The examination equipment was intricate and complicated, and it took a long time to remove all the patches.
“Observe for half an hour. Leave only after confirming that you don’t feel unwell.”
Doctor Shaohua carefully packed away the patches as he reminded her.
Yuli took the opportunity to say, “Doctor, I’ve occasionally been getting headaches these past few days.”
She wasn’t lying. Whenever she received fragments of the original owner’s memories, she really did experience headaches.
“Mm, headaches are a normal reaction.” Shao Hua adjusted his glasses. “What I mean is, it’s quite reasonable. After all, psychic power exists within the mental domain.”
“My guess is that, when you were facing the mutated entity, your psychic power had already been exhausted, yet you still tried to forcibly draw strength from your mental domain. That resulted in damage to your mental perception.”
“And such severe damage to your mental perception must necessarily be accompanied by a certain degree of brain damage. Although I was quite surprised not to find any signs of it in the examination results, I believe that this damage does exist. It can only be that our equipment isn’t precise enough. Your memory confusion and headaches are invisible proof of that.”
The doctor’s analysis made perfect sense, but Yuli didn’t understand a word about mental domains or mental perception. In any case, serious was serious.
“Doctor Shao, I’m in such serious condition. It must be very difficult to recover, right?” Yuli asked sincerely from the bottom of her heart.
“I’m very sorry, Guide Lier.” Shao Hua looked ashamed. “I wasn’t able to provide you with any help under these circumstances.”
Research into the mental domains and psychic power of the Sentinel-Guide system had always been regarded as classified information by the White Tower and was never disclosed.
During the four years since the communications blackout caused by the disaster, the A07 medical research team had been trying to develop mental medication independently, but progress had been slow. At present, he could only prescribe some ordinary medication for calming the nerves and easing her condition. It might not be effective, but it was better than nothing.
“It’s all right, Doctor Shao. I’m very strong.” Yuli desperately suppressed the corners of her mouth, which wanted to curl upward.
Excellent. With the doctor’s words, she wouldn’t have to worry about her memory-loss excuse failing during the two months she needed to keep herself alive.
She had said she was suffering from headaches merely to give herself an excuse, in case someone noticed something strange when she suddenly received memories.
In reality, the headaches were very mild, entirely within the range she could tolerate.
At first, she had considered pretending to have completely lost her memory. But completely losing one’s memory was too drastic. It had a high difficulty factor, and if her acting wasn’t good enough, the lie would be obvious at a glance. It might even backfire and make the male protagonists decide that “Youlier” was simply causing trouble on purpose.
Yuli felt that, as a cannon-fodder supporting female character without the protagonist’s halo, she ought to be more practical. She had chosen this partial amnesia of memory confusion instead.
Not only would it give her relationship with the male-protagonist group a certain buffer period, but by receiving the fragments bit by bit, she could also suddenly remember something without it seeming strange to outsiders.
After hearing the doctor’s explanation, Yuli appeared sorrowful on the surface, but inside, she was wildly delighted.
Just then, she heard the refined Doctor Shao let out a sigh.
“Actually, I should originally have been able to provide you with a certain degree of assistance. Unfortunately, while you were unconscious, the Commander rejected my application to perform a craniotomy.”
The corners of Yuli’s mouth, which she had been unable to control, froze stiff.
A craniotomy? Craniotomy for what? Was he talking about the kind she thought he meant?
“I have a feeling that your mental domain possesses extremely high value for medical research. It might allow us to advance our current research into mental medication.” The doctor pushed up the bridge of his nose, the lenses reflecting an intelligent gleam beneath the lights. “Now that you’re awake, perhaps we can resume—”
Yuli remained calm. “No, thank you. I reject it as well.”
Shao Hua looked deeply regretful, his gaze lingering on her skull with reluctance. “All right. I’ll apply again the next time you’re unconscious.”
Not a chance in hell!
Expressionless, Yuli shoved him out of the hospital room.
She was afraid that if she waited any longer, she wouldn’t be able to hold back her salted-fish spirit and would leap up to perform a craniotomy on him first.
……
Half an hour later.
The young nurse brought her a change of clean clothes: a dress with a distinctly aristocratic young-lady style. It was goose-yellow with a white base and lace trim, a bright and lively color combination. The layered skirt was full and dimensional, sweet yet elegant.
