First day on the job: bully a senior colleague in the department.
Second thing after clocking in: shoot a coworker.
Third thing after clocking in: strip the senior colleague's clothes...
Tong Hua was having a complete breakdown. For a moment, she didn't even know whether to be shocked or terrified—*is that what you use Masterwork Nature for?!*
*You weren't interested in me, and now you're suddenly going after men?!*
Yet immediately after, there was no need for her to be shocked anymore.
Because Ji Jue spun around and pounced straight toward her.
Just as she was hesitating over whether to resist or scream, her arms were forcibly hoisted into the air, and a freshly stripped lab coat was shoved onto her body!
*Clack!*
At that exact instant, the door swung open.
Outside the office stood a body stitched together from numerous severed corpses.
A grotesque smile still played across Director Qian's lips, though for some reason, several winding streaks of blood now marked his face.
Slowly trickling down.
His pitch-black pupils swept across the office, falling upon Ji Jue and Tong Hua standing glued together. After slightly narrowing, his smile seemed to take on a gratifying warmth: "Newcomers helping and supporting each other—good, very good indeed. A qualified doctor must learn team solidarity and move forward together.
"Your attire is very formal too. It seems you both respect hospital regulations properly. Good, very good. You two will surely make fine doctors!"
"Thank you for the encouragement."
Ji Jue's hands didn't pause as he helped Tong Hua fasten the final button. "Do you have any instructions, Director?"
"Time for ward rounds."
Director Qian handed over a clipboard densely inscribed with bed numbers and brief patient conditions. "A doctor must engage deeply with the patients and understand their conditions. How can you just sit idly in the duty room?
"Though you are newcomers, you must still have the mettle to shoulder heavy responsibilities."
He said, "Today's ward rounds will be entrusted to you two."
Tong Hua recalled the wards she had passed on the way here and those ravenous, starving eyes. Subconsciously, she opened her mouth to speak, but the next second, a hand clamped over it.
Ji Jue nodded with fiery enthusiasm:
"Understood."
*It's over.*
Tong Hua closed her eyes in despair.
*Everything is completely ruined.*
Even knowing there was no refusing an assignment from the director, Tong Hua couldn't help but feel her heart turn to ash. But right then, Director Qian turned his head toward Zhao Zhou's dull, numb remains, and his smile instantly vanished.
His face twisted into sheer savagery.
"During working hours: disheveled appearance, not even wearing a lab coat. Fourth violation of hospital regulations."
He said, "You are terminated."
In that instant, a shrill, agonizing shriek burst one last time from the puppet's husk.
Then, a hair-raising sound of chewing echoed through the office.
No razor-sharp teeth or gaping bloody maw could be seen; an invisible, massive mouth swallowed the remains entirely from the inside out, without leaving behind a single drop of blood.
Within a mere few seconds, even the empty husk left behind by the dead Celestial Chosen had vanished.
Director Qian merely wiped the corner of his mouth in satisfaction.
Finally, he looked back toward Ji Jue and Tong Hua, grinning wide.
"Work hard now."
With that, he turned and departed, his footsteps fading into the distance.
Tong Hua slumped into a chair and couldn't get up, panting violently.
No matter how slow-witted she was, she understood that if not for Ji Jue just now, she would have paid an unimaginably gruesome price.
Yet even if she had escaped one disaster, another awaited ahead!
Thinking of those bizarre, grotesque patients, the beds in Obstetrics and Gynecology steeped in stench and blood, and those gaping maws drooling over her...
*Dead!*
*Dead for sure this time!*
"What are you standing there gawking for?" Ji Jue urged, pointing toward the corner cabinet and bookshelves. "Go dig up all the materials related to ward rounds in here, copy the records, and compile them into a record tome for me... You know how to make a record tome, right?"
"Who are you looking down on?!"
Tong Hua glared.
Asking that was like asking a three-year-old if they knew how to open their mouth to eat, or asking an Embers apprentice if they knew what a furnace was. Creating and preserving record tomes was the hallmark of the Aether branch.
Though varying inheritances produced different levels of potency and detail—a clumsy Aether Celestial Chosen could only mentally project a still photograph, while a powerful one could make someone feel entirely immersed in the scene—the Tong family naturally possessed such inheritances.
With just a quick sweep of her fingers across the bookshelves and cabinets, all the records were neatly organized, including five years' worth of patient histories and conditions.
Naturally, that included ward round records and related documents.
"Do you need the kind you can absorb and comprehend immediately?" Tong Hua asked.
