IWOL Chapter 26: Returned to His Side

Dong Zheng’s fingers that had slumped at his side suddenly moved.

Cui Zuojing noticed it at once. He lowered his head and determined that he wasn’t imagining things. He immediately lifted himself over and straddled Dong Zheng’s legs, gazing at the man’s pale face. After a moment of careful observation, he gently patted Dong Zheng’s cheek and softly said, “Hey!”

Dong Zhen’s head shook a little due to his strength, and his tightly knitted brows smoothed out a little, only to wrinkle even more a moment later.

Like a naughty and mischievous child, Cui Zuojing poked Dong Zheng’s tall nose. When he saw that the other person still had his eyes closed, he let out a sound of surprise and moved closer with the intentions to lift his eyelids.

Dong Zheng’s brain, which had felt as if it’d been fried in an oil pan, suddenly received salvation. The indifferent chill penetrated his skin, pulling his chaotic consciousness back from crumbling at the edge of the abyss.

He let out a low groan. Although the pain in his eyes was still strong, it was no longer unbearable.

Dong Zheng controlled his breathing with great efforts and opened his eyes.

His line of sight just happened to fall on Cui Zuojing, who had just shifted closer and was completely occupied.

The youth’s face was almost within reach. His lips were slightly white because of the cold, but his cheeks were flushed red from intense exercise. A drop of water fell from his eyelashes and landed on Dong Zheng’s chest, where it turned into a pale blue crystal and rolled to the ground.

Dong Zheng had just awakened from the primal chaos of his consciousness, and he was immediately stunned at the sight of Cui Zuojing. An explication sensation flashed through his heart, and like a fish, it slipped away at lightning speed, leaving behind only a remnant of ripples.

“Are you awake?” Cui Zuojing waved his hand in front of Dong Zheng’s eyes. Dong Zheng suddenly collected his thoughts and was surprised to find that his head longer felt any pain.

“What happened?” he asked, his voice still a little hoarse.

“I gave you [Alice’s Medicine]. It can not only relieve all negative effects, but more importantly, it can also increase mental strength. After all, for a girl with severe delusions, psychotherapy drugs are no less essential.”

Dong Zheng nodded and glanced around. Seeing that there was no danger, he made no efforts to control Cui Zuojing, who was still straddling him, and simply leaned against the wall to rest. Although his head no longer hurted, the impact of being overdrawn still lingered.

Cui Zuojing also didn’t provoke him. He was just about to get off Dong Zheng when he suddenly heard a horrified “Shit!” from behind him.

A test tube was immediately thrown over. Cui Zuojing lifted his hand and easily caught the blood sample.

He looked back and saw that the Red Hair he’d seen in [Hamelin] was staring at him with a frightened expression. Then, he lifted the IV stand with both hands and brought it down on Cui Zuojing’s face!

Dong Zheng reacted the moment he heard Allen’s voice. “Allen! He’s not a monster!”

But it was too late. The IV stand had cut through the air and reached the top of Cui Zuojing’s head. At that moment, Dong Zheng could only hold his breath and tried to reach out and blocked the stand.

The teenager picked up a blue crystal that had just fallen in the folds of Dong Zheng’s clothes and flicked it from his fingertips. The movement was so fast that even Dong Zheng, who was so close to him, couldn’t catch it at all!

Snapped!

The crystal slammed into the IV stand and directly smashed the steel frame into an unimaginable shape. The impact ricocheted through Allen’s hands, causing his arms to instantly become numb. He lost his grip on the weapon.

The completely deformed IV stand fell to the ground. Cui Zuojing stood up from Dong Zheng and looked at Allen, whose mouth had fallen open in shock. He tilted his head, waved his hand, and greet, “Hi.”

Allen: =口= !

Say!

Hold on! This child looked familiar.

Allen finally remembered. Yes! He’d seen him in the last box!

Allen had just finished exploring the fifth floor and hurried back to check on Dong Zheng’s situation. He saw a “zombie” dressed in white sitting on Dong Zheng. The two were so close that, from his perspective, it looked like that thing was about to eat Dong Zheng.

He attacked without thinking, but he didn’t expect it to be someone he’d seen before.

It was no wonder that Allen was surprised. In his view, he and Dong Zheng were the only living beings in the entire illusion. Any other humanoid creatures, aside from ghosts and zombies, were considered life-threatening.