As befitted the daughter of a noble family, Yuli guessed that this had been the original owner’s usual style of dress.
She didn’t know whether the clothes had been prepared by the original owner’s family or whether the nurse had specifically put the outfit together based on the girl’s usual style.
Yuli leaned toward the latter, because it seemed that no family members had come to visit during the past few days of her hospitalization. Of course, it was also possible that the Commander had sealed off the information.
For A07, the injury of the highest-ranked A-rank Guide’s perception should be a considerable blow. If the news spread among the civilians, it might cause unnecessary panic.
Yuli guessed that news of her injury had probably been contained within the Sentinel Tower.
Regardless of which situation it was, being able to wear such a delicate and beautiful little dress in an era of disaster proved one thing: the original owner was highly valued.
That was a good thing for Yuli.
Besides, the little dress really was beautiful!
In an era of disaster, accidents could happen at any moment. If that moment truly came, who wouldn’t want to die beautifully?
At least, she did.
Yuli entered the shower room inside the hospital room, took a shower, changed her clothes, and then admired herself thoroughly in the mirror before picking up the bag of medication and leaving the room.
As expected, the hospital corridor had a technological feel, consistent with the style of the room’s furnishings.
The milky-white walls were made of a material resembling the interior of a spacecraft from a science-fiction film. Blue strips of light flowed across the ceiling like water, creating an illusory, tranquil atmosphere.
This was the first time Yuli had left her room since transmigrating into the book.
The entire corridor was utterly silent, as if she had entered a spacetime tunnel alone and arrived here. Only now, standing in the hallway with her feet on the solid floor, did she finally gain a real sense that she was in a future world.
As a professional at staying alive, Yuli felt that it was necessary to observe and familiarize herself with all kinds of nearby environments.
She didn’t take the elevator directly. Instead, she planned to take the stairs and look around two floors below first.
This floor seemed to be the critical-care zone for the most serious cases. Perhaps because the equipment was expensive to maintain, few rooms were open at ordinary times.
Yuli walked to the medical station and discovered that the young nurse who had been taking care of her these past few days wasn’t there either.
For a moment, it gave her the illusion that this entire floor existed solely to serve her.
Now that she had been discharged, had everyone else gone off duty?
Yuli shook her head. The lights at the medical station were still on, and the other rooms on both sides of the corridor were lit as well. The nurse had probably gone off to attend to something.
She picked up a blank note and left a message for the nurse, telling her that she had left and adding several compliments, especially regarding late-night snacks.
If she hadn’t been forbidden from leaving her room, she would definitely have slipped to the cafeteria herself. She absolutely wouldn’t have troubled the nurse.
At the signature, Yuli smoothly wrote the three characters of “Youlier,” added two little red hearts, and then headed toward the stairs according to the signs.
After walking a few steps, the figure in the fluffy little dress suddenly sneaked back.
She looked left and right. Seeing that no one was there, Yuli swiftly snatched up the thank-you note, stuffed it into her medication bag, and ran.
She had been careless. What use was it to get the name right? She had almost forgotten that handwriting could expose a person too! She would save it and thank the nurse in person the next time she was hospitalized.
When she reached the next floor, the atmosphere was clearly different—tense and agitated.
Compared with the spacious, technologically advanced feeling of the floor above, this one looked like a real hospital floor.
Medical staff hurried through the corridor, pushing mechanical stretchers. On the waiting benches along both sides, many severely injured Sentinels were waiting.
The air was permeated with a faint smell of blood, mingled and interwoven with an intense masculine scent that rushed toward her.
Almost the instant Yuli pushed open the door to the emergency stairwell and poked her head out to look around, every male Sentinel on the waiting benches turned to look at her.
Yuli’s breathing caught. She instinctively held her breath slightly, trying to make her rhythm lighter and slower.
In that instant, the dark fairy tale of a little white rabbit wandering into a forbidden forest sprang into her mind.
She had opened the door so gently. Why was everyone looking at her?
Most of the combat uniforms on these Sentinels were already torn and ragged, no longer able to cover their taut, powerful bodies. Some were bare-chested altogether, a wound deep enough to reveal bone running across their firm, resilient abdominal muscles. They had received only temporary stabilizers, and bright-red blood trickled in small streams, soaking into their honey-colored skin.
Once they had left combat status and entered a safe environment, the pain from their injuries became especially difficult to endure. Unable to conceal their irritability, they stared uncontrollably at Yuli.
