radicalducati Chapter 28 Surgery
Chapter 28 Surgery
Night fell once more on the refugee camp, but the nights here were never truly peaceful. Low sobs, groans, and mutterings, along with the heavy footsteps of the patrolling Yellow Turban warriors, mingled into a somber background.
Cheng Song silently blended into the shadows, pausing briefly. He gently twisted his waist; the tingling, itchy feeling of newly formed skin hadn't completely faded, but the Taoist's bloody hand that had split the stone tablet before the alchemy furnace was now completely unmarked.
"His recovery ability is undeniable," he muttered to himself, "but the digestive reaction after meals is a bit of a headache."
With the virus reviving, Cheng Song felt a significant reduction in pressure, and his long-suppressed urge to complain found an outlet once again.
The fully awakened Blacklight virus was like a second, silent circulatory system opening up within his body. He could clearly sense the flow of power, his control over his body was exquisite, and the sharpness of his five senses had increased by more than one level. The suppressed coughs from the distant shacks, the complex flow of information carried on the wind, a mixture of dozens of smells, even the slight wriggling of insects in the soil... the world was presented to him in a clearer, noisier way.
This feeling was both novel and accompanied by a kind of inhuman sense of alienation.
Especially when he consciously tried to feel his body, the polluted residue that had just been swallowed and had not yet been completely transformed spread like ink at the bottom of water, slowly revealing a cold, stinging pain and a chaotic whisper.
"This isn't mentioned in 'Clinical Diagnosis and Treatment of Digestive System Diseases'," Cheng Song muttered.
The fragments of the Taiping Qingling Book recorded methods for guiding and dispelling evil, but it didn't teach me how to deal with this kind of cross-dimensional food poisoning.
Even more subtly, along with the return of the sense of power, there was also that familiar longing. Just now, when I passed by a Yellow Turban warrior whose aura was obscure, the one within him seemed to stir for a fleeting moment.
Cheng Song immediately put a warning sign in his mind: "Looking is fine, but don't talk. We're on the medical route now, not the buffet route. Even viruses need to have professional ethics."
After venting his frustrations, he quickly regained his composure and moved like a shadow through the shantytowns. His aura was completely concealed; the awakened Blacklight virus had enhanced his control over his body and his perception of environmental sounds and smells. He avoided the main checkpoints, relying on the lens's sensitivity to fluctuations in willpower to search for his target.
He found it.
In a corner of a foul-smelling shack, a emaciated old man huddled on a tattered straw mat. The bluish-black lines on his body had spread to his neck; his eyes were unfocused, and he uttered unconscious hoarse sounds, his body convulsing intermittently. These were typical symptoms of late-stage erosion of willpower, the culmination of impending transfer to a meditation camp, and ultimately, becoming firewood. Not far from the shack, two Yellow Turban warriors with numb eyes were conversing, seemingly preparing to drag the man away before dawn.
That's him.
While waiting for the strongman to leave temporarily, Cheng Song slipped into the shack like a cat. He didn't try to wake the old man, as that might cause unnecessary noise. He simply extended his right hand, palm down, and held it above the old man's chest.
The fluid seeped silently from his palm, like living tentacles, gently covering the old man's chest skin without piercing it, but simply adhering closely.
With the special extraction lens operating at full power, the old man's physical condition and the flow of chaotic and violent willpower pollution within his body were clearly presented to Cheng Song like an anatomical diagram. The pollution had penetrated deep into his bone marrow and infected his internal organs, like countless dark red poisonous vines, entwining the old man's life essence.
Cheng Song took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and focused his mind.
He first guided the power of the gene anchors, not to protect himself, but to form an extremely thin and stable "filter" and "conduit" to cover the most violent, unstable, and rapidly eroding polluting nodes in the old man's body. This required extremely precise control, like threading a needle with a hair in a pot of boiling oil.
Then, he communicated with the Blacklight Virus that had awakened within his body. This time, it was no longer the frenzied devouring that occurred when fighting against his own contamination, but rather a guided and precise absorption.
Using a fragile channel constructed with gene stability anchors as a bridge, and guided by Cheng Song's own will, the devouring tentacles of the Blacklight Virus carefully probed into the old man's body along the channel, wrapping around the marked, most dangerous contaminated tumors.
"Eat up, old buddy."
Cheng Song silently recited this in his heart.
This time, the devouring was silent, yet all the more terrifying.
There was no clash or explosion of energy, only an absolute and highly efficient stripping. The Blacklight virus revealed another side of itself as a apex predator: an unparalleled ability to identify and separate life from non-life, and ordered from disordered energy.
The chaotic, painful, and malicious fragments of spirit within the polluted willpower, along with its distorted energy structure, were extracted and peeled away bit by bit by the black fibers, which acted like the most precise straws. Meanwhile, the old man's own faint life essence and relatively pure willpower were carefully avoided and protected.
