One Piece of Good News, One Piece of Bad News (Part Two)

Suzhou First Affiliated Hospital, thirteenth floor, VIP suite 7.

"Awake?"

An icy voice echoed through the hospital room.

Su Bai opened his eyes and shook his heavy, dizzy head. Only after a long while did his mind clear somewhat, and he looked toward the voice.

The layers upon layers of bandages wrapped around his face severely obstructed his vision. He could only vaguely make out a short-haired girl sitting on the sofa.

"Who are you?"

"Chu Ning."

"That name... sounds familiar. Where am I?"

"The hospital."

"Did you save me?"

Chu Ning had answered Su Bai's first two questions quickly, almost blurting out the answers, but the third made her frown.

Chu Ning thought for a moment, then got up, walked to the edge of the balcony, and gave the silky white curtain a hard tug.

Swish-

Golden light filled the entire hospital room almost instantly, bringing warmth with it.

Su Bai instinctively raised a hand to shield his eyes from the dazzling sunlight, but accidentally tugged at his wound. He bared his teeth in pain as cold sweat poured down his face.

Only then did Chu Ning give her answer. "I did hack that little girl who wanted to eat you to death."

Su Bai closed his eyes and carefully recalled the scene before he lost consciousness. He leafed through his memories like still photographs, and among the images flashing past, he found exactly what he was looking for: the valiant figure of Chu Ning leaping out with a sword in hand.

At the time, Chu Ning had worn a baseball cap and a skintight black outfit, like an assassin walking through the dark night. Now she wore a white floral dress, looking just like the gentle, demure, innocent heroine of a TV drama who loved to lower her head and giggle.

It was hard to imagine why the same person could have two utterly different auras.

Su Bai opened his eyes again and gazed at Chu Ning. After a long silence, he said, "The medical bills... I'll pay them."

The director had once said that the hardest debt of gratitude to repay in the world was the debt owed for saving your life. Harder still was a debt owed to a pretty girl for saving your life.

Chu Ning walked over to the hospital bed and looked down at Su Bai. "When a Transcendent incident is involved, Section Seven covers all financial losses. Who are you, a snot-nosed kid, to make decisions on your own here?"

Su Bai froze for a moment. A snot-nosed kid?

If Gu Jiuge had called him that, Su Bai would have held his nose and accepted it. But Chu Ning looked only sixteen or seventeen, and Su Bai was indignant from the bottom of his heart.

"Might I ask your age, big sister?"

"Seventeen."

"Oh..." Su Bai couldn't help retorting, "I thought you were already seventy, big sister."

Hearing that, Chu Ning narrowed her eyes and smiled. "Big sister has a little question she wants to ask you. The little question is, what exactly is your Oracle? If you lie... big sister will chop up little brother."

Naturally, those words couldn't scare Su Bai.

The Grave Keepers weren't the mafia, and even the mafia wouldn't go around chopping people up over the slightest disagreement.

Besides, this was a society governed by la-

Shing!

A short dagger gleaming with a chill pressed against Su Bai's lower abdomen. It easily sliced through three layers of bandages and kept sliding downward.

Holy fuck, that's not the little brother she meant.

Su Bai was scared out of his wits, wanting to cry but having no tears. "Big sister, I couldn't repay you for saving my life even in the underworld. Starting today, this dog's life of mine is yours. You just want to know my Oracle, right? I'll tell you, I'll tell you! Wrath! My Oracle is Wrath!"

The Grave Keepers really weren't the mafia. They were way scarier than the mafia, weren't they?!

First came Gu Jiuge, who drew his blade and started hacking at the slightest disagreement. Then came Qingxue, who said she was testing him and drew her bow and shot without a thought for the consequences. Finally, there was Chu Ning, who went wild with a dagger whenever a conversation turned sour. Were there any normal people in the Grave Keepers?

Could this bunch of violent maniacs whose brains had been kicked by a donkey really protect the peace in Suzhou?

And they'd talked about creating one great, untold story after another. Was this the fucking great story they meant?

