Chapter 1638: True Doctor

True Doctor

"You... why did you come in??"

Doctor Jia was startled. Terrified, he took several steps back, relying on the wall to steady his figure.

Chen Ling's fingertips brushed aside the wrapped newspaper, exposing the messy capsules and pills within. His gaze was like that of a sharp poisonous snake, fixing dead upon the Doctor Jia in front of him...

He walked forward step by step.

"These, what are they?" His voice was incomparably cold and gloomy.

"It's... it's medicine!"

"I'll give you one more chance." Chen Ling reached one hand into his sleeve, and immediately after, a bizarre Bone-Stripping Knife with centipede legs was exposed to the air, its cold glint flashing. "These... what are they?"

Doctor Jia seemed to be scared silly. He swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and after struggling internally for a moment, he still spoke:

"What you usually prescribe to those patients... is this?"

A suffocating Oppressive Aura madly surged out from Chen Ling's body. Those red pupils that seemed to reign above all else stared fixedly at Doctor Jia who was close at hand. He fiercely stabbed the knife into the wall beside Doctor Jia!

Rustle, rustle, rustle, rustle—

The centipede legs on the hilt of the knife let out a rustling sound by Doctor Jia's ear. Under Chen Ling's Oppressive Aura, his entire body was as stiff as a sculpture, unable to move even a finger.

"You simply don't have that much medicine! You're just using these things to deceive them... From the very beginning, you were a Fake Doctor."

Chen Ling's voice seemed to come from the netherworld.

To tell the truth, how this Doctor deceived people and sold fake medicine had nothing to do with Chen Ling. He had seen many people like this... But at this critical juncture right now, Chen Ling had indeed pinned his hopes on him. And when Chen Ling discovered that Kong Baosheng's life-saving straw was nothing more than a ridiculous lie, he was already filled with rage.

Under this terrifying Oppressive Aura, beads of sweat seeped from Doctor Jia's forehead. His mind, which was already exhausted to the extreme, was directly overwhelmed. An indescribable despair and anger surged into his heart!

"Me? I'm a Fake Doctor??"

"That's right, I sell fake medicine! I am deceiving those people!! But do you think that if I don't deceive them, they would be able to buy real medicine?!"

"Right now, in the entire Hidden Clouds Domain, where is there still any medicine? I told them before, told them not to struggle, not to fantasize. The medicine they can get right now is all fake! But they didn't believe it... They wanted to live, they wanted to live too much!"

"In order to survive, they were even willing to believe those true swindlers. Being scammed out of food, being scammed out of their bodies, and even being scammed out of their children... Even so, they were still willing to believe those swindlers!!"

"And what about me? I only took some of their worldly possessions! Gold, jewels, jewelry. What the Hell use do these things have in this era?! Do you think I really like those things?! It's that if I didn't make them pay something, they wouldn't believe me at all!"

Doctor Jia's emotions grew increasingly agitated. He even ignored the Bone-Stripping Knife by his ear and forcefully kicked the cabinet next to him.

The already tattered and old cabinet was directly kicked open by this kick. Countless gold and jewels tumbled out from inside, piling up on the cramped floor like garbage...

"Can these broken things fill my stomach?! Can they cure my illness?!!"

"In this world, all these things combined aren't worth a single decent piece of Bread... If I had even a little bit of selfishness, I wouldn't have fallen to this state today!"

The blade of the Bone-Stripping Knife slid across the clothes on his shoulder. A slice fell from his old White Coat Wearer, exposing the emaciated and bony body beneath, as well as those strange lump-like tumors piece by piece.

Chen Ling froze. He looked at the Doctor Jia in front of him who had been driven to a breakdown and madness, unable to speak for a moment.

"Yes, I know you're very powerful..."

"When I pulled you back from the Crematorium, I didn't do anything at all. You recovered more than half on your own... From that moment on, I knew you were absolutely not an Ordinary Person."

"You're not an Ordinary Person, so how can you understand the pain of us Ordinary People??"

"You think I'm selling fake medicine to deceive people, but I can responsibly tell you, before that Divine Doctor Han came, I was the one who was truly treating illnesses and saving people in this Domain!"

"If it weren't for these 'placebos' of mine, if I hadn't continuously supplied 'hope' to those people, they would have either committed suicide by burning charcoal at home, or been tortured by their own psychological suggestions until their illness erupted. They wouldn't have lived until today!"

"They were able to persist until now because of me! Because of me!!"

"Who says only real medicine can save people?! Who says only those who know how to treat illnesses... are True Doctors?!!"

After the intense emotional outburst, Doctor Jia seemed to be hollowed out... Hunger and pain once again occupied his body. He leaned against the wall, weakly sliding down to sit on the ground...

He lowered his head. Sweat mixed with rainwater fell from his hair drop by drop onto the ground.

"I don't have medicine..."

"You..."

"If you want to kill me, then kill me."

Chen Ling fell silent.

The palm gripping the hilt of the Bone-Stripping Knife gripped tighter and tighter, until his knuckles started to turn white. But ultimately... he still didn't kill Doctor Jia.

Chen Ling was actually very clear in his heart. If it were in a peaceful era, Doctor Jia's actions would absolutely deserve heavenly condemnation... But in this chaotic and desperate era, he was indeed saving many people.

Chen Ling didn't deny Doctor Jia's way of doing things. What truly made him unwilling was that he had lost the hope of getting medicine for Baosheng.

"...I won't kill you." Chen Ling took a deep breath and closed his eyes helplessly. "You not having medicine isn't your fault."

With a backhand motion, he retracted the Bone-Stripping Knife back into his sleeve. Taking a deep look at Doctor Jia sitting palely on the ground, he turned around, opened the door of the storage room, and prepared to leave.

Right at this moment, Doctor Jia's hoarse voice rang out from behind him:

"I know who you are... Theatrical Robe, Bone-Stripping Knife, and that Oppressive Aura that makes people's scalps tingle... You are the Red King of the Dusk Society."

Chen Ling's footsteps paused slightly.

He looked back at Doctor Jia. "And so?"

"I've seen a lot of news about you... You're very powerful." Doctor Jia similarly looked at him quietly. "Can you... help us solve the Plague, solve the hunger, solve the internal strife?"

"...I can't do it." Chen Ling answered truthfully. "In this world, no one can do it."

"Oh..."

Doctor Jia leaned weakly against the wall. Those eyes full of exhaustion and emptiness looked towards the window where raindrops were wildly falling. His chest panted like a broken bellows. Only after a long time did he speak hoarsely,

"But there's one thing you should be able to do."

"What?"

"This era is already sick beyond cure." Doctor Jia paused for a moment. In his calm voice, there was a trace of yearning for release mixed in,

"Since you can't save us... then let the process of our suffering be a little shorter."

"Rather than barely surviving in this fucked up era..."

"Death is also a kind of release."