At this moment, Lin Shuyou couldn’t be woken up even if you slapped him with the palm of your hand.
The senior girl covered his face with the book again, not noticing anything amiss.
After inspecting all the hospital beds, the two of them exited and stood behind the little girl.
The little girl had her hands on the railing of the corridor balcony, peering through the gaps at the school and in the direction where Tan Wenbin had left.
In her eyes, there was a trace of resentment as if she had been deceived.
Then, she closed her eyes.
Suddenly, both senior girls went limp and fainted to the ground.
Nearby doctors and nurses noticed and came over to attend to them.
The little girl silently passed through the crowd and went back to her small hospital room at the end of the hallway.
Next to her, a haggard-looking woman was taking a nap by the bedside.
The little girl reached out and touched the woman’s head.
The woman woke up and, upon seeing the little girl opening her eyes, immediately exclaimed with joy:
"Jingjing is awake? That’s wonderful; you almost scared Auntie to death."
"Auntie, Jingjing wants to go home."
"Okay, Auntie will take you home."
After leaving Liu Yumei’s home, Li Zhiyuan went to the affordable store for lunch as usual.
With the return of upperclassmen to school, four work-study students appeared in the store.
This meant that Run Sheng and Yin Meng could lighten their burden and have more free time without being tied down to the store all the time.
After having lunch and returning to the dorm, Li Zhiyuan started to transcribe "Liu’s Qi Observation Technique" and "Qin’s Jiao Observation Method" using his scrawling handwriting.
The original old book, "Book Thief," could not be given out, as the age of the book was too obvious, so he had to copy it out again... no, just write it from memory.
After all, if he had read the book, he would surely remember all of its contents clearly; otherwise, what was the point of reading it?
Given that Liu Yumei had accelerated the progress, he might as well speed up too.
He would finish writing everything and hand it over to Liu Yumei, then let her translate it slowly; otherwise, he’d have to visit her study every morning, which would take up his and Alii’s time together.
While he was writing, the door to the dorm was pushed open.
After Tan Wenbin entered the school gate, he started running wildly and was now gasping for breath:
"Brother Xiao Yuan, an evil spirit has appeared in the infirmary!"
Li Zhiyuan put the brush back on the holder, and instead of rushing hurriedly to the infirmary, he waited quietly for Tan Wenbin to catch his breath so he could give a detailed account of the situation.
Since Tan Wenbin had run back here, that meant Binbin was safe, and as for the other situations in the infirmary, the young man was not very concerned.
After Tan Wenbin finished explaining, he looked at Xiao Yuan, who stayed quiet.
Li Zhiyuan nodded his head and said, "Let’s go check it out."
On the way, they called for Run Sheng and Yin Meng, and the four formed a team to head to the infirmary.
First, they went to Lin Shuyou’s room, where Li Zhiyuan uncovered the book from his face to check on him and, confirming that he was only in a coma without any other issues, covered his face with the book again while saying to Tan Wenbin:
"You should buy some tape later to stick on his upper and lower eyelids."
Then, Li Zhiyuan stepped out of the room and led the group to check the other hospital beds.
They didn’t find the little girl that Tan Wenbin mentioned but did find those two senior sisters.
Li Zhiyuan remembered these two sisters; just yesterday, as he passed by the sports field, they were sitting on the slope painting, and one of them had even invited him to be their model, which he had refused.
Recalling their conversation at the time, one of them should be named Xu Bailu and the other Wu Xue.
Both looked lethargic and were lying in recliners with IV drips of glucose, their consciousness still somewhat unclear; the doctor said they had hypoglycemia due to malnutrition.
But Li Zhiyuan saw from their appearances that they were "afflicted by external evil," indicating that they had been in poor health recently and would continue to fall ill, or alternatively, they had been tainted by filthy things. Both fainting at the same time certainly meant the latter.
"Brother Binbin, good thing you didn’t get heated and tried to save that kid, or maybe that child was the actual evil spirit."
"Damn it, it was such a struggle for me at that moment; my tongue still hurts."
Tan Wenbin said while glancing at Run Sheng, who didn’t respond to him.
As everyone left the infirmary, Tan Wenbin deliberately lagged behind, nudged Run Sheng with his arm, and made a "tutting" sound by pressing his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
"See, I was so smart."
Run Sheng finally responded to him, took a glance at Binbin, and calmly counter-asked:
"Acting out when you’re not confident?"
Finding no significant leads, the group returned to the school grounds.
"Brother Binbin, you go investigate those two girls’ information, usually when filthy things afflict someone, they tend to follow familiar paths and continue troubling them."
Like Little Huang Ying did to himself back then.
"Okay," Tan Wenbin nodded, "I’ll go get the tape from the store and then return to the infirmary. Once those two sisters wake up, I’ll pry some information from them."
"Brother Run Sheng, you go with Brother Binbin later, the little girl is missing, which means that Brother Binbin’s action has stirred up the nest and alarmed her; she might come back."
Li Zhiyuan added one more thing:
"When Lin Shuyou can take care of himself again, just leave him be, let him go; if he dies, he dies."
The four of them returned to the store, Tan Wenbin took the tape and went back to the infirmary with Run Sheng.
Li Zhiyuan went to the basement to feed Xiao Hei.
Upon seeing Li Zhiyuan, Xiao Hei came out of its cage, rubbed its head against the young man’s pant leg, and then, as if having completed its task, walked back to its cage.
The dog was always in good health, and, truly, it had no interest in the outside world at all.