Deep Within the Living-Chapter 15: Reinforcements

Anna dashed up the stairs at full speed, intent on retrieving a "supremely
yang
object" to counter the Jiangshi.
“It’s actually a Jiangshi from Wu Wen’s country,”
she thought. *“In Russian, its name was originally used interchangeably with zombies, but they’re completely different things.
Even though we interrupted the ritual in time and stopped its full transformation, its body is still this hard... My axe could split a small tree in one swing, yet I couldn’t even cut through its shoulder bone.
And this is just a toned-down simulation under the institute’s control.
A real
anomaly
would be far more terrifying. My strength and technique are nowhere near enough. No wonder the instructor kicked me off the sports meet roster. Once I get back to school, I have to double my training.”*
Pushing her scattered thoughts aside, Anna found herself standing at the door of the master bedroom.
Just as she reached out to push the door open—
Click!
A sharp, crisp sound.
Just that single noise was enough to overwhelm the fear she felt for the Jiangshi downstairs.
Her gaze was involuntarily drawn toward the hallway beside her.
Anna clearly remembered that the master bedroom was at the very end of the hall, with its door positioned next to a dead-end wall.
But now, the hallway extended farther into a shadowy void. No lights adorned the extended corridor, leaving it pitch black with no discernible end.
The sound had come from the depths of that darkness.
Fear crept over her like a rising tide, growing with every passing second she stared into the void.
Suddenly, Anna caught a faint glimpse of something moving within the darkness.
It was slowly approaching, its form becoming partially visible.
It had a tongue for a head, a grotesque horror that used its legs to shuffle forward like a human.
It was about to step out of the shadows, ready to reveal some final, unknown, and terrifying shape.
Smack!
A hand clapped firmly onto Anna’s shoulder.
The sudden touch yanked her out of her terrified trance. In the blink of an eye, the hallway returned to normal. Just three meters away, its proper end stood clearly in sight, decorated with a vase lamp.
"Anna, what are you doing standing frozen at the door?"
Turning her head, Anna saw Gao Yuxuan, his polished glasses catching the light.
"Did you hear any strange sounds just now?"
"Nope... Hurry up! The class leader and Luo Di can’t hold out much longer."
With the practice at a critical moment, Gao Yuxuan had no time to dwell on distractions. Every wasted second risked their companions' lives.
His reason for following Anna back to the mansion was simple: among the four of them, his athletic performance was the weakest. If even Anna’s axe couldn’t hurt the Jiangshi, his field knife would be utterly useless.
Gao Yuxuan had come prepared. Among the items stored in his backpack was a special tool that he had originally brought to provide medical aid to his teammates. Now, however, it might serve a different purpose—one that could help them deal with the Jiangshi.
While Gao Yuxuan was rummaging through the master bedroom for his item, Anna followed him inside.
But the unsettling dread from the tongue-clicking sound lingered at the back of her throat, impossible to shake off.
She kept reminding herself to trust the institute, believing that this practice scenario was designed to trigger only one anomaly event. But what she had just seen couldn’t have been a hallucination.
As she searched through her bag, Anna spoke up:
"Gao, I just heard a tongue-clicking sound in the hallway, and I saw something—something demonic. I think it’s really dangerous."
Strangely, Gao Yuxuan didn’t respond.
He remained completely focused, pulling out a strange wooden box from his bag. His mind seemed preoccupied with the Jiangshi and the need to return as quickly as possible to provide backup, leaving him oblivious to Anna’s words.
Opening the box, Gao Yuxuan carefully inspected its contents—a neatly arranged row of long silver needles.
"Is this... traditional Chinese medicine?"
Though Anna wasn’t from Huaxia, she was familiar with the renowned practice of Chinese medicine.
In a world where large corporations nearly monopolized biomedical technology, affordable and effective TCM clinics remained an indispensable part of healthcare, making treatment accessible for ordinary people.
Anna herself had once undergone acupuncture therapy. Just one session had significantly improved her physical condition, allowing her to perform well in subsequent athletic exams.
But the silver needles in Gao Yuxuan’s box were far longer than those used for acupuncture. The longest one looked capable of piercing through an entire arm.
