Who Has Heaven Ever Spared?

Zijin leaned back in her wheelchair, her thoughts beginning to wander. "A sad story."

"Is there a way to make a skeleton speak?" Su Ming asked.

"Galio's Reconnaissance Hunter has that ability. You just need to write in the driver runes," Zijin replied. "Go find his magic notes, the one numbered eleven. It has the details."

"Keep an eye on the time. Don't stay on deck too long," Su Ming told the girl. "We'll continue your injections in a little while."

Su Ming returned to Zijin's library and found Galio's notes among the stacks of books on the floor.

He opened the notes and turned to the section on the Reconnaissance Hunter. Galio had made many changes to the original version and drawn detailed configuration diagrams.

According to the annotations, Little Spiky Head was a transformable skeleton, and the diagrams listed the reference numbers for the components used from the Component Connection Library. Su Ming found the Component Connection Library in the pile of books, opened it, and looked up the corresponding sections by number.

Galio had referenced the parameters and three-view drawings of 243 components in total.

He immediately shut the book. Sorry to have bothered you!

He continued reading Galio's notes. Little Spiky Head's soul core could be loaded with different rune codes to activate corresponding functions, including one for speech.

Following the notes, Su Ming entered the speech function's rune code into Little Spiky Head's soul core and activated it.

He sensed the configuration of some components in Little Spiky Head's throat changing as a Magic Power circuit was constructed. He then established a connection.

"Hello, can you hear me?" Su Ming said. Far away on Earth, Little Spiky Head spoke at the same time, in the voice of a young woman. It might have been Miao Xin's.

He took out Miao Xin's phone, downloaded a voice-changing app, and adjusted it until the voice sounded close to his own. Then he connected through a proxy, logged in to a camera cloud platform, and connected to the camera in his home.

It was lunchtime. Both his parents were there, sitting across the table from each other, eating in silence.

"Mom, Dad, it's me," Su Ming called through the camera's voice function.

The two of them hurried over to the camera. "Mingming, why haven't we been able to reach you for so long? The factory said they didn't know where you'd gone either!"

Su Ming made up an excuse about being away on a business trip and his phone breaking.

"The police came looking for you. They said you were involved in an economic crime," Su Ming's father said. "Now that we can reach you, get in touch with them right away."

"Okay." Su Ming thought for a moment, then continued, "Dad, someone dragged me into this, and I'm suspected of breaking the law."

"Ah-then, how serious is it?"

"Pretty serious, and I can't clear my name yet."

"...Did you really break the law? How serious could the consequences be?" his mother asked.

"Mom, Dad, I'm innocent," Su Ming said. "I've thought of a way to clear myself, but I need time. Trust me, though. I'll definitely settle this within a year at the latest."

His parents fell somewhat silent.

"Dad, I won't be able to contact you often for a while, and I can't work at the factory for now either," Su Ming said. "But it'll be all right. I'll check in with you from time to time and let you know how things are going."

"You have to take care of yourself! If anything really happens, don't panic. We'll find a way together!"

"Okay!"

After finishing the call home, Su Ming disconnected from Little Spiky Head and had Miao Xin continue standing guard. He got up to check on Zijin in the sickbed, but his legs went weak and he nearly fell.

Puzzled, Su Ming reached out and felt his body. Was he a little hot?

Zijin was sitting on the bed with a notebook, using Su Ming's gel pen to write a paper titled "Observations on the invasion of native organisms by otherworldly viruses."

"This pen of yours is nice to use," she said, but then she saw that something was wrong with Su Ming. "What's wrong?"

Su Ming sat back down in the chair and took his temperature. Sure enough, he had a fever of over 38 degrees.

"Are you sick?" Zijin put on her slippers and walked over. "Let me take a look." She reached out and assembled spell formations, surrounding Su Ming with three completely different body-examination spells.

A riot of colors appeared on Su Ming's body.

"Oh, look at that. It happened to you too." Zijin's expression was calm, but her words were full of schadenfreude.

Su Ming lamented that he and Zijin were a pair of ill-fated enemies. The viruses on him were extremely deadly to the girl, but he had no defenses against the ones on Zijin either.

Fortunately, his resistance was stronger, so he hadn't fallen ill at the same time as Zijin. Otherwise, his journey to another world could have ended right there.

The scholar summoned her notebook and recorded the feedback from the spell formations.

"Do you want me to give you the bed, fellow patient Su Ming?"

"That was my bed in the first place!" Su Ming snapped. He opened the White Bone Mark and assembled another sickbed for himself beside it.

Zijin had a skeleton servant put a soft pad on the bed and bring a blanket. Su Ming climbed onto it and lay down.

When the spell formations ended, she looked at the list she had recorded. "There are quite a few!"

"Aren't you good at light magic? You can save me, right?"

"I should be able to-right?" Zijin was somewhat uncertain herself. "I rarely use disease-removal spell formations. I need to check their spectral signatures first and find out what viruses they are."

She had the skeleton servants bring several books, then leafed through them, checking them against the spectral records. A good while passed before she finally stopped.

"Doctor Zijin, what are the results?" Su Ming asked nervously.

"Good news. They're all documented, common diseases," Zijin replied. "I can take care of them in two days."

"Even with healing magic, it's still that much trouble?" Su Ming asked, puzzled.

"Different viruses and bacteria each have corresponding disease-removal spell formations. Each formation needs time to work continuously before it takes effect, and formations can also conflict with one another. Many have to be used repeatedly," Zijin explained. "Of course, the most important reason is actually that when I studied at the Temple of Light, I only passed healing magic on a makeup exam, and I've never had any practical experience."

Great, a blank-slate healer. Feeling his body grow heavier and heavier, Su Ming figured he was in for a rough time.

Although he felt unwell, Su Ming forced himself to get up after Zijin finished the initial treatment, because he still had things to do.

He checked the sea conditions. The Zhiyuan had reached an area where the seabed was somewhat shallower.

Su Ming first brought the ship to a stop. He took the sea chart back to his sickbed and opened it, only to discover that it showed neither hydrological conditions nor the distribution of marine plants.

"Can you determine our location from the seabed terrain and the characteristics of the plants?" Su Ming asked the scholar.

"That crude sea chart in your hands is everything I have on navigation," she replied as she resumed using disease-removal magic on Su Ming. "Before this, the most I'd done was drift down a river. This is my first time out on the ocean."

"That's going to be a problem," Su Ming said, his head aching.