Dong Zhong propped himself up against the wall and explained, “This is my teammate. His name is Cui Zuojing. He came just after you left.”

Allen believed him. “Eh? No wonder I saw him in the last box. Do you still have a headache?”

Cui Zuojing glanced at Dong Zheng. With a smile, he said, “He is going to join the team anyway sooner or later. Isn’t it okay to tell him now?”

Dong Zheng was a little surprised that Cui Zuojing had immediately guessed that he wanted Allen to join the team. But, he soon realized that, although the other party looked like a teenager, he absolutely could not be measured by his teenage appearance.

Allen said, “Ah? Tell me what?”

Dong Zheng assented and explained, “Okay. He’s actually my prisoner that I summoned in Hamelin. I just had a headache because he was too far away for much too long, and my spiritual strength couldn’t bear it. Now that he’s back, I’m much better.”

Allen immediately understood and quickly accepted this setting. Prisoner. No wonder.

He didn’t complain that Dong Zheng had wanted to hide it. After all, this was only the second time they’d met each other. Even if they were teammates, it wasn’t a sufficient reason to reveal their all cards and put all their secrets on display.

“Then you’re really lucky. It was only the first box but you were able to summon such a good prisoner.” Allen picked up the IV stand and sighed. “My God, how strong.”

Due to [Alice’s Medicine], Dong Zheng was completely restored and felt even better than when he first entered the box. Not forgetting that they’re still in this secret realm, he asked, “How’s the situation?”

Allen said, “There’s nothing important. All the doors to the wards are closed and the stairs on the other side are completely blocked by grassy branches. It seems that the closer it is to the seventh floor, the denser the plants will be.”

“Good. After I take a short rest, we can continue upstairs.” Dong Zheng took a deep breath and turned to Cui Zuojing. His expression became restrained and he said solemnly, “Now, let’s talk about your problem.”

Cui Zuojing was originally using his toes to tease the flowering leaves nearby. He stiffened for a moment, then revealed a smile that was mixed between apologetic and fawning. “I’m sorry. I was playing too much. Next time, this absolutely won’t happen again.”

Dong Zheng wasn’t convinced by his casual and insincere apology. “I can’t control you right now, but I hope you will genuinely adhere to our agreements and for us to do our utmost to mutually help each other, and that you won’t create all kinds of trouble for me, like what happened in this box.”

Probably because of the disparity in their strengths, Dong Zheng’s tone wasn’t harsh but was more like a kind of condemnation. But, somehow Cui Zuojing felt as if he was being scolded by a terrifying teacher. God, who knew how long it’d been since he’d experienced this feeling.

This was quite novel. Cui Zuojing habitually tuck his hands into his pants pockets, felt that this position seemed insincere, pulled his hands out and hid them behind his back, all the while striving to pretend to nod obediently. “Mmn mmn, okay. It won’t happen again in the future. I will be good and help you. I won’t run around and overdraw you like this.”

Dong Zheng: “………..”

To be honest, he didn’t feel any sincerity at all, but, what could he do.

They set off again and returned to the stairwell, but this time the number of people had changed from two to three. Allen held a flashlight in front, Dong Zheng was responsible for throwing blood samples to attract plants, and Cui Zuojing abstained to the back.

As the test tube hit the wall and the ground, blood samples spilled out. The plants that had been blocking the path moved toward it, leaving a narrow passage for the three people to march silently through.

“Ah-jiu!”

The sudden sneeze startled Dong Zheng and Allen. Dong Zheng turned back and saw that Cui Zuojing was rubbing his itchy nose with one hand while his mouth opened to suck in a breath.

While playing with the executioner, he’d traveled through a blizzard, jumped into a crater, soaked in an ice lake, and passed through a desert. After alternating repeatedly between hot and cold, even an iron person would get sick.

Cui Zuojing quickly waved his hand. “Sorry, it may be a little cold. It doesn’t matter. Go on.”

The youth was still wet. His clothes were plastered to his skin, and the drops of water turned into crystal beads as they fell from his body. This style of painting was incompatible with the sinister atmosphere of the hospital.

Dong Zheng felt cold when he looked at him. To save Allen, he’d left his jacket with the caterpillar so he could only take off his long-sleeved shirt and handed it to Cui Zuojing. “Wear it.”

