“Help! Help! This watch is biting me!”
At this point, Lin Xue had completely forgotten her dream of becoming the commander’s wife.
The unbearable itching and burning that seemed to seep into her bones twisted her body into a knot on the hospital bed.
She frantically clawed at the back of her right hand with her left, her fingernails scraping away strips of blackened flesh.
The gruesome sight was so horrifying that even the nurse standing nearby covered her mouth.
“Don’t move! Stop scratching!” Lu Wenbo, being a professional doctor, reacted first. He shouted,
“This is acute heavy metal poisoning complicated by a bacterial infection! Quick! Get the hemostatic forceps!”
The two young nurses’ hands trembled with fear, but they still rushed over and pinned Lin Xue down.
Lin Xue continued screaming, “Lin Wan! It’s you again! You poisoned this watch, didn’t you? You vicious woman! I’ll kill you!”
Her eyes were bloodshot as she glared at Lin Wan two meters away like a vengeful ghost.
If her leg hadn’t been suspended in traction, she would have lunged forward and bitten Lin Wan’s throat out.
Lin Wan spread her hands helplessly and innocently hid behind Qin Zhan.
“Everyone here saw it. I never even touched that watch.
If I could poison people from a distance, would I have let you live this long?”
[With that level of intelligence, you can forget about surviving palace intrigue.]
[I already told you this watch was pried off a dead skeleton. It’s covered in preservative mercury from an ancient tomb and decades-old mold.]
[This corpse fungus loves warm human blood. Once it gets into an open wound, it’s like walking into an all-you-can-eat buffet.]
**[That said, Lin Xue is pretty ruthless. She kept carrying it on her body just to hide it.
With the poison from the badge on top of this watch, the toxins have stacked. Even if she doesn’t die this time, she’ll lose a layer of skin.]**
Listening to Lin Wan’s calm, almost cold-blooded analysis, Qin Zhan felt not disgust but an inexplicable sense of relief.
Thank goodness he could hear her inner thoughts.
Otherwise, if he had reached out to take that watch just now…
At the thought of it, the way he looked at Lin Xue turned even colder, tinged with open disgust.
“Lin Xue, you said this watch is a Qin family heirloom?” Qin Zhan said coldly.
“My grandfather did lose a watch.
But that happened on the Changsha battlefield in 1942.”
“So tell me—how did your father happen to pick it up on a battlefield thousands of kilometers away?”
Lin Xue, who had been screaming moments ago, suddenly fell silent like a chicken whose throat had been grabbed.
Her eyes darted around in panic.
“I… I don’t know. Grandpa just gave it to us…”
“You’re still lying.”
“I can smell the earth from that watch from two meters away. Do you take me for a fool? Or do you think every doctor in the military district is an idiot?”
By then, Lu Wenbo had already used a pair of long hemostatic forceps to forcibly pry the “man-eating” pocket watch from Lin Xue’s hand.
Clang!
The watch landed in a stainless-steel tray.
Strangely, the moment it left Lin Xue’s hand, the faint layer of black mist surrounding it seemed to fade.
Lying there quietly, it looked like nothing more than a rusty piece of scrap metal.
“These are classic characteristics of an excavated artifact.” Lu Wenbo adjusted his glasses, his expression stern.
“And one that’s been freshly unearthed without any preservation treatment, carrying dangerous pathogens.
Comrade Lin Xue, privately possessing such a hazardous artifact and being suspected of grave robbing is far more serious than you realize.”
Lin Xue completely panicked.
If the pain earlier had been physical, then the terror she felt now struck her very soul.
Grave robbing?
That was a capital crime!
“It wasn’t me! I didn’t rob any tombs! My dad—no… I found it! I really found it!”
She spoke incoherently, tears and snot running down her face.
Just then, a series of firm, synchronized footsteps echoed from outside the hospital room.
“Found it?”
A deep voice interrupted.
The door swung open.
Commander Wang, the same commander who had missed yesterday’s drama because he had gone back to change his socks, walked in with a stern face.
Behind him were two soldiers dressed in white hazmat suits and gas masks.
Each carried a silver metal case, looking intimidatingly professional.
“We received a report that a gang of tomb raiders has been operating in this area recently, targeting nearby ancient tombs.
Just now, we searched Comrade Lin Xue’s luggage
and found a map showing the locations of ancient tombs in this region, along with several bronze arrowheads.”
Commander Wang’s sharp gaze fixed on Lin Xue lying in the hospital bed.
“Together with this pocket watch and the Falcon insignia badge from yesterday…
Lin Xue, you’re no longer just a troublesome military dependent.”
