IWOL Chapter 221: Corpse Thief

The nurses searched the entire lunatic asylum, but they couldn’t find Cui Zuojing.

They also searched Rudolf’s ward. This wealthy businessman had a separate room and would preach endlessly when in the throes of an episode. The fact that he was able to live well was due to his mother’s care.

His younger brother hoped that his brother could die in the asylum so that he could inherit the family property, but Rudolf’s biological mother understood that everything was a conspiracy. Although she’d divorced the wealthy businessman a long time ago, she’d been taking care of her child. After discovering that Rudolf had been sent to an insane asylum, she tried to negotiate his release but could not save him, and so she could only find ways to make her child’s life more comfortable. She spent a lot of money to provide Rudolf with a separate room and good care, and she was ready to pick him up the moment he managed to escape from the lunatic asylum and help him get his rightful property back.

Under the charms of money, Rudolf was doing well and the nurses also treated him with a good attitude. They searched his small room and still found no one, and under the barrage of Rudolf’s “The sun is going to explode and all of us will die” they left in a hurry.

Since the wards could not be locked from the inside, Rudolf closed the door and pushed a chair up against it so that there would be a brief delay if someone suddenly pushed in. Cui Zuojing jumped out from the vent and said, “Then wait for it to get dark?”

“I’ll secretly get you dinner later.”

Seeing Cui Zuojing barefoot, Rudolf gave him his shoes but it wasn’t the right size. Although they were about the same height, Rudolf’s feet were smaller. If the shoes were bigger, it would be fine, but wearing smaller shoes was too painful.

Rudolf thought that Cui Zuojing might be too conspicuous so he went next door to borrow a pair. There was a schizophrenic patient who lived there, and his body size was similar to Cui Zuojing so his shoes might be suitable.

The man next door behaved normally when he wasn’t sick. He was a good-tempered person, and without further questions, he lent the pair of shoes to Rudolf.

Cui Zuojing tried it, and it was just right after tightening the laces.

After that, Cui Zuojing and Rudolf stayed in the room for a whole afternoon. They went over the details of the escape plan. After the nurse came to lock the doors, they would climb up the vent to the previous hallway, pass the activity room, and escape after a detour.

Rudolf chatted with Cui Zuojing about his life in Belgium, evidently hoping that Cui Zuojing would also talk about his own life.

“I don’t have much,” Cui Zuojing said. “I just have a group of very close friends and a lover who takes good care of me. I just want to find him.”

Rudolf was silent. He was thinking of his brother stealing his wife and sending him to a lunatic asylum. Even now, there were still traces of the ring he’d worn on his finger.

After he left here, he would take back everything that belonged to him!

The sky got darker as night fell. The moon and the sparse stars occupied the sky, without a cloud in sight.

After the nurse confirmed Rudolf’s situation and prepared some food and water for him, she locked the door from the outside and left.

Cui Zuojing came from where he was hiding and unceremoniously took a few sips of water. Rudolf was a little nervous. He silently determined the route over and over again and asked Cui Zuojing, “Do you still need to look at the map?”

Cui Zuojing replied, “I have memorized it.”

Rudolf nodded. He took out two flintstones from the innermost of the cabinet and lit the map that he’d spent two years drawing. He watched as the fire flicked up its tongue and licked the paper bit by bit until, in the end, there was only ashes left. Then Rudolph opened the window and threw them out into the wind.

This time, he must succeed or die trying. He’d already spent three years plotting and gathering his strength here.

They waited for a while. At 11:30 in the evening, with the minute hand gradually approaching midnight, Rudolph opened his eyes. The young man sitting in his chair had his head up and his eyes closed. The lines of his neck were smooth.

Rudolf couldn’t help but think that if his young child hadn’t died from drowning, would he have grown up to be this age?

He’d blamed himself for a long time, only to discover later that his son’s death wasn’t an accident.

It was the good deed done by his brother and wife.

Taking a deep breath and burying everything in his mind, Rudolf got up from the bed and said, “Let’s go.”

Cui Zuojing stood on the table, took the cover from the vent, and crawled in first. He was younger than Rudolf, and he could react flexibly in case there was danger.

They reached the previous corridor smoothly.

After landing, Cui Zuojing patted the dust from his clothes. Rudolf followed closely. He had been secretly exercising during the time in the asylum, and his movements were quite dexterous.

Sure enough, there was no one in the dark corridor, so as not to discover the corpse thief and the doctor. They didn’t carry any lights and relied on the familiar terrain to travel in the dark.

Outside, everything was silent except for the night crow crying, echoing distantly from time to time. Once the corpse thief came to commit his crimes under the cover of darkness, they would need to work faster and hide far away.

Rudolf was more familiar with the terrain than Cui Zuojing. He had walked this asylum countless times in the past three years, and he could do so now with his eyes closed. According to the original plan, they would pass through the main building and walk around to the back.

Cui Zuojing needed to escape from here. The moonlight and starlight penetrated through the windows, extending its five fingers. Cui Zuojing slowed his breathing and walked in light steps as he followed Rudolf.