Meanwhile, Anna retrieved her own tools from her bag: the vodka bottles she had brought earlier.
Two were her favorite 60-proof spirits, but the last one was a bottle of Spirytus—the strongest vodka on the market, with an alcohol content of 96%. Originally meant for mixing cocktails, she hadn’t expected it to come in handy like this.
She also prepared torn cloth strips and a windproof lighter.
"Let’s go!"
"Got it!"
When the two reopened the master bedroom door, they could hear faint metallic clashing sounds coming from outside, even from this distance.
"Wu Wen!"
Having experienced firsthand how tough the Jiangshi was, Anna’s worry for her friend overpowered her lingering fear of the tongue-clicking entity. There was no time to dwell on her earlier encounter—dealing with the Jiangshi took priority. She resolved to address the strange phenomena later, once the immediate threat was neutralized.
The pair sprinted out of the mansion at full speed, but as they stepped through the front door, the sight before them made them freeze in place.
The metallic sounds had stopped.
A silver-plated modern chainsaw lay on the ground near the mansion's entrance, its blade broken beyond use.
Luo Di was sprawled on the ground about ten meters away, clutching his upper left arm with his right hand.
Three finger-thick puncture wounds marred his arm, piercing through the muscle. The wounds were blackened and oozing blood mixed with pus.
However,
Lying on the ground of the front yard was a severed arm wrapped in a tattered cloth sleeve, oozing foul-smelling black blood that stained the dirt. Judging by the jagged cut at its base, it was clear the arm had been sliced off with the chainsaw.
Despite the cost—damaging the chainsaw and suffering severe injuries—Luo Di had managed to saw off one of the Jiangshi's arms.
Anna and Gao Yuxuan, who hadn’t witnessed the fight, were stunned by Luo Di’s apparent strength and bravery.
In reality, Luo Di knew it had been thanks to the class leader’s skillful distraction that he had been able to wield such an unwieldy tool against the Jiangshi effectively.
The class leader’s combat abilities were astounding—far beyond what one would expect from a high school student.
"Ahhh~~"
Black mist poured from the Jiangshi’s mouth, its fury heightened by the loss of its arm. It shifted all its rage toward Luo Di, the chainsaw-wielding attacker, marking him as its primary target.
With its cloth shoes pressing firmly into the ground, the Jiangshi launched itself forward, closing the gap with alarming speed.
Luo Di, just starting to rise from the ground, seemed to have no time to evade.
In that critical moment,
something glowing flew from the mansion’s front door, arcing perfectly through the air before smashing into the Jiangshi’s side.
Crash!
The sound of shattering glass was followed by an ear-splitting roar as flames burst forth, spreading across the Jiangshi’s body. The sharp smell of alcohol filled the air.
The makeshift Molotov cocktail, while not perfect, succeeded in partially igniting the creature. The fire didn’t engulf the Jiangshi completely but still managed to burn portions of its body.
The
yang
-charged flames had a natural suppressive effect on the
yin
-infused corpse.
Though the pus seeping from the Jiangshi’s wounds dampened the fire and eventually extinguished it, the searing pain from the burns significantly weakened the creature.
Seizing the opportunity, another object was thrown—not at the Jiangshi this time, but toward Luo Di, who had just managed to stand.
Smack!
He caught it steadily.
It was a bottle of 60-proof vodka, its mouth uncapped and lacking the telltale cloth wick of a Molotov.
While it didn’t meet the 70–75% alcohol concentration of medical-grade disinfectants, it still offered some sterilizing properties.
Without hesitation, Luo Di poured the vodka over the puncture wounds on his arm.
Agonizing pain.
The Jiangshi’s corpse poison wasn’t something that could be easily neutralized, and the vodka offered only temporary relief.
At that moment, a nearly weightless, gentle hand rested on Luo Di’s shoulder.
The touch transported him back to the last moments before the school break, when the class leader had approached him with the invitation to join the practice.
From beneath her mask came a soothing voice:
"Leave the rest to us~ A crippled Jiangshi with only one arm is something we can handle just fine. Don’t underestimate your teammates, okay?"