Chapter 4093: MU: The Super-Body Event (181)

As the car sped along, the Dream-Power Doctor Strange noticed that this dream seemed to be quite old, perhaps from the era when he went to the snow region to seek medical treatment, or possibly even earlier.

"Have you been here before?" Greed asked while steering the car.

"Hmm, I once met a Chinese surgeon at an academic exchange. He was quite famous here. After learning of my situation, he invited me to China for treatment. This was the first stop, though I didn't stay long. Thinking back, I should have stayed here for a few days before heading into Tibet."

"You probably weren't in the mood for tourism back then, were you?" the Agent asked.

"Not exactly. By the time I arrived here, I had almost given up," the Dream-Power Doctor Strange sighed. "Actually, I performed two surgeries here. I felt the results weren't very good, but they still sent many people to observe and learn, and they were very grateful. That improved my mood a bit."

"In that era, resources here were very scarce," Greed said, turning the car, "especially various types of talent. A top-tier doctor like you was an unattainable treasure to them."

"Yes, actually, I thought about staying here to be a teacher if my trip to Tibet didn't yield results. That wouldn't have been too bad."

The car drove on, making many turns, and finally crossed almost the entire city to reach a suburb that looked like it had only recently been developed. There were many guard posts and it looked heavily guarded, but it was dinner time now, and the faint smell of food wafted from a building not far away.

They walked through the sunset squeezed between two buildings. Greed knocked on the window of a guard post. The person inside looked at him with shock and then stammered, "Hello, you... do you speak Chinese?"

Greed said helplessly, "I'm looking for Dean Li. Please give him a call."

The man made a call but quickly said, "Sorry, Dean Li is away on business. Is there anyone else you know?"

"Dr. Anatoly, or find Nurse Chen from the nursing department."

The man made another call, and the gate opened quickly. The Dream-Power Doctor Strange walked inside with them, asking, "Did you grow up here?"

He then looked at the buildings and said, "But this doesn't look like a school; it looks more like some kind of research institute..."

"Stop your brain-storming. To me, this is a psychiatric hospital. When I was a kid, my brain wasn't quite right, so I had to receive treatment here."

"The results of the treatment don't look very good," the Dream-Power Doctor Strange, who had clearly dealt with Greed quite a bit by now, shook his head and said, "Or did you relapse after leaving here?"

Greed rolled his eyes and ignored him. Following the orange-red light of the sunset, they bypassed the grey building at the front, passed a huge banyan tree, and arrived at a courtyard surrounded by three buildings. On the ground, a soccer field had been painted with white oil paint, though the paint was peeling and hard to see. The goalposts were welded from steel frames, with rust on all the corners.

A group of children were digging in the flowerbed nearby. Seeing people approach, they first ran over, but upon seeing their Caucasian features, they let out a scream and ran away.

"Dr. Xiao! Dr. Xiao, your relatives are here! They look just like you!!!" one child shouted as he ran.

"Dr. Xiao?" Strange asked, puzzled.

"Shostakovich," Greed said helplessly.

Soon, a figure walked out of the building on the left. He wore a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck. He looked tall, with deep brown, close-cropped curly hair and blue eyes. He wore black-rimmed glasses, and his appearance was typically Slavic: a high forehead and nose, deep-set eye sockets, and eyelids with curved arcs combined with flat brow ridges, shaped like an arch bridge, with thick eyelashes like shadows flowing through the water under the bridge.

"You're back, A-Zhi," he smiled and said.

"Wow, his Chinese is really good," Strange marveled.

"You'd speak it that well too if you worked here for over a decade," the Agent whispered.

"Yes, I'm back," Greed smiled. "How are the Dean and the nurse?"

"Not bad. Dean Li is about to retire and is going to Shanghai to find his daughter. Nurse Chen's youngest son got into university; I heard it's a very good one in the south. How about you? How are you?"

"Not bad. This is Stephen, a very capable surgeon. And this..." Greed didn't know how to introduce the Agent, so he simply said, "This is the Agent. They are both my friends."

Anatoly looked very happy. He nodded and said, "It seems you're doing well over there. What made you think of coming back this time?"

"I..." Greed paused, then said, "Nothing, just came back to take a look. As long as I know you're all doing well, that's enough."

"So you're leaving soon?"

"Yes, leaving in a while."

Then the two fell silent. They walked into the building together. The decoration style here was also very nostalgic: dark green terrazzo floors with floral patterns, blue tiled wall wainscoting, clean white walls, and wall lamps with iron wire cages outside them. The white plastic window frames were yellowed by the sun.

