Chapter 5: Guan Yizhou Is Here!
Four black-muzzled Type 95 assault rifles pointed straight into the infirmary.
Red laser dots danced wildly across Gu Ye's white coat.
The lead officer's finger was clamped hard against the trigger guard.
Sweat rolled off his chin and splashed onto his tactical vest, seeping into a dark ring.
The officer glanced at the floor.
The man wanted across the whole province, three lives on his conscience, lay flat on the ground like a puddle of mud.
Pink froth tinged with blood bubbled from his mouth.
He glanced at the corner.
A recruit in camouflage was huddled there, clutching a disposable paper cup in both hands, letting out loud, ringing belches.
Finally, the officer's gaze settled by the sink.
The young medic stood with his back to them.
Unhurriedly working up a lather of soap bubbles.
"What the... what the hell is going on here?"
The lead officer's voice cracked.
He'd kept his rifle up the whole time, but the muzzle had already drifted down half an inch on its own.
He'd prepared for the worst before coming.
Bloodshed, hostage situations, even a firefight.
The one thing he hadn't expected was this eerie dead silence.
"Secure the suspect! Forensic examiner, check his injuries!"
The officer barked.
Two SWAT officers lunged forward, knees jammed hard into the fugitive's back, wrenching his arms behind him.
The moment they got hands on him, they froze.
The fugitive's arms were limp as two cooked noodles.
The fugitive's eyeballs rolled wildly in their sockets, filled with extreme terror.
But his massive body didn't twitch, not even slightly.
A forensic examiner in a blue vest squeezed through the doorway.
A heavy aluminum alloy field kit in hand.
He dropped to one knee on the floor slick with urine and blood.
Clicked on his pupil light, shone it straight into the fugitive's eyes.
"Conscious, pupillary light reflex present."
The examiner muttered under his breath, latex-gloved fingers tracing down the fugitive's neck.
No major bleeding.
No bullet wounds.
No knife wounds.
The examiner's fingers stopped at the fugitive's cervical spine.
Suddenly, his movements went rigid.
The examiner's fingertips pressed hard just below the seventh cervical vertebra's spinous process.
A wheezing, leaky "huh-huh" sound came from the fugitive's throat.
His limbs remained dead still.
The examiner shot to his feet.
The motion was so abrupt his knee knocked over the aluminum kit on the floor.
Packets of alcohol wipes spilled into the bloody water.
"Captain... his nerve plexus is severed."
The examiner's voice shook badly.
He raised both hands, pointing at the fugitive's neck.
"Blunt force trauma. Motor nerve conduction tracts completely severed, cervical sympathetic ganglion pulverized."
The examiner swallowed hard, looked at the captain.
"This technique is insane. Surgical-level precision. I've only seen this kind of damage in autopsy reports of victims tortured to death by top-tier mercenaries."
The examiner whipped his head around.
Stared dead at Gu Ye by the sink.
"Who did this?"
Gu Ye rinsed the soap suds off his hands.
Turned off the faucet.
The old pipes let out a long, shrill hum.
He pulled the rough towel off the rack, dried his hands.
Tossed it aside.
The towel hit the edge of the rack and dropped into the grimy sink.
Gu Ye couldn't be bothered to pick it up.
"I did." Gu Ye turned around, straightened his cuffs.
Four rifles instantly re-locked onto Gu Ye's chest.
The lead officer stepped forward.
His tactical boot landed in a puddle, splashing muddy water.
"You? With what weapon?"
Gu Ye raised his right hand.
Pointed at his slightly reddened index and middle finger knuckles.
"He kicked the door in, took a pig-butchering knife and held my patient hostage."
Gu Ye sighed, his brows knitting into a deep frown.
"He was too agitated. Systolic pressure must've spiked to at least a hundred eighty. That's very dangerous in a medical setting."
"So?" The officer's eye twitched.
"So I used a little traditional Chinese medicine technique."
Gu Ye's expression was calm, his tone sincere.
"A battlefield tuina maneuver. Helped him relax his tense nerves. Loosened up his muscles a bit."
Gu Ye pointed at the two-hundred-plus-pound slab of meat on the floor.
"See? He's much quieter now. Remarkable efficacy."
Several officers followed Gu Ye's finger and looked.
The yellow fluid from the fugitive's crotch had already pooled into a puddle.
Complete high-level paraplegia below the neck, drool running all over the floor.
Relax his nerves?
Battlefield tuina?
The forensic examiner's jaw nearly hit the top of his foot.
He looked at Gu Ye's clean, slender hands, barely a callus on them.
Then at the murderous thug on the floor who could tear a man apart alive.
His worldview shattered into a pile of glass shards.
