Chapter 257: The Shen Yi

Beep, beep, beep.

The sound of the heart monitor grew clearer; Eugene slowly opened his eyes and saw the hospital ceiling.

Pain throbbed all over his body; fragments of memory surged into his mind, and Eugene faintly recalled what had happened before he passed out—

He had been struck on the skull by that Terminator robot, his cranium shattered; with the last shred of consciousness, he activated Shadow Step and barely escaped, carried onto an ambulance.

Thinking of this, Eugene turned his neck, glancing left and right—he lay in an ICU ward, his upper body and head tightly bandaged, his face especially numb and rigid.

On the LCD TV opposite the bed, a late-night shopping program was playing.

"You're awake."

The ICU door swung open from outside; a tall, thin teenager with orange hair, wearing a black kimono and carrying a long sword, stepped in.

His name is Kurosaki Ichigo, the male protagonist of the manga *Bleach*, and alongside Uzumaki Naruto, one of the three top enforcers of Toy City Hall.

"Cough, cough,"

Eugene, recalling having encountered this toy version of Kurosaki Ichigo during a past script mission, rasped: "How's it going?"

"Not good."

Kurosaki Ichigo pulled over a chair and sat down casually, arms crossed over his chest. "The nuclear plant was successfully secured; no radiation leak occurred.

The Pi Fu you mentioned escaped; he's suspected to have crawled into the lower sewers. City Hall is dispatching its Anti-Terror Mobile Unit to hunt him down, along with two other transcendent beings."

Six players participated in this mission. Eugene stood with City Hall; Balmoss was eliminated; Frankenstein was captured and imprisoned in the highest-security cell.

The only ones still active outside are Pi Fu, Joker, and Gouchen. Our side still holds a clear advantage.

"I need to leave this place. They know I'm allied with City Hall—they might attack the hospital."

Eugene gripped the bedrail and barely managed to sit up.

Without guild support, he had no Life Elixir to cure all ailments; the automated medical kit he relied on could only treat limb injuries, not brain damage.

"I'll call the doctor."

Kurosaki Ichigo stepped out of the ICU and returned moments later with a middle-aged male doctor of average build, black hair, a beard, and a double chin.

"How do you feel?"

The doctor strode forward, plastic box in hand, removing the bandages from Eugene's face as he spoke in a low male voice: "When you were brought in, your entire skull was caved in; a portion of brain tissue had necrosed and had to be excised.

I barely managed to reassemble the skull fragments—you may not look exactly the same afterward."

"It doesn't matter."

Eugene vaguely felt the doctor looked familiar; Toy City had over eight million residents, home to healers from countless dimensions.

There were Black Jack, Kurogane, Hua Tuo—some comedic manga like *Baki* even featured miraculous medical techniques: gluing nerves back together, seamless palm suturing, ignoring rejection to arbitrarily reattach limbs.

This doctor must be a Shen Yi, right?

Shhh—

The doctor untied the bandages, picked up a small mirror, and held it up so Eugene could see his current face.

Seeing his reflection, Eugene shuddered violently, nearly leaping off the bed.

His face was green and black, eyes skewed, mouth twisted, skin rotting—he could no longer recognize his own features.

"Now I'm going to remove this protective Halloween zombie-themed rubber mask."

The doctor muttered to himself, and under Eugene's pained stare, peeled off the mask—revealing Eugene's true face.

It looked surprisingly normal, except for a spiderweb-like, grotesque scar stretching from his brow to his earlobe.

"Thank you, Doctor."

Eugene exhaled in relief; his face had been numbed by the tight bandages—he hadn't even felt the mask's presence.

"No thanks needed."

The doctor snorted, opened the square plastic box, "These are the damaged brain tissues I removed from you. If you want to keep them, you can take them."

Kurosaki Ichigo leaned over for a look, his expression strange as he said, "Doctor, this is half a fried meatball."

Kurosaki Ichigo leaned over to take a look, his expression odd: "Doctor, this is half a fried meatball."

The male doctor was first stunned, then frowned and said, "Oh my God, then what was the late-night snack I just heated up in the microwave and ate?"