Their gazes were filled with desire that they were desperately trying to suppress, yet could not restrain.
They were longing for a Guide’s soothing.
Most of the Sentinels here were B-rank or below. Their squads had no accompanying Guide, so they usually made appointments at the Silent Room in the Guide district after completing a mission.
These two or three squads had just returned from missions. They had not had time to make an appointment at the Silent Room and soothe their mental sources, so they had to prioritize treating their external injuries at the hospital.
At that moment, suddenly seeing Yuli was no different from a starving, wounded beast catching the scent of fresh meat.
But they were very restrained… They were trying their best to restrain themselves. Their muscular arms tensed, their bodies filled with forbearance.
They were Sentinels. They were warriors. They had to possess professional discipline…
Several Sentinels with more serious injuries and weakened wills had already been unable to hold back from releasing their spirit entities. The spirit entities of various beasts and birds of prey were eager to try, practically ready to pounce, shaking their heads and asking Yuli to caress them.
Yuli’s pupils trembled violently, and her feet instinctively retreated half a step.
Mommy, even movie special effects had never been this realistic!
Oh no. In this world, these things were real!
At that same moment, the Sentinels who had retained their reason and suffered lighter injuries rose as well, releasing their own spirit entities to stop this kind of offensive behavior.
The doctors and nurses here were ordinary people. They couldn’t see the spirit entities. They only inexplicably felt that the air had become stifling and crowded, making it somewhat difficult to breathe.
“It’s so hot. Is the air-purification system not on?”
The young nurse following behind the stretcher and helping secure it muttered quietly, resisting the sticky discomfort and not wiping away the sweat beading at her temple.
Yuli was completely stunned by the scene before her.
The originally spacious hospital corridor had descended into chaos. Spirit entities filled her field of vision, bombarding her from every direction, as if she had accidentally wandered into a live broadcast of the animal world on some massive channel.
She swallowed and realized that she might have made a mistake.
She should have taken the elevator directly. Perhaps somewhere she hadn’t noticed, there was a sign on this floor that read: “Guides, please do not enter.”
“What are you doing?”
Just as her thoughts raced, considering whether she should retreat quickly or gently close the door and sneak away, an indifferent voice came from behind her.
Yuli’s entire body jolted. Like a small cat with its fur standing on end, she quickly turned her head.
“Captain S-Sain!”
She didn’t notice that, after she turned around, a pair of enormous black wings swept past the glass window of the hospital corridor behind her.
They blotted out the sky and covered the earth, blocking out every ray of light that seeped in.
The hospital corridor suddenly became quiet. The spirit entities that had been in complete disarray froze where they stood, as though someone had abruptly pressed the pause button, or as though they had received some kind of warning.
A silent, forceful warning from a high-ranked spirit entity.
A moment earlier, a red hawk had been making the most trouble. It was already one step away from the emergency stairwell and had been trying to brush its wings against the girl’s shoes. Now it trembled as it folded its feathers, attempting to make itself smaller.
The gazes fixed on the girl also vanished. The scorching, intense looks of desire were swiftly withdrawn by their owners, who no longer dared to pry.
At this moment, Yuli’s attention was entirely focused on the one person in the stairwell.
A tall, black-haired young man stood on the steps behind her, quietly watching her. His long, phoenix-shaped eyes were as deep as ink.
He wore an all-black motorcycle suit and leather motorcycle gloves. A layer of cold metal foil covered the surface of the gloves. The design was striking and avant-garde. His long legs stood straight, his brows and eyes sharp, and his expression was so flat that it seemed faintly cold. Without doing anything, he gave off an intense sense of oppression.
In theory, Yuli and he were of equal rank, so she shouldn’t have been this timid. But besides the fear caused by her being suppressed by his aura, she felt something even stronger: guilt.
Sai'en, an S-rank Sentinel, with the spirit entity Heiying, and captain of the A07 Black Eagle Sentinel Squad.
……That was right. He was also the very person the Commander had mentioned—the man whom, according to the rumors, she had attacked in the chest after waking up.
Within the base, apart from the several S-rank male protagonists of equal rank, the only person who dared to use their spirit entities as nicknames and address them that way was Commander Song Xuanye.
Perhaps the original owner had done so too.
Yuli silently added that thought in parentheses.
