Chapter 654: These Doctors Are Something Else

"What a crime… These ones—if they were in Algled next door, they probably wouldn't even be adults! They must have been snatched right out of school..."

Bone-Eating Immortal frowned deeply, looking at the several Algled elves brought before him—all victims rescued from Old Joe's lab. They had been transferred from the Deep Rock Fortress to Blackstone Station, then an immortal ark sent by Mo Ran had urgently moved them to Shuji Ink City. Those in better condition were sent to the mansion's medical officer, while the worse cases were brought to the trio's private courtyard.

Old Man Withered Court, Blood Prince, and Bone-Eating Immortal—though all three had once gone astray and been suppressed by Thousand-Peak Spirit Mountain in the Demon-Suppressing Tower, setting aside their identity as "heretical cultivators," their cultivation was indeed profound. Placed in the borderlands of Shuji, they were top-tier experts. Moreover, their cultivation methods were more or less connected to blood control and vitality, and they had studied True Lord Yu Sheng's "Sacred Blood" for many days. Thus, they were now called upon to help care for the wounded.

Several sickbeds were lined up in the hall. The spiritual wood and spirit stones covering the edges of the beds were inscribed with various mysterious runes that flickered with regular, rhythmic illusory light. Layers of dense spiritual energy enveloped the wounded, stabilizing their life force and gradually repairing the damage in their bodies. A few small wooden figures carved all over with blood-red runes flew among the sickbeds—these were the "Blood Puppets" refined by Blood Prince, which could both seize life force and protect life.

Old Man Withered Court was examining the most severely wounded—a young silver-haired elf. Outwardly his body seemed intact, but he had been transported directly from Blackstone Station in a life-support canister, already completely unconscious when he arrived. Old Man Withered Court swept his spiritual sense over him and discovered that the elf's internal organs had been almost entirely hollowed out, with only a circulatory system made of living metal keeping him alive. The fusion between the two had clearly gone wrong—the living metal was beginning to devour the surrounding flesh and blood.

"If I'd come two days later, even I couldn't have saved him," Old Man Withered Court stroked his withered beard, his face scrunched up. "Even saving him now will cost him most of his lifespan. Regenerating organs is easy, but damage to the primal spirit origin is hard to repair… Tsk, such vicious methods."

Blood Prince, who had been watching the medicine cauldron nearby, turned back at this, shaking his fan with a chuckle. "I never thought Fellow Daoist Withered Court would ever find someone else's methods vicious—back when you were refining puppet corpses..."

Old Man Withered Court broke out in a cold sweat on the spot. He whipped his head around to scan the surroundings, then rushed over to the medicine cauldron in two steps. "Nonsense! About the past… what if the True Lord hears..."

Halfway through, he realized something and glared. "Wait, you almost tricked me. When did I ever lay hands on innocent youngsters like these? Back then, I only went after enemies who came to attack me. If they came to kill me, how could I not kill them? I admit that True Man Yuanhao said my methods were extreme, but as for anything else, I consider myself perfectly upright. At the very least, I'm better than you—cheating men and deceiving women, racking up half a city's worth of romantic debts, to the point that even the monsters in the city moat went to the immortals to file a complaint..."

Blood Prince had been wearing his trademark refined smile, but now he almost crushed his fan, his mouth twitching. "How is that the same? I was sincere with every single one! Besides, the path I cultivated was the Way of Love and Fate. Back then, to be true to my beloved, I even split my soul and refined my heart, sacrificing my cultivation to create so many true soul avatars, just to avoid any flaw in my sincerity..."

"Right, and later the one who filed the complaint turned out to be one of your own avatars—you two forgot you were originally the same person," Old Man Withered Court stroked his beard, casting a sidelong glance at Blood Prince. "Don't look at me like that—I heard it from Fellow Daoist Willowwood in the next cell."

Blood Prince turned red-faced, suddenly irritated. "I-I just made a mistake at the time!"

"Your mistake was that you kept messing up in the same place," Old Man Withered Court clicked his tongue. "At least you could have gone somewhere else to deceive..."

Bone-Eating Immortal, dressed in a blue skirt and wearing an iron mask, walked over to a chair and sat down. Her bright eyes watched the two bickering, then a muffled voice came from under the mask: "You two, watch yourselves when exposing each other's secrets. Be careful not to let slip something from the past that hasn't been cleared up, or Lord Mo might report it, and you'll be caught and sentenced to decades more."

Old Man Withered Court and Blood Prince both turned to look at her. "Weren't you the one who always wanted to go back and be locked up for another five hundred years?"

Bone-Eating Immortal paused, her eyes flickering as if thinking about something. Then she became evasive. "Well, I don't think so anymore. Listening to Old Senior Yun's lectures in the valley is still better than listening to all those demonic creatures babbling in the Demon-Suppressing Tower."

Blood Prince and Old Man Withered Court instinctively exchanged a glance and muttered:

"Has she ever been to Old Senior Yun's lectures? I didn't see her there last time..."