"You can do that?" Ji Jue's eyes lit up. "You've got that kind of skill?"
Just from the look Ji Jue gave her—sweet enough to pull caramel threads—Tong Hua could guess with her heels what he was scheming: "There are limits. Ordinary people can hardly bear the mental load, and the aftereffects might include headaches. Besides, you aren't an Aether practitioner; records transferred into your memory won't last long and will fade away quickly.
"In short, don't expect to use this to out-grind anyone!"
"Tsk..."
Ji Jue couldn't help shaking his head.
*Give you a chance and you blow it. I was just about to crown you the workaholic king's most faithful accessory!*
"Hey!" Tong Hua flared up. "Did you just tsk at me again?!"
"Huh? No, I didn't."
Ji Jue gave her an innocent look. "Why would you say 'again'?"
Tong Hua rolled her eyes in annoyance. She raised her hand and slapped his forehead with a *smack!* In an instant, the faint, shimmering outline of a sheet of paper flickered into existence, and then Ji Jue's vision went black.
In less than half a second, hundreds of thousands of words' worth of records were unceremoniously dumped into his mind. Accessible at a single thought, every piece of data appeared vividly before him.
Ji Jue nodded to himself.
It turned out this silly young miss was somewhat useful after all, beyond just crying and screaming.
"Alright, let's move."
He picked up the clipboard and gestured to her. "Stop dawdling. Delaying for more than ten minutes counts as a violation too."
The door opened, and the ward rounds began...
Lights flickered in the corridor.
Footsteps rang out in the dead silence between bouts of wailing.
Patients and visiting family members who had previously seemed like half-dead corpses suddenly opened their eyes, staring fixedly in their direction.
Some even lunged forward, clawing at his clothes as if weeping and wailing: "Doctor, Doctor, it hurts so bad! Can you please examine me? I feel so awful..."
Yet throughout it all, those eyes stared straight at him.
Ravenous and insatiable.
Then, Ji Jue mercilessly slapped the hand away and shoved the person aside: "If it hurts, scream! If you feel awful, endure it! If you can't endure it, go register at triage and head to the right department! You're not my patient, why are you bothering me?"
Tong Hua's breath caught in her throat.
She could see the murderous gleam instantly flare in the patient's eyes. But surprisingly, the patient didn't pounce; after a moment of hesitation, they actually backed away.
"Note it down: refusing a patient's unreasonable demands does not violate hospital rules," Ji Jue said over his shoulder. "Though I suspect the rules don't place much restraint on the patients themselves."
Tong Hua shrank her neck. "If they aren't restrained, aren't you afraid they'll attack?"
"Can't you call security?"
Ji Jue glanced at the shadows lurking in the corners of the corridor. "According to my guess, we mostly can't take the initiative to attack patients, but if the patient strikes first... Well, I'll find a couple to test that on later. No rush. First, we need to figure out how to scrape together some 'money,' otherwise we won't even be able to pay the fines."
"Money? Where would money come from?"
Ji Jue smiled, pushed open the doors to the obstetrics ward, and gestured toward the packed beds inside: "Isn't all that money?"
Sometimes, once you set your conscience aside, the ways to make money multiplied dramatically.
Grinning, he slapped the light switch by the door.
When the flickering lights flicked on, they instantly illuminated the entire ward. Amidst the rush of putrid rot, the bloodstains on the walls were glaringly crimson.
On the hospital beds, pairs of eyes snapped open at once, turning to gaze at them. Even the accompanying family members beside the beds began gulping their saliva.
A uniform hunger surfaced on those grotesque, mutilated faces.
The malice was so pure, like steel needles pricking Tong Hua's face, making her expression twitch and her breath falter. An Aether Celestial Chosen's senses were far too sharp; right now, she could practically feel the agony of countless ravenous mouths tearing into her flesh.
Yet the next moment, she nearly cried out in surprise.
Ji Jue smacked her on the back, snapping her out of her stupor, before strutting inside with his hands behind his back.
He couldn't care less about the surrounding gazes.
"Out of the way, out of the way! No eating in the ward! Clean up your own leftovers, don't litter!"
Ji Jue kicked the obstructive garbage on the floor aside, walked up to Bed 1, and looked down. He stared at the shriveled, emaciated, yet still teeth-grinding, drooling rotten corpse on the bed, then glanced at the clipboard, only to see a diagnosis that didn't match at all.
[Postpartum Depression]?
