Wu Xu's surgery was scheduled for the following morning.
At the only operating table in the medical clinic of Research Institute 2's reception area, they had managed to summon the legendary veteran, Great-Aunt, as well as virtually all of the most prominent doctors currently at the institute.
All to perform an operation on someone who had just been rejected by Azure.
On one hand, this was due to the Xin family's background, connections, and prestige, combined with Xin Yaoqiao's tremendous personal efforts.
On the other hand, for the younger generation of medical and scientific researchers present, it was a rare opportunity to witness a classic procedure from Azure's era of the Great Refit: the surgical removal of an ancient Third-Generation device from a human body.
Outside the operating room.
"Wu Xu, are you scared? You looked like you were shaking just now."
Without a hint of mockery this time, Wen Jifei asked with genuine concern.
The reality was, no matter how lightly everyone had joked beforehand or how reassuring they had tried to be, when the moment of the surgery finally arrived, worry was inevitably hard to avoid.
"No... Yes." Wu Xu admitted with a wooden face. Then, keeping a cool expression, he said, "I saw the needle. It's a little scary."
He had to get an injection before the operation.
Wu Xu was afraid of needles.
A guy who fought to the death without retreating despite six or seven blade wounds, who hadn't made a peep even when the Yu family's Eldest Miss ran a sword straight into his shoulder socket—he was actually scared of shots?!
Once the surprise wore off, helpless, hearty laughter broke out.
Shivering slightly, Wu Xu walked into the operating room.
The rest of them waited outside, some smoking, others keeping silent.
Han Qingyu lowered his head, tinkering on the ground with a Ninth-Generation device—the best-functioning set he had picked from the more than eighty people in the Nepal canyon.
This had been prepared for Wu Xu. Han Qingyu's original thought was that the Coalition's equipment requisitions typically took a while to be approved and issued, so he had intended for Wu Xu to use it in the meantime. Now that Wu Xu's enlistment vetting couldn't be cleared anytime soon, it was all the more fortunate that Han Qingyu had secured a set himself.
"Don't worry too much, you guys," Xin Yaoqiao said as she stepped out from inside and walked over. "Great-Aunt is in high spirits today, and this surgery isn't difficult."
Han Qingyu gave as relaxed a smile as he could muster and replied, "We know."
"Besides, I've reminded the other aunties and uncles multiple times to keep a close eye on everything."
"Thanks," several of them chimed in.
They waited like this for a short while.
Suddenly, hurried footsteps echoed from inside the operating room, heading out.
Reason dictated that the surgery couldn't possibly be over so quickly; it should have only just begun.
Thus, those footsteps felt as though they were stepping directly on everyone's nerves. Those squatting or sitting on the ground arched their backs and sprang up at the sound, like startled cats.
When they saw who it was, none of them dared to ask.
Restless, they waited.
Coming out of the operating room was the youngest female doctor present that day. She was a woman of large build, and right now her expression was sour, her fleshy face scowling and her eyes fierce, looking thoroughly aggravated.
"You people," the female doctor snapped irritably, "go deal with him."
Hearing this... well, it wasn't terrible news. Everyone finally let out a sigh of relief and asked one after another, "What happened? Wu Xu..."
"That guy refuses to be anesthetized," the female doctor said, exasperated. "Undergoing this kind of surgery without anesthesia, and claiming he's fine and can take it—is there something wrong with his head?!"
Everyone understood the rule of never getting angry at a doctor who was frantic on your behalf, so naturally, no one took offense at her tone or word choice.
*So that's what it is,* they thought.
Wu Xu's refusal to accept anesthesia was actually very simple. As someone who had once nearly been strangled to death by a childhood peer taking advantage of an opening, someone whom the clan patriarch had sent night assassins after under the guise of training... Growing up like that, Wu Xu had a profound lack of security. How could he easily submit to anesthesia?
"Are you going to handle him or not?!" Seeing no one speak up, the female doctor urged crossly.
"Yes, yes, right away," everyone hastened to reply.
With that, they followed behind the female doctor to the door of the operating room.
Calling inside, they said, "Wu Xu, you have to use anesthesia for this. It's okay, we're right outside."
One finished, and the next followed suit.
It was truly hard to imagine that this guy would need to be coaxed like this one day. After taking turns speaking, they all wore expressions of wry amusement.
After a while, the female doctor returned to the doorway and said,
"All right, out you go. Don't just stand here."
…………
The group returned to waiting outside the door.
Relaxing, they chatted for a while.
"By the way, the swords I applied for on your behalf should arrive soon," Xin Yaoqiao said suddenly. Then, lowering her voice with a touch of boastfulness, she continued, "They're being personally forged by that damned blacksmith from our Sub-Sequence!"
"Damned blacksmith?" Han Qingyu asked, puzzled.
"Well, that's what everyone calls him, so I just went along with it," Xin Yaoqiao explained, a bit embarrassed. "Actually, he's the young scientist with the deepest understanding of dead iron in our entire Huaxia Front—and perhaps eventually in all of Azure. Forging iron is just a symbolic way to put it."
When Xin Yaoqiao finished explaining, Han Qingyu realized what an honor and how important this truly was.
His current pair of dead iron straight swords were both standard-issue Coalition blades—the kind where non-connecting and non-contact portions were filled with alloy, rumored to potentially leave you holding just a hollow frame mid-slash when you least expected it.
