“Salty Fish? Aren’t you at headquarters?”
A short-haired youth holding a long saber stared at Yu Xian in surprise.
Yu Xian recognized him at that moment and frowned. “Brother Chengying, what are you guys doing…”
“Hold on, let me make sure you’re the real deal first. Don’t move, kid,” Chengying said hurriedly before taking out his phone to call his captain, Gan Jiang.
He was a member of the Wickedness-Cleaving Squad under Gan Jiang’s command.
The codenames of the Wickedness-Cleaving Squad members were all related to famous ancient swords and sabers.
Besides Gan Jiang and Mo Ye, there were also members such as Chengying, Qixing, Chixiao, Chunjun, and Shengxie.
Back when they fought Deimos, Yu Xian had conveniently saved Chengying and the others. Ever since, they had stayed in touch through the Qilin app. Much of the intel Yu Xian had received in the past had been provided by Chengying and his teammates, so they were quite familiar with one another.
“Captain, is Salty Fish still at headquarters?” Chengying asked immediately once Gan Jiang picked up.
Gan Jiang replied, “Still here. What is it?”
“Strange. There’s a Salty Fish on my side too, and he doesn’t look like a fake,” Chengying said, looking at Yu Xian with a face full of confusion and a head full of question marks.
Gan Jiang answered, “The Salty Fish at headquarters is a clone. The one on your end is probably the real body, likely there looking for his aunt. Tell him Ms. Su Zhuo is at Tianjing City First Hospital.”
With that, Gan Jiang hung up.
Chengying put away his phone and signaled the surrounding combat police officers to sheath their blades.
He looked at Yu Xian and sighed. “You heard that. Do you want me to accompany you over?”
“No need. But I’ve already submitted the clues here to headquarters. Please do your best not to damage anything in the house,” Yu Xian said to Chengying after glancing around.
He knew that investigating the Namo race’s situation couldn’t rely solely on his word, but this was still his aunt’s home. He only hoped Chengying and the others would be gentle and not wreck the furnishings.
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on them,” Chengying nodded.
After thanking him, Yu Xian flashed with crimson light and vanished on the spot.
At Tianjing City First Hospital, Yu Xian quickly located Su Zhuo. She had been placed in a ward alongside all the other victims, with several combat police officers standing guard outside the door.
Yu Xian took out his Qilin credentials before entering the ward, where he saw Su Zhuo receiving an intravenous drip.
Surrounding her were many other victims in the same condition as Su Zhuo—all of them reduced to vegetative states after the Namo race used a spiritual tsunami to shatter their minds. Although their bodies had not perished, their conscious selves had long since dissipated.
Yu Xian walked over to Su Zhuo’s bedside, looking down at her as his eyes could not help but redden slightly.
He had always misunderstood, believing Su Zhuo had severed ties with him out of snobbery, and had thought he no longer had any family left in the world.
Now, whenever he recalled the dark thoughts and venomous curses he had harbored in the past, he wanted to slap himself hard across the face and say, *I really deserve to die.*
In truth, when most people had not seen someone for so many years, their feelings would naturally fade.
Yet Yu Xian possessed the superhuman memory granted by his Super Brain. Without suppressing his emotions, he felt emotions far more deeply than an ordinary person; after all, he could flawlessly recall every little detail of the past, and those memories would never be dulled by time.
This meant that whenever he remembered his parents, it was virtually equivalent to experiencing the agony of their deaths all over again firsthand.
By the same token, upon realizing he had misunderstood his aunt Su Zhuo all along, his self-reproach, remorse, and anguish were far more intense than an ordinary person’s.
*Smack.*
Looking at Su Zhuo, Yu Xian raised a hand and slapped himself under the condemnation of his conscience.
It didn't hurt at all…
Yu Xian touched his cheek, realizing that unless he hit himself with full force, his skin's current defensive resilience would prevent him from feeling any pain whatsoever.
The problem was that if he struck himself at full power, the sound would be loud enough to startle awake the vast majority of patients throughout the entire hospital. Obviously, he could not do that.
Right then, his phone vibrated.
