RHWHEG – Chapter 54 The Doctor

“Rumble—”

One of the eight legs towering over the ancient town of the Sha family suddenly moved, and the steel ruins collapsed for a second time.

Eight-Legged Frostfall was simply too enormous. It didn’t need any fancy techniques—just moving was enough to make insignificant humans suffer dearly.

Creatures as humble as ants scattered between the falling steel beams. In utter silence, several fragile lives were snuffed out.

Yu Qunqing stuffed the cat carrier into his hiking pack, shouldering the bow case at the same time, and moved stealthily through the increasingly dangerous steel ruins. He flashed forward, bracing a falling support beam, allowing 060—cradling the little crocodile—to bend low and pass through. She was five meters long now and had already learned how to flexibly use her twin tails; even her ability proficiency had increased greatly. She precisely used the “Evil Totem” to hint for F-class disasters to steer clear of them, which was why they hadn’t run into too many accidents along the way.

Only after 060 passed safely did Yu Qunqing withdraw his strength and let the massive support crash down.

He shook his wrist and asked, “How much longer?”

“Lin Luyi doesn’t seem very good at using his psychic ability yet,” 060 said timidly as she hugged the little crocodile tighter. “The coordinates aren’t very accurate. In this direction… there’s still about one kilometer in straight-line distance.”

One kilometer. Factoring in detours, the best outcome would be reaching it in just half an hour.

From the vibrations in the walls, Yu Qunqing could tell a large group of disasters was approaching—likely a swarm-type disaster. Since they weren’t affected by 060’s ability, their level should be around G-class. He signaled 060 to keep quiet and wait until the group passed before moving again.

060 curled herself into a ball, hearing the thunderous sound of galloping hooves coming from all directions. She knew it was just an echo effect, yet she couldn’t help feeling afraid.

Yu Qunqing, on the other hand, was certain of their safety and stood there without saying a word.

When the noise gradually faded, Yu Qunqing led 060 onward. Considering that 060 had no formal training, he deliberately chose routes that were farther but safer.

The little crocodile suddenly said, “Ying, ying, ying.”

060 immediately translated, “It says that if you want to build a new house, you need sixteen times the lightning…” She didn’t quite understand what it meant and could only repeat it haltingly.

Yu Qunqing recalled that when he first awakened the system, it had been because he accidentally released lightning-element abilities.

So… opening a new server requires charging?

He asked, “Can the abilities on my body provide sixteen times the lightning?”

060 translated and replied, “Not even close…”

For the time being, Yu Qunqing had no clear idea. He guessed it would require fairly high-density energy, and not necessarily limited to lightning.

By the time 060 was nearly falling apart from exhaustion, with quite a few of her scales scraped off, they finally encountered a familiar figure.

Here, they could see the sky outside. Crawling out through a window, they saw that not far below stood an ancestral hall. A tattered red paper of Guan Yu was pasted onto a door panel lying horizontally. A massive wall slab happened to be pressing against another building lying crosswise, leaving behind a safe triangular space—so the ancestral hall had remained relatively intact.

A black bird flew up to Yu Qunqing. He reached out and poked it with his index finger. The bird instantly dissolved into feathers and drifted down.

“Brother Yu!” Sun Min spotted them first and waved from the rooftop of the ancestral hall.

“And… Ms. 060…” He hesitated slightly as he looked at 060 crawling over after them.

Yu Qunqing tossed his equipment up onto the rooftop first, then jumped over himself. From the backpack came the faint sound of a cat meowing. She Lulang and the others came up from the stairwell. Lin Luyi and Dong Changxin were covered in injuries—they had encountered a dust explosion, leaving large patches of burns on their skin. There were many abrasions on their foreheads, dried blood at their temples. Their faces were completely grimy, with only their eyes still showing some vitality.

Yu Qunqing sized She Lulang up and down, unsure whether he was hiding any wounds. He thought to himself that he definitely needed to check him thoroughly.

“So you’re still alive.” Lin Luyi, mindful of their shared bond as fellow patients, was actually rather glad to see 060. But when he immediately noticed the torn flesh on her arm—recognizing it as cuts caused by lightning—he shut his mouth at once. His stance was still firmly on Yu Qunqing’s side.

“For now, let’s move together,” Yu Qunqing said. “She’s responsible for escorting the crocodile here to build a new residential area. Don’t let the crocodile get hurt.”

Little Crocodile: “Ying!”

The college students gathered around to look at the crocodile in 060’s arms.

Seeing that Lin Luyi was still holding onto the queen bee, Yu Qunqing couldn’t help complaining, “Don’t we have too many animals here? Bees, a crocodile, a cat, and…” He glanced at She Lulang and stopped himself.

She Lulang said seriously, “There are signs that people once lived in this ancestral hall. It may have been a wild shelter before. The building structure is fairly stable—it won’t suddenly collapse.”

Yu Qunqing nodded. “Alright. Let’s cook. Everyone rest here tonight.”

