What You Deserve

At noon, the sunlight was scorching.

Wu Zhong was shaken awake by a nurse on a hospital bed.

ECG leads were attached all over his body, including his hands and feet, and he was on an IV drip. After removing the IV for him, the nurse began packing up the ECG machine.

"You're awake. Get up yourself," the nurse instructed in a slight accent before wheeling the machine out.

Wu Zhong sat up blankly and looked around. This was the hospital's emergency intensive care unit.

Then he looked at the brochure on the wall. "Rong City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine? Huh? How did I end up in Chengdu?"

He had no memory whatsoever of how he had gotten here.

A man lay in the neighboring bed as well, waking up with the same baffled look.

Wu Zhong ignored him and walked straight out.

But he quickly realized something was wrong.

"Huh? Why am I wearing a dress?"

Wu Zhong froze in shock, only then noticing that his clothes had changed.

Looking again, even his skin tone had changed, becoming much fairer and more delicate.

His entire figure was slender and trim, with long legs proportioned like a supermodel's.

"Ah, this, this, this..."

Wu Zhong realized that this was another skin-changing outfit. What had happened?

Why was he here? Why had his clothes been changed?

At the same time, the man in the next bed screamed and began fumbling with his clothes, lowering his head to inspect himself.

Wu Zhong paused, then looked at him tentatively. "Debiao?"

The other person looked up in a daze. It was Yang Chunsha.

"Brother Wu? What's going on?"

Wu Zhong felt utterly miserable. "You're asking me? Who am I supposed to ask?"

"Should we switch clothes first?"

"How are we supposed to switch?" Yang Chunsha felt around on the bed and found her phone.

She looked at the phone. "Ah! It's August 25th?"

Wu Zhong snatched it over for a look. "We slept for two days?"

Luo Yi had come on the night of the 23rd. It was already noon on the 25th.

"Do you have Brother Xia's number?"

Yang Chunsha shook her head. "No, but I can contact him using Plant Communication."

The two looked toward the bedside at once. Sure enough, there was a fruit platter there, apparently deliberately left behind.

Yang Chunsha picked up an apple and seemed to wait for someone to answer.

Wu Zhong suddenly became wary and snatched the apple away. "Don't make the call here. Let's go outside first."

What he was actually worried about was Yang Chunsha contacting someone else.

After all, he remembered that Luo Yi had mocked Xia Heng for merely trying to scare people and had told Yang Chunsha that he had not taken poison.

With that knowledge, Yang Chunsha might find the nerve to sell him out.

"Oh."

Yang Chunsha had clearly thought of that too and rolled her eyes at Wu Zhong.

The two left the intensive care unit. Wu Zhong went to the information desk and asked, "Excuse me, why was I lying in there?"

The nurse at the desk clearly knew the situation. "Alcohol poisoning."

Wu Zhong's mouth twitched. After asking a few more questions, he finally understood.

Xia Heng had brought the two of them here, and they had already been wearing these clothes when they arrived.

They had already been poisoned for an entire day by the time they arrived, so the emergency department had administered medicine.

"I drank so much that day, I drank myself into amnesia," Wu Zhong sighed.

Yang Chunsha recalled, "I remember you went downstairs and bought over a hundred jin of baijiu. You cleared out two stores and carried it all up in three trips."

Wu Zhong remembered too. "Right... Brother Xia drank for a while, then said he had something to do and slipped away."

"Damn it, after that, I was the one drinking with that monster."

Yang Chunsha protested, "I drank a lot too, okay?"

Wu Zhong rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine, you're amazing. Next time, you drink with him. I'm quitting alcohol."

"This is ridiculous. He drank me straight into alcohol poisoning."

Yang Chunsha froze, then hurriedly shook her head. "No, no, you should still drink with him. You're the one who wants to join the Madblood Clan. I'm not qualified."

The night before, she had been extremely proactive in currying favor with Luo Yi.

She had clearly wanted to join the Madblood Clan. Even without Mental Bastion, it was still an extremely useful trait.

But after hearing the price of the Embrace, she knew she had no chance. Or rather, investing in Wu Zhong gave her more hope.

"Let's go change clothes first!"

Wu Zhong pulled Yang Chunsha toward the restroom.

Once there, they faced a problem. Which side should they go into?

