A Harmonious Family

"As long as my schizophrenia is cured, my body won't be in such poor shape!"

On the wooden bed, Zhang Xuezhou concentrated on sensing the tiny white seed inside his body.

Schizophrenia was a rather unusual illness, and conventional treatment relied on medication to suppress it.

That was manageable in the early stages, when medication could keep the mind clear. But as drug resistance and toxicity built up, the drugs' sedative effects grew weaker and weaker, until the patient finally flew into uncontrolled rages and lived in a mental world of their own.

Zhang Xuezhou had taken plenty of medication.

Medicine had been relatively easy to obtain in earlier years, but as the alliance nations continued to refine their rules and regulations, the only way to get it was through official channels at a hospital.

Once he went through official channels, there would be a record, and he would be counted among the mentally ill. Not only would he be labeled as such, but he would also inevitably have to take a leave of absence from school.

After going around in circles and calling on all sorts of connections, Zhang Xuezhou's parents finally sent him to a psychologist's private clinic.

It was called the Sunshine Psychologist Clinic, and its chief physician was surnamed Ren.

The doctor was professional and beautiful. Her only flaw was that she was blackhearted and charged exorbitant fees.

But compared with the consequences of going to a large public hospital, being fleeced by her wasn't so bad.

Zhang Xuezhou figured that once he got through these years of study and scraped together a diploma with some value to meet society's demands, he would definitely go to a large public hospital for medication and treatment.

He just hadn't expected the treatment instructions Doctor Ren gave him to produce some mysterious effects through cultivation.

Zhang Xuezhou felt as though the tightening headband curse had suddenly been lifted from his head, and thought that this blackhearted woman had done her part in treating his illness.

His vision had even become exceptionally sharp, allowing him to see all sorts of objects clearly in the faint predawn light.

When he looked closely, Zhang Xuezhou could even make out the little triangular pattern on the number theory book.

"Wait, is Doctor Ren's treatment actually working, or has my illness gotten worse and given me hallucinations?"

In the faint predawn light, Zhang Xuezhou shook his head, unsure for the moment what state he was in.

His perception seemed to have improved, and he could see more clearly wherever he looked, but Zhang Xuezhou couldn't rule out the possibility that his eyes were simply relaxed after being closed and rested for so long.

Even his mental symptoms had become somewhat strange.

"Lights on!"

Zhang Xuezhou called out softly, and the voice-activated wall lamp immediately shone brightly.

As usual, Zhang Xuezhou got up, washed, and began recording what he had perceived during his schizophrenic episodes.

"That python was frighteningly fierce, far more terrifying than those little pythons at the zoo!"

"The other me in my mental world seems to have been poisoned, and there are signs he's coughing up blood. If I'd known, I should have eaten chicken!"

"There's no way I could die from eating cooked meat. With so many people watching, I should be fine."

Zhang Xuezhou recorded everything in an alternative script with practiced ease, occasionally filling in gaps he couldn't put into words with drawings.

Every now and then, he also thought about the other him who had eaten the python meat.

But all he could do was think about him.

Outside the sleeping state he entered at night, even if he wanted to, it was difficult for him to enter that mental world of his.

Only after he had described the many things that had happened that day did Zhang Xuezhou switch to normal writing and write it all out again.

"That fellow surnamed Duan ate a toad and his power soared. Could eating Demon Beast meat have caused him to enter a realm too?"

After finishing the detailed record of his condition that he needed to submit to Doctor Ren, Zhang Xuezhou turned to the matter of paying her.

His current source of income was mainly the fees his father, Zhang Weimeng, earned from publishing serialized novels.

Zhang Weimeng had sworn he would become famous with one book and amass a fortune, but after serializing novels for several years and completing three or four of them, he could still only make enough to support the family.

Zhang Xuezhou logged into his messaging software and retrieved an offline file.

He looked over the novel titled Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils and checked the latest chapter for typos once more. After making the corrections, he logged into the Plagiarizing Jin Yong account, copied the novel into the author dashboard, and scheduled it for release.

