Chapter 2199: The Sinner
Xu Huo went to an old hospital with some history and found a retired elderly doctor, inquiring about the descendants of Outer Zone players born in this district.
This district had existed for quite some time. Logically, stranded Outer Zone players should have produced at least two or three generations of offspring. If what some individual Outer Zone players said was true—that unions between Outer Zone people and locals mostly produced normal children—then there should now be some normally developed players in this district.
"There are some, but Outer Zone people don't trust the hospitals here. They rarely bring their children to see a doctor," the elderly doctor said, thinking for a moment before adding, "Though some have mentioned that as long as Outer Zone children are raised to adulthood, they're very healthy and rarely get sick. Probably because they start taking Evolution Agents from a very young age."
"If you want to know more about these children, you could ask at the temple."
"Locals all believe in the Goddess. Even if they marry an Outer Zone person, they won't change their faith. They might not tell the hospital about their situation, but they'll tell the Goddess."
"In all your years of practicing medicine, you must have seen the descendants of Outer Zone players," Xu Huo said. "Did they inherit the locals' genes? Do they still retain two sets of reproductive systems? Does that affect their lifespan?"
The old lady wasn't completely unaware of the situation. After so many years of practice, she must have had relatives, friends, or neighbors with real examples.
"I've only seen two or three who grew up," she said. "Although they weren't intersex, their bodies were in good condition. As for whether it affects their lifespan, I'm not sure... Most people who become players die in the games."
"It's not easy for Outer Zone people and locals to have children either. Incomplete intersex children almost never survive—their survival rate is even lower than that of locals. Most of the children sent to the hospital for treatment are like that."
The old lady sighed. "So I advocate against marrying Outer Zone people. Even if they do marry, it's best not to have children. You have to rely on luck to get a relatively healthy child, and those with poor health die before they're six months old. The children suffer, and the adults suffer too."
This was different from the conversation Xu Huo had overheard earlier. According to those stranded Outer Zone players, the proportion of normal children was quite high, with intersex children being rarer. Of course, it was possible that the hospital saw a concentrated sample—children born normal or healthy were likely not brought to the hospital by Outer Zone players.
The old doctor couldn't provide hospital records, so Xu Huo went to the director's office and found medical records from the past fifty years documenting Outer Zone players seeking treatment—it wasn't easy for Outer Zone players to hide their identities, but it was also possible that normal children born in this district later changed their names, so the information in the records was very limited.
Of course, it wasn't that no Outer Zone players had brought their children to the hospital for checkups. There were nine records indicating that one parent was an Outer Zone person. All nine children born to these couples were normal, with only one complete set of reproductive systems in their bodies.
Of course, these children born in the hospital never came back.
It was easy for Outer Zone people to change their identities, but not all locals did. Based on medical records from three hospitals, Xu Huo found a local who had once given birth to a normal child for an Outer Zone player.
This was a woman. She no longer lived at her original address. Expanding his search, he found her at a small clinic a few streets away from the address left in the hospital records.
The small clinic was government-funded, treating patients who had difficulty moving around but didn't need long-term hospitalization. The woman was a nurse at this small clinic. When Xu Huo reached the entrance, he saw a patient frantically beating her. The woman didn't resist, just silently endured the blows with her head down. The other two doctors and nurses in the clinic quickly came over to pull the patient away. Unable to vent at the patient, they glared angrily at the woman, but when they saw the finger marks on her face, they had nothing more to say.
"Go put some medicine on that," the doctor said gruffly.
Another young nurse calmed the patient down, then came over and pulled her to the back room to apply medicine.
"Honestly, why did you just stand there and let her hit you!" the young nurse said irritably. "Sure, the Goddess tells us to be kind to others, but she didn't say we have to take slaps to the face."
"She's a patient. Sick people have bad moods. She didn't mean it," the woman said, head down.
"She meant it!" the young nurse slapped the ointment on the table. "Can't you see she's targeting you? Every time you change her dressing, she gets in a bad mood. Why doesn't she hit me?"
The woman lowered her head even further. "...I deserve it..."
The young nurse was frustrated by her lack of fight. Just then, a doctor called her from outside, so she had to shove the ointment into the woman's hands. "Anyway, it's almost quitting time. You go home first. I'll cover your night shift tonight."
The woman looked up as if to say something, but the young nurse had already hurried out.
She stood there in a daze for a moment, then slowly put the ointment back on the table, changed into her coat, picked up a small cloth bag, and left through the back door.
After leaving the clinic, the woman went to the nearby market, bought two heads of cabbage, and walked toward a more remote alley. Most of the people living here were elderly, and the entire alley was shrouded in a gloomy atmosphere.
No one greeted the woman, and she kept her head down, not looking at anyone. The surrounding gazes carried some displeasure, but no one bothered her. When she reached her own residence at the deepest part of the alley, she bent down to pick up a piece of bread that someone had left by the door corner. She looked around blankly, then put it somewhere else before entering her home alone.
As soon as her door closed, the neighbor's door opened. An old woman poked her head out, glanced around, muttered to herself, then came over and picked up the bread, taking it back inside.
The woman's residence was very cramped. The kitchen, bedroom, and living room were all squeezed together. Without even a table or chairs, the room felt too small to turn around in. She sat blankly for a while, then boiled the cabbage in plain water and ate it with some leftover rice for dinner.
She cooked in silence, ate in silence, then washed the dishes and cleaned up. After that, she sat on the bed, staring blankly at the wall until the sunlight outside faded.
When the room was enveloped in darkness, the woman finally moved. She pulled a box out from under the bed, took out a photo from inside, and slowly stroked it. Her prolonged numbness made even her grief seem feeble. Her fingers repeatedly traced the face in the photo. After a long while, she lay down holding the photo, tears streaming down her cheeks into her hair. Half-asleep, half-awake, she seemed to see the Goddess appear before her.
"Goddess... I know I was wrong. If there is any sin, please punish me alone... Forgive my child and my lover. Don't let them suffer anymore..." The woman slowly knelt down and began to confess.
(Chapter End)