Chapter 988: Chapter 27: Physicians Cannot Heal Themselves (Final)
Four days later, at night. Upper district of Hundred Birds City.
This is the part of town closest to the canopy spaceport, also the area worst affected by noise pollution. Bars along the street blasted high-decibel rock music, and young n and won chatted outside about the recent commotion. They fervently claid it was aliens, an on of the Dragon Disaster, or an AI uprising, concocting various excuses for their drunken babble.
Inside a bar, a shapely green-haired girl sat alone at the bar, cradling a glass of iced orange juice, sipping slowly. Drinking juice in such a place would invite ridicule, and tonight three n had already co over to tease her, but she remained silent.
Soone tapped the green-haired girl’s shoulder, and she turned to see a head of dazzling blonde hair and a mouthful of signature shark teeth shining coldly.
“Hello, Bai Aoli?” the blonde Ranger said in surprise.
“Seviss~” the green-haired woman stood up, enthusiastically hugging the Ranger, kissing each other’s cheeks, “What a surprise! We haven’t t for so long, and you can recognize in an instant!”
“As soon as I saw a girl drinking orange juice, I knew it was you.” Seviss grabbed the orange juice, took a sip, and smacked her lips, “Not bad. Hey, where did you move to now? I couldn’t find your old place for the life of , I rember it was on Elder Street…”
“I moved back to the family later, at that ti I had a sudden whim to compete for the Family Head position.”
“I figured!” Seviss slapped her thigh, “You’re not really the Family Head now, are you?”
“No way…” the green-haired woman smiled, “I tried and found out I’m not good at those cunning and balancing affairs at all, so I decisively pulled out and went into research. You probably heard of my na in the last two years, right?”
“Of course! A master in prosthetics engineering, I even saw your interviews in magazines.” Seviss was genuinely happy for her.
“Received any interesting commissions lately?”
“Don’t even ntion it, the sa old stuff. Guiding, finding people, ergency assistance, helping clients find prosthetics doctors.”
“When you got a sucker why didn’t you bring them over to split the money with .” The green-haired woman feigned reproach.
“I couldn’t even find your doorstep, leading clients in circles? I know you like peace and quiet, dedicated to research and never taking private jobs…”
The green-haired woman rubbed her fingers, a teasing smile on her face: “Private jobs can always be taken, if interested. Do you take on selling body type private jobs, you poor little thing? Now I’ve got plenty of money, as long as you na your price, I could hire you for a month every night changing it up until you’re hoarse…”
Seviss stuck his tongue out and made a face: “Go away, go away, you have a kid and are a married woman yet you’re still coveting my youthful and beautiful body? I sell my art, not my body, even for ten thousand Kerry I won’t sell!”
“How about a hundred thousand Kerry?”
“Damn, that would really take three or four seconds to firmly decide and say not for sale.”
“Hopeless, you money-grubber!”
The girls laughed and chatted without restraint, like those students who just graduated, without any taboos, speaking wildly. They talked about the recent climate, their respective jobs, about Bai Aoli’s unruly graduate student and her newborn son. Late at night, the Ranger had already drunk three bottles, and she staggered out of the bar, happily saying they’d gather again next ti when they had ti.
Bai Aoli waved her off until the Ranger’s figure beca a blur and then disappeared from view.
Her smile gradually faded, and the youth and vitality displayed in the conversation faded with the smile. The green-haired girl still sat at the bar, but like an aged woman, her back slightly hunched. Her tears fell drop by drop, staining the deep green bar black.
The Champion ca in from outside the bar, pulled up a stool, and sat down without speaking.
“…The last ti I saw her was twenty years ago.” Bai Aoli said with difficulty, “I was 53 that year when I heard a report of a Ranger asking around about , I knew it was my old friend coming, and I was thrilled to et, putting on my formal wear with my favorite tea and flowers.
But she looked at with surprise, saying, sorry ma’am, have you mistaken ? How could you be Bai Aoli? She was a not very wealthy researcher, liked drinking orange juice, not tea, liked wearing dresses, never formal wear, and had just been married and had kids not long ago, her face still smooth without traces of wrinkles… it’s impossible for her to have turned into soone like you in such a short ti!”
“I didn’t know what to say, I left, saying, sorry girl, I mistook you, realizing with my steady voice and deanor she was indeed right. I was no longer Bai Aoli, the young girl she knew had long aged, that person could only live forever in her mory!”
Bai Aoli laid her head on the table, wailing sorrowfully.
The Champion had beaten and killed countless people in his life, yet he had never seen anyone cry so deeply. He understood why the elder had changed her appearance, she had no choice. If she didn’t show herself as who she once was, the Ranger could no longer recognize her friend, she would continue searching Hundred Birds City for the shadows of mory in vain, eventually forced to give up and move on to the next stop of her journey.
“I don’t know what to say, let pour you a drink.” The Champion poured her a glass of whiskey, “It’s best to drink so when you’re sad.”
Bai Aoli grabbed the glass and gulped it down. She coughed violently, striving to swallow the ball of fire in her throat. The warmth burned away her tears too, leaving only withered despair and madness.
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