Cui Zuojig wasn’t polite and replaced his wet jacket with Dong Zheng’s shirt. The fabric was still slightly warm. Dong Zheng was more than ten centimeters taller than him, and the sleeves dragged past his hands so he had to roll them up.

All that’s left on Dong Zheng’s upper body was a tight-fitting, black, sleeveless shirt. Allen gave him his own jacket, and since they were about the same size, it was suitable to wear.

As they continued, Cui Zuojing carelessly rubbed his nose. Behind him, there was the sound of something carefully approaching.

A gray hand silently stretched out from the vines, trying to catch Cui Zuojing and turn him into nourishment for its body.

The moment the fingertip touched Cui Zuojing, the seal on the inside of the young man’s wrist quietly flared. A faint power, bounded in a curse, directly caused the hand to jerk back, as if it’d suffered an electric shock.

But it was too late. A simple, inconsequential monster from a secret realm was unable to support this kind of energy. The hand was directly destroyed and the vines behind it scattered into powder so silently that it did not attract any attention at all.

Blood exploded from two test tubes, leading the vegetation away. Allen carefully walked sideways and suddenly saw a white figure standing around the corner. He held his breath and made a “stop” gesture to Dong Zheng behind him.

The ghost doctor held a folder in his hands. In front of him stood a stump of green radishes tightly converged into a complete human form.

“How do you feel these days?”

The green radish shook twice, and a strange voice drifted to their ears. “Still okay. Just that moving feels awkward.”

“You need to rest in bed now. Don’t run around casually.”

The green radish uneasily said, “I’m just going to buy food.”

The doctor clicked his tongue and said, “After suffering a stroke, you need to rest well. You can’t even use your legs and you’re still running around this much. What about your children? Let them come over and take care of you.”

“The child…The child is away and can’t come back for a while.”

“What about your wife?”

“Uh…”

The green radish hemmed and hawed for half a day. After a moment, something dropped from the ceiling and directly smashed right into it, causing the human-shaped body to become crooked before scattering chaotically at once into countless snake-like things that crawled along the walls and eventually disappeared.

The ghost doctor let out a shrill scream. The corpse in the white coat looked exactly like the ghost doctor. Once the corpse made contact, the transparent ghost disappeared without a trace.

Dong Zheng tightly squeezed the blood sample test tube in his hand and lightly pushed Allen, signally for him to go quickly.

The three crossed the doctor’s corpse that was wrapped in vegetation and continued on in silence.

Cui Zuojing kept watch and smoothly arrived at the seventh floor without much effort. As soon as the stairwell door was pushed open, soft light spilled into his eyes. The bright and clean hallway was very different from the other floor. It could be clearly seen that there was no abnormally growing plants here.

Allen was shocked. He was ready to see more mutations near the nest. Why…

Cui Zuojing closed the staircase door and looked at Dong Zheng.

Dong Zheng’s spirit had recovered well due to the medicine, but Cui Zuojing was still very tired. However, he didn’t return to the prisoner’s space and continued to support him by following closely.

He’d just come back to the Pure White Realm and didn’t want to stay in that boring space. Every minute and every second was extremely valuable to him. It was better to stay and observe Dong Zheng some more.

And this Allen.

Dong Zheng didn’t relax but instead became more vigilant. He and Allen slowly walked down the hallway, looking through every ward they passed. Soon, they found the only one that was different.

The door was concealed, but the light from inside still penetrated through. The faint sound of a voice could be heard speaking from within. The voice seemed to belong to a middle-aged man, though the content remained unclear.

The room number read: 7th Floor, Ward No.11, Neurology Department

This was Wen Baoshan, whom the doctor had mentioned.

Through the small window, they could see the hospital cabinet and the corner of the bed. There was someone sitting on the bed and the cover bulged.

Allen was shocked. He looked at Dong Zheng and took two steps back, subconsciously handing everything over to Dong Zheng.

Dong Zheng took a deep breath, repeatedly told himself not to freak out no matter what he saw, raised his hand, and knocked gently on the door.

The voice stopped instantly.

Dong Zheng waited patiently. After a while, a voice came out, “Who is it?”

“Is Wen Baoshan here? We came to see him.”

“Oh?” The other person was clearly surprised and hurriedly said, “He’s here. You come in.”

Dong Zheng pushed open the door.

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