Chapter 976: Chapter 670: Shock Therapy
In the deathly silent operating room, the only sound was the low clink of hemostats and scalpels colliding, and as the murky breath under the oxygen mask rose and fell, the shadowless lamp flickered faintly.
Even though disinfectant had been used to scrub it over and over, the air still floated with a faint, elusive moldy smell.
Surgery was being performed under such abysmal conditions.
The surgeon calmly stitched the flesh and blood beneath his hands, one layer after another, letting the dust from the ceiling beside him rustle down without a glance.
Only when the final stitch was at last completed did he set down his instruments, take a few steps back, and let out a weary sigh.
"God City’s Doctor, you’ve worked hard."
The assistant, who had only studied nursing for two years, helped him remove his gloves and protective gown, deeply admiring the Sacrificial effort and dedication he had shown these past days.
"It wasn’t a particularly difficult operation, just a long one. Let’s hope he can pull through."
God City’s Doctor glanced at the child on the operating table and said evenly, "From here on, the patient’s care is in your hands. As for medicine, I’ll contact someone to get a batch of antibiotics here as soon as possible."
After courteously exchanging a few words with the others, he turned to take his leave.
The orderly, worried, tried to persuade him: "Mr. God City, it’s not very safe on the streets lately. My home’s nearby. After the rounds later, why don’t you come rest at my place for the night?"
"No need. There’s a bed in my office. I can make do there."
God City’s Doctor smiled. "Besides, I still have an old friend to see."
"Then be careful on the way."
"I will."
God City walked into his office, straightened the patients’ files, carefully counted the current stock of pharmaceuticals, then rested for a few minutes. After that he picked up his pen and notebook and hurriedly began his routine ward inspection and rounds.
What passed for a ward was nothing more than one floor specially sectioned off.
On the second floor of this derelict theater, barely converted into a hospital, crude curtains and sheets had been strung up across the enormous space; under the dim yellow fluorescent tubes, the cracks in the walls had not even been patched.
Even with the windows open and the fan blowing, combined with the feeble cooling of the dirt-floor air-conditioner, the air was still so stifling it made one want to sweat.
The reek of rot in the air would not disperse.
Between the beds partitioned by torn curtains, God City bent his head to check the patients’ conditions, meticulously recording the data.
Some patients were already sunk into Deep Sleep, while others hovered in that half-dream half-wakefulness, eyes vacant under the torment of illness. Only when the beam of a flashlight hit them did their pupils reflexively contract.
Hoarse groans and nightmare whimpers echoed through the sweltering air.
God City examined the patients one by one, moving forward in silence, until, after a long while, his steps suddenly halted.
In the stillness, he lowered his head and looked between two beds... In the light of the flashlight, a fine, thin filament slowly came into view.
God City pushed his glasses up and sighed softly.
"A tripwire grenade?"
He said, "How despicable, Liu DongLi. This is the ward... To kill me, you don’t even care about the lives of the other innocents?"
"A ward?"
Someone laughed.
In the darkness of a corner, Liu DongLi lifted his face and asked quietly, "Is this a ward or a laboratory? Don’t you understand that better than I do?"
In that instant, the crackle of current suddenly sounded in the air.
It spread from Liu DongLi’s hand and, in a flash, tore through every disguise.
Under the expanding and enveloping electric field, everything in the room churned like a water surface, tumultuous beneath the impact of invisible ripples.
Something had undergone Transformation, and yet seemed unchanged.
The scene of the ward, the pained groans and nightmare murmurs, all persisted as before.
But everything had already become utterly different.
Behind those drooping, ragged curtains, on the beds, beneath the patients’ deformed skins, something could be faintly seen writhing. And the limbs under the bedding rose and fell in subtle motions that were anything but human.
Like a nest of writhing Snakes.
Beneath the thin human skin, everything had long since been altered; under the erosion of the Healer and the interference of Power, this place had already sunk into Hell...
As Liu DongLi spoke, beyond the windows, through the torrential rain, thunderous detonations erupted, and surges of burning firelight kept flaring.
The entire mortal world seemed, in an instant, shrouded in a rain of fire.
Only the wailing remained the same...
"So this is what you want to do, God City Future?" Liu DongLi asked. "To remodel patients in the name of rescue, to wield ’healing’ as an excuse to exact revenge on your own kind?"
"Compared to terminal tumors and lethal lesions, surgery is nothing but a brief pain. You seem to have never understood that."
God City answered calmly, "On the operating table, if you don’t act decisively, you only consign the patient to eternal damnation. If the heart cannot beat, you inject cardiac stimulants. If the body has rotted, you cut the necrosis away. Everything is for the sake of eventual cure."
"This is your surgery?"
Liu DongLi chuckled. "I don’t even see where the anesthetist is."
"Is the Tanbo Inner Circle—no, are all Hybrids—not anesthetized enough already? Drunk on life and death, with no tomorrow, sinking day after day into the darkest bottom rung, struggling with all their might yet unable to drag themselves from the mire, with self-abandonment their only choice... Without sufficient pain, you cannot make them open their eyes, cannot make their hearts throb again.
This is nothing but a paltry price to pay."
"The same old Shock Therapy routine. Carrying a sack of rice up and down the stairs over and over—don’t you people ever get tired?"