Walking up to the second floor and looking out the window, one could see quilts hanging on a clothesline between two large trees, swaying slightly in the wind. Children were chasing each other below, laughing and screaming, their faces flushed red by the sunset. As the wind blew, the aroma of stir-fried food from the cafeteria wafted over, and high-pitched, indistinct shouts came from afar.

"God, I'm a bit hungry," Strange said. "I'll always remember the first dinner I had in their cafeteria when I first came here. God, I want some red-braised pork."

The Agent glanced at him, then looked at the somewhat silent Greed and Anatoly, and suddenly grabbed Strange, saying, "Let's go, I'll take you to eat in the cafeteria."

"But what about them..."

"Don't disturb their reunion, let's go."

The two left. Greed glanced back, while Anatoly opened the door to his office. Greed followed him inside, looked around, and said with some emotion, "It was so big here before."

This office was indeed small, especially after cramming in a large desk and two large bookshelves; there was hardly any room to stand. In front of the desk was a pile of books and newspapers—books stacked up, newspapers bundled with ties, reaching all the way to the ceiling. The desk was piled high with various medical records, the bookshelves were filled with paper documents, and even the windowsill with floral curtains was covered in various books. It was truly a kingdom of books.

The only space for movement was the area in front of the desk and the small space behind it. The former was so the door could open, the latter was Anatoly's habitat.

Greed couldn't help but recall that in his memory, this office was huge, like an entire city, where one could find interesting things in any corner, and a day spent exploring here always passed quickly, and before he knew it, it was dinner time.

"Sit," Anatoly said, sitting in his office chair first.

"Sit where?" Greed asked sincerely. There really was no place to sit in this room.

Anatoly felt a bit embarrassed. He walked out from behind the desk, went to another room to get a plastic chair, closed the door, and placed it in the space in front of the door.

Greed sat down, watched Anatoly sit, and sighed, "You went through such a big detour just to see me here, right?"

"So you've already figured it out?" Anatoly pushed his glasses up and said, "I thought I was doing a pretty good job of pretending."

"If you were really just a dream phantom, then according to common sense, you should have spoken to the Agent first, because his age is about the same as when I left; he's the 'A-Zhi' you're most familiar with."

"I'm most familiar with you when you were a child. Anyway, let's not talk about that. I heard you've already dealt with the Batman Who Laughs?"

"Not exactly dealt with, but he should be quiet for a long time now."

"And the Old Skrull Empire?"

"No trace. The new one is currently besieging Asgard with the Kree Empire."

"Have you seen Apollo?"

"Saw him once, and saw that cannon you built."

"Nyarlathotep didn't ask you to pay the debt?"

"He did, I didn't pay."

"Still seasick?"

"Not since I dealt with Atlant."

Anatoly showed a look of understanding and said, "Well, it seems my old friends are doing quite well."

"I've always wanted to ask, why did you borrow so much debt in two worlds? What are you trying to do?"

"You already know, don't you? I blew up the Source of Darkness in Cat Getan."

Greed curled his lips and said, "That wouldn't take that much energy, and you also gathered so much stellar power. It couldn't have been just to blow up Cat Getan, right?"

"Well, not entirely. In fact, the power I left for you was only a small part. There's quite a bit more, like the stellar power, hidden in various places in the universe, and I kept some for myself too."

Greed's eyes lit up, and he said, "There's more? How much? Where are they?"

"Can't tell you, otherwise you'd definitely waste them. I have serious business to attend to," Anatoly said.

"What serious business could you have? Writing letters to Pride when you're drunk?"

"Uh, he received them?" Anatoly asked, a bit embarrassed.

"Of course. He's even planning to frame your letters to ward off evil," Greed shrugged. "You know, you can't buy door gods in America, so your talismans are just right."

"Those aren't talismans, they are... forget it," Anatoly said. "Don't get sidetracked. Let's talk business. Have you seen little Chen?"

"Yeah, but I've been wanting to ask you, why did you send him over?" Greed frowned. "He was doing fine in university. Even though he's still in university here, what's the point of changing worlds? The nurse will never see him again."

Anatoly paused slightly, then pursed his lips and said, "So you really deleted the memories."

Greed's fingers paused, and he said, "So this has to do with the memory I deleted? What did I delete?"

"You chose to delete it, so you must have had your reasons," Anatoly said helplessly.

"Then judge for yourself, can you tell me now?" Greed said.

"Actually, I'm not sure why you chose to delete it. The memory isn't worth hiding, but if you added some secrets to it, that's hard to say," Anatoly said while pouring Greed a cup of tea.

"Then tell me the parts you think are harmless," Greed thought for a moment and said. "That way, I don't have to recover the memory to know roughly what happened, and the secrets won't be exposed."

"That's a long story," Anatoly said, blowing on the tea.

"Then make it short."

"The world was destroyed."

"Pfft—!!!"