He pulled it out and glanced at the screen. It was a call from Zhang Shou.
The livestream the previous night had ended anticlimactically halfway through. Zhang Shou had no idea what had happened afterward, and because he worried calling might interfere with Yu Xian, he had held back until now before contacting him.
“Hello, Salty Fish? Are you still on Mars?” Zhang Shou asked immediately as soon as Yu Xian answered.
Yu Xian glanced at Su Zhuo, then vanished and instantly reappeared atop a mountain outside Tianjing City. “No, I’m already back.”
“What happened later last night? Are you okay?” Zhang Shou pressed.
Yu Xian knew he needed someone to confide in, and before Zhang Shou, his closest buddy, he didn't need to put up any front or conceal his emotions.
He recounted everything that had taken place the previous night in detail, and Zhang Shou listened quietly. When he heard that the Namo race had killed Su Zhuo, Zhang Shou paused and interrupted his outpouring, asking, “You’re saying Aunt Su Zhuo’s mind was destroyed by the Namo race, and now she’s a vegetable?”
“Yeah,” Yu Xian acknowledged.
Zhang Shou immediately shouted, “Holy crap, I can cure that!”
“What?” Yu Xian froze. A shattered mind, a vegetative state—even that could be treated?
Zhang Shou hurriedly explained, “Didn’t I go on a mission with Sister Qingniao a while back? I ground out enough heals to complete the system’s tier-one quest, so I leveled up twice.
“Now I’ve got two new skills: one is Mental Healing, and the other is Seed of Healing.
“Mental Healing can treat Aunt Su Zhuo’s exact condition, and Seed of Healing implants a healing seed inside the target that slowly releases restorative energy, mending most injuries sustained within a single day.”
“…”
Yu Xian’s breathing quickened. His Super Brain instantly recalled that when Zhang Shou had invited him to West Gemini Mountain to hunt zombies, he had indeed mentioned leveling up.
However, having just fought the Xingtian zombie king at the time, Yu Xian had declined the invitation.
“Can you really treat it?”
“Of course it’s real! Do I look like the type to joke about this kind of thing? Hurry up and bring me over.”
After confirming once more that Zhang Shou could indeed treat the condition, Yu Xian manifested a spatial bubble around himself, and the next second, he appeared right beside Zhang Shou.
Then, he teleported the two of them back to the hospital together.
Seeing the victims all around them, Zhang Shou cried out in shock, “There are this many people?!”
“This is only part of them. There are quite a few victims in other cities as well, probably several thousand in total,” Yu Xian explained.
Zhang Shou fell silent for a moment, then suddenly threw his head back and let out a long sigh. Under Yu Xian’s puzzled gaze, he explained, “The essence of Mental Healing is consuming my own mental power to restore the mental power the target has lost. If the target is a vegetable, it requires me to expend a life.”
In truth, he wouldn’t die after administering the treatment; rather, he would become a vegetable himself.
Still, it was basically no different from expending a life. In fact, if no one stepped in to kill him, it would take him at least seven days to die of old age before he could resurrect.
If he hadn't known about this, that would have been one thing.
Now that he did, his medical ethics as a healer would never permit him to stand idly by. Yet just thinking about dying once or twice every day from here on out made his scalp tingle.
Even so, a real man knew there were things he had to do and things he must not do.
The moment Zhang Shou thought of Yu Bo and the others who had sacrificed themselves, his resolve hardened once more.
These people—he was determined to save them.
A moment later.
Zhang Shou collapsed, and Su Zhuo slowly woke up.
The moment she opened her eyes, she was greeted by an unfamiliar ceiling, feeling as though she had slept for an extraordinarily long time.
Amidst a trace of bewilderment, she struggled to sit up, only to see Yu Xian holding a gun, finishing off an unconscious, robust youth lying on the ground with a single shot.
*Xiao Xian killed someone!*
Su Zhuo recognized Yu Xian at a glance. Then, her brain roared, completely stunned by the scene before her.
Immediately, her mind raced with a single thought: how was she going to take the blame for Yu Xian, and what reason could she possibly give to make the police believe she was the one who had shot the youth to death…
Chapter 139