But that had been the original owner. She was now Yuli—the supporting female character who had turned over a new leaf and reformed herself!
So the question was, what should she say to ease the atmosphere after apparently doing something wrong and then being caught by the person with whom she had caused a physical misunderstanding two days ago?
……Hi?
Yuli held the medication bag in one hand and placed the other behind her back, carefully bracing it against the emergency stairwell door. Slowly, bit by bit, she began drawing the door closed, trying her best not to make a sound.
Fortunately, the door was made of good material. The commotion in the corridor hadn’t carried through at all. Yuli breathed a sigh of relief, shut the door, and quickly pulled out her hand to wave.
“What a coincidence, Captain Sain. You’re here to stay—”
Bah! Was being hospitalized something worth bragging about?
In the time it took her to recover, Yuli’s frightened brain had grown back. She glanced at the man’s broad chest, wrapped in the motorcycle suit, then quickly looked away and continued the conversation.
“Your wounds have already been treated, right? Are they recovering well?”
With wounds that terrifying, he should have received treatment if he could stand here properly. Yuli muttered inwardly.
She swore to heaven that she hadn’t been the one who attacked him. Everyone in the hospital room that day could testify. Those wounds had already been there!
“……”
Sai'en didn’t answer her question. He walked down from the steps in silence, came to stand before her, and asked in a calm voice, “Are you escaping the hospital?”
Yuli: “?”
She had only ever heard of escaping from prison. This was the first time she had heard of escaping from a hospital.
After Doctor Shaohua’s “craniotomy,” were the words in this world all so obscure?
Besides, she was merely being discharged like a perfectly ordinary person. Why would he have such an idea? What kind of impression had the original owner left with the male-protagonist group?
“No. I’m being discharged normally.” Yuli raised the hand holding the medication bag. “The Commander approved it. Doctor Shao can testify.”
Sai'en followed the girl’s wrist with his gaze to the medication bag and frowned without saying anything else.
He didn’t ask which Commander she meant.
There was only one Commander at Base A07: Song Xuanye.
It was just that everything in the bag consisted of ordinary medication he recognized. There was no newly developed mental medication.
Sai'en lowered his eyelashes, concealing the thoughts in his eyes.
“Go.” He took the medication bag from the girl’s hand and proceeded downward, concise and decisive.
Yuli was bewildered.
“Go? Go where?”
If his action of carrying her things had not been so natural, she would have suspected that he hadn’t said “go,” but “get lost.”
“Weren’t you being discharged? I’m taking you home.”
Sai'en had already descended to the middle of the staircase. Hearing her question, he turned around. His tall figure stood against the light, which hazily illuminated his black hair. His expression was impossible to make out; only his sharply defined profile could be seen.
The young man’s voice held no inflection. “Is there a problem?”
Yuli: “……No.” She didn’t dare have one.
Big shot, did you know that taking someone home like this was terrifying? It looked exactly like a kidnapping scene from a mafia heir’s obsessive romance—
Wait. He was the male protagonist!
Were there surveillance cameras in the emergency stairwell? Was Sai'en planning to kill her here?
Could it be that, because of the rumor about her attacking his chest, the plot had advanced early and Sai'en could no longer restrain his murderous intent?!
Yuli immediately braced her hand against the door and pushed it open again.
“Captain Sain, well, I suddenly remembered that I need to visit an old acquaintance.”
She couldn’t leave with Sai'en just like this. Facing the animal world was better than facing him. At least there would be surveillance cameras in the hospital corridor.
An old acquaintance?
The captain was on a long-term mission. Bai Yan and Wildcat had not returned from their mission. Qiquan was being held in confinement.
“Who?”
Sai'en stepped back up the stairs one step at a time. His tall figure enveloped the girl, leaving only a corner of her fluffy goose-yellow skirt visible.
Vivid. Unrestrained.
Other than them, what old acquaintance could she have?
“It’s—” Yuli pointed inward at random, preparing to begin her performance. Then she froze. “It’s……?”
The hospital corridor was completely empty.
It was as if it had just undergone a thorough cleaning. Not only had all the animal-world spirit entities disappeared without a trace, but even the Sentinels who had been sprawled all over the waiting benches were nowhere to be seen.
Where had everyone gone?!
She clearly remembered that there had been a honey-colored Sentinel lying on that bench, with a serious wound across his abdominal muscles.