*What the hell?*
Ji Jue stared, leaning back in sheer admiration.
*Big sister, looking like this, it's pretty impressive you even have room for depression!*
*Discharged!*
"Doctor, I feel so terrible... my heart aches so bad..."
The moment he turned around, his wrist was seized by a hand reaching out from beneath the ragged bedding. Sharp nails dug almost straight into his flesh. "Can you help me?"
"If you feel terrible, think of happy things. If you're hurting, howl a bit. Look at the people in the next building—look how energetic their howling is."
Ji Jue lowered his gaze, staring at the fingers gripping his wrist with a death grip. "How about I schedule a surgery to treat you? See, you feel bad because your heart is uncomfortable. Once we scoop your heart out, you'll feel fine. We'll poke a hole right through you for cross-ventilation—it'll brighten things right up.
"Little Tong, go find Director Qian immediately and report the patient's request."
Behind him, Tong Hua nodded in dazed confusion. But she had taken only half a step back when the clinging woman on the bed yanked her hand back as if jolted by electricity.
"No need, no need..."
A flattering smile seemed to appear on that twisted face. Beneath the blankets, bizarre limbs squirmed, but she didn't dare reach out again.
Ji Jue, however, pressed his advantage. He stepped forward abruptly and grabbed her hand.
"If you're unwell, don't hold it in," he admonished earnestly. "I'm a doctor. You must tell me your condition. Never let your illness worsen, understand?"
"Understood, understood!"
Patient No. 1 struggled frantically, trying to make him let go.
Only after confirming repeatedly that she didn't need any additional treatment plan did Ji Jue reluctantly release his grip. He shot a glance back at Tong Hua: *Guessed right. The doctor gets to decide treatment methods and surgical plans.*
*Though we have to bear responsibility for it.*
Unfortunately, Tong Hua remained completely lost, widening her pure and foolish eyes.
She had no idea what he was gesturing at.
Ji Jue couldn't help sighing.
*Zero rapport. Xiao An is so much better. If Xiao An were here, wouldn't the two of us be tearing through this place like a whirlwind?*
*If Xiao An were... cough, cough, cough.*
*Can't let my mind wander there!*
Snapping out of his brief reverie, Ji Jue strolled between the beds, checking each patient's condition one by one. Only then did he realize that damn, this godforsaken ward really was packed with "talent."
A dried corpse with postpartum depression, a lamia with menstrual irregularities, a skeleton with gynecological inflammation, a minotaur monstrosity with habitual miscarriages, and even...
"Doctor, save me, I feel so awful..."
On a bed, a mountain of flesh weighing nearly a ton wailed, forcibly squeezing out two tears. Its skin was stretched thinner than paper, and on its bloated belly, one could faintly see numerous severed limbs and crushed remains churning inside gastric fluids...
Ji Jue looked down at the symptoms on the clipboard.
—[Malnutrition]?
*Are you serious?*
*You're fat as a bloated whale, what more nutrition could you possibly need?!*
"Don't worry, don't worry. You'll be fine once you digest it all."
Ji Jue waved his hand, preparing to leave. But the mountain of flesh on the bed panicked instantly. Squirming, even though stretched to such an extreme, it still tried to reach out and grab Ji Jue.
Right beside the bed, a stooped, withered family member who looked like a vengeful ghost's thrall rolled his eyes and roared: "Quack! You quack!
"Are you going to just stand by and watch the patient suffer?!" he demanded.
Instantly, Ji Jue's steps halted.
With his back to the patient, a helpless smile crept onto his face.
A soft sigh.
Yet it made Tong Hua's hair stand on end.
"It seems conservative treatment isn't very effective."
When he turned back around, a warm, enthusiastic smile was plastered on his face. He suggested, "Would you like to consider an 'imported' procedure—administered straight through the mouth? It's just a bit pricey..."
"No problem! However expensive it is!" The withered family member grinned without hesitation. "As long as you cure my wife! But if you can't cure her and something goes wr—"
"Deal!"
Before the words could even finish, Ji Jue's voice had already cut in.
And then came a bloodcurdling shriek that shook the entire ward!
Right from atop the hospital bed...
In that split second, Ji Jue's five fingers flattened like a blade and instantly plunged into that gaping maw. Sweeping forward with unstoppable force, he shoved his arm in all the way up to his shoulder.
Mercilessly, he seized the patient's internal organs.
Finally, he flashed a grin at the dumbstruck, withered family member.
"Here comes your oral import treatment!"
Chapter 154