Chapter 23

Chapter 23

A figure wearing a padded cotton jacket and a face mask walked in, meeting the shocked gaze of Qiao Yu, who was standing by the door.

What shocked Qiao Yu wasn’t the stranger’s bizarre behavior of wearing a thick winter coat in the sweltering heat; it was the notification from the Live Stream Room.

[Detected that a player has triggered a Hidden NPC. Doctor Zhuang has been activated. Instance Mutation in progress…]

Qiao Yu: ??

“Did I walk into the wrong room?” Seeing a stranger in the apartment, the man stepped back out with a lack of confidence to double-check his room number.

He then asked, “Are you a new tenant?”

Doctor Zhuang’s voice was low and raspy, and his gaze was soft. He appeared harmless.

Still dazed by the system notification, Qiao Yu merely gave a slow nod.

Clad in that heavy cotton jacket, Doctor Zhuang brushed past Qiao Yu and went straight to pull open the curtains.

Blinding sunlight flooded in from outside, coating the furniture and the floor in a soft glow. The thin layer of ash vanished in the blink of an eye.

“Why are you in my home?”

Qiao Yu blinked. “The door was unlocked.”

“Was it? I must have forgotten to lock it when I stepped out just now.” Doctor Zhuang didn’t press the issue. Instead, he walked over to the bookshelf, his eyes slowly scanning the top row of books.

“Are you here for a consultation?”

Qiao Yu nodded.

What else could he do? He couldn’t exactly say, “I think there’s something wrong with you, so I came here to look for trouble.”

“What are your symptoms?” Doctor Zhuang gave a light cough. In a clear attempt to hide something, he reached out and pulled the sliding door across the bookshelf, slowly concealing all the books inside.

Thinking back to the titles he had seen on that shelf, Qiao Yu reached up to touch his forehead and feigned a casual tone. “I had a bit of a fever this morning, but it seems to have broken now.”

“What! You want to be taken out and cremated?” Doctor Zhuang raised an eyebrow, then added, “I don’t think you’re quite that far gone yet. Come here, let me take your pulse first.”

Qiao Yu: “…”

Are your ears freaking blind?!

Looking at the withered hand extended toward him, Qiao Yu saw several scars of varying depths on the wrist. New and old wounds were layered together, looking quite gruesome.

Qiao Yu instinctively took a step back. “That’s alright. Your arm is injured, Doctor Zhuang. I shouldn’t trouble you.”

“I am a doctor with medical ethics. The patient is my primary concern. You must never hide your illness from the doctor. Rest assured, even if it costs a life, I will cure you.”

The life you’re talking about sacrificing is probably mine, isn’t it?!

Before Qiao Yu could dodge, Doctor Zhuang grabbed his wrist with a speed that defied the laws of physics.

“Huh? Why don’t you have a pulse?”

Qiao Yu didn’t struggle after being caught. Instead, he couldn’t stop complaining in his head: You did that so suddenly that my heart stopped from the fright. Where am I supposed to get a pulse for you to hear?

“Do you Western doctors play around with taking pulses too?”

Doctor Zhuang looked up. The black mask covered his face, but the eyes that were visible felt strangely familiar.

Before Qiao Yu could figure out where this eerie sense of familiarity came from, the man lowered his head again.

“Oh, it started beating again?” Like he had discovered a new continent, Doctor Zhuang’s shriveled fingers groped around his wrist like a total creep.

*Knock, knock, knock-*

The sound of knocking on the door served as Qiao Yu’s salvation.

However, Li Xiaoqin’s voice rang out at the same time as the knocking.

“Doctor Zhuang, are you home?”

Hearing this, Doctor Zhuang’s head turned ninety degrees with a sickening *crack* toward the door.

That was right-his neck turned, but his body didn’t move. He had simply rotated his head.
“I’m here.”

He responded, releasing Qiao Yu’s wrist at the right moment to go open the door.

As he moved, Doctor Zhuang’s head rotated back into its original position with a series of mechanical clicks, sounding like a bearing desperately in need of oil.

Once the door opened, Li Xiaoqin walked in with practiced familiarity. “Doctor Zhuang, I’m here for my medicine.”

“Alright, just a moment.” Doctor Zhuang stepped into a partitioned area and quickly returned with a brown paper bag, which he handed to Li Xiaoqin. “As you can see, I have a guest right now. Can we do our counseling session this afternoon instead?”

Li Xiaoqin looked at Qiao Yu and gave a friendly smile. “That’s fine. We’ll go by your schedule. Sorry for the trouble.”

After Li Xiaoqin left, Qiao Yu turned to Doctor Zhuang as he walked back and asked, “I didn’t realize you were so versatile, Doctor. Not only are you versed in both Chinese and Western medicine, but you’re even skilled in psychology.”

As Qiao Yu spoke, he caught a faint scent of blood. Coincidentally, the smell was coming from Doctor Zhuang’s wrist.

He stared intently at the man’s wrist and noticed that a new scratch had somehow been added to the scabbed wounds. The crisscrossing scars on the wrist made him look like a patient suffering from depression who had survived multiple suicide attempts.

Doctor Zhuang seemed to notice Qiao Yu’s gaze. He gave a perfunctory nod while pulling down his sleeve to hide the hideous wounds.

Afterward, he remained fixated on Qiao Yu. “Come, let me check your pulse again. What I’m actually best at is treating difficult and complicated cases.”

This was pure nonsense; Qiao Yu would have to be a fool to believe it.

However, he hadn’t fully mastered this body yet. His reactions were slower than a normal person’s, and certainly no match for an abnormal… person like Doctor Zhuang.

Qiao Yu was caught again. The sensation of the man’s dry, cracked skin against his own made his skin crawl. He couldn’t help but struggle. “Forget it, I’m not sick…”

Before he could finish, Doctor Zhuang’s grip on his wrist tightened instantly. The force was so great it felt like his carpal bones might shatter. “You’re not sick, yet you came to see a doctor? Are you amusing yourself at my expense?”

-You damn pervert, let go of my little beauty!

-It’s over, it’s over. The streamer is toast.

-Hahaha, chemical castration? Physical salvation… What to do? It’s such a hard choice. Streamer, which one are you going to pick?

*Damn it, which one of us is the sick one here?!*

Qiao Yu let out a frustrated laugh and slowly twisted his wrist. There was a sharp *crack*.

It sounded like something had snapped!

Doctor Zhuang’s eyes widened in shock, and he involuntarily released his hold on Qiao Yu.

He saw a perfectly smooth horizontal cut appear on the other man’s wrist, but in the blink of an eye, the fine line faded and vanished.

Was it an illusion??

Doctor Zhuang was a bit dazed.

Qiao Yu stood his ground and smiled. “I said I’m not sick. Do you understand now?”

Doctor Zhuang nodded.

Qiao Yu withdrew his thin wrist from the air, shoved one hand into his pocket, and commanded, “Go get me some rubbing alcohol.”

Doctor Zhuang: “…”

After leaving Room 4001, Qiao Yu used the alcohol to briefly wipe down his wrist, which was starting to bruise. His irritation continued to grow.

This crappy Live Stream Room seemed to be a natural jinx for him. How many times had he been injured since entering this Instance?

When Qiao Yu finished washing his face and returned to the small shop, he saw young Hou Yuanyuan crouching behind the door, peeking inside.

Her posture was exactly the same as when she had been spying on him yesterday.

Qiao Yu stepped forward and gave Hou Yuanyuan a gentle nudge. “What are you doing, acting all sneaky?”