Chapter 131 - 117: Won’t Survive, Beyond Saving...

BAM!

Xu Huo was surprisingly strong. He kicked the door, and the lock shattered, sending splinters flying.

The door flew open.

Immediately, the faint but distinct scent of blood hung in the air, drawing them in.

Xu Huo’s expression changed.

Li Jianye spotted a dark figure and rushed over, anxiously patting down the body for something.

A moment later, he found a dark metal object.

"Thank God, the gun’s still here."

Then, he placed a hand under the person’s nose.

"He’s not dead, still breathing! Go find Sun Yang!"

Li Jianye looked at the unconscious police officer on the floor and breathed a sigh of relief. He spoke to Qian Hua as he began to lift the man.

This was the officer assigned to Sun Yang’s house. The others had been called away on an emergency, leaving him alone.

From the looks of it...

He was knocked out before he could even send a message.

Xu Huo didn’t hesitate. He followed the scent of blood and hurried toward the bedroom.

CLICK!

He opened this door as well, and the smell of blood instantly intensified.

There, Sun Yang was slumped on the floor, her overturned wheelchair beside her. She was leaning against the wall, taking shallow, ragged breaths, one hand pressed against a wound on her abdomen.

Blood soaked through her clothes, seeping from between her fingers and pooling on the floor.

Seeing Xu Huo and the others approach, a muscle in Sun Yang’s face twitched. Her lips quivered as she tried to speak, but no words came out.

She lifted the hand from her wound and weakly pulled down the hem of her skirt.

The skirt covered her lower body, as well as her colostomy and urine bags.

’Not dead?’

’He didn’t deal a fatal blow!?’

’He had more than enough time to finish her off with another stab!’

Xu Huo was stunned, but he knew this wasn’t the time to ponder. He signaled for Qian Hua to go to her, then turned and rushed to the window.

The window was open. A gust of wind blew in, scattering what little remained of the attacker’s scent.

"It’s not a fatal wound! She can be saved!"

Qian Hua finished examining the wound and lifted Sun Yang into his arms. A relieved smile spread across his face as he prepared to run outside.

"I... I won’t make it..."

Sun Yang’s pale face forced a smile as she pointed a finger at something on the floor.

Xu Huo didn’t want to look down, but Qian Hua did. With a single glance, his expression turned to one of utter horror.

"Paraquat?!"

The word burst from his lips. He didn’t think or hesitate any longer.

Qian Hua scrambled to his feet and ran downstairs.

A short while later, a police car sped off, carrying several people toward the hospital.

Xu Huo turned and stared out the window for a long, long time.

After a good while, he picked up the bottle of paraquat from the floor and screwed the cap back on.

It had none of Liu Bo’s fingerprints or scent on it, only Sun Yang’s.

As expected, she had prepared it herself.

’The one who wanted to kill Sun Yang wasn’t just Liu Bo...’

’It was also Sun Yang herself.’

After a long silence, Xu Huo got up and walked out of the room.

As soon as he stepped out, a stooped figure appeared before him—the old woman, Sun Yang’s grandmother.

The old woman was blind. She sat on the sofa and said nothing, but she could feel the presence of someone before her.

She was blind.

And yet, she was not.

The old woman remained silent, sitting there like a dead, withered tree.

Xu Huo sat on the sofa and closed his eyes. His world went dark, and his mind, which had been spinning for so long, finally found a moment of rest.

He was waiting for other officers to take over the scene and escort the old woman away.

...

...

The night dragged on.

The Zhaozhou City police were on edge.

People had died...

Two dead, maybe even three!

「The 29th, 8:00 AM. Zhaozhou City, Criminal Investigation Division.」

The office was unusually quiet. Everyone sat like lifeless stone statues, not making a sound.

Only the sound of heavy breathing filled the air.

Until...

"How’s Sun Yang?"

"They saved her. The stab wasn’t deep. Liu Bo didn’t go for a kill shot."

Li Jianye took a drag from his cigarette and spoke slowly.

"She’s still unconscious. She should wake up tomorrow."

"And after that?" Xu Huo asked.

Li Jianye fell silent.

She was saved, but not completely. Her fate...

"She’ll die. The dose was too high. The pulmonary fibrosis is irreversible."

"The initial procedures can succeed, but there’s nothing to be done about the fibrosis. There’s no effective cure in the country, or even in the whole world."

It was Qian Hua who spoke up. At his words, the silence in the room deepened.

Paraquat. A miracle weed killer.

Its effectiveness is leagues beyond other pesticides, but the reason it faded from public use... is its extreme toxicity.

There’s basically no saving someone who’s ingested it.

Emergency procedures right after ingestion have a fairly high success rate, and there are cases of successful surgeries.

If you’re in excellent physical condition, at your peak, and you’ve only ingested a very small amount...

...then after emergency treatment, there’s a chance of making a full recovery and living a normal life.

But if you drink a large amount, you’re basically a lost cause.

The irreversible pulmonary fibrosis is practically a death sentence.

As for organ transplants... a nice idea, but here’s the problem: the poison doesn’t just target the lungs. Once the fibrosis begins, death gradually follows within two weeks, or 14 days.

Even a billionaire with unlimited access to organs couldn’t replace their lungs, kidneys, liver, and heart within 14 days.

And even if they could, survival isn’t guaranteed.

"Sun Yang didn’t drink a lot, so the surgery could save her for now. But it wasn’t a small amount, either. At the very least, the irreversible fibrosis is unstoppable."

Li Jianye took a deep drag on his cigarette, and the remaining half burned down to the filter in an instant.

"The ’water of regret’..."

Paraquat is also known as the "water of regret," mainly because of how it works.

The fibrosis is irreversible, yet it doesn’t grant a quick death. It makes you feel like you’re being buried alive as you slowly die over the course of 14 days.

It’s regret in the most literal sense—you die consumed by it, with no magic potion to give you a do-over.

In other words...

"This was a suicide attempt... It’s highly likely she really was involved in Liu Wen’s death."