Chapter 67: Open-Abdomen Surgery and a Friendly Greeting

"No way, this is way too hardcore."

The Rat Player covered her mouth, her eyes widening in disbelief.

Ji Yan hadn't expected Liu Yan to be this vicious either; in just the blink of an eye, she had torn the Asthma Ghost's head right off.

He suddenly remembered a previous prompt stating that Liu Yan had been transferred from the [Severe] ward to the [Moderate] ward—she was a genuine patient from the [Emergency Building]!

According to the dungeon's settings, the most perilous sector was the [Emergency Building], where almost all the patients were overwhelmingly brutal and nearly impossible to conquer anomalies.

Thinking about it this way, it all made sense.

Liu Yan’s bloated and deformed body of flesh approached, staring straight at Ji Yan’s sliced-open chest, casually tossing aside the bloody mass of tissue in her hand.

Seeing Ji Yan’s "open-hearted" chest, she unexpectedly and bizarrely showed a trace of shyness.

"Doctor Sheep, there is something filthy inside your body."

Ji Yan wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. "I know."

"So, I need Doctor Rat to perform a simple excision surgery for me. Doctor Rat, as colleagues, you wouldn't refuse, right?"

Before the Rat Player could speak, she saw Liu Yan’s face—brimming with fatal threats—slowly lean in closer. "Doctor Rat, please."

"Your life is bound together with Doctor Sheep. If Doctor Sheep dies, you will be buried along with him. You understand what I mean, right?"

Faced with that "amiable" smile, the Rat Player instantly felt immense pressure and had no choice but to bite the bullet and agree.

She picked up the Higanbana scalpel and, gazing into the bloody, split-open chest cavity, performed the so-called surgery.

The parasitic ghost infant inside the body had originally opened its eyes, preparing to break out and crawl out, but the moment it opened its eyes, it was plucked out by a hand wearing a disinfection glove.

Just as the ghost infant was about to throw a tantrum, it was pinched by a deformed hand and had its head popped like a zit by Liu Yan...

With the root of the illness removed, Ji Yan's sliced-open chest was sewn back together stitch by stitch using the needle and thread the Rat Player took from her medical kit.

When the ends of the thread were snipped, miraculously, the stitches vanished, the flesh healed completely, and not even a scar was left behind.

An open-chest surgery had just been completed in such an absurd manner!

The Rat Player felt a sharp pang of heartache. The [Seamless Suture Thread] was a cursed item she had always been reluctant to use; any flesh sewn with it would heal perfectly, and even ruptured internal organs could be stitched back together to restore vitality.

And now, it had been squandered so casually on an outsider...

Patting his chest, Ji Yan noticed the Rat Player's distress and offered a self-proclaimed comforting remark: "As you said yourself, we are allies. The longer I live, the more helpful it is to your game."

"Just think of it as an investment."

The Rat Player: "..."

Liu Yan crouched down, her massive body wedged into the narrow utility room.

She gazed at Ji Yan with infatuation, then looked out the door. "Doctor Sheep, there is still a pair of eyes staring at you from outside."

"Would you like me to handle them for you as well?"

She could sense that those eyes harbored intense hostility toward Ji Yan as well.

The Rat Player raised an eyebrow and spoke up. "It's Black Dog."

"He has the Zodiac privilege bonus at night, and his sense of smell is extremely sharp. Generally, any malicious anomalies approaching him will be detected."

"Besides, that Black Dog is extremely cowardly and cautious. If you want to get revenge, it might be a bit difficult..."

Hearing this, Liu Yan looked displeased, staring coldly at the Rat Player. "As long as Doctor Sheep wants it, I can bring his head to Doctor Sheep within five minutes."

The Rat Player could tell that Liu Yan desperately wanted to prove her value in front of Ji Yan, constantly currying favor.

She couldn't help but feel secretly astonished: had this A22 patient been conquered by Ji Yan, or had she been thoroughly broken in?

She was acting way too much like a simpering flatterer.

Instead, Ji Yan asked about something off-topic: "What is the [Wish] of the Zodiac Dog?"

The Rat Player thought for a moment. "Loyalty. The more loyal he acts toward the Dog Quack Doctor, the stronger his Wish privilege becomes."

Wish and Wish privilege were distinct concepts.

A wish was a manifestation of a certain characteristic between a player and their Zodiac medical mentor.

Only when the [Wish] was stronger could the acquired [Wish Privilege] become more powerful.

For instance, Ji Yan's [Wish] was "Sincerity."

Yet his Wish privilege was a [Scroll of Lies]. The more sincere he was toward the Sheep Quack Doctor, the stronger the scroll's privilege would become.