"We don't have any other clothes. We can only go into the same stall," Yang Chunsha said faintly.

Wu Zhong said, "We still have to change! Into the men's room!"

He dragged Yang Chunsha into the men's room. A man who was urinating jumped in fright. "Huh?"

To everyone else, it looked like a supermodel-level woman had stormed into the men's room while aggressively dragging a man behind her. The man, on the other hand, turned his face away, looking rather shy.

"What are you doing? What are you doing?" The bystander was so frightened that he shrank back, turned away, and retreated into a corner.

Wu Zhong ignored him and forced himself to enter the same stall with Yang Chunsha.

The bystander stared wide-eyed, utterly stunned.

After putting on his pants, he faced the stall where the sounds of clothes being removed were coming from and slowly backed toward the door.

When he reached the door, though, he could not bear to leave. He kept staring at the stall, shock in his eyes, growing more alarmed the more he thought about it.

He pulled out his phone and held down the voice-message button. "Honey, come look! There are two perverts fooling around in the restroom."

Yet not long after, the stall door opened, and a man and a woman came out again.

"That fast?" The bystander shrank to the side to make way, muttering as he looked at Wu Zhong.

Wu Zhong's face darkened. He had merely swapped skin-changing outfits with Yang Chunsha while standing back-to-back.

So their faces were still the same as before.

"What are you looking at? Never seen a handsome guy before?"

After shouting that, Wu Zhong dragged Yang Chunsha away at a run.

The bystander did not dare talk back. He waited until a man came rushing over to watch the show.

The bystander immediately grabbed him and pointed at Wu Zhong's retreating back. "Honey, say something! He yelled at me."

Wu Zhong heard the commotion from far away and quickened his pace even more.

He and Yang Chunsha rushed out of the hospital and across the street, with no idea where they should go.

"I'm starving. Let's get something to eat first."

The two ate at a noodle shop across from the hospital. Wu Zhong wolfed down two huge bowls and drank two bottles of milk before finally feeling better.

Yang Chunsha glanced at him and said faintly, "The fruit platter left by my hospital bed was Brother Xia's way of telling me to contact him... Give me the apple."

After thinking for a moment, Wu Zhong gave it to her.

Yang Chunsha held the apple and waited for a while before speaking quietly. "Brother Xia, it's me... Yes, I'm awake. He's here too. We're eating noodles outside the hospital."

"Huh? Why do I have to speak? Because my big brother doesn't know this can be done through telepathy."

Wu Zhong saw that her replies were natural and simple, and that she had not even mentioned his name.

And since they could communicate telepathically without speaking aloud, Yang Chunsha had clearly had plenty of chances to betray his information without waiting until now.

Once Wu Zhong thought it through, he felt guilty for suspecting that she might betray him.

Come to think of it, this woman had also inadvertently saved his life in the Dark Tunnel.

"Here." Yang Chunsha tossed the apple to Wu Zhong. "Take your apple. Keep the plants away from me."

Seeing that she was sulking, Wu Zhong hurriedly smiled. "My bad, my bad. I didn't mean anything by it. I'd just woken up, so my head wasn't clear yet."

Yang Chunsha got up to pay. Wu Zhong had nothing on him now, while Yang Chunsha still had a phone.

"Wait here. They'll be here soon."

The two waited for a while. Wu Zhong tried talking to her, but she barely responded.

Xia Heng had said "soon," but that soon turned into a full two hours!

It was not until even the shop owner started looking at them strangely that Xia Heng, in his skin-changing form, finally sauntered in from outside.

He patted Yang Chunsha on the shoulder. "Little Wu, let's go."

Wu Zhong stood up. "Brother Xia, I'm the one—"

Xia Heng raised an eyebrow. "You switched back?"

He gave a light laugh and motioned for the two of them to follow him.

The car was outside, with Luo Yi in the driver's seat drinking milk tea.

Once all four were seated, the car drove straight out of the city.

"Brother Xia, Master Luo, what exactly happened? Where did you two go?"

Xia Heng kept watching outside the window. "What else could it have been? A mercenary group found us."

Mercenaries—and a whole damn group?

Wu Zhong turned serious. "Where? Then what happened?"

Xia Heng explained that after they had drunk together last time, he and Yang Chunsha had blacked out.