He set down his backpack, took out clean water and fruits harvested from the farm, then rummaged around until he finally found a small piece of hemostatic cloth. The residential area was severely lacking in medical supplies; they had to conserve them. Such a small amount would have to be shared among Lin Luyi, Dong Changxin, and 060. Yu Qunqing felt a bit troubled.

“If only there were a doctor here,” Yu Qunqing said. Then he glanced at She Lulang and asked, “Are you injured?”

A black bird slipped into She Lulang’s black robe. As expected, he shook his head.

In the distance, the setting sun was blood-red. The revelry of the disasters was about to begin.

“It’s getting dark…”

She Lulang met Yu Qunqing’s gaze. Yu Qunqing suddenly looked away, wearing an expression that said I have too much on my mind and don’t know how to say it.

The environment was far too tense now—clearly not the right time for a heart-to-heart talk. They were all rational people, knowing that survival was the top priority.

But She Lulang couldn’t suppress the longing in his heart. Though they had only been separated for a few hours due to an accident, he missed him so much he was nearly going mad. Being away from Yu Qunqing’s side was pure torment.

Thinking of all the doubts surrounding Yu Qunqing, he suddenly mustered his courage and, under the cover of his black robe, quietly reached out and took Yu Qunqing’s hand.

Yu Qunqing’s eyes widened in disbelief.

What does Deputy Captain even mean?

Before he could even ask why the deputy captain knew about his past-life ability, the deputy captain was already pushing his luck this far!

What kind of strategic significance does holding hands have here?

Yu Qunqing’s mind went completely blank.

—Forget it. If he wants to hold hands, then hold hands. They’ve already slept in the same bed before; holding hands is perfectly normal.

In less than three seconds, Yu Qunqing calmed down, automatically rationalized all the irrational things, and while holding hands, began thinking about the next plan.

Beside him, She Lulang quietly let out a breath of relief. Through that tiny bit of skin contact, he drew in warmth, and his soul finally found a stable place to settle.

If they interlocked fingers, would Yu Qunqing react even more strongly?

She Lulang couldn’t help but ponder the question further.

However, peaceful moments are always short-lived. Voices came from not far away, and a group of people wearing shelter uniforms appeared outside the first floor of the ancestral hall. Their hair was disheveled, their bodies covered in blood. When they saw human silhouettes, it was as if they had seen hope—their eyes lit up.

“Wait.”

Suddenly, a shelter staff member rubbed his eyes and spoke to the backbone of the team.

“D-Doctor, look at those two… aren’t they the people on the shelter’s wanted list?”

…

The doctor’s name was Li Yuebei—a very ordinary name. Before the disaster struck, he had been a hardworking academic grinder, always wearing thick, bottle-bottom glasses.

He was more proficient in theory, but after the catastrophe descended, he volunteered to fill the gap and became a clinical physician, doing his utmost to help every patient escape suffering. He followed the main group to a formal shelter. In this small society housing over ten thousand people, class conflicts never ceased. The shelter’s social structure changed again and again, eventually becoming a pyramid-shaped society with the “Research Center” as the highest command authority, and multiple action teams granted licenses to use violence.

The Supreme Academy of Sciences of Humanity had already confirmed total loss—no more responses. In its place arose the “Temporary Research Institute of the United Human Shelters,” jointly organized and networked across regions, referred to as the Research Center.

A famous figure of the Research Center was Dr. Chen—the one who proposed classifying disaster levels based on the intensity of cosmic elements within cells.
0% were Green-Label Humans; 0–55% were LV1 to LV5 ability users; above 55% were disaster monsters.

He also proposed that “anyone with cosmic element intensity above 55% automatically loses human rights,” providing a certain kind of moral guidance to people of that era.

—Losing human rights naturally meant losing the right to life and health. They could raise the butcher’s knife with legitimacy!

Before treating every patient, Li Yuebei would measure their cellular cosmic element intensity with instruments.

“Doctor, isn’t my radiation level higher than last time? I knew it—being too close to ability users means I’ll get irradiated too!”

“Doctor, this guy has so many hands. No matter how you look at it, his cosmic element intensity has to be over 55%, right? Doesn’t that mean he’s lost human rights? What’s wrong with me messing around a bit? W-What? This level is only LV1?!”

“Doctor, let me talk to you. Don’t you think Dr. Chen’s standards are too strict? Fifty-five percent is way too high. We all think that over 30% should count as losing human rights…”

Li Yuebei had never encountered a patient with intensity over 55%, so he consistently treated everyone without wavering—ignoring the rumors about “getting irradiated by proximity to ability users,” unafraid of any non-human-shaped “people,” giving his all every time, and grieving for every life lost.

Yet every poisonous whisper about human rights gnawed at his heart like flies.

One day, Li Yuebei looked at a patient lying in a hospital bed and remembered that this person was the very one who usually took the lead in discriminating against ability users—someone who abused power and committed petty evils within the shelter.

