Chapter 36

When Wei Yuan had wanted to take Jiang Shan from the tent, everyone except Gao Wenwu had strongly objected.
Zhang Zheng glared at him. Whether he liked the girl and whether she got hurt were two different things. And she had helped them on the way back—sending her to Songshan now wasn’t right.
Wei Yuan listened to the two. His gaze drifted. He thought of Jiang Shan’s guarded, cold face. Had he used her trust? If they met again, how would she react?
“We agreed on a twenty-day limit when we sent her. They won’t dare overstep.”
Jiang Shan was valuable not only to Songshan Hospital but to the whole of Jingang. So Wei Yuan was betting they wouldn’t harm her.
Only a week had passed. If they wanted to help Jiang Shan, they could only wait.
Zhang Zheng could only shut up and keep a sour look on his face.
They were still in the same old truck. Once on the road Zhang Zheng turned toward the outskirts. They had just hit the highway when Gao Wenwu in the passenger seat shouted: “Watch out! Someone’s on the side!”
Someone had rushed from the roadside and thrown himself at the driver’s window—fast and desperate. Zhang Zheng didn’t react in time.
A man around thirty, dressed like a tramp—no wonder he was out here instead of with the evacuating crowds.
He clung to the door in a strange, contorted way, his face pressed to the glass. A layer of black-grey covered his face. At first it looked like dirt—but the grey seemed to move, to writhe…
It drifted like dust. Some of it stuck to the window.
“Damn it!” Zhang Zheng swore and swung the wheel; they nearly left the road.
The man outside still clung to the door, shouting: “Take me with you! Please, take me!”
Zhang Zheng hit the gas. “Sorry, mate. Can’t do it.”
The truck swayed. Zhang Zheng drove like a maniac. In the back Wei Yuan frowned—hard enough for someone in a wheelchair.
Gao Wenwu reached into the back seat and grabbed a shotgun. He flicked off the safety and aimed it through the glass at the man outside. Coldly he said: “Open the window.”
Zhang Zheng had both hands on the wheel; he wasn’t the one to open it. And he knew Gao Wenwu wasn’t talking to him.
The man clinging to the door saw the gun and seemed to freeze. The next moment Zhang Zheng swerved sharply and finally shook him off.
They heard the sound of a body hitting the ground.
Wei Yuan closed his eyes.
Only then did Gao Wenwu lower the gun and toss it back onto the seat. It wasn’t loaded—just for scaring.
Zhang Zheng cursed: “Did you see that guy’s face? Why’s that stuff growing on people’s faces now?”