One punch turning the nerve center into complete flaccid paralysis, and you call that tuina?!
A mechanical synthetic voice exploded in the depths of Gu Ye's mind.
[Ding!]
[Detected host used absolute force to remove medical interference, perfectly ensuring patient's life safety.]
[Hidden condition completed: Physically stop harm.]
[System reward: Superhuman physique.]
A warm current surged down Gu Ye's spinal column.
The sensation was completely different from the wild rush of max-level combat arts.
It was heavy, drawn-out.
Like a bottomless well carved open in his chest cavity.
Alveoli expanded instantly.
With every breath, the volume of oxygen drawn in multiplied geometrically.
His heartbeat became slow and extremely powerful.
Thump. Thump.
Forty-five beats per minute.
The lactate threshold in his muscles was forcibly erased.
Gu Ye felt like he could carry sandbags and run three days and three nights straight without even panting.
The lead officer wiped his face.
His palm was covered in sticky, cold sweat.
He didn't understand medicine, but he knew the man in the white coat in front of him was absolutely a living King of Hell you didn't want to cross.
He waved at the SWAT officers.
"Cuff him. Skip the ambulance, throw him in the back of the riot van. Watch his neck."
Two SWAT officers hooked their arms under the fugitive's armpits.
The heavy body dragged across the ground, combat boots scraping out a harsh grating sound on the concrete.
The lead officer strode up to Gu Ye.
Gripped Gu Ye's right hand in both of his, shaking it up and down.
"Comrade, you've done us a huge favor. That bastard had three lives on his hands."
The officer patted Gu Ye's shoulder.
"I'll file a report with your military district the moment I get back. A commendation banner will absolutely be delivered to your company!"
Gu Ye pulled his hand back.
Casually wiped it on his white coat.
"Forget the banner. Just don't write in the report that I threw the punch."
Gu Ye looked at the mess on the floor.
"Just write that he came at people with a knife, slipped, and his cervical spine hit the corner of the table. Accidental paraplegia."
The officer nodded solemnly.
He'd already filled in the blanks himself—a top-tier special forces operative going undercover as a medic in a grassroots company.
"Understood. I know confidentiality discipline. Thank you, comrade!"
The police came fast and withdrew even faster.
Several jeeps blared their sirens, kicked up a cloud of yellow dust, and vanished down the dirt road outside the company grounds.
The dust in the infirmary hadn't even settled.
A ground-shaking set of footsteps came from the corridor.
"Gu Ye! You son of a bitch, you still alive?!"
Company Commander Qian Qiang kicked the battered door frame.
The door frame let out a groan.
Squad Leader Niu Dashan followed right behind, panting like a broken bellows, an entrenching tool still in his hand.
The two men burst into the room and skidded to a hard stop.
The room looked like it had been baptized by a bomb.
A bloodstained, rusted pig-butchering knife on the floor.
Muddy water mixed with urine, blood, and goji berries.
Chen Dabai crouched by the tin cabinet, clutching a paper cup, crying silently.
And Gu Ye was holding a bald bamboo broom, head down, sweeping up broken glass.
"Company Commander." Gu Ye leaned on the broom handle.
Qian Qiang stared hard at the pig-butchering knife on the floor.
Then followed the blood trail toward the door.
He'd passed the police cars at the company gate earlier.
"The cops said you subdued an A-class fugitive bare-handed?"
Qian Qiang's brows twisted together.
He crossed the room in three strides, grabbed Gu Ye's arm.
His fingers squeezed.
Gu Ye's muscles were relaxed, but dense as a bundle of steel wire.
Niu Dashan wiped a handful of sweat off his forehead.
"Well I'll be, college boy, you know martial arts too?"
Qian Qiang didn't praise him.
He let go, eyes boring into Gu Ye's face like a hawk.
Gu Ye's cheeks were dry, not a hint of flush.
His breathing was long and steady.
A man who'd just been through a life-or-death struggle, who'd taken down a two-hundred-pound bruiser.
Not a single drop of sweat.
Not even out of breath.
Qian Qiang let out a cold laugh.
He slammed his palm on the office desk.
The tabletop rattled and hummed.
"Physique looks pretty good, huh?"
Gu Ye stopped sweeping.
A bad premonition crept up on him.
"Tomorrow morning, recruit company five-kilometer armed cross-country march."
Qian Qiang extended a rough index finger, tapping it at Gu Ye's nose.
"Since you're so full of energy, no point letting mold grow on you in the infirmary."
Qian Qiang gritted his teeth, voice loud enough to rattle eardrums.
"As the company medic, you'll carry the full medical kit."
"Run the whole course tomorrow, provide mobile medical support!"