ASA Ch13: Blood and Wine

Chapter 13: “Do you remember the cement-sealed corpse case in Hubei two years ago?”

“The lion’s paws had a faint warmth, and the flesh pads were very strong, with the nails retracted, making Qin Ge feel like he was holding the front paw of a giant cat.

He was somewhat surprised and a bit puzzled: so well-behaved?

After raising his head, he could see that the lion was also studying him, with golden pupils like translucent yellow jade, but the central part of the pupils was also dark red, different from the lions Qin Ge usually saw. Its eyes were beautiful, its body was beautiful, and even the thick and soft mane on its neck was beautiful.

“It’s a Barbary lion,” Xie Zijing explained. “When I was very young, I went to Africa with my parents on official business and saw one in a circus. But now, they can’t be found in the wild anymore.”

“Extinct?” Qin Ge asked.

“Extinct in the wild,” Xie Zijing said, “but there are still a few in captivity, not many.”

While he was speaking, his hand was not idle, constantly stroking Qin Ge’s hair. The gestures and strength reminded Qin Ge of the person who touched him in his dreams. He felt his discomfort subside a bit, giving him more strength to talk to Xie Zijing.

“Maybe they just don’t want to be discovered by humans.” He looked at the Barbary lion’s ears and mane, as well as its sleek lines on its back and its tail lying on the ground. “This way, they can still roam freely where we can’t see them.”

After saying that, he heard Xie Zijing laugh behind him.

Qin Ge felt awkward. “What’s so funny?”

Xie Zijing said, “Sometimes your thoughts are quite amusing. Very cute, but also a bit childish.”

Qin Ge replied, “…Have you ever offended someone with your words and got beaten up?”

Xie Zijing said, “No, very few people can beat me.”

He lifted his shirt to show off his abs to Qin Ge. “I’m very muscular; you’ll know if you touch them.”

“No thanks.” Qin Ge turned his head to look at the lion, feeling that the lion was cuter than Xie Zijing’s abs. “I have my own.”

Xie Zijing raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

Qin Ge placed the water glass on the table and used his free hand to touch the Barbary lion’s paw. He liked the feeling of having his spiritual body nestled in his palm and then holding it with both hands, like hugging a rabbit. Now, it was impossible to hug this giant lion, but at least he could use the same gesture to hold the Barbary lion’s paw.

The Barbary lion lowered its gaze to look at Qin Ge. It looked proud, completely different from the giant beast that kept yawning on the first day Qin Ge saw it, but it didn’t pull its paw away.

“…Is it always this well-behaved?” Qin Ge found it quite interesting.

Just as he finished speaking, he suddenly felt a tightening around his waist: Xie Zijing’s hand reached under the blanket and held his waist.

A murderous intent suddenly surged from Qin Ge’s still unclear mind, and in that instant, he even felt a raging fire burning in his “sea area” again.

“But before he could react, Xie Zijing had already enveloped his entire body, leaning on the couch at an angle, almost pressing down on the Barbary lion’s hand.

“Still feeling cold?” Xie Zijing asked.

Qin Ge suppressed his murderous intent and anger, saying, “Is this a normal way to keep warm?”

Xie Zijing replied, “No, it’s not. I’m taking advantage of you.”

The Barbary lion’s paw was removed, and Qin Ge was struggling in Xie Zijing’s arms. Suddenly, the lion’s paw gently landed on his head, and patted it twice.

Qin Ge: “…!”

Behind him, Xie Zijing chuckled, “Its meaning is that it likes you too.”

The scorching, coarse wind that exists only in deserts, carrying sand and dust wrapped in the sunlight, and a thunderous roar in his eardrums—Qin Ge once again smelled the scent of Xie Zijing’s pheromones, which made his already weakened limbs even softer. But strangely, at this moment, the sentinel’s pheromones did not make him feel the usual invasive discomfort. They surrounded Qin Ge, and he felt his body gradually warming up.