Was this kind of person… really worth saving?

Calmly, Li Yuebei administered an appropriate dose of muscle relaxants and anesthetics, but for a long time, he did not begin the surgery.

After completing that operation, Li Yuebei returned to academic research. He proactively went on missions to retrieve experimental specimens, attempting to understand disaster monsters from another perspective.

F-rank disasters alone could cause enormous trouble just by gathering.
G-rank disasters already possessed awareness of group cooperation and hunting.
H-rank disaster, the Klein Bottle, could drive large numbers of people insane, turning them into livestock.
I-rank disaster, Eight-Legged Frostfall—once it appeared, it swallowed clouds and spewed fog, first bringing seven days of catastrophic flooding, then a prolonged high-temperature drought. An entire region was shrouded beneath its shadow.

As for even higher-level disasters—might they possess intelligence capable of communicating with humans? Or would they simply disdain communicating with humanity at all?

Li Yuebei filled an entire room with observation records and research notes. In his spare time, this was the only thing that could free him from the suffocating environment of the shelter.

Then one day, a massive fire spread through the dormitory area, precisely destroying all of his notes.

After the apocalypse, electronic products were rare. He had exchanged contribution points for stacks upon stacks of paper to record his observations—only for all of it to be reduced to ashes in the blaze. He stood before the flames as charred paper drifted toward him, only to be licked clean by fire.

The shelter reacted swiftly, immediately dispatching action teams to extinguish the fire and arranging new accommodations for Li Yuebei. The shelter’s explanation was that, to prevent unknown fires from igniting again, Li Yuebei should temporarily stay away from the area.

On the surface, Li Yuebei agreed. But deep in the night, he quietly returned.

His ability, “Delayed Viewing,” allowed him to rewind and replay an object’s experiences from the past twenty-four hours, usually used to examine how patients had been injured. Now, he would use it to uncover the true cause of the fire.

—As expected, it had been done by a fire-element ability user sent by the Research Center.

No wonder they had wanted him away—they were afraid he would use his ability to trace the truth. The Research Center intended to keep all disaster-related data firmly in its grasp and would not allow anyone to cross the line.

Li Yuebei grew increasingly disillusioned, dark emotions breeding within him…

Today, he followed an action team on a mission. This operation was aimed at hunting the Klein Bottle, involving over a hundred people, led by the renowned Jiang Qiwen from the shelter.

Amid the chaos, he used his status as a doctor to take charge of a group of wounded, leading them out of the encirclement. This group of injured people were, in the conventional sense, good people. Seeing them made his conscience feel alive again.

If he couldn’t even protect this group of wounded, then he didn’t want to be a doctor anymore… Studying medicine couldn’t save people in the apocalypse.

They fled all the way, and as night fell, they finally spotted a relatively sturdy building.

And there were people there—though they didn’t look like a shelter team.

Nowadays, many non-shelter factions had formed, but the shelter deliberately blocked information about them. Li Yuebei only vaguely knew that in Jiangbei City, another small force occupied a residential complex in the city center. Yu Qunqing from that complex, along with the defector She Lulang, were both dangerous individuals. The complex had also cultivated disasters like breeding gu, producing many calamities—it was a thorn in the shelter’s side.

So it was them…

Ignoring a wounded person’s quiet warning, Li Yuebei calmly raised both hands to show he was unarmed and walked into the open space before the ancestral hall.

At the highest level of the hall, six figures slowly turned around, standing on the rooftop and looking down at them.

At the very edge was Lin Luyi, half of whose hand had transformed into vines, holding a queen bee half as tall as a human. The queen bee’s compound eyes were like dazzling gemstones, staring at him without moving. Beside him stood Sun Min, holding an unknown weapon, his face covered in dust—he looked like a good person, yet at this moment, that very appearance contrasted eerily with an innocent kind of evil.

On the right was Dong Changxin, carrying a massive metalworking case and holding the only firearm on the scene, making her look extremely intimidating. Next to her was 060, who looked utterly inhuman, holding a small crocodile, her face devoid of emotion as she regarded the doctor like an inanimate object.

In the center were Yu Qunqing and She Lulang. For ease of transformation, She Lulang always wore a black robe, which now flapped violently in the strong wind. Yu Qunqing carried a bow case, his hands and face smeared with blood. Behind him, the setting sun was as red as blood, making him look as if he had just stepped out of hell.

Being stared down from above by these six beings, anyone would feel pressure like a mountain.

They really were the team from the city-center residential complex!

The doctor took a deep breath. “My name is Li Yuebei. I’m a doctor, and I possess an LV1 ability, ‘Delayed Viewing.’ We have wounded here and urgently need some clean water. If you can help us…”

“I’m willing to betray the shelter and follow you forever.”

Li Yuebei—the dedicated doctor of Yu Qunqing’s team in his previous life… had actually delivered himself to their doorstep?