"So that's how it is. No wonder that bastard Gu Jiuge wanted to withhold my filing report."

Chu Ning put away the dagger, and her crazed expression gradually returned to normal. She patted Su Bai's cheek, turned, and walked over to sit on the sofa. She rested her two beautiful, jade-white legs lightly on the table, putting on the air of a street thug. Propping up her chin, she asked coolly:

"One piece of good news and one piece of bad news. Which do you want to hear first?"

The sight was beautiful, but Su Bai didn't dare let his eyes wander. He forced a smile. "The good news first."

Chu Ning sneered. "The good news is, there's no bad news."

Su Bai was speechless. What the fuck, are you messing with me? Believe it or not, I'll slap you...

But Chu Ning's icy gaze made Su Bai banish those jumbled thoughts.

Su Bai nodded solemnly. "That really is good news. So the bad news is that there's no good news?"

"No..." Chu Ning slowly shook her head. "The bad news is, there really is bad news. You were unconscious for three days and missed the college entrance exam. Congratulations. As of this very moment, you've become a proud exam failure."

Su Bai's smile froze on his face.

The moment he woke up, he had actually already guessed that he had missed the exam. After all, the little girl had injured him so severely that surviving was already a stroke of luck. He truly didn't dare hope for more.

"Right now, you have two choices."

As Chu Ning spoke, she took out two prepared documents, waved them in Su Bai's direction, then lightly tossed them onto the table.

Su Bai stared into Chu Ning's eyes. "If I'm not mistaken, one of those documents is a contract for me to join the Grave Keepers... Looks like Gu Jiuge still hasn't given up."

Chu Ning nodded. "He's a bastard, but his judgment of a situation has always been far more accurate than an ordinary person's. Before, I didn't know why he kept inviting you to join us again and again, but now I think I understand what he had in mind."

Su Bai was utterly baffled. "What did he have in mind?"

Chu Ning didn't answer. Instead, she picked up the second document and began leafing through it on her own.

"Your hospital diagnosis says you have hereditary leukemia. Normally, even if your parents had leukemia, the chance of inheriting it would be very low. But clearly, your luck wasn't good. Even though you've suppressed the illness with medication, the chance of a relapse is high if you don't receive effective follow-up treatment.

"Given your situation, we're offering you two options. The first is to join the Grave Keepers. As long as you can go far enough in the Transcendent field, your bloodline rank will keep rising. What I mean is, if you can one day become a top-tier third-rank Transcendent, your genetic sequence will undergo a major change, and you'll never have to suffer from this illness again.

"The second option is that we'll provide you with a university with top-tier credentials to attend. Its name is 'Jialidun.' As long as you focus on your studies, we'll provide your tuition and scholarships every year. Believe me, the money will be enough to cover your subsequent medical treatment. Every three to five months, a specially assigned team of medical experts will also come to assess your condition.

"Don't ask me why, because 'Jialidun' University is a lousy name Gu Jiuge came up with on the spot. The university was only established yesterday, and it's located in room 807, building 13, Jingtai Square. At present, the school has no teachers, no students, and not even a president, only a few forged top-tier credentials. All its available space combined amounts to only a few dozen square meters. It's a university established specifically for you.

"The only benefit of attending 'Jialidun' University is that you can obtain a genuine prestigious university graduation document after four years without studying any academic subjects at all... What I mean is, you can get a diploma from any prestigious university in the world, whichever one you choose."

Su Bai was silent for a full thirty seconds. "Is this... playing house?"

Chu Ning closed the document. "Yes, playing house. Because you told him you wanted to be a university student, he went and put on this little show. Pretty childish, isn't it?"

"Old Gu, you had that crazy girl take those two documents to Su Bai. Aren't you afraid the kid will laugh at you?"

Gu Jiuge glanced at Li Ming and said softly, "I just wanted to tell him a simple truth."

"What truth?"

"Only children have the right to choose. Adults have no choice at all. That's the way life usually is."

Cursing heaven for its favoritism while struggling with all one's might to survive in the cracks.

That was life.