“Xie Zijing…” Qin Ge gave up resisting. Xie Zijing was just holding him and not making any inappropriate moves; his hands were simply circling around his waist. “I’ve really never been in love.”

He wanted to tell Xie Zijing immediately not to touch him like this again. Such open warmth could easily lead to misunderstandings and false hopes.

But he also didn’t want to rudely shatter Xie Zijing’s romantic fantasies. He was afraid that Xie Zijing would be hurt.

Xie Zijing gazed at Qin Ge’s reddening ears and the nape of his neck. He believed he had understood what Qin Ge was trying to convey.

“Qin Ge, you’ve lost your memory,” Xie Zijing said decisively.

Qin Ge replied, “No, you’ve gone crazy.”

Xie Zijing laughed again. When he laughed, his chest seemed to vibrate, and Qin Ge shrugged. His back and arms touched Xie Zijing’s firm muscles.

“We’ve been together.” Xie Zijing’s deep voice sounded in his ear. “I’m sure… I remembered when I saw you. It’s just that my ‘sea area’ is a bit off, not that I’m insane. I know what it feels like to like someone.”

Qin Ge said, “You indeed know that your ‘sea area’ is not normal.”

Xie Zijing smiled, “Just a little bit off; it won’t stop us from falling in love.”

Qin Ge asked, “What’s wrong with your ‘sea area’? And who said I wanted to fall in love with you?”

Xie Zijing applied more force with his hands, and Qin Ge found it increasingly difficult to break free. “I’m a good person.” He didn’t answer any of Qin Ge’s questions and emphasized this statement again. “I like you.”

In response to Xie Zijing’s words, Qin Ge didn’t know if it was because he was too weak at this moment to build the protective walls he should have or if Xie Zijing’s strange confession truly had an impact, but he didn’t feel repulsed or worried. He only felt sad for Xie Zijing, who knew nothing, and for himself, who had indeed been slightly moved.

If pity could be exchanged in equal measure for affection, then at this moment, he might fall in love with Xie Zijing.

The two of them didn’t say anything more. Qin Ge’s attention was diverted by Xie Zijing’s words and his lion, and he temporarily set aside thoughts of Cai Mingyue and the hospital as he tried to recall what he had learned to find a way to dispel Xie Zijing’s romantic fantasy.

The lion would occasionally gently pat his head and then pat its owner’s head. It was like a caring elder, comforting its two children.

…The lion is even gentler than my rabbit. Qin Ge gradually didn’t feel cold anymore. He fell asleep in Xie Zijing’s arms.

When Bai Xiaoyuan and Tang Cuo arrived, Qin Ge was still asleep. Xie Zijing was someone who lacked sleep, and shortly after Qin Ge fell asleep, he too dozed off.

When Bai Xiaoyuan called, he was in a deep slumber, having complex and difficult-to-describe dreams. Being woken up annoyed Xie Zijing, and Qin Ge, who was in his arms, felt too warm to let go.

The ringing phone also woke up Qin Ge, and when he opened his eyes, he found Xie Zijing leaning over and quickly giving him a kiss on the nose.

Qin Ge: “…”

He felt rested enough, and his hands were filled with the strength to hit someone.

Xie Zijing had already jumped up and joyfully grabbed his phone, answering the call while walking out.

Bai Xiaoyuan and Tang Cuo were downstairs, both looking anxious. “How is Qin Ge? Did we come too late?”

Xie Zijing: “No, you came too early.”

Bai Xiaoyuan and Tang Cuo went back to the Crisis Management Office and obtained the information they needed as quickly as possible.

Tang Cuo brought his own laptop and searched for information about 267th Hospital from over thirty years ago in the archives. Since he couldn’t take the files out of the archive room, he had to take photos with his phone.

There wasn’t much information stored in the Crisis Management Office about the hospital, so Tang Cuo imported all the photos into his computer and showed them to the other three.

