Chapter 276

Awkward, Chinese vocabulary, basic explanation has three: 1 behavior, attitude not normal; 2 being in a dilemma unable to escape; 3 sneaky, improper.

Earliest seen in 《Explaining Simple and Analyzing Compound Characters》: the term means improper conduct.

In the silent stare, the first sentence that surged in Ji Ming's mind was the words he had seen in a dictionary during middle school.

Back then he was still skinny; after class he went to the toilet, and when he returned he saw the wealthy and good-looking class belle actually stuffing something unknown into his drawer.

Inexperienced, he was still hesitating how to handle it when she discovered him; then seeing her cover her flushed face and exclaim, 'Ya, how embarrassing!' she pinched a pink envelope and ran off.

Ji Ming·lily probably guessed what had happened, but considering his dirt-poor family background and uncertain future……

In the end he chose to feign ignorance, pretending nothing had happened, opened the dictionary, and prepared to study what this word actually meant.

……

Who would have thought this boomerang could span the long river of time and the solid spatial barrier, and while swooping past AdaiEr it also pierced fiercely into his present self.

As for his career already on track, AdaiEr, who was about to inherit the name of Divine Doctor Ji Ming, why would she be lying on his bed at ten a. m. reading a novel that had already been serialized in eighteen volumes, this being the sixth volume of a monumental work—this had started yesterday.

For Ji Ming, having these player electronic pets to relieve his boredom, just watching what they do every day in Sunlight City is enough to fill a whole day with fun.

Even though each day's time would be filled with various affairs, for him, accustomed to all this, it couldn't really be called busy, at least much more relaxed than before when he would grind nonstop for twenty-four hours.

For AdaiEr, having mastered her medical skills and graduated smoothly, inheriting the Wai Shu Clinic is not necessarily a good thing, after all this profession has no such thing as vacation—if the clinic closes for a day, it could possibly lead to the deaths of a dozen patients.

Diligent and not wanting to disappoint the doctor, she lives a nine-to-five life every day; occasionally when surgeries pile up she has to work overtime, and aside from sleeping, there is hardly any personal time.

So it's obvious they're under the same roof, yet what they can say to each other keeps dwindling; it's even worse than when she used to stay in the inn, where at least they could greet each other every morning and night, and while treating patients together they'd hear 'Hand me the tools' over and over.

Moreover, as a girl born into an artisan family who also suffered such family misfortune, AdaiEr herself is not very good at socializing.

Even before, when only the Iron Rope Squad were around, they could still exchange a few more words; and now that everyone has left, only Ji Ming remains.

The times are harsh; who would have thought things would turn out like this?

Furthermore, when people are bored they become lonely, and when they are lonely they start to have wild thoughts.

Therefore, each night as AdaiEr lies in bed tossing and turning, she repeatedly wonders what Doctor Ji Ming is busy with every day.

Although her special status as a God's Chosen has already dispelled her suspicion that the doctor might be bewitched by demons hiding in his drawer.

But it's quite obvious—he is certain, definite, and sure that something is being hidden from him!

She knew the doctor locked his door from the inside each night to sleep, and whenever she got up she couldn't help but run over to eavesdrop, even daring to try knocking on his door with a flimsy excuse.

But Ji Ming wasn't even inside; no matter how she pricked up her ears like a rabbit or pounded on the door, what could she get? Naturally, she came away with nothing.

Yet none of this stopped her from continuing to investigate; instead, it deepened the suspicion she already harbored.

Even to the point that the question 'What exactly is the doctor doing in his room in the middle of the night?' has become a kind of demon haunting her.

——If she were to open that door herself, wouldn't she then learn the doctor's secret and have everything return to how it was two months ago?

So, amidst work and life, AdaiEr, in her anxiety, picked up a little hobby she once had, a little hobby not worth mentioning to outsiders……

The main idea is basically that when she's alone, she takes out some miraculous little things and repeatedly fiddles with a little hole, and after finding just the right spot she feels satisfied achieving some unspeakable purpose, then the process ends.

——Exactly, it's lock-picking!