For Cheng Song, this process was far more burdensome than the brute force he used to endure.
What surged in was no longer a chaotic torrent of energy, but a highly purified, purest form of pain and chaos! Each strand of contamination stripped away was like a red-hot poison needle, piercing directly into the depths of his mind. Countless fragments of wails, fear, and despair, like icy tides, crashed against the dam of his reason.
His face was pale, his temples throbbed violently, and his right arm, the main battleground, saw the dark lines beneath his skin surging intensely, as if countless tiny living things were burrowing and reorganizing beneath the skin. This wasn't erosion, but rather the result of the high-load exertion caused by the carrier processing, analyzing, and transforming massive amounts of "toxic information" at high speed. The muscle fibers in his right arm were constantly tearing and reorganizing at the microscopic level to adapt to this unprecedentedly precise operation.
The side effects of the Blasphemous Devour manifested in a more bizarre way: fragments of memories that did not belong to him began to flash before his eyes—the old man's desperate prayers, the corrupted, cold whispers, the distorted faces of countless believers before their deaths… His sanity was slowly but steadily declining, and he began to hear continuous, malicious murmurs.
However, his gaze was like a frozen pool, fixed on the energy changes within the old man's body, coordinating the surgical process of the Blacklight Virus with his own will as the central control center.
This is not a life-or-death battle; it is walking a tightrope of reason, a tightrope that carries the weight of life itself.
The concept of time has become blurred, with every second accompanied by a massive influx of information and precise energy manipulation.
Just as the most stubborn tumors had been largely removed and the task was about to be completed, a secondary node within the old man's body, which had suddenly become unbalanced due to the weakening of the main body's pollution, exploded without warning! An extremely chaotic energy turbulence, full of self-destructive tendencies, did not rush towards Cheng Song, but instead, like a venomous snake in its final moments, turned and devoured the old man's own fragile life essence!
The change happened too fast; Cheng Song switched to his precision surgical mode in an instant!
"Don't even think about it!"
A fierce glint flashed in Cheng Song's eyes, and almost at the same instant the change occurred, his will struck down like a knife!
The countless slender black tentacles instantly contracted and merged, forming a thin yet incredibly tough black barrier in front of the old man's life essence within a fraction of a second, forcefully blocking the self-destructive turbulence.
Meanwhile, another part of the Blacklight virus's power transformed into a more aggressive black network, striking first and then retreating, like a predatory python, suddenly enveloping and tightening the turbulent flow along with the surrounding contaminated area!
It's no longer a stripping away, but a violent suppression and forced absorption!
The precise manipulation transformed into a sudden, violent suppression, causing more direct damage to Cheng Song's body. The murmurs in his mind abruptly turned into sharp screams, and countless distorted images nearly shattered his consciousness.
Just as he felt the dual pressure of maintaining the barrier and devouring was about to exceed the critical point—
Deep within Cheng Song's consciousness, on the shaky barrier of reason battered by a deluge of polluted memories, the phantom of the ancient bamboo slips of the *Taiping Qingling Shu* suddenly appeared. Several incomplete lines concerning "guiding qi," "dispelling evil," and "using oneself as a bridge between heaven and earth," under extreme pressure and a life-or-death moment of clarity, suddenly became as clear as inscriptions illuminated by firelight!
There was no outside help, no guidance.
It is the instinct forced out by desperate circumstances, and the integration of knowledge at the critical moment of life and death!
He almost relied on some kind of combat instinct to forcibly reverse the way he used the gene anchor—no longer just to stabilize and block it, but to turn it into some kind of temporary, crude guiding array!
The two forces that originally went their separate ways within the body—the violent and thirsty devouring power of the Blacklight Virus and the steadfast power of the gene anchor—created an extremely brief but crucial synergy under the influence of this hastily constructed bridging model!
The self-destructive turbulence that was about to overwhelm his mental defenses was cleverly diverted. Part of it was devoured and transformed by the Blacklight Virus with even greater greed, while the other part was introduced into a buffer zone temporarily stretched by the gene stabilizing anchor, modeled after the ancient concept of "neutrality," where it was quickly diluted and calmed down.
"Using oneself as a furnace, one can absorb and transform evil influences..."
The almost insane words from the fragment flashed through Cheng Song's mind, but at this moment they became his only lifeline.
This was not a perfect solution, and it was even fraught with risks—forcibly bridging two fundamentally different forces caused his already overburdened body to emit even more mournful cries, and his internal organs to experience needle-like pain.
But it was true that, at the critical moment, it bought him that decisive instant of respite!
Taking advantage of this precious gap, bought with further physical injury, a fierce glint flashed in his eyes. He transformed all the pain and pressure into a resolute will, manipulating the power of the Blacklight Virus like the most precise surgical scalpel, in conjunction with the crude yet effective internal "guidance" system, and suddenly ripped it apart!