They all squeezed into Qin Ge’s narrow living room. Tang Cuo curiously asked Xie Zijing why he was clutching his stomach, and Xie Zijing grinned, not sure if it was from pain or amusement: “Because I overstepped and got beaten up.”

His lion had already retracted. Qin Ge sat calmly on the sofa, and when Xie Zijing tried to sit next to him, he picked up the sand cat that was beside Bai Xiaoyuan and used it to block Xie Zijing’s movement.

Xie Zijing sat on the carpet with a disgruntled look, looking up at Qin Ge.

To his left was a panda hugging his arm, and to his right was a sand cat wrapped around his wrist. He looked like an indolent king, with no thoughts of work other than petting cats and bears.

“Most of the materials submitted to the Crisis Management Office by 267th Hospital are major events, with one book roughly covering a year. There isn’t much valuable information, but I found some interesting content.” Tang Cuo opened a photo. “Cai Mingyue was promoted to vice dean after giving birth to Cai Yi. Take a look at this.”

In the old photo, Cai Mingyue was shaking hands with someone who appeared to be a leader.

“This person was the dean of 267th Hospital at that time.” Tang Cuo opened his phone and retrieved a pile of meeting records. “He proposed six times during the hospital-level meetings to close Operating Room 6 and remove Cai Mingyue from her position as an obstetrician. However, all six of these proposals were rejected.”

Qin Ge, emerging from the embrace of the panda and the sand cat, asked, “Did this hospital dean know what Cai Mingyue was doing?”

“It’s very likely.” Tang Cuo wiped the nonexistent sweat from his forehead, and the information he had found was making him uneasy. “But at that time, the hospital didn’t dare act against Cai Mingyue. 267th Hospital was already plagued by several medical scandals, and its reputation was extremely tarnished. If Cai Mingyue’s deeds were exposed, the hospital would likely collapse within minutes. The hospital’s leadership was changing frequently, and none of them could afford to take responsibility for this.”

It was the only hospital in the country specializing in treating special humans, and the Special Management Committee wanted to preserve it.

Now, the entire management of 267th Hospital had been replaced with new people, and they were unaware of what had happened in Operating Room 6. Otherwise, they should have been alert when Peng Hu claimed to have seen anomalies instead of seeking help from the Crisis Management Office.

The situation was even more complicated than Qin Ge had anticipated. He rubbed his temples, and when he looked up, he saw Bai Xiaoyuan and Tang Cuo both wearing worried expressions. He quickly dropped his hand and pretended to nonchalantly stroke the sand cat’s triangular ears.

His head still throbbed faintly, and his thoughts were not as clear and agile as he would have liked, but Qin Ge felt that he could hold on.

He looked at Bai Xiaoyuan. “Xiaoyuan, what did you find?”

“I went to find someone, but he’s on a business trip with Director Gao,” Bai Xiaoyuan said. “Do you remember the cement-sealed corpse case in Hubei two years ago?”

Xie Zijing and Tang Cuo both nodded.

It was a case that shocked the entire country two years ago.

In the summer of the previous year, a county in Hubei experienced a geological disaster due to heavy rainfall, leading to landslides that engulfed several houses. During the clearing of the rubble, people unexpectedly discovered dozens of cement-sealed cubes inside an abandoned building.

These cement cubes were all sealed with corpses, and after they were excavated, there were nearly a hundred bodies in total. As the excavation continued, several more bodies, completely skeletal, were found in the basement of the abandoned building, which had not been sealed.

This case had nothing to do with the Crisis Management Office originally, but the problem arose from the several bodies found in the basement. When the police conducted DNA testing on all the bodies and skeletons, they discovered that one of the bodies in the basement exhibited chromosomal mutations.

Chromosomal mutations were typical of special humans like sentinels, guides, cha lao, snowmen, and so on. The DNA samples were quickly sent to the Crisis Management Office’s office in the Central China region for assistance.

However, upon comparison, it was found that the chromosomal mutation of this particular body did not belong to any known category of special humans.

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