Lu Yan had worked in the hospital for many years, maintaining a high level of professional skill and a dedicated work attitude. He comforted the patient: “Breast tenderness and lactation during pregnancy are normal phenomena.”

Zhou Qiming wasn’t sure if he wanted to die or keep living, so he replied weakly, “Thank you.”

He hadn’t expected that within a mere half-hour of his introduction, he would have already lost his eligibility for dating.

Lu Yan briefly discussed the surgical procedure with his patient: “I need to perform a C-section to remove the fetus first, and then locate the placenta for excision.”

The system added a note: [Removing the placenta will only temporarily suppress the mutation, for about 2 years. If the source of the pollution—the mother—grows stronger, the ghost infant will grow back again… My suggestion is that you resolve the source of the pollution on Zhou Qiming first, and then take a trip to Dragon Lady Lake.]

[There is something there that the King Fish really wants. It might be useful to you, though I’m not sure you’ll like it.]

“What is it?”

[A carp has to leap over the Dragon Gate to transform into a dragon. Now that there is no Dragon Gate to be found, we have to go find the Dragon Lady herself.]

Lu Yan paused for a moment and continued: “But this can only prevent you from being pregnant in the short term. Two years from now, if the pollution source at Dragon Lady Lake grows stronger, it will recur. So, I suggest we find an opportunity to completely eradicate the pollution source at Dragon Lady Lake.”

Because the matter was of great importance, Zhou Qiming quickly recovered from his grief.

“If the placenta is removed, I won’t get pregnant again, right?” This was his primary concern. “To be honest, the surgical wounds on my stomach this month haven’t healed at all. Since we can’t use anesthesia for surgery, I really don’t want to go through a fifth time.”

Giving birth is the tenth level of labor pain. Zhou Qiming didn’t need to go through vaginal delivery, but a C-section without anesthesia was enough to make many “tough guys” weep.

Having been through so many emergency rescues for critical patients, Lu Yan had long since mastered a set of medical rhetoric: “Barring any unexpected accidents, you won’t be pregnant again in the short term. However, the risk of accidents cannot be ruled out. For the sake of safety, let’s sign the pre-operative informed consent form.”

Zhou Qiming’s heart skipped a beat: “Okay.”

Lu Yan saw his apprehension and comforted him: “Don’t worry, you won’t die.”

“…Okay.”

For some reason, Zhou Qiming felt even more apprehensive.

Lu Yan checked the surgical equipment Zhou Qiming had prepared. It was all the latest instrumentation, running normally. It had cost a fortune.

Zhou Qiming: “Dr. Lu, wait a moment. Let me call Chen Shi’er in to tie me down on the operating table.”

During his last surgery, the pain was so intense that he couldn’t help but kick the doctor, resulting in a hefty workers’ compensation claim.

Hearing this, Chen Shi’er pulled out a piece of silk-like fabric and obediently bound his boss securely. Zhou Qiming now looked like a pig trussed up on a roast suckling pig rack.

Chen Shi’er patted his chest to guarantee: “Doctor, please rest assured. This is silk spun by a B-rank pollutant, the Ice Silkworm. It’s very sturdy! The market price is 2,000 Contribution Points per foot! If my boss can break free without using his talent, I’ll cut my head off and let you kick it like a ball.”

“By the way, Doctor, can I watch from the side?” Chen Shi’er asked.

“You can.”

Some doctors don’t like being watched while performing surgery, as it can make them nervous, but Lu Yan was not like that. Furthermore, if he didn’t let Chen Shi’er watch, it would be Zhou Qiming who got nervous.

Lu Yan turned on the shadowless lamp. Under the light, the ghost fetus in Zhou Qiming’s belly looked even more terrifying and hideous. Its scalp was so thin that one could vaguely see an underdeveloped brain inside. The ghost fetus seemed to fear light, perhaps knowing it was about to follow in the footsteps of its predecessors, and began kicking and punching wildly inside the womb.

