Chapter 198.1: Healing the World Part 1

A sudden, cold wind swept along the long street.

Tong Shan watched with astonishment from inside the car. He could feel the figures closing in around them, as well as the terrifying pressure pressing against the force field from outside, actually coming to a halt. No, not merely halt. It was as if they suddenly changed their minds and decided to flee.

In the cold, rancid wind, the bloodstained white coat billowed like a ghost, dancing with ravenous hunger.

The ghostly figure sprawled on the hood moved stiffly. Its eyes widened as it stared dully at that unfamiliar face, unable to make sense of it. It couldn’t see his face at all.

It was as if an unknown number of figures had merged into one. At times, he looked like a burning corpse. Other times, like a blood-drenched evil ghost. Sometimes his flesh rotted away to reveal white bone, and sometimes his body was covered in dense stitches, crisscrossing over one another. Sticky crimson slowly seeped out from beneath those stitches, tracing a cruel arc along his delighted smile.

“Are you hurt?” Ji Jue gazed at the miserable ghostly figure, unable to suppress the joy and wonder rising in his chest. Had material actually delivered itself right to his door?

The instant he reached out, faint cracking sounds came from the hood. The ghostly figure that had been sprawled there, screaming and thrashing, took a step back.

“I... I’m not...”

The two sets of features stitched together on its face writhed. As cold dread and terror washed over it, it could no longer spare any thought for the soul and flesh so close at hand. It wanted to give up. No, actually, it wanted to flee!

But the terrifying speed with which it had come and gone without a trace, along with the camouflage that had allowed it to appear and disappear at will, were now completely unusable. It was as though an invisible hand had seized it.

The ID badge on Ji Jue’s chest trembled again and again, yet it seemed as heavy as a mountain. It radiated endless pressure, leaving the ghostly figure unable to break free. The same strange power that came from Spring City was at work here, erasing every change it tried to make. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Or rather, the moment Ji Jue appeared, the rules and power it had originally relied on were completely wiped away, overwritten by rules of a higher order and far greater terror, all because it had dared to say the words “I’m hurt” to a “doctor” recognized by Spring City!

“I see...” Ji Jue lowered his eyes, carefully sensing the strange power now enveloping the long street, and feeling the operation of some mechanism he did not yet understand. Recalling Mr. Qian’s earnest teachings back at the hospital, he sighed in realization. “You’re sick.”

The moment those words left his mouth, every trace of savagery drained from the ghostly figure, leaving only a terror unlike anything it had ever known. Even though it didn’t know, understand, or grasp what exactly had happened, it still drove the remnant spirit into instinctive fear and madness.

“No! I-I-I-I’m not!!!” The ghostly figure on the hood struggled frantically, falling into the pool of blood. It clawed at the ground with both hands and feet, trying to crawl away as it screamed, “No, no, no, no! Go, go, go, go! Go away! Leave! Lea-lea-lea—”

Its shouts came to an abrupt stop, because Ji Jue was already standing right in front of it, his feet planted in the pool of blood.

“No. You’re sick. Seriously sick,” Ji Jue comforted it, a gentle smile appearing on his bloodstained face. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll cure you.”

A doctor would save his patient. A doctor had to save his patient. Yes, this was his sacred duty, the obligation and responsibility that Spring City recognized and bestowed upon doctors.

Despite the ghostly figure’s shrieking, Ji Jue’s hand clamped down on its face and pinned it firmly to the ground. “Don’t avoid treatment out of fear. I’m a doctor. Do you think I can’t tell? You must be sick. Your illness has spread through your entire body. If we don’t treat it now, I fear it will only get worse! Come on. Let me have a look—”

Crack!

As the ghostly figure thrashed beneath him, something in its body snapped. Ji Jue lowered his head, holding it down with one hand as he looked toward the source of the sound. His brow furrowed.

“Your leg is broken too? How awful!” He tightened his grip on the bone blade and measured the position. “Since it’s this serious, we’ll have to amputate. There’s no anesthetic, so bear with it, all right?”

“Mmph!!!”

