Chapter 143: Spinal Injury
“All earth-ability users prepare to clear the rubble and rescue the trapped. Everyone else, secure the perimeter and watch for zombies,” Li Qing ordered.
Lu Weiyi could feel that Li Zhuang was injured, but even knowing that, he had no way to free them at the moment. He took out four energy cores from his storage—ones he had never used before—and quietly placed one in the hands of each of the other three.
“Absorb these.” Just using their powers to resist the mental zombie’s attacks had drained them all significantly, not to mention the various bites and scratches. These energy cores were the fastest and most potent way to replenish their strength.
The three didn’t say anything and quickly absorbed the cores.
“This stuff… has more power than dozens of crystal cores,” Antonio said in surprise in the darkness. After absorbing his, he felt his ability might have even leveled up slightly.
Lu Weiyi understood his unspoken question and explained, “Lifesaving items.” Using them casually would be wasteful.
After absorbing his core, Lu Weiyi immediately sent Little Green Branch to search for the mental zombie. The building wasn’t tall, and even before it collapsed, it was within the vine’s range.
Earlier, he had been too tied up dealing with other zombies to spare attention. Now, with all zombies buried—dead or not—they couldn’t move. It was the perfect time for the vine to harvest crystal cores.
The mental zombie was also buried in the rubble. It was pitch-black, and Lu Weiyi couldn’t visually distinguish it from others. He could only tell it was still “alive,” trying to use its powers to move the debris pinning it down.
But since Little Green Branch wasn’t a mutated plant, it had no energy signature and didn’t alert the zombie when it approached—making the core collection incredibly smooth.
Using its natural plant ability to move through soil, Lu Weiyi not only retrieved a B-grade mental-type crystal core but also harvested the cores of other zombies buried in the ruins.
“Lu Weiyi, where are you?” Gu Qingji’s voice came through the walkie-talkie again, now faintly audible from outside as well.
“Over here!” Antonio shouted loudly.
“There,” Li Qing pointed and approached the spot, calling down, “Is it here?”
“Yes,” Antonio replied.
“Alright. I’ll have the earth users clear the debris,” Li Qing said, instructing the gathered earth-ability users to begin removing the collapsed layers.
“Li Zhuang?” Lu Weiyi still hadn’t heard his voice and was feeling uneasy.
“Mm,” Li Zhuang responded.
His tone wasn’t much different from usual, but Lu Weiyi couldn’t shake the unease. He reached out, trying to feel where Li Zhuang was injured.
But the moment his hand touched him, Li Zhuang grabbed it and joked, “Trying to cop a feel in the dark? You’ll have to take responsibility.”
Lu Weiyi wasn’t in the mood. He tried to pull away, but the space was too tight. As he moved, he heard Li Zhuang suddenly hiss in pain and immediately stopped.
“My back’s a little hurt. It’s nothing serious,” Li Zhuang answered seriously.
Time ticked by, and the sounds from outside grew louder. After about ten minutes, the last layer of debris was cleared, revealing the four of them trapped underneath.
At that moment, Lu Weiyi felt the person leaning against him suddenly go limp, as if he had let out a long-held breath.
“Li Zhuang?” Lu Weiyi’s voice trembled.
No response.
“Bring a stretcher—move the injured carefully,” Li Qing ordered. “Where are the medics? Get over here!”
Several people worked together to carefully move Li Zhuang, revealing Lu Weiyi underneath, still holding his hand. Li Qing and Gu Qingji exchanged surprised glances at the two of them. Seeing Lu Weiyi’s calm but slightly panicked expression, they didn’t say anything and just had the medics take over.
“The dirt wall collapsed. He held it up with his body,” Gu Qingji said quietly, helping pull the remaining three out.
Lu Weiyi’s face was streaked with blood from Li Zhuang’s back wound where a steel bar had pierced him. Aside from a few scratches from zombie claws and bites, he was completely unharmed—protected completely by Li Zhuang.
The other two, having just expelled zombie energy, looked a bit weak but weren’t seriously hurt.
“Is it fatal?” They followed the medics, who carried the unconscious Li Zhuang. Blood dripped all along the path. When the medics cut away his clothes to examine him, a steel bar was found embedded in his back between his ribs, with blood gushing from the wound. Two ribs at the rear had clearly been broken inward.
“Given the limited conditions, we haven’t found any fatal injuries for now,” one medic reported.