The doctor blinked in shock, then frowned: "Oh my God—then what the hell did I just microwave and eat for my midnight snack?"

BYD treated my brain like a fried meatball and ate it, didn't you?! Hello, is this the police? There's a Hannibal here, hello?

Did BYD just eat my brain like a fried meatball?! Hey, police? There's a Hannibal here!

Eugene stared, his face twisted in agony: "Doctor… what's your name?"

The doctor shrugged: "Hartmann."

Eugene put on the mask of agony. This Dr. Hartman is from the American animated show *Family Guy*, a graduate of Boston University, and is the top divine doctor of Round Clam Town,

Eugene wore a mask of suffering; Hartmann was from the American cartoon *Family Guy*, graduated from Boston University, the #1 Shen Yi of Quahog,

who could transplant a dog's kidney into a human, perform leg-swap surgery while watching instructional tapes on the spot, and even revive a child whose brain had rotted and sprouted maggots.

Eugene had seen *Family Guy* and knew perfectly well how unreliable this "divine doctor" was. He quickly grabbed him and pressed, "When you were stitching up my head, you didn't leave anything inside, did you?"

Eugene, having watched *Family Guy*, knew exactly how unreliable this "Shen Yi" was, and urgently grabbed his arm: "When you stitched up my head, you didn't leave anything inside, did you?"

Hartman frowned, shook off Eugene's arm, and said righteously, "However, during the surgery, I discovered you very likely have colon cancer, so I took the liberty of cutting out your intestines and replacing them with a plastic tube."

Hartmann frowned, shaking off Eugene's grip, speaking sternly: "But during surgery, I noticed you likely had colon cancer, so I removed your intestines and replaced them with a plastic tube."

Eugene's face paled; he now felt his stomach churn uncomfortably, gurgling loudly as gas escaped.

The fart sounded long and drawn-out, with rising and falling cadences like some kind of musical instrument, pouring out endless sorrow.

The fart whined long and mournful, rising and falling like a musical instrument, lamenting endless sorrow.

"The distant bagpipes—this is true music,"

Doctor Hartmann sighed in heartfelt awe, removed his cap, revealing a sleek, glossy black mane of hair like a rock star, swaying his head in rapture.

Not just Eugene—even Kurosaki Ichigo couldn't hold it anymore, urgently telling the Shen Yi to stop his antics and attend to other patients.

【61】 After sending off the Shen Yi, the ICU fell silent once more.

"You rest here for a while. I'll call someone up to move you out. This hospital really isn't safe."

Kurosaki Ichigo said so, just as he picked up the phone to call someone up,

the picture on the TV screen suddenly changed,

from the original shopping program to an all-black background.

On the screen, Eugene, with a haggard face and wearing the same style of grey trench coat, sat behind a chair, facing the camera and saying: "Citizens of Toy City, hello, I am Eugene."

Eugene's brain stalled for a second, then he reacted—he had never recorded this video. "Ahem, this is forged by someone!"

On the TV screen, that "Eugene" revealed a bleak, bitter smile. "My identity is a low-level employee in a secret department of City Hall, specifically handling some 'dirty work' for City Hall.

For example, wiretapping the opposition, monitoring internal government departments, and so on.

Until a year ago, when City Hall gave me a new assignment—to secretly arrest those Toy City citizens suffering from Glitch Syndrome, and kill them, execute them, dismember them."

Having said this, "Eugene" turned on a large screen beside him and played the video.

Its content was exactly what Li Cheng had filmed earlier while lying in the ventilation shaft: nuclear power plant workers throwing the body parts of Glitch Syndrome patients into the nuclear plant's cooling water.

Because the filming angle was at the ventilation shaft, it looked just like surveillance footage. The top-right corner even thoughtfully noted the time of filming, to prove the video content was very recent.

"This is what I have to risk my life to expose."

"Eugene" took a deep breath and said in a heavy voice: "Toy City's City Hall has deceived all of us.

They lied to us that they could find a cure for Glitch Syndrome, lied that they would take good care of Glitch Syndrome patients, lied us into handing our friends and family over to them.

But all of this is a complete lie."