burst like a water tank. A viscous, murky rose-colored slurry of bodily fluids and blood exploded outward, splattering the corridor's floor, walls, and ceiling in wild, chaotic arcs, mingling with the water from the sprinklers.
The next second, his suffering ended. He crashed heavily to the ground.
The woman standing in front of him was drenched in the spray. She was about to scream, but instinct told her not to touch any of that liquid. She clamped her mouth and eyes shut and collapsed to her knees with a choked sob. Lin Tu watched her infection level spike to 32% in an instant—thankfully, it didn't climb any higher.
This was practically hell on earth, but at least the infected patient had been dealt with. The woman and the people in the surrounding rooms felt a flicker of relief, but it was quickly replaced by dread. Had the infected patient really been neutralized? And what about that man who'd run off...
"Everyone, back to your rooms! Do not open your doors, do not cause any trouble!" the soldier barked. "You! Go find out where this guy came from! You! Get someone to clean this up! And you two, do a patrol sweep and check for any other infected patients!"
Lin Tu thought: There are—there are still two more infected patients like that, or rather... three, as of just now.
By this point, the Butler had already traced the infected patient's movements and handed the surveillance feed to Lin Tu. The man had been living on Deck 6. He'd been bitten by his own roommate, then fled, shoving the roommate back into the room and locking the door. He'd tried to treat the wound on his own, failed, and decided to head upstairs to find a doctor. But halfway there, he'd come down with the symptoms himself.
Most likely, drawn by Lin Tu's zero-infection allure, he'd stopped on Deck 4 and bitten another man—the one who'd just run off.
That man, meanwhile, had made it down to Deck 3. He'd gone into the restroom looking frantic, and when he came out, his eyes were already bloodshot and his body unsteady. Now, he'd grabbed another person, tackled them to the ground, and bitten them.
The infection spread so fast. This was all over. Lin Tu found a bitter humor in it: now she'd become the most coveted prize on the entire ship.