TVHCM 14

Chapter 14 — Goodbye

“Evidence? I’ve got evidence.”

The medic immediately turned toward the voice and saw a young woman standing behind her. She recognized her at once—the girl who had stepped in to help during the fight earlier.

The girl spoke with absolute certainty.

The platoon leader had noticed the commotion as well. He hurried over just in time to hear her words, surprise and delight flashing across his face.

“Miss Mo, are you saying you can tell whether someone’s been infected with the zombie virus?”

Mo Chu nodded.

As a healer, of course she could. That was the most basic thing.

She might fight viciously now, but people seemed to forget that at her core, she was still a doctor.

Without wasting another word, she strode forward and grabbed the infected man’s arm. His father immediately tried to shove her away, only for Li Chen to catch him in an instant and pin him hard to the ground.

He didn’t want Mo Chu getting dragged into trouble, so he held back and didn’t strike him—just restrained him firmly.

A faint blue glow lit at Mo Chu’s fingertips. Before anyone could even see clearly what it was, she pressed the light into the man’s arm.

The blue light vanished like a stone sinking into the sea, without the slightest ripple.

But beneath the thin line of blood around the wound, a sickly greenish tint slowly spread across the skin.

Mo Chu stared at the discoloration, then lifted her eyes to the man’s face.

He seemed to realize what it meant.

His face turned deathly pale. Large beads of sweat rolled down his forehead, and the arm trapped in Mo Chu’s grasp trembled uncontrollably.

He looked at her pleadingly.

His father, pinned to the ground, continued making muffled, desperate sounds. The old man was nearly sixty years old. Listening to him was enough to stir pity in anyone.

But Mo Chu felt none.

Just moments ago, those enthusiastic students had praised her for being gentle and patient. Yet now, her heart was cold as iron. Not a trace of sympathy remained.

If this man turned into a zombie in the middle of the crowd, who would pity the innocent people dragged down with him?

She raised the man’s arm without hesitation, showing the greenish wound to everyone around them.

“This,” she said calmly, “is a wound caused by a zombie.”

Two fully armed soldiers rushed forward immediately, pinned the man down, and dragged him toward the quarantine truck.

The man let out a broken sound somewhere between sobbing and wailing.

His father screamed like an animal being slaughtered.

Mo Chu stood quietly to the side, watching the scene unfold with chilling calm.

This was the apocalypse.

The real apocalypse.

Most of the survivors around the man had already backed away. Now, seeing him forced into the quarantine vehicle, someone suddenly shouted in panic,

“Why quarantine him at all?! Just kill him! What if he turns into a zombie and gets loose again?!”

The platoon leader was already in a foul mood. Hearing something that idiotic nearly made him explode.

“If we kill him after he turns, that’s killing a zombie!” he snapped. “Right now, that’s murder! The damn zombies aren’t even gone yet and you people are already thinking about killing other humans!”

The man immediately shut up after being chewed out.

Mo Chu listened from the side and silently thought: Exactly.

In her previous life, people had been like this too.

The zombies weren’t even dealt with yet, and humans had already started turning on each other.

The platoon leader spent a while handling the situation. After this example scared everyone into line—and with Mo Chu standing there as a living detector for infection—the inspections went much faster.

Still, every time they identified someone infected, resistance was inevitable.

Because at this point, infection was almost synonymous with death.

No one wanted to face their own mortality. So they hid among the crowds, deceiving themselves, even if it endangered everyone else around them. As though blending into the masses could somehow spare them.

Some people were even darker than that.

I’m infected anyway. If I’m going down, I’ll drag a few others with me.

Mo Chu had seen too many people like that in her previous life.

She herself had nearly become one of their victims.

While she was lost in thought, standing there with her arms folded, Li Chen glanced at her quietly.

Then, without a word, he removed the jacket draped over his shoulders and placed it around hers.

Mo Chu blinked back to herself. Looking down at the jacket, she laughed softly.

She turned toward him. “What’s this for…”

“I thought you were cold,” Li Chen replied.

Mo Chu shook her head and handed the jacket back. “In this weather? How could I possibly be cold?”

Li Chen didn’t argue. He simply nodded and took it back.

Of course he hadn’t really thought she was cold.

He had only wanted to pull her out of that strange loneliness surrounding her.

That expression didn’t suit Mo Chu.

He slipped the jacket back on.

Then he heard her say quietly beside him,

“Thank you.”

Li Chen paused.

For some reason, the tips of his ears suddenly grew warm.

Watching the medics work under immense pressure nearby, Mo Chu suddenly chuckled.

“Looking at it this way, maybe my healing ability isn’t completely useless after all. At least right now, it’s pretty useful.”

She had only meant it as an offhand remark, but Li Chen answered with complete seriousness.

“Every powerful ability starts out weak.”

Mo Chu froze.

Every powerful ability starts out weak.

He had said the exact same thing before—back when she’d first discovered her power and fallen into despair over how useless it seemed.

He had genuinely believed her ability wasn’t worthless.

Even when everyone else thought it was.

Even when she herself believed it.

She stared at him for a moment before smiling.

“I think so too.”

Li Chen stood there blankly for a long while before he finally smiled back.

Their eyes met.

For a brief moment, the atmosphere between them became so quiet and intimate that no one else could step into it.

At the very least, that was how the platoon leader felt.

He had been walking over to thank Mo Chu, only to stop awkwardly halfway there, suddenly feeling like he’d arrived at the wrong time.