“What do you need?” Lu Weiyi asked.
“We don’t have any hemostatics, thrombin, or other coagulation-related medicines,” the medic replied.
Lu Weiyi couldn’t distinguish between those, but the medicines in his space had all been organized. He simply took out an entire row labeled with “hemostasis” and set them aside.
“…” The medic silently marveled at his wealth, then quickly found the right medicine and began applying it—external application and intramuscular injection all in one go. “I checked earlier—the steel bar that pierced him isn’t long enough to have punctured internal organs, but I can’t be entirely certain. It’s best to get a scan. Also, the fractured ribs will require surgical realignment.”
Lu Weiyi had originally planned to wait until they encountered a healing-type ability user before heading to a hospital to find equipment to treat Zhuang Mingxu’s leg. There was no urgency since having the equipment in advance wouldn’t help much. But now, he realized that when you actually need something, you feel the pressure.
“Also…” the medic added, glancing at everyone’s expression, “being struck in the back can easily injure the spine. If…” He didn’t finish, but everyone understood. A spinal injury could mean paralysis.
“Can we leave now?” Lu Weiyi wanted to bring Li Zhuang back to base immediately, get medical equipment, and perform surgery.
The medic stayed silent. The journey back would take several days, and the road was far from smooth. If there really was a spinal injury, the bumps along the way could worsen it significantly.
Li Qing, after assigning tasks to everyone, came with Lei Jun to check on Li Zhuang. Upon hearing the situation, he said, “It’s almost night now. Traveling at night with an injured person is not ideal. Let’s wait until morning. Maybe he’ll wake up by then, and it won’t be a spinal injury after all.”
“I know the Xiangning City base has medical equipment. We can go straight to Su Yan and borrow their facilities for surgery—it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Lu Weiyi stared at Li Zhuang in silence for a moment, then nodded.
“Did you find the salt we needed?” he asked Li Qing. He wasn’t alone—someone was already injured during this mission, so he couldn’t afford to give up the supplies they had come for.
“Yes, no one else has been here. There’s quite a bit left,” Li Qing replied. “As we discussed, I had your share separated out.”
Lu Weiyi nodded and looked at the surrounding residential buildings. “Do you want anything from inside?”
“I need to check if we have any space left,” Li Qing said. They had brought three trucks and three spatial ability users. The more they could take, the better, but their main goal was salt. He had to load the salt first before deciding what else to bring.
Lu Weiyi nodded. “I’ll take anything you can’t fit.”
Li Qing was surprised at the size of Lu Weiyi’s storage. “…Alright.”
The salt well in Zhoujia County wasn’t very large, with a total storage of only about three tons. After splitting it, Li Qing conceded a bit—Lu Weiyi took one ton. That night, both teams collected and divided the surrounding supplies.
In the middle of the night, Li Zhuang woke up once. He seemed in fair condition and still had feeling in his body, though moving was difficult. The medic said it might be a nerve injury that needed further examination.
“Your ribs will need surgical repair. We’re not sure whether your spine is injured yet. You shouldn’t move for now. Tomorrow morning, we’ll go straight to Xiangning City Base. Li Qing said Su Yan has medical equipment. We’ll do the surgery there before returning to Qingyuan,” Lu Weiyi said as he took out some porridge from his space and awkwardly fed it to Li Zhuang.
He had never taken care of anyone before, so just remembering to blow on the spoon to cool it down was already doing well. Every spoonful left a bit of a mess around the mouth, which he had to keep wiping up.
“I want Antonio to come too. Let’s make sure he won’t be able to get away from us for a whole week,” Li Zhuang joked as Lu Weiyi blew on the porridge. “Let him feed me dog food every day.”
“Alright.” Compared to the other two, Antonio was clearly the more suitable companion in terms of communication and ability. Lu Weiyi agreed.
“Did you get the crystal core?” Li Zhuang asked.
Lu Weiyi knew he was referring to the mental zombie’s core, but with so many people around, he couldn’t say it directly. “Yeah, got it. You won’t believe it—there were over 800 zombies in that three-story building. Good thing we didn’t charge in. It would’ve been like diving into a zombie pit.”
“I told you I had foresight,” Li Zhuang said.
The two of them chatted quietly, neither bringing up the accident or its consequences. It was as if they had just passed another ordinary night.
Thanks for the chapter!