CH 2

The sentinel’s five senses were highly acute, and they particularly enjoyed silence. The critical ward of the hospital was as still as a stagnant pool, with only the faint sound of a wheelchair rolling slowly down the corridor. The oppressive and narrow atmosphere enveloped the area outside the emergency room. 

Just a few days ago, Si Chu was still full of vigor, but now he looked like a withered grass, his eyes fixed on the red light shining in front of the emergency room door. His spiritual form, a Czechoslovakian Wolfdog, also lay lifeless at his feet, ears and tail drooping.

Si Chu’s parents were overseas and were rushing back overnight. Xiao Zhenyun could be considered the only relative by his side.

“Xiao Chu.” A gentle and warm voice brought Si Chu back to his senses. His vacant and unfocused eyes slowly regained focus, and his voice sounded hoarse, almost trembling with tears, “Uncle, Uncle!”

He fell to his knees and threw himself into Xiao Zhenyun’s embrace, sobbing, “When they pushed my brother inside, the doctor told me to be mentally prepared… Is my brother… Is he going to… die?”

Xiao Zhenyun tenderly embraced Si Chu’s shoulders, his long, black hair cascading as he did so. He stroked Si Chu’s short hair, which was rough due to the sentinel’s duty, and comforted him, “It’s going to be alright, don’t be afraid.”

The wolfdog managed to support itself and walked over with a dejected look, licking Si Chu’s cheek.

Not long after, Ye Feiran and Si Chu’s father’s secretary appeared at the hospital at the same time. Ye Feiran had feathers of a vibrant and glossy color growing from his waist, with blue-green eye circles. This forced him to unzip the zipper at the base of his pants, releasing the fusion form of his spirit guide due to excessive excitement.

His eyes were bloodshot, and he wordlessly held Si Chu’s hand. The secretary respectfully nodded to Xiao Zhenyun and said, “Chairman, Mr. Si Chu, we have contacted three S-level guides who are on their way. The White Tower and the Union are also actively contacting higher-level guides for Mr. Si Di. Please take care of yourselves.”

What endangers a sentinel’s life is often not physical injuries, as their strong regenerative abilities can often perform miracles of revival. It is the traumas inflicted on their spirits that can truly claim their lives. The key lies in finding a higher-level guide with a high compatibility to reconstruct and stabilize Si Di’s spiritual domain.

Xiao Zhenyun had already known the final outcome of tonight, but he didn’t reveal the slightest bit on his face. The secretary glanced at him and suddenly asked, “Chairman, are you feeling hot?”

“Huh?” Xiao Zhenyun looked back at him in confusion, only to discover that he had unconsciously unbuttoned two buttons of his collar, exposing his straight collarbone.

At this moment, his hand was resting on the third button, which was already halfway undone. His frail and sickly body couldn’t tolerate the slightest chill, so he usually dressed warmly when going outside. It made his disheveled appearance at this moment particularly abrupt.

Upon hearing the secretary’s words, Xiao Zhenyun finally realized the unbearable heat throughout his body. It was making his thoughts slow.

“Are you feeling unwell? Do you need to rest first?”

“…I’m fine.” Xiao Zhenyun supported his forehead and waved his hand. He couldn’t leave yet. According to the novel’s plot, he had to accompany Si Chu until news of Si Di’s death came out.

“Uncle, you should go rest,” Si Chu said with red eyes. “You’re not in good health. Feiran and I will take care of it.”

“No,” Xiao Zhenyun firmly refused. “Uncle will stay with you.”

Seeing his resolute attitude, the others stopped trying to persuade him. However, Xiao Zhenyun’s condition worsened. Within seven or eight minutes, his breathing became heavy, his chest visibly rising and falling, and the rosy color on his cheeks spread to the back of his neck.

The secretary was not a sentinel or a guide; he was just an ordinary person. However, both sons of the boss were sentinels, so he had a thorough understanding of the special abilities. Xiao Zhenyun’s current state resembled an bonding fever, but wasn’t he suffering from severe spiritual damage due to being kidnapped in his childhood and soaking in seawater overnight during the winter? Even his spiritual domain had disappeared, so how could he have an bonding fever?

Moreover, a guide’s bonding fever required a sentinel with a high compatibility to forcefully induce it. Where would they find such a sentinel around here?

Crucially, an bonding fever would inevitably cause certain physical abnormalities… The secretary discreetly glanced at Xiao Zhenyun’s lower abdomen. It was still flat, showing no signs of reaction.

After several moments of confusion, Xiao Zhenyun decisively decided to find a rest room and lie down. After all, what’s the point of following the plot if he loses his life?

The secretary didn’t waste any time and efficiently went to the nurse station to handle the procedures, clearing out a clean ward for Xiao Zhenyun. After helping him lie down, the secretary turned around and rushed back to the emergency room to oversee the situation.

“Wait, when there’s news about Si Di…” His overheated brain rusted to a halt. He almost blurted out, ‘When Si Di dies.’ Fortunately, he caught himself in time. “…Wake me up.”

“Okay, Chairman.” The secretary closed the door behind him.

Lying in bed, Xiao Zhenyun didn’t immediately fall into a deep sleep. He felt that this illness came suddenly and inexplicably. He cursed the useless body he inherited through time travel while struggling to operate the terminal. He wanted to call the administrator who was sleeping in his house.

The hot sweat blurred his vision, and his eyelashes were moist and stuck together. Xiao Zhenyun raised his hand to wipe the sweat from the corners of his eyes, intending to focus and find the person’s name in the contacts. However, his peripheral vision suddenly touched something strange in the corner. He was instantly startled, turned his head, and saw a two-meter-long black dog standing in the room, gazing at him intently.

