Chapter 2170: The Item Inside the Eye
Xu Huo was carried to the bed. The town team members that the person who had left earlier mentioned arrived quickly. Because his body was covered in fungi, the newcomers dared not touch him recklessly. They could only roughly record his height and appearance and arranged for a doctor to examine him.
The old doctor, whose protective suit was noticeably better than the others, performed a selective examination before speaking to the group. "One arm and one leg are broken. The ribs don't look good either. If he fell from a height, there's likely internal injury as well. But that's not a major issue—he'll recover with some rest. The real problem is the mushrooms growing all over him. His flesh and blood have become a breeding ground. The medicine in our town can only remove part of them. A few types grow quickly, and if you pull them out without medicine, they'll release deadly toxins. You'll have to find medicine elsewhere."
"Is the medicine expensive?" asked the young man who had first found Xu Huo.
The old doctor paused. "Expensive, of course. Are you really going to save him? In his condition, even if you find the medicine, he probably won't last more than a few days."
"A Hai thinks this person is a player," another person said. "He's been lying in the woods for several days. An ordinary person would have been poisoned to death long ago. The fact that he's still alive means he's different from us."
The old doctor sighed upon hearing this. "A life is a life, after all. I'll contact someone to buy the medicine for you, but you'll have to pay upfront. The seller only accepts cash."
The young man, A Hai, was very happy and took out his savings. "In a small place like ours, if he's not a player, what else could he be? Once he's saved, I'll ask him to pay me back."
That seemed reasonable, and the others didn't try to dissuade him. They only advised him not to spend too much time with Xu Huo and to keep the room tightly sealed to prevent toxic fungi from spreading.
However, as more people came to visit, Xu Huo noticed some strange things about the town.
His primary concern was still Dou Shengnan's situation.
First, regarding the Double-Bright Bird side, Dou Shengnan had indeed escaped, along with her companion. Their whereabouts were unknown. His belongings remained untouched because he couldn't take them, and they were now in the custody of Doctor Dian. Li Chun was also staying at Doctor Dian's house.
After everyone left, Doctor Dian went to the kitchen to make some soup and fed it to Xu Huo. Seeing that he actually drank it, Doctor Dian was very happy. He paced around the bed twice before whispering, "You'd better be a good person."
Second, there was the emotional state. The people here, even the children, had remarkably stable emotions. Occasional arguments or quarrels were filled with affection, as if every household in the town were friends. And the town had nearly a thousand households—this was highly abnormal.
He contacted Nie Xuan, and the Special Defense Department responded quickly. They prepared the items he needed and delivered them through the Under Dimension. Most of them were nutrient supplements specifically for Mental Super Evolvers. In an official tone, they expressed gratitude for his efforts and sacrifices, stating that his contributions would be recorded. They told him to rest well, and if his recovery was too slow to catch the instance, they could provide instance guides and arrange escorts to help him clear it, with a minimum A-rank starting point.
What surprised him slightly was Doctor Dian. He had managed to keep the "Time Tower" at the Double-Bright Bird Pharmaceutical company for such a long time. This contradicted his earlier judgment.
Very few people knew he was in the "Stolen Declaration" instance, so it would be easy to narrow down the answer. But that wasn't something to worry about now.
A Hai agreed to everything, then thanked everyone and saw them out. He even gave some of the mountain goods he had gathered to the people who had helped carry Xu Huo back.
After the battle with Dou Shengnan, his spirit had been damaged. Xu Huo could no longer successfully project his Spiritual Realm. Most of his information came from the people who came to "visit" him. The town obviously had contact with the outside world—they clearly knew about the "male and female" distinctions outside. But in their conversations, they didn't seem to find the town's state unusual. Whether this was because they were used to it or for some other reason, he couldn't tell.
First, there were the people. The town had children, but they called the men who took care of them "mother." The "wives" in the "married couples," while slightly more delicate in appearance, were more masculine in terms of looks and physical characteristics. There were almost no women with obvious female traits.
Second, the Special Defense Department already knew the detailed process of the battle. To avoid unnecessary trouble, Nie Xuan had returned to District 014 after waiting a week at the Double-Bright Bird location, without telling anyone else about Li Chun.
Speaking of instances, Xu Huo remembered the instance notification before entering the black vortex. It was too coincidental that the "Stolen Declaration" had been destroyed. It couldn't be that the declaration happened to be at the place where they fought Dou Shengnan... If not, then someone must have wanted to give him a hand.
The town's conditions were decent. All kinds of living facilities were available, and the people were simple and honest. Because the town was far from any big city, aside from the occasional delivery trucks coming and going, there were basically no outsiders. Everyone who came and went knew each other. When they learned that A Hai's family had taken in a stranger, many people came to "visit," even though Xu Huo was still covered in mushrooms.
Nie Xuan had contacted him more than once, each time sharing news related to him.
He sent a message to Nie Xuan telling him he was safe but needed time to recover. He also gave the Special Defense Department something to do—asking them to gather a new batch of potions, preferably with a few passive defense items and devices thrown in, since he couldn't move right now.
But more than ten days had passed. Since they hadn't taken the "Time Tower" immediately, there was no need to rush now.
After taking the medicine, most of the mushrooms on Xu Huo's body fell off within two days, but a lot of fungal threads remained in his skin. The old doctor guessed that he wasn't waking up because these threads hadn't been completely removed. So during the day, besides cooking and cleaning, A Hai spent most of his time sitting by the bed, picking out the fungal threads from his skin.
Xu Huo wasn't surprised by the Special Defense Department's probing. He hadn't hidden his Time Evolution, and he guessed the department was curious about how far his evolution had progressed. That wasn't a major concern.
As long as the fungi didn't keep multiplying, the King Fungus would eventually consume all the fungi on his body. Besides his arm and leg, three of his ribs were broken. Within a day of arriving here, his right hand had regained some sensation. He had taken plenty of potions, but his body lacked strength, making it impossible to sit up. Combined with the severe damage to his brain, he spent most of his time unconscious.
After about five days, he could stay awake for extended periods. Only then did he contact Nie Xuan through the game.
He had checked both the Bounty Platform and the Under Dimension, but unfortunately, aside from the battle at the Double-Bright Bird, there was no news of Dou Shengnan anywhere. Even the current situation of the Eerie Sound Knights was unknown.
She was most likely still alive.
Xu Huo took a transparent bead the size of a lentil from his luggage compartment. The material looked the same as the transparent heart Dou Shengnan had used to save herself and the finger bone that had ambushed him. And it had been hidden inside Dou Shengnan's eye.