There were 5,312 readers in total supporting them in the dashboard, and Zhang Xuezhou couldn't help sighing at the sight.

There weren't many fans of niche books, so Zhang Weimeng had little chance of becoming famous with one.

In this age of firearms, there weren't many armies carrying knives to hack at people.

Without an interest in such things, not many people read books about them either.

Zhang Xuezhou's only consolation was that the readership was relatively stable, so Zhang Weimeng's royalties rarely fluctuated much.

Besides the relatively steady royalties his father Zhang Weimeng provided each month, Zhang Xuezhou occasionally received money from his mother Song Fengying's travel livestreams.

But compared with Zhang Weimeng's novels, Song Fengying's livestream earnings were even worse. She rarely transferred more than a thousand yuan at a time.

Song Fengying also had to contribute to his older sister Zhang Manqian's living expenses from time to time, so she didn't transfer money to Zhang Xuezhou very often-only three to five times a year.

But although Song Fengying sent him money only rarely, Zhang Xuezhou gave her plenty of support.

After closing the author dashboard, Zhang Xuezhou opened the livestreaming software with practiced ease and found the account Xuanxuan Loves Traveling.

"Beauty, you're up early!"

Zhang Xuezhou sent a text message with a few emojis and tipped one yuan along the way.

"Thank you, Peerless Beauty, for the generous tip!"

Song Fengying was livestreaming the sunrise from a mountaintop. Zhang Xuezhou's tip made her eyes light up slightly, and she went on to greet the few bored viewers in the stream.

A smattering of tip notifications followed, and Song Fengying nodded in satisfaction.

Zhang Xuezhou thought his mother ought to find a more respectable job. Supporting a family through livestreaming was even more outrageously difficult than relying on the weather to make a living.

"Next time, change your sister's account name to something more controversial before you come support me. Those old bastards watching the stream won't loose their hawks until they see the rabbit. You need to tease them a little more and get the atmosphere going, so they'll get excited and tip, which will draw more people in!"

In a private message on the livestream account, Song Fengying sent him a resigned message.

"My sister says if I dare change her name and pretend to court you, she'll beat me to death when she comes home on break!"

"That ungrateful girl! She won't even change a name to support her own mother's business!"

"She seems to have someone on the hook with that account, so I can't just change its name. Just wait until I'm eighteen and have an official account of my own. I'll definitely help you then!"

"Could she even swindle money out of someone? I hope she doesn't get hauled into the station for reeducation through labor before she graduates from college!"

"Oh, look at you worrying! Is my sister that kind of person?"

Zhang Xuezhou shrugged.

Most people dreamed of getting rich. His family members each pursued their own path to riches, and none of them had much faith in the others. They were a rather peculiar family.

But on the whole, their family was fairly harmonious.

After all, Zhang Weimeng was away gathering material for his writing, Song Fengying traveled around livestreaming, Zhang Manqian attended university in the imperial capital, and Zhang Xuezhou was a high school student in Sudong City. The four of them were each off in a different direction, so even if they wanted to stir up family trouble, they couldn't.

After exchanging a few words with his mother and failing to get any money for his treatment, Zhang Xuezhou closed the livestreaming software.

"Beauty!"

Zhang Xuezhou was just about to close the linked messaging software when a new message flashed in the chat list.

"Have you gotten the key to your genetic arsenal?"

The new message had come from Unrivaled Hunk.

Zhang Xuezhou glanced at it and casually entered the keywords into a web search.

Only when he saw the notice "In accordance with relevant laws, regulations, and policies, some search results have not been displayed" did Zhang Xuezhou stop typing.

Zhang Xuezhou had a vague feeling that his sister also seemed to be following some crooked path.

In the end, he shook his head, copied Unrivaled Hunk's message into a draft to warn Zhang Manqian, and closed the software.

"Am I the one who's sick, or is it the three of you?"

Zhang Xuezhou thought about it for a long time, but couldn't figure it out.

He dressed glumly and glanced at the less-than-generous balance in his digital wallet before stepping out of the house and heading toward the blackhearted clinic.