Lin Sanjiu flew back to the pharmacy store without pausing for a breather. She nearly fell out of the sky when she reached it. She had spent only less than thirty minutes escaping from that team from the Munitions Factory, yet the small pharmacy store was now as crowded as the train station in China during the Lunar New Year's travel rush.
Almost admiring that scene, Lin Sanjiu slowly floated down from the sky. She was dumbstruck as she scanned the huge crowd around the store. She saw all sorts of spirits, those she recognized and many other familiar ones. They were all trying to squeeze their way into the pharmacy store. There was a spirit with the classic hair-covering-face appearance. She also saw a neatly dressed, silver-haired granny with a faint smile. She spotted a translucent Kuchisake-onna with a scarf around her face and a mouth that stretched from ear to ear.
All spirits usually had a slightly translucent quality about them. However, there were so many spirits there that the multiple bodies and colors formed a generic black shadow of a huge crowd. It was quite a sight. After she gave it some thought, Lin Sanjiu felt that no words, other than a good chain of vulgarities, could best describe her current feelings.
"If those kids die," Lin Sanjiu mumbled as she pushed through the crowd of spirits, "I'm going to bomb the Munitions Factory."
Even though her Higher Consciousness form looked similar to the other spirits, they were essentially different. Lin Sanjiu ground through the crowd like a diamond grinding through pieces of soda biscuits. After a few rounds, she had reduced the spirits, blocking her way to the store entrance into columns of smoke. After pushing away the remaining duoluozhongs in front of the entrance, Lin Sanjiu rushed into the store. Just as she let out a sigh of relief, she was stunned by the scene in front of her.
"No, you might get an infection. He lost too much blood. He needs stitches and a blood transfusion. Oh, since both of you have an O blood type, transfusing your blood to him could be a possibility."
Reno and Rena had both regained consciousness. Rena left the cupboard long ago and was now sitting by her brother's side. Though both kids appeared weak and lazy because of their wounds, Lin Sanjiu could see that they were trying their best to focus on what the doctor was saying.
For now, she would call him—or it—a doctor.
All sorts of medical-related items were on the floor, from a medical box to a stethoscope. There were two medical records, one with Rena's name and the other with Reno's. However, Lin Sanjiu couldn't help scrutinizing the image in her mind.
Unmistakably, that doctor was a bicolor, black-white cat.
It clicked its tongue as it tapped the pen in its paws, "How about that? If you two consent to the procedure, I can arrange the surgery... Oh, what's wrong?"
Noticing the changes in the siblings' expressions, the cat finally noticed that someone was behind him. He turned around and tossed a glance at Lin Sanjiu. Lin Sanjiu found herself staring into a cat's moist, shiny eyes, which shone with a green luster.
"Lin Sanjiu, you came back just in time. We're trying to plan our surgery with the doctor," Rena hurriedly said before turning to the cat. "How long will the surgery take?"
The cat doctor did not answer. He gave Lin Sanjiu a sidelong glance and started packing his things. After he had stored all his items, he straightened the bow tie on his neck, "You don't have to make your decision now. Take your time to think about it. Anyway, I work at the provincial hospital. When you guys have decided, you can just come over."
Lin Sanjiu stared at the bicolor cat with her two pitch-black eye sockets. Despite her gaze, the cat doctor seemed unfazed as he gave them an elegant nod and retreated out of the door at an unbelievable speed.
No matter what, he seemed very guilty.
When she looked at the siblings again, they seemed bewildered as they started discussing quietly, "Right, I think what the doctor said made sense. Why don't we just go ahead with..."
'Go ahead with shit!' Lin Sanjiu pulled one of her rib bones out without hesitating and hit each of their heads once.
HOW CAN IT BE A REAL DOCTOR?! Lin Sanjiu wrote furiously while the kids watched in a daze, THAT IS A CAT!Though the cat did not look like other duoluozhongs, Lin Sanjiu guessed that it was a character that belonged to some sort of supernatural story.
Who knows what would happen if they let that cat perform surgery on them?
When the siblings suddenly realized their mistake, Lin Sanjiu quickly checked the siblings' condition. Besides a few strands of cat fur near Rena, Lin Sanjiu did not notice any other abnormalities. Only then did Lin Sanjiu feel a little less worried. Lin Sanjiu did not know how long it would take for the Munition Factory's team to get out of the building. She wasn't sure what the other team members would do, but she knew that Silvan would come to the pharmacy store to search for them. Lin Sanjiu couldn't let the siblings rest more because they didn't have much time. She hurriedly explained the situation and urged the kids to leave the pharmacy store as quickly as possible.
"Cats sure are scary," Reno said softly as he and his sister limped to the train station with each other's support.
'It was both your stupidity.' Lin Sanjiu couldn't help rolling her eyes in her mind.
Regardless of what the cat doctor tried, he reminded her of one thing. The kids were badly injured. They probably couldn't recover on their own just based on their constitution. Despite feeling very uneasy, Lin Sanjiu took many antiseptic creams, bandages, and antibiotics from the store. However, she had also decided to only use them as a last resort.
Just as before, a train pulled in once they entered the station, whistling within a few minutes. Almost as if aware of their presence, it stopped in front of Lin Sanjiu and the siblings. Attracted by the weakened siblings, there were many duoluozhongs on the train. However, after Lin Sanjiu's aggressive clean-up, only a few duoluozhongs dared to peek at them from the neighboring carriages.
After finding some seats for the siblings to rest, Lin Sanjiu finally had the chance to tell them about her encounter with the people from the Munitions Factory.
"No wonder you disappeared." Rena sighed. "The Munition Factory has many combatants. When you see them in the Twelve Worlds Centrum, they are always super arrogant... Oh, it is not because they have fantastic abilities. This is because any new products from the Munition Factory would always be given to their combatants first. They are very powerful, so not many people can escape from them. You must be quite powerful."
Lin Sanjiu thought that Silvan must be an exception.
Surprisingly, Rena wasn't that worried, "Silvan? I've never heard of him before. But since they already said they came here to capture duoluozhongs, I don't think they will trouble us if they don't find out you are Lin Sanjiu. In the past, I've heard people saying that members from The Munition Factory would go to some of the high-level apocalyptic worlds to look for duoluozhongs. They use them to develop biological weapons. I didn't expect those rumors to be true."
'That explains it!' Lin Sanjiu couldn't help looking forward to seeing how developed the Twelve Worlds Centrum was.
Seeing her brother, who had fallen asleep, Rena also felt slightly tired. "Compared to the world outside, this train is safer. We'll get off the train when we recover."