Zhou Qiming’s heroic brows knit deeply in pain, and he couldn’t help but curse in his local dialect: “You twitch, keep twitching. Twitch a few more kicks. I’ll scatter your ashes, you turtle-son, in a minute!”

Having said that, he bit down hard on a wooden stick.

This step was mainly to avoid screaming during the surgery—not so much because he feared neighbors thinking a murder was occurring, but because if he startled Lu Yan, he would be the one to suffer.

The surgeries Lu Yan used to perform always involved several doctors, with nurses and anesthesiologists standing by. During breaks, the other doctors would tell jokes to liven the mood. Now, left alone to perform surgery by himself, he felt a bit lonely.

Lu Yan didn’t act immediately. Instead, he took out his phone with deliberate slowness and opened a video app.

Chen Shi’er was very curious: “Doctor, what are you doing?”

“Watching a video tutorial on C-sections,” Lu Yan replied calmly. “I’ve never performed a C-section before, and I didn’t go to the OB-GYN department for my internship back then.”

Perhaps it wasn’t a hallucination, but once these words were spoken, the operating room fell into a heavy silence.

Chen Shi’er leaned in quietly and asked: “Boss, do you want to switch to a different doctor now?”

Zhou Qiming looked at Lu Yan’s face, his tone filled with a tragic sense of self-sacrifice: “No! I don’t want any other doctor, I only want this one!”

Lu Yan watched the video at 4.0x speed, noted the handling of several common emergencies, and considered himself foolproof, so he lifted the scalpel in his hand.

In reality, Apocalyptics generally had very resilient bodies; even if Lu Yan’s surgery failed, the likelihood of death wasn’t high. But as a doctor, Lu Yan still hoped to minimize his errors.

“For a C-section, is an epidural anesthesia really not possible?” he asked the system.

[It requires puncturing the spinal nerve roots; there’s a high probability of total paralysis.]

“So, assassination of Apocalyptics isn’t that complicated. You just need to feed them anesthesia.”

[Anesthetics on the market are basically useless against Apocalyptics, so you don’t need to worry. It’s only when anesthesia actually succeeds that things get dangerous. The human brain is truly miraculous. If the brain loses consciousness and cannot control the contamination source within the body, the lesion will rapidly mutate in a short period of time.]

Lu Yan stopped dwelling on this. He finished the abdominal disinfection and laid out the sterile surgical drapes. When performing surgery, Lu Yan was always extremely focused.

Ordinary knives couldn’t even cut the skin, and the scalpel Zhou Qiming had prepared was itself a B-rank weapon—extremely sharp. Zhou Qiming’s previous surgical wound hadn’t healed yet, so after a moment’s thought, Lu Yan chose to make a new incision to avoid cross-infection.

Lu Yan cut through the fat layer, the fascia, and the muscle layer, opening up the riddled abdominal cavity. Inside Zhou Qiming’s stomach grew a tumor-like uterus, unlike a normal human uterus; its surface was like a breathing fruit, oozing fine, dense blood vessels.

To the mother, the fetus was essentially a tumor-like existence, and the discomfort of pregnancy was a natural immune rejection response. In the natural world, no creature could avoid entering a weakened state during pregnancy. It was no wonder Zhou Qiming’s spiritual power threshold had been dropping.

Lu Yan used gauze to stop the bleeding, preventing it from obscuring the surgical field, then gently punctured the fetal membranes. He finally saw the full appearance of the fetus.

It was ash-gray, its face covered in wrinkles, looking like a pug with a human face. The ghost fetus had no umbilical cord; it relied entirely on a tail at the lumbar spine to obtain nutrients from the mother.

The infant’s expression was full of malice. It opened a mouth filled with jagged, saw-like fangs and let out a shrill cry. Compared to a normal infant, it was a circle larger and covered in a yellow, mysterious liquid, emitting a nauseating, fishy stench.