They turned the corner, but saw that at the corner on the other side of the corridor, the dim light had casted a black shadow on the wall.

Someone was here?!

Rudolf stopped Cui Zuojing. The young man looked out and saw the figure in the light. It was a man walking with a lantern. The lantern shook with his every step, and the shadow cast on the wall moved with it.

He and Rudolf took a look. Rudolf wanted to go back the same way and avoid the man, but Cui Zuojing stopped him and signaled to wait.

Rudolf was afraid so he could only escape, but Cui Zuojing was different. He needed to find a way to leave this scene, and the corpse thief might provide a breakthrough.

The shaking halo of light finally stopped. This was soon followed by the sound of a key being inserted into the keyhole. The door opened.

Rudolf was anxious. He just wanted to leave the lunatic asylum as soon as possible. Cui Zuojing tightly grasped onto him to prevent him from running, and whispered, “Wait a minute. Don’t be hasty.”

Rudolf returned quietly. After he finally calmed down and began to pay attention to the small sounds coming from the other side, his face quickly changed. “The confinement room?”

“Is anyone locked in it?” Cui Zuojing asked.

Rudolf whispered, “Mia is there. She scratched another woman’s eye in the dining hall and has been locked in here since noon.”

So that was it.

Cui Zuojing was the one meant to be killed by the corpse thief today.

No wonder the doctor and nurses were anxious to catch him. The doctor didn’t take him to the operation room to perform a prefrontal lobe resection. Instead, they wanted to knock him out and allow the corpse thief to come in, murder him, and sell his fresh corpse to the hospital.

It was a pity that the doctor went to so much trouble but wasn’t able to lock the chosen person in the confinement room. Instead, he had to temporarily grab another patient as a substitute. Cui Zuojing spent three second mourning the poor Mia in his heart. Even though his feelings had come back, he still must restrained himself from responding to the misery and tragedy in the box. Otherwise, once desperate emotions rose, the queen would become stronger and stronger.

The iron door was slowly pushed open, making a creaking sound that seemed particularly harsh in the silence. The corpse thief walked in. He was wearing hard-soled leather boots, and his footsteps sounded every step of the way. The footsteps got closer, and a very tall and strong figure emerged.

Mia was tied firmly to the iron bed with a restraint belt, unable to move. Her arms were secure close to her body, like a pole, and she could only lie upright. It had been a whole ten hours since she’d been tied here, and she was also a violent mentally ill patient. When she’d been tied up, she had struggled desperately for nearly an hour and ended up adding to the many scars that she’d gotten from being restrained.

The woman, exhausted and riddled with scars, finally became well-behaved.

Mia was half conscious. When she sensed someone coming in, she thought a nurse had come to release her, and she struggled to open her eyes.

She saw that, in the warm light of the lantern that illuminated the small, dark confinement room, a bearded man she’d never seen before had walked up to the bed. Before she could react, his hand tightly covered her mouth and nose!

Feeling suffocated, Mia’s consciousness struggled with all her strength, but the restraint belt limited her resistance. The air in her lungs became less and less, and the pain grew larger and larger. Her eyes gradually blurred, and her whole body began to spasm.

Bang—

Suddenly, the ‌hand covering her nose and mouth loosened. Mia opened her mouth to “drink” in the air, gasping. She was in such a hurry, she sucked air as if she would be suffocated again.

The light of the lantern illuminated everything in front of her. Over the shoulder of the vicious man, Mia saw a familiar face. The wealthy Rudolf who usually talked nonsense all day held onto a short stick and struck the man’s head again.

Blood ran down the man’s face and meandered between his eyes and cheeks, dripping down onto the neckline.

She wanted to scream, but her mouth was too busy sucking in breath. She didn’t know if Rudolf just wasn’t strong enough or if the man was too strong, but the man wasn’t knocked down at all. He only grunted, grabbed the short stick, turned around, and threw a fist at Rudolf!

At the juncture of life and death, the fierceness hidden in the bones and blood was completely exposed. Rudolph shrank his neck awkwardly, dodged, and kicked at the man. Although he couldn’t shake the man’s figure, at least he didn’t get hit.

The man tore the short stick away, and Rudolf really discovered that the body of a corpse thief was really good! He was as strong as a monster!

Pained, red-rimmed eyes stared at him, as if wanting to eat him alive, and the man once again raised his fist. Rudolf screamed and regret surfaced in his heart for a moment.

If he hadn’t come here instead, he would have left the lunatic asylum by now!

Was he going to die here?

Pop—

The pain that he had expected didn’t come.

“Hurry up and go.”

Rudolf opened his eyes tentatively when he heard the young man’s cold voice. The fierce corpse thief had fallen to the ground. The short stick had pierced him in the heart, and Rudolf couldn’t believe that such a blunt stick could pierce the human body so easily.

Blood gurgled out and quickly ran into a pool of blood at his feet.

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