Chapter 1603: Asleep?

kCold wind howls.

Wind laden with dust and sand swept through the dense buildings, letting out a low, wailing moan.

The warmth inside and the cold outside were separated, forming a stark contrast.

Chief Physician of the First Unit of Long An.

Standing before the transparent glass, Lin An silently looked at the man inside the ward.

Like a statue, I don't know how long I've been looking.

Lying on the hospital bed, Chu An seemed to be in a deep sleep, his breathing steady, but the brainwave monitor beside him showed a calm as still as a dead sea, with no fluctuations.

"How long has this situation lasted...?"

His gaze moved back from the ward.

Lin An softly asked the doctor beside him.

It's already the third day; from the moment he first saw Chu An until now, Chu An has been like this.

Even though Lin An already knew the answer in his heart, even though he had tested it countless times in his own way.

But this time, Lin An, like an ordinary person, couldn't help asking the doctors inside the base.

Just as his words fell.

The many doctors and hospital directors timidly following behind Lin An were instantly filled with awe and fear, speaking respectfully with extreme caution:

"Lord Lin An."

"Lord Chu An, this condition has persisted for a long time."

"Since General Zhang Tie sent him here, he has remained in a state of sleep."

"To be precise, it's hibernation; Lord Chu An's bodily functions have all dropped to the minimum, brain activity trending toward stability, as if due to some kind of self-repair..."

"To speak frankly."

Without waiting for the large number of top-tier medical teams from the entire Wangjiang Three province, they gave a polite explanation.

Lin An slightly turned his head, coldly cutting off their polite explanation.

He had already tested it with mental power and spiritual energy.

Chu An's current state is better described not as sleep or hibernation.

Rather, it's more like...

He shows no response to the outside world; he is a living corpse.

No.

Not even a living corpse.

With no change in brainwaves and thought pulses, even plants are better off.

If it weren't for his breathing and heartbeat, Lin An would even suspect that this man is already dead.

After all, even plants and trees would have the most basic biological reaction when stimulated by electrodes.

But all of Chu An's fluctuations are zero.

Lin An couldn't imagine it, nor did he want to believe that the Chu An he knew—most 'terrifying,' able to calculate nearly everything, almost foreseeing the future—would reduce himself to this state.

"Lord Lin An..."

Everyone's faces instantly turned pale, their hearts shaken.

Seeing Lin An show displeasure, the hospital director leading the group broke out in cold sweat, hurriedly stepping forward to explain.

"Lord Chu An, to be frank, we've never seen this situation before!"

"From our examination, it looks like his brain cells have all died; in the MRI images, large amounts of unknown shadows appear."

"As of now, his body and other cerebellar structures seem to have split; the respiratory system originally controlled by the central nervous system has become self-regulation of the body."

"Logically, if the central nervous system had a problem, we would need an automatic ventilator, and we would also need to undergo surgery to see what that shadow is.."

"But... this situation is too unbelievable; we also dare not act rashly..."

They began to explain with difficulty.

The hospital director gave a bitter laugh, then quickly gestured for the doctors behind to hand over the CT images, indicating they should be given to Lin An.

He isn't unwilling to speak; he simply doesn't know how to say it.

He had been a doctor for many years, and even after the Apocalypse he awakened a healing talent.

But facing Chu An's condition, the hundreds of experts they gathered could not come up with a solution.

First, Chu An's status is too high; they dare not make any risky attempts.

Second,...

"So, in a sense, has he indeed suffered biological death?"

He never received the CT images.

Lin An's eyes filled with complexity as he looked at Chu An in the sterile ward, directly speaking the conclusion no one dared to say.

Bodily functions and the nervous system are severed.

It's like the engine has been removed from the car.

Now the car can still move, purely by inertia, or perhaps the residual power is straining to pull it forward.

Without needing to view the images, with Lin An's mental power scanning, he could instantly 'see' that Chu An's brain tissue resembled a necrotic sponge, those patches of shadow like burnt areas, with many places even showing carbonization.

Lin An couldn't imagine what Chu An had gone through, nor how he became like this.

But from Zhang Tie's words, he vaguely guessed that this might be the price of holding back the Alien Species Emperor.

That carbonized, burnt brain made Lin An feel an unprecedented heaviness when he first saw it.

The degree of carbonization varies, as do the areas.

This shows that Chu An's reaching this point came from persisting for a very long time....

"That must... really hurt..."

"Even if the brain doesn't even know what pain is..."

Lin An subconsciously covered the glass in front of him with one hand, staring blankly at Chu An on the hospital bed.

Mottled white hair, wrinkles at the corners of the eyes.

The Chu An he remembered as young now looked like a dying old man.

Under such a huge contrast, Lin An felt a deep bitterness in his heart.

He even felt that the person lying on that bed wasn't Chu An.

Not only that.

Speaking from the depths of his heart, Lin An also didn't want to believe that Chu An had really "died".

He couldn't believe that this man, so clever it borders on demonic, whose schemes are terrifying to the point that even he now can't see them clearly, would just silently "pass away" like that.

"How could it.. come to this?"

He gave a bitter laugh.

Lin An had imagined countless times the scene of returning to see Chu An, imagined countless possibilities.

He had even imagined that perhaps when he returned, Chu An would rise from the bed with a smile, then calmly lift his glasses to look at him, clacking away to tell him he hadn't lied.

Or perhaps he would lie weakly on the bed, yet still seem to have everything under control as they locked eyes, congratulating him on truly creating a miracle.

Even, Lin An imagined that when he returned to see Chu An, that guy would swoosh away in an instant, leaving only a mysterious letter...

The two would argue, and that guy Chu An would surely, under the pretense of doing good for him, fabricate a bunch of half-true, half-false information to "get by".

For this, Lin An specially rehearsed several thousand times, several hundred times his conversations with Chu An.

He had to find out exactly what this man knew, and get to the bottom of those mysteries in his heart.

But....

Perhaps some things truly require a price to be paid.

Perhaps Chu An is human, not a god.

("Believe me, Lin An")

("I won't harm you")

For some reason, Lin An always seemed to hear this sentence echoing in his mind.

But this time, that guy seemed unable to say it to him in person.