But Luo Yi assumed they were simply asleep and kept drinking by himself. When Xia Heng returned, he drove them away from Star City.

After driving for an entire day, Xia Heng tried to wake them, only to discover that they could not be awakened and were unconscious.

That was when he realized they had severe alcohol poisoning, so he drove late into the night and brought them all the way to a hospital in Chengdu.

They had been rushing along the road and noticed nothing. But after entering the city and making several turns, they realized someone was following them.

After discussing it, they decided Luo Yi would lure the other party away, find somewhere to trade blows with the tracker, and probe their strength.

Xia Heng would use the chance to get out of the car, take the two of them to the hospital, and then go support Luo Yi.

To be safe, they had also changed Wu Zhong and Yang Chunsha's clothes and appearances.

After all, they did not know when that person had started following them. Who knew whether they had already memorized Wu Zhong's skin-changing appearance?

"So that's what happened... Wait, we're on the run. We really can't be drinking, can we?"

"That night was insane, Master Luo. You almost drank me to death!"

Wu Zhong felt like crying. He had not been killed by the enemy, only to be drunk to death by his own people...

Luo Yi gave an awkward laugh. "You're a little too weak, aren't you? Don't panic, don't panic. If anything really happened to you, I could bite you once and you'd pull through."

"Later, once we're out of the city and find somewhere secluded, I'll give you the Embrace."

Wu Zhong jolted. Just by drinking with him, he had really agreed?

He still acted a little reserved. "Uh, is that really okay? Master Luo, isn't your price too high?"

Xia Heng, sitting in the passenger seat, could not hold it in any longer. There was anger in his voice. "Enough. Stop thinking like a poor man."

"I wanted to curse you awake that night. Do you know how many people want to become part of the Madblood Clan? Yang Chunsha knew she had no chance, yet she still craved it. What the hell are you being modest for?"

"Once you back away from some things, you'll never get another chance. In the Calamity Realm, that mindset only has two endings: either you die, or you become useless."

Wu Zhong was stunned. "Brother Xia, I just thought that the price—"

Xia Heng cut him off. "Don't say it. You think about others, but who the hell thinks about you?"

"Why do you care how high the price is? No one understands it better than he does. Does Luo Yi not have a brain? He'll weigh the pros and cons himself. Does he need you to remind him?"

Wu Zhong had not expected Xia Heng to suddenly lose his temper with him.

"Brother Xia... The greater his price, the greater the conditions you have to pay... You've already helped me too many times..."

Xia Heng said coldly, "That's none of your damn business either. Do I not have a brain?"

"You can think of me and worry that you won't be able to repay me later. I know all that, and I'm glad."

"But if I'm willing to help you fight for it, that means I value you. Just accept it."

"What I give you represents what you deserve. Don't be afraid to bear it, and don't ever feel like you're unworthy!"

He had hit the nail on the head. Wu Zhong's entire body shook, leaving him speechless.

It was true. He really did feel unworthy.

He always felt like he did not want to owe others too much, carrying a sort of impoverished pride.

But in truth, if someone was willing to give it to him, that meant he was qualified to receive it. There was no need to feel pressured.

He could repay what he owed later. There was no need to fear the burden. Things were no longer as they had been before. He needed to seize good things first and strengthen himself.

Having understood this, Wu Zhong's gaze became solemn. "I understand. You're right, Brother Xia. Thank you for valuing me so highly."

"I'll always remember what you taught me and the help you gave me. I won't let you down."

"No matter what Brother Xia has paid for me, I'll repay it double in the future."

He said it with utmost seriousness, because he had realized something else.

Xia Heng and Luo Yi had negotiated terms after he and Yang Chunsha had blacked out... Could they have been extraordinarily precious terms? So precious, and so secret, that no one else could hear them?

In that case, had Luo Yi deliberately gotten him drunk despite knowing his tolerance was ordinary, all so he could raise those terms?

Once Wu Zhong considered this possibility, he felt that Xia Heng must have paid an enormous price for him.

How could he not be grateful?

Hearing this, Xia Heng realized that Wu Zhong had understood. His expression relaxed. "I truly think highly of you. You can think of it as me investing in you."

"How you performed when your life was on the line showed me your potential. You were only suppressed by life for too long in the past... I believe in my judgment."

"And all you need to do is stay alive and grow stronger."