As a precision device specially made to guard people's secrets, locks in the Yangyue World undergo rapid technological updates, so every locksmith is quite a formidable mechanical scholar.

Therefore, the act of 'lock-picking' naturally becomes the most exquisite, most stimulating, and most effective technical offense and defense among these scholars, akin to a bloody duel between them.

And as previously said, no matter how you put it, AdaiEr is still the daughter of an artisan; although she can't forge mecha with her bare hands like her father and brothers, she still has considerable experience in lock making and breaking.

So, in this tormenting anxiety, she has remained undecided on whether she should pick the lock and go in to have a look.

Until yesterday afternoon, when another group of Easterners who had been causing a stir in the Outer City came to the clinic.

Perhaps her experience in Sunshine City has taught her to read people's expressions, and she could tell at a glance that the Easterners' demeanor was very strange.

They were clearly participants in the incident, yet they acted curious and simple, like spectators offstage, with an attitude of 'none of my business'.

Strangely enough, she instinctively felt a desire to stay away from them, even to the point of loathing, as if she had encountered a band of bandits.

Most importantly, she truly couldn't tell what differences there were among the Easterners' appearances, but she still retained some memory of the people she saw day in and day out.

So……

That Easterner clearly resembled the doctor to some degree, so why wasn't he surprised when he finally saw the doctor himself?

Instead, he showed a bit of 'as expected' shrewdness, and even shrugged at the person beside him who looked like a woman but acted like a man.

Moreover, the doctor, who hadn't seen patients in a long time and hadn't been to the Outer City for ages, suddenly acted contrary to his usual caution, and despite his friend Boris having just gotten into trouble there, he took only a few people and went to the Outer City without any hesitation.

This is not normal.

This is completely not normal!

AdaiEr didn't know why, but she suddenly felt irritable and felt she had to do something, or else……

So she actually closed up early that afternoon, went into her room, and maintained and polished all her lock-picking tools.

After watching the doctor enter his room, she lay in bed torn apart for a long time, almost tearing the sheets.

Finally she decided she had to take action, even if she might be discovered and scolded by the doctor; she absolutely could not just sit and wait for doom.

Thus she tiptoed to the doctor's door, exhaled a small breath in the cold winter night, knocked on his door, and pressed her ear to it.

However, aside from the thudding of the knock, there was no sound from inside the room; it was silent as if no one existed beyond the door.

"Uh... I was afraid the doctor might have gotten lost or met with an accident, so I just wanted to go in and take a look... yeah, just wanted to take a look!"

Whispering to encourage herself, she skillfully produced her tools and began to pick the lock.

But as soon as she inserted the pick, AdaiEr regretted it, because the lock's structure was even flimsier than she had imagined, as simple as a mechanical trinket sold by a roadside dwarf.

After all, Ji Ming now has Grisen on watch above and a spatial ring for storage below, and he himself is a prominent figure in Sunshine City; who would a hotheaded nobody dare to provoke him?

Essentially, a lock is meant to keep out gentlemen, not villains; anyone truly capable of bypassing all those obstacles to come smash it would have to be a heavenly final boss or at least a deity, and spending more money on locks beyond that would be pointless.

So, just as a few thoughts of 'forget it,' 'this isn't good,' 'the doctor will be disappointed' began to well up in AdaiEr's heart, before she could even hesitate any further, the doctor's room door clicked open.

A faint light spilled from the widening crack in the door, illuminating her as she cluelessly held the lock pick.

"Doctor, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to……"

She instinctively wanted to apologize, but upon lifting her head she discovered that there was actually nothing inside.

No, strictly speaking, everything that should be inside is there, but there's just no doctor.

Where are the people!!

She hurriedly jogged into the room, searching from the top of the bed to underneath, then from the wardrobe to the desk, including inside the cup and under the teapot, opening every possible hiding spot for the doctor and taking a look.

Finally, she personally felt every inch of the bedsheet, repeatedly confirming no invisible person lay there, and only then, drenched in sweat, did she flop down onto the floor with a soft 'pah'.