The infant tore open the peritoneum and opened its sharp-toothed mouth to bite Lu Yan.

Chen Shi’er was quick to act, landing a punch on the ghost infant’s stomach. His own spiritual power threshold was 3,000; he didn’t even need to use his talent to deal with such an infant. It rolled its eyes, its mouth constantly emitting painful wails full of resentment and unwillingness.

The infant’s crying caused Zhou Qiming to struggle violently; the ghost fetus was using this method to trigger the mother’s maternal instincts.

Chen Shi’er joined his hands in a seal and shouted: “Hah!”

Shaolin martial arts: The Lion’s Roar. Combined with his talent, it could snap someone in a manic state back to clarity. Zhou Qiming was jolted by the shout, his eyes gradually regaining focus.

Lu Yan plunged the scalpel into the ghost infant’s heart, delivering the final blow. At that instant, a violent pain shot through his mind. He felt as if he saw a deep sea; something had opened its eyes, and a weird, cold gaze locked onto him. Waves crashed in his ears—but this time, it was not the tide of the Qu River.

[Ah, it was originally optional to go or not. It seems you have no choice now. You killed the Dragon Lady’s child, and she will come for you.]

Lu Yan’s face was deathly pale. By the time he regained his senses, the monster in front of him had stopped breathing.

“Dr. Lu, are you okay?” Chen Shi’er asked softly, “You looked like you were going to faint just now.”

Lu Yan’s head was still throbbing: “I’m fine.”

The monster’s tail withered rapidly. Lu Yan cut it open to inspect it and found it was hollow, with rows of teeth lining the inner wall. More than a tail, it looked like a straw.

Lu Yan began looking for the placenta the system had mentioned. The uterus that gestated the ghost infant looked like a ball of meat, and the placenta was located deep within the thick base of that ball. It looked remarkably like a fresh brain.

As he extracted the placenta, Zhou Qiming, who had already grown numb to the pain, bit down hard on the wooden stick in his mouth. His eyes bulged, and the veins at his temples throbbed violently, looking quite ferocious.

The object felt greasy and disgusting. Lu Yan removed his gloves, and a slit opened in his palm once more. The teeth on the inside of his palm had become extremely sharp. He barely needed to chew; in a few bites, he swallowed the pollution source.

It tasted rich and delicious, like fatty, pan-seared foie gras, but not nearly as greasy. Lu Yan narrowed his eyes slightly, a flush appearing on his face—a look of satisfaction that he himself didn’t notice, like someone who hadn’t eaten in a long time suddenly having a full meal.

Chen Shi’er watched, dumbfounded, thinking that Lu Yan looked more like a pollutant than the actual pollutant did.

The physique of an Apocalyptic is indeed quite good. By the second day after the surgery, Zhou Qiming was already out of bed, jumping around. He ignored the pain in his body and personally visited Lu Yan to express his gratitude, bringing a bouquet of carnations.

When he arrived, Lu Yan happened to be cooking. Out of politeness, he asked, “Would you like to come in and have some food?”

The result was that the two of them sat at the dining table, staring at each other.

“I can feel that my body is gradually recovering,” Zhou Qiming broke the silence first, taking Lu Yan’s hand and shaking it repeatedly. “That Dragon Lady Lake is truly too evil. The contamination source clearly isn’t high-level, but once contaminated, it’s almost impossible to solve. I was already prepared to volunteer myself for dissection at the Research Institute.”

“Anyway, thank you, Doctor. Your cooking is also delicious; it reminds me of my mother’s taste.”

Lu Yan had been thanked by patients many times before, so he was quite calm: “It’s my duty. You don’t need to tell me the second half.”

“It’s true. Because my pathomorphosis level increased, I haven’t had any appetite for food. I only eat when I think of it, but Dr. Lu, the food you make makes me feel it’s delicious.”

Lu Yan didn’t even lift his eyelids: “Thank you. No talking while eating.”