Because of the battle in the Nepal canyon, cracks had already appeared across the surfaces of both swords.
The two swords Han Qingyu was about to receive, however, while still shaped as standard dead iron straight swords, would be forged entirely from dead iron, and handcrafted by Huaxia's foremost dead iron blacksmith.
Currently among their group, Shen Yixiu's custom saber was pure dead iron.
Then there was Wu Xu's Binggu spear, also solid dead iron, likely of even higher purity than Rusty Sister's blade; he had once spun and vibrated that spear in his palm at the trial grounds, shattering the blades of over a dozen scimitars belonging to Adubu's subordinates.
Now, Han Qingyu would finally be wielding twin swords of solid dead iron as well. Barring any surprises, they would be crafted with special techniques—exceptionally powerful.
There was no greater anticipation for a warrior than waiting to receive a truly fitting weapon.
"Thank you," Han Qingyu said, filled with delight. Then, he asked cautiously, "So how much money... no, how many source energy blocks will it cost?"
Since this was Azure, Han Qingyu didn't need to guess to know that ordinary money was likely useless for something this high-grade—unless it was an astronomical sum.
Xin Yaoqiao shook her head. "None at all! You hold a Gold Medal to begin with, and this time in Nepal, you brought back so much dead iron and so many devices for our Huaxia Front, not to mention all those prisoners. By rights, you were fully entitled to apply for them. It's just that they're stingy, and seeing that you didn't know, they never brought it up... But I kept it in mind for you."
"Is that so? That's great then." Hearing that he didn't have to pay in source energy blocks, Han Qingyu was completely relieved, and his joy swelled even further.
Xin Yaoqiao turned her head, glanced to the side, and added in an offhand manner, "I just went over to Institute 1 to find that blacksmith and asked him to forge them personally, that's all."
She was clearly angling for credit, despite adding 'that's all.' *What should I do? Give her some source energy blocks?* Han Qingyu pondered for a moment before saying, "Thank you. Truly, thank you so much."
*Let's try this first. If a heartfelt thank-you can settle it, that saves me a couple of source energy blocks. Besides, she doesn't seem to lack them anyway,* Han Qingyu thought shamelessly.
To his side, Xin Yaoqiao broke into a happy smile.
"Don't mention it, it was just a quick trip. Come to think of it, he was originally slated to come to Institute 2, which would have saved me the trouble, but the higher-ups insisted on transferring him to Institute 1," Xin Yaoqiao said, suddenly voicing her grievances. "Institute 2 is treated like a stepchild. Sigh."
"So Institute 2 has lower status than Institute 1? By a lot?" Wen Jifei chimed in from the side.
Xin Yaoqiao nodded.
"Why?" Wen Jifei asked.
"What is there to ask about?" Han Qingyu interjected. "Isn't it just because of the numbering? One, then two."
"Not at all! That's just the order they were established in. For a time in the past, Institute 2 actually surpassed Institute 1. It's just a shame that later..." Xin Yaoqiao suddenly grew agitated—not at anyone, but at the circumstance itself.
Soon, everyone, including Shen Yixiu, gathered around.
They listened as Xin Yaoqiao recounted a piece of Institute 2's secret history, which explained how Institute 2 had once overtaken its predecessor, only to end up relegated to a stepchild later on.
Ne had once visited Huaxia, and he had visited Institute 2.
A year before defecting from Azure, he had led a team on an inspection tour and made a brief stop here, borrowing the equipment available at the time to conduct several covert experiments.
Much like pharmaceutical research in the ordinary world, the experiments seemed to involve source energy and animals.
"As for the exact details and what actually happened, I don't know," Xin Yaoqiao concluded. "In any case, it failed and caused an accident. The entire source energy laboratory sector of Institute 2 was abandoned because of it and sealed off for a very long time. A year later, when Ne defected from Azure, the higher-ups went so far as to pour concrete straight over it, entombing the whole area."
Thus, the current Institute 2 was actually on a new site.
Xin Yaoqiao said the old site was not far from here, just on the other side of the mountain. And that laboratory sector where Ne had once experimented—later encased in concrete—had been excavated again and again in recent years for exploration and study.
"There's a massive hole dug out over there now, but they didn't find anything," Xin Yaoqiao said.
The circle of listeners broke into animated discussion.
Han Qingyu lowered his head, pondering quietly in solitude for a moment, then looked up. "Can we go check that place out?"
He seemed to have caught the mention of source energy just now. Since the lab had been wrecked, encased in concrete for decades, and only dug open a few years ago, could there be residual scattered source energy left inside?
Source energy could not be contaminated; that was common knowledge taught in Azure classrooms.
And so, Han Qingyu felt his heart stir. *If I went over there to take a leak, that shouldn't be a problem, right?*
His grand scheme of siphoning Azure's supply depot while taking a leak had been shelved because he had chosen to stand on the side of justice. But this place was merely an abandoned ruin. No matter how you looked at it, this wouldn't count as stealing, would it?!
At the same time: Ne, source energy, animal experiments.
When those three concepts aligned, Han Qingyu didn't know why, but his thoughts suddenly jumped to the Alphonse family's collection of corpses at the trial grounds.
Taking it a step further, he recalled the concept that had recently intrigued him most: vitalized source energy.
As for what that thing truly was and what it was all about, Han Qingyu didn't dare ask around casually for now—and perhaps there was no one who could tell him anyway.
Chapter 160