Era of Mist

Dazed and confused, the world spun around him. He was utterly lost.

It was as if his consciousness was shrouded in a deep, black fog.

But this time was different from the last.

He didn’t know if it was because his Mind Force cultivation was higher or for some other reason, but this time Shi Tiexin wasn’t as muddled and disoriented in the darkness as before. In a daze, he seemed to see a thin, almost imperceptible ray of light piercing through the entire dark fog, projecting from some unknown point to another.

Shi Tiexin felt as if he were fording a great, flooded river with a safety rope. The thin ray of light was that rope, while the boundless, dark fog was the turbulent, dangerous river—a river he could never have crossed on his own. But perhaps some power was protecting him, because in the end, Shi Tiexin safely followed the light to its very end.

WHOOSH. A light seemed to tear through the darkness.

In a daze, Shi Tiexin slowly opened his eyes. He stared blankly upward. The first thing he saw was a white surface. ’Huh... a ceiling? No, definitely not. A ceiling should be at least four or five meters high. This pure white, canopy-like thing is only about a foot from my face. I could reach out and touch it.’

Shi Tiexin’s senses returned rapidly, and he quickly regained control over his body. The moment he thought of raising his hand, it shot up, unbelievably nimble. ’This response time, this low latency, this flexibility and agility... this is definitely my original body!’

’It feels so good to be back in my own body!’

He reached out and touched it. The white surface was cold and hard, but also strangely elastic. On the one hand, it was very sturdy; on the other, if he actually smashed his head against it, he’d probably just get dizzy at worst. There was no way he could kill himself on it.

Even for a simple piece of material, the workmanship looked incredibly high-tech.

’A material like this could never exist in the Champion Scholar Stone’s world line.’

BEEP BEEP. A sound chirped near his ear, not far from his head. Shi Tiexin shook his head. His neck made a cracking sound—CRACK—and it still ached a little. He turned his head to the left and saw a display screen less than a foot from his face. The screen displayed his various parameters.

Patient ID: 7F964DE28

Vitals: Height: 204.93 cm, Weight: 106.4 kg

Condition: Moderate External Trauma

Treatment Status: Phase One Treatment Complete. Consciousness Restored.

Below that were some electrocardiogram displays and other graphics. The information seemed quite comprehensive and intuitive, allowing Shi Tiexin to understand his situation at a glance.

’Am I... in a hospital?’ Shi Tiexin looked all around, then craned his neck to look toward his feet. He discovered he was lying in a coffin-like enclosure about one meter wide, just over thirty centimeters high, and around two point two meters long.

The high-fiber sheet beneath him was comfortable enough, but for a man of his size, the "coffin" was too narrow to even turn over in. He could only lie flat on his back.

But Shi Tiexin wasn’t worried about that. The first thing he did was raise a hand to rub his face. Then, he took a deep breath and let out a vigorous, rapid-fire stream of words: "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers!"

’Whoa, it worked! It really worked! I actually said the whole tongue twister without a hitch!’

’Oh, thank heavens! Nothing beats my own body! After being stifled for so long, I’m finally back in my own body and can speak freely!’

’I can’t hold it in anymore. I have this irrepressible urge to talk, and I have to let it out! Hmm, I remember reading an interesting classical tongue twister somewhere. Let’s try something more advanced today!’

"The sixth sick sheikh’s sixth sheep’s sick—" ’Sweet mother of pearl, this feeling of just letting the words fly is enough to bring a tear to my eye! And I feel like my tongue is even nimbler than before. Is it because my Basic Rhetoric skill improved?’

’Alright, alright, let me keep going!’

"The sixth sick sheikh’s sixth sheep’s sick is si—WHOA—!!"

He’d barely gotten two more lines out when a tremendous force came from above his head. It felt like being in a high-performance sports car when the driver floors it, that massive feeling of being slammed back in your seat—’Er, except this is more like being slammed by my head,’ he thought—and Shi Tiexin felt his entire body, along with the ’coffin,’ shoot out with a WHOOSH.

It was just like being electronically catapulted from a fighter jet! His neck snapped with a CRACK, and it hurt quite a bit.

The ceiling above hadn’t moved, but a light glowed from below his feet. With a long RATTLE, the motion came to a CLANGING halt, the jolt so strong it made every muscle in his body tremble. When Shi Tiexin came to his senses, he realized the slab he was lying on had shot out like a drawer.

He looked up and back toward where he’d come from. It was a giant wall of cabinets, filled with countless "drawers." He had just been ejected from one of them.

When he looked down again, Shi Tiexin saw someone.

This person...

Shi Tiexin’s eyes widened. To put it bluntly—she was an angel in white.

Before him was a very pretty and beautiful Nurse Sister, with delicate, willow-thin eyebrows and an oval face. Wearing a nurse’s cap and uniform, she was leaning over with a gentle expression, looking down at Shi Tiexin on the slab.

His gaze drifted downward, and he immediately noticed the young woman’s full chest... ’No, no, I’m not a pervert—well, okay, maybe I am one. I got pretty into that physiology textbook I was reading before, I can’t deny it.’

’But that’s not why I was looking!’

A name tag was pinned to her chest, and it read: Tumu Castle Upper City Central Hospital, Head Nurse, General Treatment Department, Shi Yu Hui.

’Upper City Central Hospital?’

"You’re awake?" Head Nurse Shi Yu Hui’s voice was very pleasant, and she didn’t seem to mind his wandering eyes.

Shi Tiexin hurried to sit up, only to find his back and waist still ached. The pain wasn’t sharp, but it felt bone-deep. ’Looks like I took a real beating,’ he thought. He looked around; the environment outside the cabinet wasn’t bad. Puzzled, he asked, "How did I end up at Upper City Central Hospital?"

"You were beaten, passed out, and dumped on the side of the road. Someone found you and sent you to our hospital. It’s that simple." Shi Yu Hui looked Shi Tiexin up and down, her caring expression heartwarming. "How do you feel? Are you nauseous? Dizzy? Is your head okay? Try and see, can you still think rationally?"

As she spoke, Shi Yu Hui took out a transparent, double-sided display panel. There were a few numbers on it. "Can you still recognize numbers? Read them out for me."

’With today’s medical technology, can’t they find this out with a scan? Why does she have to ask?’ Still, Shi Tiexin didn’t know if this was some kind of advanced confirmation method, so he obediently recited, "1246."

"Very good. You can recognize numbers and you’re thinking rationally. That makes things much simpler." Shi Yu Hui held out her hand, her face breaking into a gentle, standard-issue nurse’s smile. "Hand it over."

"What?"

"The medical fees." The Nurse Sister’s smile was quite lovely. "Your insurance company’s records show you only have basic survival insurance, not even the most rudimentary medical plan. Without medical insurance, you’ll naturally have to pay out of pocket."