"You believe that? She's always the first to run when Old Senior Yun lectures—her patience is worse than those puppets. She spends all her time going to that town, hanging out with little kids. Last time I went, I saw her squatting on the ground, making mud pies with the children. So childish."

"Oh..."

From under Bone-Eating Immortal's iron mask came the sound of grinding metal—a crunching, metallic noise.

Mo Mo stood nearby, watching the scene in the room with a mix of unease and nervousness. Her one intact cat ear occasionally twitched in the air.

This Gypro girl, who had only recently escaped from Old Joe's lab, was still somewhat dazed and confused.

She had been teleported along with others into a Black Dot Group space station, where there were many people from the Feather Wing Starfield and even the Borderlands Special Operations Bureau. Then everyone had boarded an immortal ark and been sent to this planet where it rained constantly. People claiming to be "under the True Lord" had come to treat their injuries. The most severely wounded were brought here, but the three people before her didn't seem like proper "doctors" at all—she couldn't quite put her finger on what was off.

Mo Mo's physical condition was actually not too bad. Compared to the others, the living metal and artificial neural tissue inside her were relatively stable, which was why she had been chosen as a "lab assistant" before.

Originally, she had been arranged to rest elsewhere, but she was worried about the severely injured companions sent to the "private courtyard," so she had come on her own.

No one stopped her along the way. The people here were all very friendly, and someone even gave her directions after she explained the situation. The three strange "doctors" were also quite polite—they didn't kick her out, just told her to stay somewhere out of the way. The one with the iron mask even gave her a few pastries.

Gypro people were generally very short, and Mo Mo thought she might have been mistaken for a minor.

Bone-Eating Immortal looked up at the cat-girl standing nearby with a dazed expression. Her ears and tail looked like those of a local cat demon, but she knew the girl was a Gypro.

Many, many years ago, she had taken her daughter on a trip to Terra, where there were many Gypro people.

"Come here," Bone-Eating Immortal said, beckoning.

Mo Mo's mechanical ear and natural ear both twitched. She pointed at herself in confusion, then carefully walked over after confirming.

Even though the people around her were kind, she was used to being cautious. This state of mind might last for a long time.

"Since you're here, I might as well check you too," came the muffled voice from under the iron mask. Bone-Eating Immortal had Mo Mo sit on the chair beside her, then formed hand seals and chanted, using her spiritual sense to examine the girl's body.

A faint scent of blood wafted from the gaps in the mask. Mo Mo, extremely sensitive, noticed it immediately, and the fur on her tail involuntarily bristled.

"Relax," Bone-Eating Immortal said calmly. "There's some stagnation poison in your organs, but it's nothing serious. A few days of medicinal treatment here will take care of it."

Mo Mo nodded nervously, then looked at the sickbeds. "They..."

"When you see the three of us start bickering, it means your friends are mostly stable," Bone-Eating Immortal said. Noticing the girl's tension, she added, "Don't be afraid. None of us are bad people now."

As soon as she finished speaking, Old Man Withered Court came over and clasped his hands in a bow before Mo Mo. "We are orthodox cultivators under True Lord Yu Sheng..."

"Old man, can you stop emphasizing those last few words every time?" Bone-Eating Immortal frowned. "Every time you do that, it sounds more suspicious."

"He's afraid he'll forget," Blood Prince said, walking over with his fan. "Last time, when Thousand-Peak Spirit Mountain sent someone to inspect the reconstruction of Mo City, he just passed through the central courtyard, glanced at it, then ran over, snapped to attention, and shouted 'Report!' The guy was startled."

This time, Old Man Withered Court turned red-faced. He pointed at Blood Prince, eyes wide. "You, you were trembling like a leaf and didn't even dare raise your head. Which eye of yours saw me run over..."

Mo Mo looked up at the three strange figures before her. For a moment, she felt an aura of blood and violence about them that frightened her. The next moment, they seemed like nothing more than eccentric good people. This contradiction made her even more confused—but soon, her inner conflict was interrupted.

A ghostly door suddenly appeared not far away. When it opened, Yu Sheng led the entire Traveler's Society and a second-hand scientist from the Dark Meteor Starfield.

Before the door even faded, Old Man Withered Court and Blood Prince shot over like flashes, as if afraid of being a step too late. They bowed simultaneously. "Reporting to True Lord Yu Sheng: the wounded have all escaped danger!"

Bone-Eating Immortal held it in for a moment, then couldn't help but laugh out loud.

Then she rose from her chair and went over to perform a graceful bow. "What are the True Lord's orders?"

Yu Sheng was startled by the two "knee-sliding champions" the moment he entered, then he waved his hand with a mix of amusement and exasperation. His gaze fell on the cat-eared girl not far away.

"I came to find this—uh, what's this cat's name again?"

Luo reminded him from the side: "She said her name is Mo Mo."

"Oh, right. I came to find Mo Mo, to ask her about a few things."