novelraw Chapter 135 Hospital Ward
Chapter 135 Hospital Ward
[September 8, 2025, Weather: Overcast]
[It’s been some time since I arrived at Donghai University.]
This period of time has, after so long, allowed me to feel a trace of relaxation, a trace of happiness.
Perhaps… this is the sense of fulfillment before hope is finally realized.
Perhaps… this is the release before regret is finally mended.
Or perhaps…
it’s simply that I met some very good people here, and that alone has put me in a good mood.
But if I had to say, the thing that made me happiest today—
was that
the Priest… spoke with me on the phone!I was unbelievably excited!
I couldn’t believe that the Priest—who once listened to our prayers, listened to our regrets, listened to our suffering, high above and omnipotent—would actually speak with me on the phone.
I’ve been part of the Mutual Aid Society of Regrets for two years now, and this is the first time I’ve had such an honor.
The Priest said that he is already prepared to mend my regret—but I still need to wait until I complete the task.
He promised that the moment I complete the task, my regret can be mended immediately.
I do not doubt the Priest’s omnipotent power in the slightest.
I do not doubt that he can mend my regret.
I am already unable to wait for that day to arrive.
The Priest told me…
it will be soon.
Very soon.
The time for punishing sin with divine judgment is not far away.
Everything…
will end this September.
Including regret.
Including me.]
“Hehe~ I see you!”
That WeChat message made Jiang Ran’s scalp go numb instantly.
How is that possible?
This class—only he had to attend. Cheng Mengxue couldn’t possibly be here! Where did she see him from?!
He jerked his head up and looked out the window.
It was an overcast day. The sky was gray and heavy, no sunlight visible.
The wind had picked up over Donghai University, carrying a damp, salty smell. His clothes clung uncomfortably to his skin.
Outside the window—no one.
At the classroom door—no one.
Then—
Jiang Ran suddenly turned his head and looked toward the back of the classroom!
Sure enough.
Cheng Mengxue and Fang Ze were sitting together in the last row. Fang Ze had his head lowered, looking at something, while Cheng Mengxue giggled and waved at him.
Jiang Ran turned back around, shifted his textbook, covered the draft paper, then replied on WeChat:
“How did you guys get here?”
The phone vibrated.
Cheng Mengxue replied:
“Hehe, neither of us have classes this period, so we checked your schedule and came to wait for you. Let’s grab a meal together after class.”
“We also have something we want to discuss with you—about Professor Zhang Yang…”
Jiang Ran replied with an “OK,” then put his phone away and focused on the lecture.
After class, he picked up his eraser and carefully wiped away the three sentences he had written in pencil on the draft paper. Then he folded the sheet and slipped it into his pocket, stood up, and headed to the back row.
The three of them went together to the cafeteria.
“We were thinking… should we go visit Professor Zhang Yang together?”
Cheng Mengxue said while eating her char siu rice:
“You see, Professor Zhang Yang is our advisor after all. Fang Ze met him once during the break, but I haven’t met him at all. And now he’s injured and hospitalized—we haven’t even gone to visit him once as his students… isn’t that a bit impolite?”
“So we thought we could pool some money, buy some fruit or gifts, and go see how he’s doing. It can also count as us, his new students, formally introducing ourselves.”
Jiang Ran took a sip of his spicy hotpot.
Tactical thinking.
From any reasonable perspective, Cheng Mengxue’s suggestion made perfect sense.
However—
Professor Zhang Yang had already made it clear that he didn’t want people coming to see him.
When Jiang Ran returned from the hospital, the explanation he gave everyone was that Professor Zhang Yang had been hit by a car, and the other party bore full responsibility.
As the senior disciple of the sect, he had to find a way to preserve his master’s dignity. After all, they were tied together—if one lost face, the other did too.
“Actually… Professor Zhang Yang is a pretty thin-skinned person.”
Jiang Ran began to improvise nonsense:
“He’s not very comfortable with people visiting him, especially right now. With his leg in a cast and all—if we go see him now, it’ll just make him embarrassed.”
“How about we wait a couple of days? I’ll bring it up with Professor Zhang later, say that we want to visit him, and you two can introduce yourselves as well. We’ll see what he says.”
Delay it. Stall it.
A classic stalling tactic.
In Dragon Country, the phrase “in a couple of days”… who knows how many days that actually means.
Especially when used for things like meals, gatherings, or hanging out—“in a couple of days,” “wait a bit”… sometimes a lifetime passes, and the meal never happens.