Unfortunately, he was too busy to retreat now.

After hesitating for a second, he forced himself forward anyway.

“Miss Mo.”

Mo Chu turned toward him, her expression unchanged.

But the platoon leader would swear that the man beside her—Li Chen—instantly looked colder, shooting him a distinctly displeased glance.

The platoon leader: “…”

Like he wanted to interrupt them.

By then, Mo Chu had already asked, “Is there something you need, Platoon Leader?”

He snapped back to himself and laughed awkwardly.

“What else could it be? I came to thank you.” He sighed sincerely. “Miss Mo, you really helped us out again this time.”

Mo Chu shook her head. “It was nothing. Just convenient.”

They exchanged a few more words before the platoon leader cautiously probed,

“An ability that can detect zombie infection… I’ve honestly never heard of anything like it before.”

He was testing the waters about her power.

Mo Chu didn’t particularly mind explaining.

“Hold out your hand.”

Though confused, he obeyed.

There was a deep cut across his palm—the result of fighting the Tier-Two zombie earlier. In the heat of battle, he’d scraped his hand bloody against something sharp and never even noticed.

Blue light bloomed at Mo Chu’s fingertips again, larger this time, crystalline and deep like the ocean itself.

She pressed the light into his palm.

The wound immediately began healing before everyone’s eyes.

In mere moments, the torn flesh sealed itself completely, the skin smooth once more. If not for the newly healed flesh being slightly pinker than the surrounding skin, no one would have guessed there had been a bloody gash there seconds ago.

The platoon leader stared the entire time, dumbfounded.

He almost suspected he was hallucinating.

Yet when he flexed his hand, the pain was truly gone. Only the bloodstains around the wound proved it had ever existed.

He heard the young woman explain calmly,

“My ability is healing-type. Healing abilities are naturally sensitive to the zombie virus. It’s nothing special—every healing-type user should be able to do this.”

The platoon leader’s mind immediately raced.

Then he blurted out almost urgently,

“Then can healing abilities cure the zombie virus?”

Mo Chu looked at him for a long moment.

Under her gaze, he slowly regained his composure.

Only then did she answer,

“Not right now. At the moment I can only heal ordinary injuries. But whether that’ll change in the future… hard to say. After all, healing abilities can already sense the virus.”

The platoon leader calmed down, disappointment flashing briefly through him.

Then he silently mocked himself for panicking.

If healing abilities could cure the virus already, Miss Mo wouldn’t have pulled infected people out of the crowd earlier—she would’ve simply healed them on the spot.

Still, he was a seasoned soldier. Once the disappointment faded, his thoughts immediately started moving again.

Healing abilities might not cure the virus, but being able to detect infection alone was already an enormous advantage if used correctly.

More importantly—

After witnessing Mo Chu’s miraculous healing firsthand, another thought rose in his mind.

If a first-tier healing ability was already this effective, then what about second-tier? Third-tier?

During these nonstop rescue missions, he had slowly realized something grim.

In this era of collapsing medicine and dwindling supplies, soldiers weren’t dying only from zombies. Injuries, infections, and untreated wounds were killing just as many.

And what about later?

When all existing medicine ran out… when factories could no longer produce more… once there were no antibiotics, no bandages, no medical systems left…

At that point, injury itself would become just as deadly as zombies.

Healing-type users might one day replace half the role of doctors.

And there was something else she had said—

Not now. But maybe in the future.

All these thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant.

By the time he came back to himself, he had already made up his mind.

The military needed to find and recruit healing-type ability users as quickly as possible.

He looked at Mo Chu and apologized sincerely.

“I was too anxious earlier. Sorry if I offended you.”

Mo Chu shook her head to show she didn’t mind.

Truthfully, she had done all of this on purpose.

She knew very well that even before reaching third tier, healing abilities could already do far more than people realized. Minor injuries, illnesses, fevers—healers could treat almost all of it.

Used properly, they could greatly ease the catastrophic shortage of medicine in the apocalypse.

But because they couldn’t cure the zombie virus, people overlooked them.

And healers suffered for it.

By the time humanity finally realized how important healing abilities were, countless healers had already died.

That was why she deliberately displayed her powers.

Why she deliberately said those things.

If this platoon leader started valuing healers now, then before third tier arrived, maybe a few more healing users would survive.

Even a few more chances at survival mattered.

Then the platoon leader suddenly said,

“When we leave later, why don’t the two of you ride in the lead jeep with us? I feel like we hit it off well. We can give you a ride.”

Mo Chu was just about to refuse when, nearby, the helicopter sent for Xie Jinyuan arrived.

Professor Xie immediately brought his students over and invited her warmly.

“My helicopter’s here as well. If you don’t mind traveling with an old man, would the two of you care to join us?”

Both men looked at her expectantly, clearly assuming she was headed for the Lin City survivor base as well.

Mo Chu suddenly realized this misunderstanding had gotten a little too big.

She looked at the two of them and slowly shook her head.

“If the platoon leader truly wants to help,” she said, “then lend us a vehicle instead.”

The platoon leader blinked. “You mean…?”

“We’re heading south,” Mo Chu replied. “To Haicheng. We’re not going the same way as either of you. But thank you for the offer.”

Disappointment immediately spread across both their faces.

Even Ying Yi let out a startled, “Ah?” her expression full of disbelief.

Mo Chu smiled faintly.

“The mountains are high and the roads are long,” she said softly. “If fate allows it, we’ll meet again.”