Pinned beneath Ji Jue’s left hand, the ghostly figure’s eyes bulged wide. Its screams turned deafening as blood gushed out like a spring from under Ji Jue’s palm. Thanks to the bone blade, the lower half of its left leg was severed, dropping into the pool of blood and rolling around as if alive.

Very quickly, the mercury crawling out of the toolbox wrapped around it, absorbed it, suppressed it, and sealed it away, turning it into a thumb-sized fragment. This time, it barely put up any resistance, and the mercury swallowed it with ease.

Ji Jue frowned. “Wait, that’s not right. Stop moving. It’s your thigh that’s broken!”

Then came another slash. The screams reached a higher frequency than before, and the ghostly figure’s entire right leg was cut off. The mercury lurched at it was like a ravenous beast, swallowing it in an instant. The creature’s two faces twisted in pain. Its eyes were bloodshot as it wailed again and again, but its struggle was in vain.

“I told you to stop moving! You have to cooperate with the doctor’s treatment! This is all for your own good!” Ji Jue scolded it. “It’s your fault I cut the wrong leg! Now I have to do it again! Do you think surgery is free? Keep squirming, but don’t blame me if I get nervous and my hand slips, and I cut the wrong place!”

“Mmph!! Mmph! Mm-mmph!!” The ghost stared, hardly able to believe what it was hearing. As Ji Jue swung the blade, the creature convulsed uncontrollably before suddenly going rigid. Only crimson tears seeped from its four eyeballs, dripping into the pool of blood below.

Ji Jue paused and looked back, realizing that its left thigh was still there.

Then what did I just cut...? Oh!

With a wave of Ji Jue’s hand, the mercury absorbed the thigh at once.

Well, it had already been cut off. It was all for the patient’s own good. They could just consider it preventive care against certain cancers. Although it didn’t feel particularly useful to keep, he could at least take it back and steep it in liquor for Lu Feng[1].

Installing cameras every day to support the family must be exhausting. Here, drink up and nourish yourself!

After testing it three times in a row, Ji Jue roughly figured out the special status that the identity of a “doctor” held inside Spring City, as well as the rules and authority he possessed over these eerie ghosts. He could save the patient with no limits on the methods used. As long as he respected the rules, he could use any treatment he personally deemed reasonable.

But what exactly was the trigger?

The first time he encountered that strange figure, the bone blade had reacted, but it had not been nearly as forceful as it was now. In other words, that strange figure had not been judged a patient at the time.

So what exactly qualified someone as a patient? Did they have to be injured? Screaming? Begging for help?

Perhaps all of these counted. After all, the bone blade had already reacted when the thing crawled under the wheel. As long as the right conditions were met, he could step in as a doctor and perform emergency treatment or surgery.

Which raised the question: If a patient had something wrong with them, a doctor could provide emergency treatment. But if there was nothing wrong with the patient, could the doctor create the problem himself?

That still needed testing, but it shouldn’t be a major issue. Even if he couldn’t personally send the patient into the ICU, he still had teammates, didn’t he?!

Imagine being an honest, law-abiding local “person,” only to get beaten half to death out of nowhere by a bunch of out-of-town bastards without so much as a word of explanation. Then, just when you were on your last breath and your life was hanging by a thread, a doctor rushed over to save and treat you. Who knew how happy they would be!

Just thinking about it made Ji Jue nearly burst out laughing.

More importantly, he had roughly come to understand the essence of the many strange phenomena that had formed in Spring City over the past few decades within its highly corrupted environment.

Everything before his eyes was merely a physical manifestation. At its core, it was a chaotic phenomenon formed by the despair, hatred, and madness of countless remnant spirits gathering within Spring City. Attacking it from the outside could only tear away the branches above the surface. The roots underneath would remain untouched.

To destroy it completely, they would either need overwhelming power, enough to crush everything, overturn the soil, drag every buried root into the sun, grind it down, and wipe it out. Or they would have to follow its rules, strike from within, and cut out the rotten fruit at its core, just like what he was doing now.

So he really could save Spring City by becoming a doctor.

1. It’s a joke about Chinese medicinal liquor (药酒). Animal parts, herbs, roots, and similar ingredients are sometimes soaked in strong alcohol and treated as tonics for strength, vitality, aches, or “nourishing the body.” ☜