In the darkness, the smell of disinfectant seeped into his nostrils. Stimulated by the scent, Sun Hang's eyelids twitched twice before he slowly opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was a rectangular ceiling light. Its stark, cold white glow was utterly lifeless, but the frosted glass cover at least made it less blinding.
"Where... is... this? I..." Sun Hang tried to recall what had happened before he lost consciousness, but a stabbing pain deep in his brain immediately made him abandon the attempt.
"Mr. Sun, you're awake?" A young woman's voice sounded beside him. Sun Hang turned his head and saw a young nurse in a pink uniform dress, holding a chart board in her arms. "I have good news for you. Your surgery was a success."
Surgery? A success?
Sun Hang froze for a moment, and his right hand beneath the blanket instinctively moved between his legs.
Thank goodness. Everything that should be there was still there.
"Why... am I... here? What happened to me? What... surgery?" he asked with some difficulty. His voice was exceedingly stiff and hoarse, making him sound like a man in his fifties or sixties.
Sun Hang realized that aside from his own name, he remembered nothing.
"Temporary amnesia is a normal aftereffect. After all, your brain suffered severe trauma." Another male voice came from behind him. Sun Hang turned his head in the other direction—there stood a doctor in a white coat. A mask covered most of his face, while thick, neatly styled black-framed glasses concealed the rest.
"Severe... trauma? What... happened to me?"
"During the Anomaly attack incident that occurred not long ago, a stray bullet struck you in the head," the doctor said. "Fortunately, your hard skull altered the bullet's trajectory, so it did not cause a fatal injury. The bullet has now been removed, and you are out of danger. You only need to rest and recover. As for the amnesia, it is only temporary. After recuperating for some time, your memories will gradually return."
"Anomaly attack incident? A stray bullet?" The doctor's brief explanation contained an amount of information that could only be described as explosive. Sun Hang felt as though his head hurt even more.
"Change the dressing for the first time in forty-eight hours. Keep a close watch for possible postoperative complications." The doctor did not continue answering Sun Hang's questions. Instead, he looked up at the nurse across from the bed. "If any abnormalities appear in his vital signs, notify the doctor on duty immediately."
"Understood, Director," the nurse replied with a nod.
The two soon left, leaving Sun Hang alone in the hospital bed, staring blankly at the ceiling light.
For some reason, Sun Hang felt that the pale light seemed a little too cold.
It would be nice if it were a warm light instead.
In a daze, the pale cold light suddenly turned warm yellow. Then, every light in the ward began flickering violently. The next second, all the lights went out at once, leaving only the emergency sign near the base of the wall giving off a faint green glow.
"What happened? Did the power trip?" a nurse's voice came from the corridor outside the ward... It seemed that Sun Hang's room was not the only one affected. The corridor outside had also gone completely dark.
"I don't know. The nurses' station already called the electrician," another nurse answered.
Meanwhile, Sun Hang, lying in the hospital bed, had fallen into deep shock and doubt.
Had the change in the lighting and the power outage been caused by the thought that had just crossed his mind, or was it merely a coincidence?
But just as Sun Hang tried to think it through, the stabbing pain deep within his brain shattered his will again. He lay flat on the bed, staring rigidly at the black ceiling and gulping in air.
If the power had not gone out, the machine beside his bed monitoring his heart rate and blood pressure would probably have been blaring nonstop by now.
"What is this... What the hell is happening..." Sun Hang's chest rose and fell violently. He tried to sit up, but all four limbs began twitching uncontrollably.
His eyes widened. He instinctively opened his mouth to call for help, but it felt as though someone had clamped a hand tightly around his throat, and not a sound came out.
A drowning-like suffocating sensation dragged his consciousness bit by bit into an abyss. Just when Sun Hang thought he was about to lose consciousness again, every abnormal sensation abruptly vanished. His racing heart gradually calmed, and control over his body returned to him once more.
Click.
The lights came on, and everything in the ward returned to normal. A medical cart rolled past the door, and Sun Hang could vaguely hear the rubber wheels scraping against the floor, the faint clinks of ampoules against plastic racks, and the nurses' quiet complaints about the sudden outage.
Amid those subtle, noisy sounds, the crisp tapping of high heels against the floor cut through. The sound drew closer and closer, then finally stopped outside Sun Hang's room.
The owner of the heels pushed open the door and walked in.
"Hello, Mr. Sun." She was a tall woman dressed in a black suit jacket and black slacks, with the buttons of her white shirt fastened all the way to the top. Her meticulously made-up face showed no expression whatsoever.
"I'm sorry to disturb you when you most need rest, but there are some matters I must discuss with you promptly." She pulled over a chair from the side and sat down beside the bed.
"You are...?" Sun Hang asked instinctively. His gaze fell on her left breast, where a bronze badge signifying government employee status was pinned.
Although Sun Hang had lost his memories, such common knowledge had not been erased from his mind.
"I am a staff member responsible for handling the aftermath of the Anomaly attack incident," she said. "In this attack, the entire block was reduced to ruins. More than a hundred people died. Including you, only six survivors made it out alive."
Sun Hang said nothing and quietly waited for her to continue.
"On humanitarian grounds, we immediately rescued the survivors, including you, and advanced all the costs..." She paused before continuing, "However, apart from your name, we found no items at the scene that could verify your identity. Nor could your DNA be matched with any record in the citizen database. No tax records, no insurance contribution records, and no employment records..."
"I have amnesia..." Sun Hang frowned slightly. He had already caught a hint of what she was implying.
This was not looking good.
"I know you have amnesia, but regardless, based on the information currently available to us, we can only temporarily classify you as an unregistered person without citizenship, or a refugee who illegally entered from another City-state," she said flatly. "Our City-state has no obligation to provide you with free assistance. All expenses, including the surgery fee, will be recorded under your name as debt."
This woman had apparently come to settle accounts with him.
Sun Hang took a deep breath and asked, "How much do I owe you?"
"As of this moment, a total of 3,890,627 yuan."
"That much?" Sun Hang frowned slightly. He clearly remembered the purchasing power of money in this era—one million was absolutely a huge sum for an ordinary person. In his current penniless state, repaying this debt was practically impossible.
Unless he had been the rich second-generation type before losing his memory.
"Because you have neither citizenship nor medical insurance, all charges are billed in full, with no reductions or exemptions." Her voice was cold and devoid of emotion. "Every bullet, every drop of gasoline, and every surgical blade used to save you must be paid for in full by you personally."
"Then... what if I can't repay it?" Sun Hang narrowed his eyes.
He certainly could not produce nearly four million right now... He had no money to give, and as for his life... he was not particularly willing to give that either.
"That is the primary purpose of my visit." She took a tablet from the briefcase she carried with her. "As long as you sign this Employment contract and work off your debt, after completing a corresponding number of work assignments, our City-state can waive all your debt and the interest incurred by it, while also granting you legal citizenship."
"A Contract of servitude?" Sun Hang blurted out instinctively, stunned.
Before you continue