No, this was not a dog. Its snout was long and narrow, revealing a fierce and malicious expression. It was clearly a wolf in its prime. As the wolf leisurely walked out from the shadows, Xiao Zhenyun noticed its distinctiveness. Its face was split in half—left side grayish-white, right side pure black. It was a clean and straightforward combination of a white wolf and a black wolf forcibly stitched together.

The grayish-white half had a blue beast’s eye, while the black side had a golden eye. The face embodied the extreme duality of yin and yang. However, its body was completely black, with glossy fur. Its slender limbs and abdominal muscles were lean but strong, full of explosive power. Xiao Zhenyun had no doubt that this wolf alone could kill three of him.

Ninety percent of the animals that appeared in the special hospital were not real animals but the spiritual forms of sentinels and guides. Guides’ spiritual forms were usually gentle herbivores or omnivores, while sentinels were often carnivorous predators. This wolf was clearly the spiritual form of a sentinel.

He wondered why it had entered his resting room and how it managed to do so. He was certain that the secretary had checked and locked every window of this ward before leaving.

The black wolf approached aggressively, its pupils filled with greed and ferocity. Its thick claws stepped on the floor tiles, as if it would pounce on Xiao Zhenyun’s throat in the next second.

Without hesitation, Xiao Zhenyun reached back to press the bedside call button, but to his surprise, there was no call button or even a bed at the bedside. He sat in the midst of nothingness, with only the wolf before his eyes.

The eerie and supernatural scene momentarily startled Xiao Zhenyun, but he soon realized that the current situation must be related to some mental projection of a sentinel or guide. His physical body remained in the ward while his consciousness was pulled into this strange place.

Unfortunately, even in this mental projection, his legs remained paralyzed and unable to move.

The black wolf didn’t give him much time to think. It let out a low growl from its chest, revealing its fierce and terrifying appearance with its protruding fangs. Its hind legs slightly bent, preparing to leap.

Xiao Zhenyun didn’t hesitate and a stag, as tall as him when he was sitting, appeared out of thin air behind him. The stag had a commanding presence, shielding its master. With a lowered head, it signaled its sturdy antlers to the black wolf, warning it not to make any rash moves.

But the black wolf showed no signs of fear. It roared and pounced forward, its sharp teeth inches away from the stag’s slender neck. The stag didn’t back down either. It turned its head to use its antlers to strike the wolf’s vulnerable abdomen. In return, the wolf scratched the stag, leaving several bloody marks, while also delivering a powerful kick to the wolf’s head.

Xiao Zhenyun didn’t want to be caught up in the battle of spiritual forms, but he also didn’t want to crawl on the ground with his arms like a helpless person. Fortunately, the black wolf turned out to be a crafty individual. For some reason, it was quickly subdued by the stag. It lay on the ground, its four legs pointing upwards, exposing its soft belly fur, whimpering like a submissive young animal beneath the stag.

This whimper pleased the stag, which towered over the defeated black wolf. The stag viewed it from above, showcasing its submission. After a while, the stag even lowered its body, sniffing the scent on the black wolf’s body. The black wolf also turned its head, its nostrils twitching, lightly sniffing the scent near the stag’s neck.

Due to the need for secrecy, Xiao Zhenyun had never revealed his spiritual form in front of anyone other than the administrator. Perhaps this was the first spiritual form this stag had come into contact with. Curiosity was normal.

The two animals sniffed each other for a long time. Then, as if reaching some agreement, the black wolf’s tail actually wagged back and forth. It lifted its front paws and lightly stepped on the stag’s chest, left and right. The stag folded its legs and sat next to the wolf, extending its tongue to lick the black fur that had been messed up during the fight.

The wolf closed its eyes in enjoyment and affectionately rubbed its cheek against the stag’s side, but the stag didn’t respond warmly. It tilted its head back to avoid it, but unfortunately, it couldn’t completely dodge, allowing the wolf to rub its scent all over. Then, it lowered its head and continued leisurely licking and nibbling the wolf’s ears and the surrounding fur.

With the stag’s movements, the excessive heat throughout Xiao Zhenyun’s body quickly dissipated, replaced by an exhaustion that radiated from within, as if he had been walking through a desert for three days and nights, suffering from unbearable thirst. He didn’t want to move a finger.

Xiao Zhenyun was completely fed up with the multiple and diverse symptoms of his second-hand body. He just wanted to quickly advance the plot, instantly reach the end of the entire story, and be free from pain.

He didn’t know when, but in his weariness, he lost consciousness. When he was awakened from his slumber by the secretary, he felt an overwhelming sense of exhaustion throughout his body, as if all his energy had been drained, leaving him weak and feeble. His temples throbbed.

“The lights in the emergency room have gone out,” the secretary hastily informed him.

Xiao Zhenyun suppressed his dizziness and adjusted his wrinkled clothes. Resting didn’t improve his mental state; on the contrary, it worsened. Due to the urgency of the situation, he didn’t tell the secretary about what had happened in the ward, but silently controlled the wheelchair with the secretary’s help and returned to the emergency room.

Just as they reached the room, the door opened, and a doctor walked out, his face full of exhaustion as he removed his mask. Many unfamiliar guides had gathered on both sides of the corridor, and Si Chu’s parents had arrived, looking disheveled. They stood up as soon as they saw the door open and went to greet them.

According to the plot, the doctor would express regret and say they had done their best, and Si Chu would almost fall into a state of mental madness. Xiao Zhenyun would comfort him as an elder: ‘Accept my condolences.’

Strangely, at this moment, although the doctor was tired, there was a smile in his eyes as he spoke, “The patient’s vital signs are stable, and he’s temporarily out of danger. He will be transferred to the ICU…”

Xiao Zhenyun: “Condo—”

Xiao Zhenyun: “?”

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