Zhou Qiming’s expression suddenly turned serious: “Dr. Lu, you might be the only healing-type Apocalyptic who is currently outside of the Research Institute.”

“Since I could find out your true identity, others certainly can too. Healing-type talents use their own increase in pathomorphosis levels as the cost for curing contamination diseases. Such talents are too rare; when driven into a corner, not everyone will be reasonable.”

“Okay, I will be careful.”

“I’ll transfer the Contribution Points to you on the forum.” Zhou Qiming pulled out his phone, going with the flow: “Doctor, what is your user ID?”

Lu Yan read out a string of numbers. Soon, the Apocalyptic Forum sent a notification reminding him that “Is there a 1?” had applied to add him as a friend.

Zhou Qiming coughed awkwardly a few times: “I was young then, just reached adulthood, didn’t know any better. Chose the name randomly.”

Lu Yan opened the other person’s profile and discovered they had registered 25 years ago.

“I’m actually 43 this year,” Zhou Qiming smiled. “Perhaps it’s a result of evolution; we all age very slowly. There’s no other way. I don’t know how much longer I can live. Doctor, you should make more friends among Apocalyptics. Otherwise, watching your relatives and friends depart one by one is really too painful.”

Zhou Qiming transferred the points—6,200 in total—and added casually: “Contact me whenever you need anything. Although I haven’t joined the Special Operations Department, I’ve been in the industry for so long that no one will dare to touch my people.”

“Really?” Lu Yan felt a surge of interest.

Zhou Qiming nodded: “Of course.”

His emphasis was actually on the latter half of his sentence, but Lu Yan seemed to only notice the first half. Lu Yan put down his chopsticks and said earnestly: “I want to go to Dragon Lady Lake.”

Special Operations Department Headquarters.

Inside the central conference hall, an extremely special meeting was being held. There were only thirteen attendees, and all thirteen were managers of the Special Operations Department. As everyone knew, Apocalyptics were mentally unstable and had high mortality rates; therefore, they were not well-suited for management.

The Minister sat at the top, his voice filled with suppressed rage: “Who leaked the information about ‘Listener’?”

The Special Operations Department’s original plan was to let Lu Yan grow rapidly through gradual missions so he could assist in treating “Tyrant.” As the only Apocalyptic whose spiritual power threshold exceeded five digits, Tang Xun’an was the only person in the world capable of contending with those S-rank contaminants.

But Tang Xun’an’s pathomorphosis level was too high; he was like an overloaded instrument, heading toward a dead end of collapse at any moment. Whether out of repayment for his years of dedication or the need to fight contaminants, Tyrant could not afford to fall.

“Pursuing this matter now is of no use.” The head of the Contamination Disease Prevention Center sighed; she was a woman who had already begun to grow silver hair. “What we need to consider is how to control the situation. Finding that spy is a must, but the most urgent priority now is to ensure the safety of Listener.”

The director of the First Research Institute sneered: “Knowing this, we should have just sent him to the Research Institute in the beginning.”

“Everyone who has had contact with Listener’s data has been questioned by ‘True Knowledge.’ No one lied. Either their memories were wiped, or the information was leaked inadvertently without their knowledge.” The Vice Minister rubbed his temples: “I have a proposal. Since Tyrant has already returned to the country… why not let the two of them spend some time together first? There is no safer place than by Tang Xun’an’s side.”

“Because of past events, although Tyrant has teammates, he prefers to act alone. It’s just that because his pathomorphosis level is too high, he cannot act entirely alone. Although Listener’s spiritual power threshold is very low right now, his pathomorphosis level is also not high. Maybe we could try? If it becomes too dangerous, we terminate the contact?”

When this was said, the room fell into a brief silence.

“Will Tyrant agree?”

“Is Listener himself willing?”

“Let’s vote.” Finally, the Minister said, “If it passes, we’ll go ask. It won’t cost us anything.”

7 to 6.

Passed.