Another page of the calendar flipped. Morning. Wake up.
Jiang Ran didn’t go straight to the Film Camera Club activity room. Instead, he circled behind the building and found Old Tian, who was cleaning.
“Hey, Old Tian.”
Old Tian turned around. The two exchanged a knowing smile.
No words needed.
They began today’s duo cleaning.
After cleaning together for so long, the two had gradually become familiar. While sweeping, they often chatted idly, learning quite a bit about each other. Jiang Ran already knew that Old Tian was from the northeast, born and raised in Heihe.
“What made you come all the way to Donghai?”
Jiang Ran picked up a plastic bag from the flowerbed:
“Heihe is pretty far from here. It’s not easy to make the trip, right?”
“Heh, heh—higher pay here.”
Old Tian answered honestly:
“The economy up north isn’t doing well anymore. Not only is there less work, but the income is also low. Most people are heading south.”
“My daughter is sick and needs rehabilitation. The salary back home could barely cover the expenses, but… it was still tight. Here in Donghai, it’s different. Cleaning here pays more than double what I earned back home. And my daughter’s rehab costs aren’t much higher either, since there’s still medical insurance coverage.”
“So after coming here, things are much more manageable. I usually live on campus, so I can save most of the money. It’s good to have something set aside for emergencies.”
Jiang Ran nodded.
That made sense.
As the old industrial base of Dragon Country, the northeast hadn’t really kept up with economic transformation in recent years. Development hadn’t been great.
To make money, many people from the northeast had gone to Hainan, coastal regions, even overseas—across the world.
You could say that, looking at the entire globe right now—it’s basically one giant northeast.
“Your daughter…”
Jiang Ran straightened up, hesitating:
“Is she… doing okay?”
Old Tian sighed:
“Ah… what can you do? Just keep up with the rehab.”
He didn’t go into detail, and Jiang Ran didn’t feel comfortable pressing further.
There was a clear difference between people from the north and south when it came to privacy.
People from the north could ask about family, jobs, income, marriage, children—everything—as casually as small talk.
But for people from the south, such direct questions felt intrusive and hard to ask.
On Worldline 0, Jiang Ran had a roommate from the northeast. Within two days of school starting, that guy had already told him everything about his family—an entire lecture in extroversion that reshaped Jiang Ran’s worldview.
A few days ago in the cafeteria, Jiang Ran actually ran into that roommate again.
Out of reflex, Jiang Ran greeted him—but the other person just looked confused, not recognizing him at all.
Of course he wouldn’t recognize him.
Because on this Worldline 1, they had never met. They had no shared experience as roommates.
This emotional dislocation caused by overlapping timelines often left Jiang Ran sighing in quiet regret.
Still—
even though Old Tian didn’t say much,
from their conversations over the past few days, Jiang Ran could roughly infer that Old Tian’s parents and wife had likely already passed away.
That was why he had brought his daughter alone to Donghai—to give her access to better medical care, and to earn more money himself.
It wasn’t exactly tragic. After all, everyone in this world struggled for the sake of life and family.
But meeting was fate.
Jiang Ran wanted to help Old Tian.
Only—
he didn’t know what the right way to help would be.
Even though he still had nearly 12 million in his account, he couldn’t just transfer money out of nowhere. With Old Tian’s personality, he would definitely refuse.
Better to wait for an opportunity.
If Old Tian ever encountered real difficulty, Jiang Ran wouldn’t hesitate to help him.
Over the next two days, Jiang Ran cleaned every morning as usual, activated the Positron Cannon, and traveled to the future—2045.
In the activity room, the materials Chi Xiaoguo prepared were piling up.
But his progress in the future had stalled.
At the execution ground, there was simply no way to extract more information from Qin Feng.
Time was too tight.
Even if Jiang Ran used a handgun to shoot Liu Sanzi, the snipers lurking all around would only allow Qin Feng to say two sentences.
And Qin Feng… no matter the situation, always had to emphasize two things:
“42 is correct.”
“Follow 42.”
Every time Jiang Ran tried to ask why 42 was himself, Qin Feng never had time to answer—before both of them were cut down by a storm of sniper fire.
“Thinking about it… the question of why 42 is me probably isn’t something that can be explained in just a few sentences.”
Jiang Ran shook his head.
That question—and that answer—were far too abstract.
So he decided to cut his losses for now. He would stop wasting time at the execution ground and shift his focus to advancing the “Killer” route.
