With a click, the interlocked seam parted, and the operating room doors swung open from within.
Han Qingyu checked the time—nearly two hours had passed.
Great-Aunt's slight figure emerged first, followed by two rows of her medical disciples, giving the distinct impression that she had recaptured the commanding aura of her prime.
Except she looked rather exhausted—and quite angry.
"Back when Azure went through the Great Refit, a regular doctor wouldn't have needed half an hour to dismantle an apparatus like this..." Great-Aunt paused as she spoke, glancing back over her shoulder. "This guy."
"Wu Xu?"
Worried that Wu Xu might have caused trouble again, Han Qingyu asked with concern, though he wondered—wasn't the man anesthetized?
"Him? We'll talk about him later." The old woman paused, then said, "First, whoever did his internal implantation... completely disregarded human life. A half-baked amateur dared to bungle through it, turning the whole setup into a shambles."
Wu Xu's implantation surgery had been performed in the Yu village, where conditions could easily be imagined. Han Qingyu didn't know much either, so he merely nodded without interjecting.
Yet Great-Aunt still seemed furious. After catching her breath, she was still fuming. "If one of the doctors under my watch back in the day had botched things like that, I would've strapped them to the operating table to experience it themselves!"
That was likely why it had taken so long today. The operation clearly hadn't gone smoothly, but fortunately, it had been completed successfully in the end.
Han Qingyu thanked her earnestly.
Beside them, Xin Yaoqiao dabbed Great-Aunt's sweat with a handkerchief, then massaged her shoulders and kneaded her legs, coaxing in a soothing voice, "Don't be mad, Great-Aunt. Don't be mad."
"All right, Great-Aunt isn't angry anymore. Not angry." The old woman smiled warmly and reached up to cup Qiaoqiao's cheek, then turned to Han Qingyu. "Come with me for a moment."
With that, she walked off ahead.
Han Qingyu followed behind her for a few paces.
"Where did you find this person?" Great-Aunt stopped and turned to ask.
"Picked him up in Nepal. He comes from a village belonging to the Yu clan," Han Qingyu replied honestly.
"Yu clan?" Great-Aunt frowned in thought for a moment. "A descendant of Yu Jinkui's branch?"
"I'm not too sure about that, and Wu Xu never mentioned specifics," Han Qingyu said. "Though he probably isn't a descendant of their family. Just a kid they picked up and raised as a war slave."
"Oh, is that so." Great-Aunt nodded, furrowing her brows in thought. "Never mind, then. You don't seem to know much more either. I'll ask him myself once he wakes up. I'll have the nurses look after him over the next few days."
"Thank you, Great-Aunt."
"Mm..." Great-Aunt nodded and looked up. "Did you know that anesthetics don't work on him?"
Han Qingyu stared. "What?!"
"Not completely ineffective, but even at the maximum dosage, he remained conscious, and he came around very quickly."
Han Qingyu tried to grasp what those words truly implied.
"So at least half of this surgery was endured through his own grit." Great-Aunt's expression seemed genuinely moved. "I've never seen someone like him."
Han Qingyu felt the same, a deep tremor of shock running through him.
"A man forged in the killing fields must never be mistreated," Great-Aunt added with solemn gravity.
Wu Xu was in a state of extreme weakness after the surgery. Only later, when inquiring about the details, did they learn that the implantation of the Third-Generation apparatus in his body had been brutal and disorganized beyond imagination.
Repairing his internal organs had proven several times more difficult than stitching the wounds.
Han Qingyu showed not the slightest stinginess, immediately fetching ten source energy blocks for Wu Xu to soak in day and night, promising an endless supply thereafter.
It wasn't until five days had passed that Wu Xu finally regained consciousness.
The instant he opened his eyes, he saw Han Qingyu, Rusty Sister, Plague Chicken, He Tangtang, and Liu Shiheng standing around the bedside. Weakly yet resolutely, Wu Xu tugged at the corners of his mouth, trying to offer them a smile, though he failed.
"I'm... very happy," he said in a voice scarcely louder than a whisper.
...
On the sixth day, Han Qingyu's new blades arrived.
At first glance, the two straight blades were virtually identical in appearance to the standard-issue combat swords of the Sole Witness Legion. Only when Han Qingyu wrapped his fingers around the hilts did he perceive the difference.
A boundless confidence that he could cut through anything welled up from the palms of his hands.
Even though the edges of both swords were actually only half-honed.
Half was enough. The concept of razor-sharpness held little meaning for dead iron; under the application of speed and force, its bluntness was also its resilience.
Holding a blade up to the sunlight to inspect it closely, faint blue gleams drifted subtly across the steel. Han Qingyu attempted to channel liquid source energy into it.
*Crack.* A brief spark of blue lightning flickered across the blade's surface.
Sheathing the twin blades across his back, Han Qingyu was filled with a sense of euphoria that no one who had never staked their life on the battlefield—placing life and death in the steel of their hands—could ever imagine or comprehend.
Xin Yaoqiao was standing right in front of him.
In his excitement, Han Qingyu reached out and firmly grasped her by the shoulder. Looking into her eyes, he said sincerely, "Thank you, Yao... Qiaoqiao."
"...Ah, mm, you're welcome!" Xin Yaoqiao beamed with blissful delight.
"Is there a sparring ground here?" Han Qingyu suddenly asked.
"Huh?" The sudden pivot caught Xin Yaoqiao off guard.
"I want to test the swords."
"Oh, okay." Qiaoqiao snapped out of her daze and said, "There is. I'll take you there."
In Wu Xu's ward, He Tangtang hurried inside.
Wen Jifei and Liu Shiheng turned their heads at the same time. "Shh! What are you doing?"
"Qingzi and Rusty Sister are testing swords at the sparring ground," He Tangtang said, looking rather thrilled.
Wen Jifei and Liu Shiheng exchanged a look, both exuding an aura of utter resignation. "So what? Is that interesting? What's there to watch?"
"Of course that's nothing to watch," He Tangtang said as he turned and started walking away. "But don't say I didn't warn you—the girls from the institute's science outreach troupe, that performance troupe, have all run off to watch Qingzi!"
With that, he was already out the door.
Wind-swift footsteps immediately kicked up behind him.
"That's way too dangerous—I have to go protect Qingzi!" Liu Shiheng shouted as he sprinted.
"Exactly! For Qingzi, those girls are definitely scarier and harder to deal with than Great Spikes," Wen Jifei added, grabbing He Tangtang's arm to speed up. "Where's the sparring ground? Move faster, I've got to help Qingzi handle them and slay some demons!"
The sparring grounds.
Han Qingyu and Shen Yixiu stood on opposite sides of the ring.
In Shen Yixiu's hands were the two blades Han Qingyu had just retired. Now that he had new swords, regulations dictated that these two would have to be turned in for recycling, so they might as well use them as test dummies.
No one knew where they had come from, but there were roughly forty or fifty girls gathered in the stands.
Han Qingyu looked around, feeling rather bewildered.
They wore form-fitting leotards under bundled-up heavy coats, with white dance shoes on their feet.
Recalling the outreach troupe Xin Yaoqiao had mentioned earlier, Han Qingyu understood.
"You aren't combat personnel—what are you watching this for? What's there to see?" he asked.
A girl in the stands laughed heartily and called back, "To look at you, Han Qingyu, the strongest in a decade!"
"Because you're handsome!" chimed in another girl.
A burst of laughter rippled through the crowd, like flowers quivering in a gentle breeze.
Chapter 161