"Get out here!"
Finally, that stubborn contamination, entangled with self-destructive turbulence, was completely stripped away and swallowed up from the old man's body!
Cheng Song released his grip, staggered backward, and leaned heavily against the wall of the shack, breathing heavily. His face was ashen, but his eyes shone with an astonishing light as he stared intently at the old man on the straw mat.
The old man's body arched violently, letting out a long, painful groan, before collapsing completely. But the grotesque bluish-black lines on his face and neck vanished rapidly, like a receding tide, leaving only faint gray traces. His breathing, though weak, became steady and long, his chest rising and falling rhythmically. Most importantly, the almost tangible pain and despair between his brows had disappeared. Though still unconscious, his expression was one of weary peace, no longer the contorted pain of impending death.
Successful.
In a way that was far more sophisticated and costly than anticipated.
Cheng Song looked down, feeling the whispers and fragments still swirling in his mind, as well as the pain from overloaded precision operations emanating from all parts of his body.
The Blacklight virus was powerful enough to devour the contamination of an ordinary believer; in terms of power, it should have been devastating.
But the real test is never just about strength.
Rather, it's about how to save others without becoming a more terrifying destroyer. How to avoid falling into the abyss first when facing it.
This surgery showed him the possibility of a third path.
Outside the shack, the wind howled, mixed with a rustling sound that seemed closer. He struggled to stand up.
However, just as he looked up at the sky outside the shack, shrouded in the filthy night, his movements froze.
At the edge of the lens's field of vision, in the deepest part of the night, he "saw" a pair of eyes.
A pair of murky, weary, and unfathomable eyes, yet at this moment, seemed to reflect the faint firelight inside the shack, shimmering with an extremely complex light.
It's Zhang Jiao.
It is not a physical entity, nor even a tangible phantom like those in the ancient temple. It is more like a pure gaze that transcends space.
He simply existed against the backdrop of the night, quietly and silently watching everything that happened inside the shack. He watched Cheng Song's clumsy and painful attempts, watched the fading of the stains on the old man's body, watched that faint, almost impossible glimmer of life, like a candle flickering in the wind, being rekindled.
In those eyes, there was astonishment, confusion, scrutiny, deep weariness, and long-frozen despair... But deep within all of that, beneath that frozen wasteland of despair, there seemed to be a tiny, almost extinguished spark, which even Zhang Jiao himself hadn't noticed, that was gently stirred by this incredible scene.
There were no words, no communication.
It was just a silent gaze across a vast space, across the heavy darkness of night, across years of despair and half an hour of frantic attempts.
Then, just as when they appeared, those eyes silently disappeared into the deep night.
It was as if it had never existed.
But Cheng Song knew he had seen it.
The virtuous teacher of Daliang, who claimed to have "no other choice," saw this insignificant little flame that could be extinguished at any moment.
Cheng Song leaned against the cold wall, his breathing gradually calming down.
"Well, that's good," he said with a smirk, speaking softly into the empty darkness, "the audience is pretty heavyweight."
Cheng Song couldn't quite put his finger on what was in that glance. Surprise, and perhaps a hint of almost absurd anticipation.
He looked down at the old man on the straw mat whose breathing was gradually stabilizing, and then raised his hand to touch the dried bloodstains on his face.
He had just snatched a strange old man back from the clutches of death—using a self-made operating procedure that didn't even have an instruction manual.
As for the effect... the old man won't die for now.
Cheng Song felt the strange wriggling sensation within his body, still digesting the contamination, and the lingering fragments of pain belonging to others that haunted his mind. He felt like an old computer with poor-quality antivirus software, constantly getting pop-up notifications saying "New virus detected" while scanning for viruses.
"Cheng Song, the first student of the Taiping Essentials Experimental Class," he gave himself a title with a wry smile, "Major subject: How to use the Black Light Virus to treat and save lives, Minor subject: On-site textbook compilation."
But after he laughed, his eyes calmed down again.
He carved a foothold, barely half a foot wide, into the cliff face, though it was precarious. But at least he proved that this path wasn't a dead end.
Cheng Song leaned against the wall and swayed as he stood up. His right leg was a little weak, and his head was still buzzing, but he managed to steady himself. He glanced one last time at the old man sleeping on the straw mat, then turned and disappeared back into the deeper shadows of the shantytown.
The night is still long.
His clinical medical research has only just begun.
"I'll have to make an instruction manual next time," he thought to himself as he walked. "At least I need to write it down: which contaminants will cause headaches, which will cause auditory hallucinations..."
The sound of patrolling footsteps came from afar. Cheng Song's figure flashed and disappeared completely into the gaps between the dilapidated shacks, leaving behind only the darkness behind him, which had been briefly disturbed but returned to deathly silence.