After that—
another three days passed with no progress.
No matter what he tried, the automatic alarm device on the guards’ chests would always activate.
That hurdle simply couldn’t be bypassed.
Both routes—both lines of approach—were stuck.
Jiang Ran felt exhausted.
Fortunately—
today, he received a piece of good news on WeChat.
“Ding-dong Cat! Your master can get out of bed and walk now!”
It was from Professor Zhang Yang.
He still refused to call him Doraemon.
Sigh.
Was this the pointless stubbornness of middle-aged men?
But regardless, Professor Zhang Yang being able to walk again was good news.
Jiang Ran decided to visit him at the hospital personally—and also pass along Cheng Mengxue and Fang Ze’s regards.
That afternoon, Donghai University First Affiliated Hospital, inpatient ward.
“Hey, hey—don’t let those two foreigners come.”
Zhang Yang quickly stopped him:
“I’ll be able to return to school with a cane soon. Let’s just meet there.”
“They’re not foreigners,” Jiang Ran corrected. “They’re both from Dragon Country.”
“Aren’t they both ethnically Chinese?” Zhang Yang countered.
…
For a moment, Jiang Ran was speechless.
Strictly speaking, Zhang Yang wasn’t wrong.
According to their profiles, Fang Ze was indeed an overseas-born Chinese. As for Cheng Mengxue, her real identity had been erased—she was currently using a fabricated American identity, raised abroad. In other words, an ABC.
Technically, both of them were foreigners.
“Alright, I’ll stop them.”
Jiang Ran shrugged:
“You’ll be back soon anyway. They can welcome you at school then.”
“By the way… since you’re back, does that mean Professor Yan is leaving?”
Zhang Yang nodded:
“Of course. But he won’t leave Donghai University entirely—he’ll stay for a while longer for research exchanges.”
“You all should cherish the time Professor Yan is teaching you! He’s a professor from Dartmouth—if it weren’t for my accident, you wouldn’t even have the chance to meet him!”
“Hehe.”
Jiang Ran chuckled silently.
He didn’t really want to meet him anyway.
Professor Yan clearly had issues with his academic attitude. And besides, the man came and went in a hurry—who knew what he was busy with all day? It was hard to tell who was just going through the motions in this teacher-student relationship.
“Alright, I’m heading out. Call me when you’re discharged—I’ll come pick you up.”
Jiang Ran waved goodbye and walked out of the ward.
“Hm?”
“Eh?!”
Two familiar people, meeting in an unfamiliar place, stared at each other in surprise.
“Old Tian?”
“Xiao Jiang!”
The person he ran into in the hallway—
was none other than Old Tian, the janitor he cleaned with every morning.
Jiang Ran smiled.
“Didn’t expect to run into you here.”
But thinking about it, it wasn’t strange.
Old Tian had mentioned that his daughter was undergoing rehabilitation at the hospital. The Donghai University First Affiliated Hospital wasn’t far from campus—it made sense for her to be admitted here.
“You’re here to see your daughter?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Old Tian nodded. “She’s staying on this floor. And you…?”
“Oh.”
Jiang Ran pointed behind him:
“I’m visiting my teacher. He was in a car accident—also hospitalized here.”
After a moment’s thought, he followed behind Old Tian:
“Old Tian, let me go see your daughter too. Just to say hello.”
Since he was already here—and they’d run into each other—Jiang Ran decided to drop by.
Old Tian tried to refuse repeatedly, saying he didn’t want to trouble him. But Jiang Ran insisted, and in the end, Old Tian had no choice but to agree.
“Ah… Xiao Jiang, I really didn’t want to trouble you. You’re just too kind, too warm-hearted—I feel a bit embarrassed.”
“It’s fine.”
Jiang Ran waved it off.
“It’s fate.”
Old Tian walked ahead, leading the way.
“My daughter’s room is just up ahead… here, this one.”
With a creak, he pushed open the ward door and led Jiang Ran inside.
Jiang Ran followed.
Hm?
Suddenly, his eyes widened.
That strange sensation enveloped him again—like a cold black mist forming into hands, gripping him tightly.
And in his ears—
once again echoed the voice of middle-aged Qin Feng, gnashing his teeth before death.
Wait.
Could it be… he saw it wrong?
He quickly stepped back and looked again at the nameplate on the ward:
[Rehabilitation Ward: No. 42]
[Name: Tian Xiaoli]