We're doomed! The doctor got lost!

This completely unexpected situation threw all her plans into disarray; she had considered every possibility, but she never imagined the doctor wouldn't be there at all.

After all, she had just checked—even the windows were properly closed, even double-locked.

Like a salted fish lying sideways on the carpet, dazed for a long while, AdaiEr finally regained her normal thoughts and struggled to sit up.

Searching wasn't pointless; at least she could be certain the doctor wasn't resting on the bed tonight, and that the doctor had none of the daily duties she'd imagined, and……

She returned to the doctor's desk, pulled open the cabinet door beneath the nearby bookshelf, and there appeared a safe she had long known existed but had never known what was inside until today.

Tsk, anyway the door's already been pried open, the insides have been rummaged through—adding a bit more crime doesn't matter!

One can only say she truly has a knack for this; the near-self-destructive AdaiEr merely spent a little extra time and managed to open that high-end safe as well.

…If Ji Ming had known early that his assistant was a born-with divine thief's holy body, he could have just taken her to scour the entire Inner City and be done with it……

However, there were no mysterious ritual implements, no odd ornaments—just books inside.

Moreover, they weren't expensive, complex magic tomes, but the most ordinary kind that would oxidize to a waxy yellow within ten years.

——Could the doctor's secret be this kind of thing?

AdaiEr could hardly believe her eyes; after thinking it over repeatedly, she still decided to take out a volume and study it herself.

But as soon as she glanced at the cover, she was dumbfounded—beside a painting of a massive female form made entirely of pure white rock, the words were clearly written——

"What the heck…… is 'Me and the Hundred-Ton Rock Beauty from the Village Next Door'?"

With a solemn expression, she opened the cover to see what was written inside, only to discover it was actually an artbook.

Moreover, after just three pages, she—who usually only eats light fare—felt her fingers turning the pages begin to tremble slightly.

This… ah this… these are all…

Clearly just an ordinary plot development, why does merely tweaking the heroine's setting make it so……

What a mouthful.

She shouldn't keep looking, but to understand what the doctor was up to, she steeled herself and continued flipping through.

But unconsciously, after another page turn, she discovered the comic was gone! It was gone!

It wasn't that the story had ended; rather, this volume's serialized content had finished, and it cut off at a most hateful point!

Damn it, how can the plot cut off here?! Miss Diman tricked Doctor Nash into her third cavern—then what?!!

Not being able to see what comes next is utterly maddening; AdaiEr, eager for the continuation, is clearly anxious.

She sprang up like a tiger and yanked open the safe, discovering indeed a second volume inside.

Phew, phew……

Just as she, having found a treasure, was about to start reading, she unintentionally felt her legs aching from standing so long, really sore and uncomfortable.

Her head fogged by the plot, she forgot this was the doctor's room, glanced around, and simply lay down on the bed.

Her eyes glued to the comic, she clutched the pillow to her chest and rubbed it, murmuring strangely.

Weird, why does the bed smell and feel so soft today……

And while she occupied Ji Ming's room, slept in Ji Ming's bed, smelled Ji Ming's pillow, and read Ji Ming's comic, downstairs Gresen was so anxious he was about to break into a breakdance on the windowsill.

【Done, the doctor's been stolen!】

Even before AdaiEr tried to pry the door, he sensed something off, began contacting Silvia and the others, telling them the lock on the Upper God's room had been pried by the little girl living with him!

The Production Team members all responded, thinking this trend can't continue—today she dared to forcibly break the Upper God's door; tomorrow who knows what else she'd dare to break, they couldn't even imagine!

However, at that time Ji Ming had just fallen asleep; returned to an ordinary person, he was practically buried in warm blankets—let alone them, even if Yang Yue herself came to call, she couldn't wake him.

【Done, telling him the village had a wind spirit Gundam wouldn't help—looks like he's truly dead asleep!】

No way, as the invisible Production Team member Yang Yue could only comfort the others.

【Forget it, the Savior left nothing important in the room—just a naive, curious little girl; what trouble could she possibly cause?】