However, to use the scroll, he had to lie, which ran completely counter to "Sincerity," leaving Ji Yan baffled for a long time.

"Loyalty..."

Ji Yan's eyes flashed, and he suddenly thought of a psychological form of retaliation.

"Then what would happen if the Dog Doctor discovered that his medical student was disloyal, or even committed betrayal?"

The Rat Player shook her head. "Unless that Black Dog has a screw loose."

"Betrayal means death; why would he jump into a fire pit himself?"

Ji Yan wore a meaningful smile. "He won't jump in himself."

"But I'll give him a push."

The Rat Player looked at Ji Yan in confusion.

Ji Yan said no more and buttoned up his white lab coat.

Liu Yan watched Ji Yan's charming and wicked smile, cupping her oversized face with her deformed hands, her eyes filled with utter intoxication and adoration. "So bad... I love it so much..."

...

In an unassuming room.

The Dog Player suddenly whipped his head around.

He saw that the stick of incense he had lit, though not yet fully burned, had mysteriously gone out, wisps of blue smoke curling upward.

This caused his pupils to contract to the size of pinpricks.

His tone was filled with disbelief. "How is this possible... That's an A13 patient."

"That little white sheep just arrived in the dungeon on his very first day—what kind of method could he possibly have used to kill that Asthma Ghost?!"

He had witnessed the terror of the Asthma Ghost firsthand.

Invisible to the naked eye, the moment a target heard the sound of coughing, their death sentence was already handed down.

One wouldn't even know what the anomaly looked like.

Rack his brains as he might, he couldn't figure out how Ji Yan had escaped such a dead end!

He clutched his blinded eye, which was still continuously leaking fluids...

He had solved the Knocking Ghost, but he had also had one of his eyeballs gouged out.

What the Dog Player also couldn't understand was what method Ji Yan had used to turn the Knocking Ghost he had conquered against him, shifting the spearhead of hatred onto him, its master.

"Knocking Ghost... Asthma Ghost..."

Having consecutively lost two trump cards in his hand, Black Dog gradually began to break into a cold sweat, and his initial boiling rage of revenge was extinguished.

He finally realized that this newcomer, the little white sheep, was completely different from the cowards before him; he was a thorny, ruthless character...

"Forget it."

"I'll just chalk it up to suffering in silence. Damn it, thinking about it is so infuriating!"

Sensing no malicious ghost aura lingering around him, the Dog Player stood up and prepared to return to his quarters.

However, the moment he opened the door, he found a dark silhouette standing silently outside.

"You..."

Before the Dog Player could react, a flash of cold light struck straight for his throat. He threw himself backward, but his throat was still sliced open.

Clutching the blood spurting from his throat, the Dog Player stared fiercely at the figure. "Who are you?"

"Sheep."

Moonlight poured down, illuminating half of Ji Yan's face.

Black Dog held his breath, every hair on his body standing on end as he faced Ji Yan at the doorway like a formidable enemy.

Wiping the blood of the Black Dog from his hands, Ji Yan smiled amiably. "Don't be nervous."

"I just came to say hello."

"After all, having been looked after by you twice tonight, we really ought to meet face-to-face."

Black Dog's expression darkened, one hand quietly concealing itself behind his back. "White Sheep! You blinded one of my eyes, so we're even now."

"If you insist on a battle to the death, I can guarantee you will be dragged down to the grave with me!"

Ji Yan didn't care whether Black Dog's threat was real or false; he merely smiled faintly. "This scalpel of mine was acquired from the morgue. According to the panel information, it is heavily polluted."

"As long as it wounds a player, within half an hour, the infection will spread throughout the entire body, causing black sheep wool to grow all over and sharp horns to sprout from the head, turning them into a mindless black sheep anomaly."

Upon hearing this, the Dog Player couldn't help but burst out laughing.

"Ha, who would believe such nonsense?"

"At least make up a believable lie. If I were really infected, why wouldn't my prompt panel give the slightest warning?"

"Did you really think up such a trick meant to scare children?"

Ji Yan showed no trace of awkwardness at being exposed; instead, he smiled meaningfully. "Not all cursed items come with system prompts."

"Care to guess if I believe it?" Black Dog sneered.

"Believe it or not, in ten minutes, you'll have your answer."

"What you should be worrying about right now is: when your medical mentor sees that you're a dog growing sheep wool and horns, what do you suppose your fate will be?"

With those words, Ji Yan put away his scalpel and turned to leave.

The Dog Player was left in a daze.

He... he just left?