“You’re a mole planted in our compound by Falcon, aren’t you?”
That accusation stunned not only Lin Xue—even Lin Wan couldn’t help exclaiming inwardly.
[Not bad, Commander. Your imagination is first-rate.]
**[Lin Xue is probably just a greedy idiot trying to steal things and sell them. She’s nowhere near smart enough to be a spy.
But that badge is genuine evidence.]**
[Now she’s really done for. Once mud lands in your pants, nobody cares whether it’s mud or something worse.]
The moment Lin Xue heard the word “spy,” her eyes rolled back, and she nearly fainted.
“I’m innocent, Commander! I’m really not a spy! I’m just greedy! I only wanted to marry Qin Zhan and live a good life!”
“That badge… I bought it from a street vendor! He told me it could ward off evil!”
“This watch was my father’s keepsake! My father used to rob tombs, but he quit years ago!”
Overwhelmed by terror, she blurted out everything she should and shouldn’t have said.
“Take her away!”
Commander Wang couldn’t be bothered listening to her wailing. He waved his hand.
The two hazmat soldiers stepped forward and skillfully lifted the still-screaming Lin Xue off the bed.
Since the toxins on her body might be contagious, they sealed her inside a transparent isolation bag, leaving only her head exposed so she could breathe.
“Brother Qin Zhan! Save me! For the sake of the eggs I used to bring you when we were kids!”
As she was dragged toward the door, Lin Xue desperately stretched out her uninjured left hand, trying to grab Qin Zhan.
Qin Zhan sidestepped without letting even the corner of his clothes touch her.
“I never ate those eggs,” Qin Zhan said expressionlessly, delivering the final blow.
“I fed them all to the dogs.
Besides, you stole those eggs from the neighbors.”
Lin Xue stared at him in utter despair, as though she were seeing Qin Zhan for the first time.
“Lin Wan! It’s all your fault, you cursed woman! You won’t die a peaceful death!”
Just before she was dragged out the door, she screamed one final curse.
Lin Wan merely stood there and smiled as she waved goodbye.
[Take care now, buddy.]
**[Behave yourself in prison and maybe you’ll earn a lighter sentence.
I hear working the sewing machines in there is great exercise. Maybe it’ll even fix that underdeveloped brain of yours.]**
As Lin Xue’s screams faded into the distance, peace finally returned to the hospital room.
The faint stench of decay still lingered in the air, reminding everyone that what had just happened was no hallucination.
Commander Wang turned around, his gaze sweeping over Qin Zhan and Lin Wan before finally settling on Tangtang, who was quietly holding Lin Wan’s hand.
The fierce, commanding aura he had displayed moments earlier vanished instantly.
In its place appeared the warm smile of a kindly grandfather.
“So this is the little girl who built a helicopter out of an alarm clock?”
Qin Zhan saluted.
“Reporting, Commander. It’s actually a prototype drone. Although crude, it does apply the principles of magnetic levitation and gyroscopic stabilization.”
Commander Wang’s eyes lit up.
“Good! Excellent! A true prodigy!”
He crouched down in front of Tangtang.
“Little one, would you like to see a real airplane?
One that’s ten thousand times more amazing than the one you built from an alarm clock?”
Tangtang had been a little intimidated by the stern-faced old commander.
But the moment she heard the words “real airplane,” her eyes sparkled like two bright stars.
“Yes! I want to!”
She turned to Lin Wan, her eyes full of hope.
“Big Sister, can I go?”
Lin Wan gently patted her head with a warm smile.
[Go! You absolutely have to go!]
[This is your chance to latch onto the biggest support you’ll ever get, silly girl.]
[Once you enter the military research institute, you’ll become one of the nation’s precious treasures. No one will ever dare bully you again.]
“Of course you can,” Lin Wan said gently.
“But you have to listen to this… um… grandpa, okay? And don’t go touching any electrical switches.”
Commander Wang burst into laughter.
“Deal! Old Chen, that stubborn mule, is testing a new engine today, but he’s hit a bottleneck.
Let’s take this little girl over to have a look.
Who knows? She might just surprise us.”
Then he looked at Qin Zhan.
“Xiao Qin, how’s the family housing assignment coming along?”
“Reporting, sir. We’ve already received the keys to the apartment. We’ll move in this afternoon.”
“Good. The sooner, the better.” Commander Wang glanced meaningfully toward the direction where Lin Xue had been dragged away.
“There are too many flies buzzing around the compound. Get settled in quickly, and it’ll save you from any more unnecessary trouble.”