Chapter 897: The Sick Tiger

Once in the car, Zhou Xiao lit one cigarette after another, forcing himself to stay awake, but his coughing grew worse. At one point, he coughed up some blood and wiped his mouth before lighting another cigarette. Tao Yueyue thought his trachea must be as hardened as a rubber hose by now.

“Where are we going?” Tao Yueyue asked.

“We’ll find someone in the city, follow them home, kill them, and then stay at their place,” Zhou Xiao said nonchalantly.

“But you’re not in good shape…”

“Don’t worry about me!” Zhou Xiao snapped, his eyes bloodshot.

Tao Yueyue pulled a receipt from a dead man’s wallet. “This shipping receipt has an address on it. It might be their place. We could go there and stay.”

Zhou Xiao glanced at it and agreed.

Two hours later, they arrived at an old neighborhood and found the apartment. Tao Yueyue picked the lock. The place was small, dirty, and smelled awful. Three large bowls stacked on the coffee table had some leftover soup with cigarette butts floating in it. Tao Yueyue wrinkled her nose in disgust. The plan was simple: wait for Zhou Xiao to fall asleep, then restrain him and find nearby police to arrest him.

Zhou Xiao struggled to the couch and sat down. Standing at the door, Tao Yueyue noticed him hiding a knife in his hand. “Yueyue, come here,” he said gently, but it sent a chill down her spine. She recalled a story Chen Shi told her about an old man who disfigured his beautiful young wife with a smoking pipe before he died, fearing she would be with someone else after his death.

She realized Zhou Xiao might be planning to kill her to tie up loose ends.

“I won’t run,” Tao Yueyue vowed.

“I said come here! Didn’t you hear me?” Zhou Xiao barked.

“I’ll go buy you some medicine. What do you need?” she offered.

Zhou Xiao angrily stabbed the knife into the coffee table. “Don’t you dare leave!”

“Why don’t you trust me?”

“Why should I trust you!” Zhou Xiao scanned the room. “Go wait in that room.”

“You’re going to lock me up again? If I wanted to run, I had plenty of chances. You want to train me to be one of you, but you don’t trust me. Was this how Mr. Zhou trained you?”

Zhou Xiao seemed convinced, his pain clouding his judgment. “Don’t you hate me for what happened to Gu You?”

“Of course I do, but you saved me last night. I will get my revenge one day, but now I owe you. I don’t want to be in your debt,” she lied, knowing her logic was flimsy.

Zhou Xiao reluctantly believed her. “Glucose, IV tubes, antibiotics, syringes, lots of painkillers, and cigarettes.”

“Smoking will kill you.”

“Shut up! I don’t need your advice. Do as I say and get going!” Zhou Xiao yelled, stabbing the knife into the table again.

Tao Yueyue left, feeling a surge of freedom under the sunlight. She first needed to find a phone. Approaching a man, she said, “Excuse me, sir, may I borrow your phone to make a call?”

The man shook his head vehemently and hurried away. She tried a woman next. “Ma’am, my phone died, and I need to call my family. Could I use your phone, please?”

The woman looked at her suspiciously. “Sorry, my phone is dead too,” she said and walked away quickly.

Tao Yueyue realized people were rejecting her because of her dirty clothes and battered face. In a city like Long’an, people were especially cautious.

If she didn’t return soon, Zhou Xiao’s paranoia would make him flee immediately.

Zhou Xiao was weak now, a sleeping pill could take him out. She went to a nearby pharmacy and searched the shelves for sleeping pills but found none.

A pharmacist approached her warily. “What do you need, young lady?”

“Painkillers, antibiotics, saline solution, IV sets, syringes, and bottled water.”

“Do you have a prescription?”

“Why do I need a prescription?”

“You need a prescription to buy prescription drugs. No prescription, no sale.”

“Can you make an exception?”

“We can,” the pharmacist said cheerfully, “but it’ll cost more than at the hospital since we’re taking a risk. Understand?”

“Fine…”

She spent all the money from the dead man’s wallet on a bag of medications. Leaving the pharmacy, she wondered if she should buy some rope.

But Zhou Xiao might not be asleep when she returned. If he found the rope, the plan would be ruined. She told herself to gain his trust first. There would be more opportunities.

Patience, she needed patience.

Back at the apartment, she opened the door and found Zhou Xiao gone. A bloody smell hit her, and she turned to see Zhou Xiao leaning against the wall, holding a knife in each hand, one from the kitchen. His wrists were bleeding.

His infection and fever had turned his eyes red. He glanced at the bag in her hand and said, “You actually bought the medicine.”

“I told you I wouldn’t run.”

Zhou Xiao went back to the couch. Tao Yueyue noticed fresh wounds on his wrists. He had cut himself to stay alert, fearing she would bring the police. He wanted to be ready to fight and die like a hero, not be caught unprepared and humiliated.

“Rest in the bedroom,” she suggested.

Zhou Xiao ignored her, taking out the medications. Seeing only capsules, he complained, “I wanted injectable antibiotics!”

“I didn’t have enough money,” she lied.

Zhou Xiao swallowed ten painkillers and ten antibiotics, washing them down with a large glass of tap water instead of the bottled water she had bought.

After taking the meds, he set up an IV line for himself and told her to get a coat hanger to hang the saline bottle.

Tao Yueyue was shocked to realize he wasn’t planning to sleep. His paranoia was too strong.

As the saline dripped into his system, he would regain strength. She should act now, knock him out or find a way to tie him up.

But she only had one chance. If she failed, she’d be doomed. Without a sure plan, she couldn’t risk it.

Tao Yueyue clenched her fists, regretting not borrowing a phone from a passerby earlier. She looked around the living room for anything she could use…

“Any chance the police will burst through this door?” Zhou Xiao asked jokingly, but his eyes were sharp.

“What?” she exclaimed. “You still don’t trust me?”

“I just don’t understand. I’m so weak now. Why haven’t you called the police or tried to take me down? Are you scared?”