Chosen: Beyond Fate

The true core that constituted the Time Ruin, the foundation of the demonic realm, and the distortion of reality finally manifested before Ji Jue.

Its origin lay in the Undying Disease, an affliction beyond salvation, built upon countless patients condemned to eternal torment. What it ultimately gave birth to, through the sacrifice of everything, was a single-minded resolve to save others that had endured even in the face of death.

The doctors, powerless to cure the disease, had poured everything they possessed into that hope. They had even offered their souls, raising one final prayer and heartfelt wish to the world.

And thus, they had achieved Ascension.

Despite being stripped of everything, so long as that single conviction remained, they would never abandon their patients. They would never betray the oath they had sworn, nor would they allow the poison and corruption to continue existing in this world, even if they themselves had become the very thing spreading corruption and poison.

That unwavering determination stood before Ji Jue’s eyes. He stood unmoving, unable to utter a single word.

The corner of the doctor’s mouth twitched. Bathed in the crimson rain, he looked as though he were weeping, or perhaps he was forcing out a weary, self-mocking smile.

“I’m not a good doctor,” his lips trembled as he murmured, exhausted. “I... I can’t remember anymore... So many things, I can’t remember them. Who am I? What happened to everyone? They’re sick. Everyone is sick. I’m sick, too. I don’t know how to save myself, and I don’t know how to save them... it’s all... my fault... What... what has become of everyone?”

He struggled to lift his head and tried to look around, but he could no longer find anything resembling salvation or recovery. Only wailing flesh tumors and a rain of blood filled his vision, swallowing the collapsing, disintegrating hospital.

Slowly, he came to a realization.

“In the end... I couldn't save a single person.”

BOOM!

A deafening crack split the air. It seemed to come from the heavens above, or perhaps from the fissures opening across his body.

A faint, luminous glow appeared, entwining itself around the essence of the Foolish Abomination. As though it were washing away the corruption with its own blood, it slowly seeped into it and purged the poison.

And then, at last, he let go. He looked at the young man before him. “The final stage of your resident training... is now complete.”

The doctor’s figure flickered, as if it might shatter along with the collapsing world. But he paid it no mind. He simply raised his hand and removed his ID badge from around his neck.

Carefully, he placed it into Ji Jue’s hands, then gently hung it around Ji Jue’s neck. He carefully straightened the slight crease in Ji Jue's collar before saying, “I don’t know who you are... but I know what you said is true... I know...”

The elderly doctor offered one final smile. Looking at the finest young doctor he had ever trained, he gently said, “Make sure... you become a good doctor.”

Ji Jue instinctively reached out in a daze, trying to hold on to the fading illusion, but those hands that could shape all the beauty in the world grasped nothing. Once again, they closed on nothing but empty air. Only drifting motes of light slipped through his fingers, swaying gently as they floated toward the sky.

He swore he heard someone laughing. One last time, a hand reached out and gently patted him on the shoulder.

Ji Jue lowered his head in silence.

Hanging from his chest was the doctor’s ID badge, and in his hand, that strange remnant bone, sharp as a blade. Now that its crimson and black stains had faded away, it gleamed with a pure, crystalline radiance.

One was a badge of pride. The other, a tool meant to save the sick. He had entrusted everything he possessed into his hands.

But... Why?

“I was lying to you all along,” Ji Jue murmured softly. He’d only said it off the cuff, putting on a show. He was just pretending to empathize with them, pretending to be some compassionate savior who grieved for the suffering of the world. He played the role convincingly enough.

You really fell for it, didn’t you? It was all just an act. I learned how to fake cry for pocket money when I was four. Only an idiot would fall for something like that.

And yet, it worked every single time. There would always be someone who smiled in helpless amusement, took his hand, and led him toward the brightly lit shop windows.

Back then, the sky had been a brilliant blue. A summer breeze drifted beneath the shade of the trees, sunlight bathed the earth, and everything had been so beautiful it felt like a fairy tale.

He closed his eyes and cursed silently. He cursed again and again until he heard staggered footsteps approaching from afar.

“Tong Hua.”

On the ruins, Tong Hua stumbled forward. She froze briefly, then looked up at the figure standing amid the rain of blood.

Ji Jue said, “Go get the quarantine and protective measures ready.”

Tong Hua stared at him blankly. “Huh?”

“Was I not clear enough?” Ji Jue turned back toward her. The ID badge hanging from his neck fluttered against his white coat. “Come on, don’t just stand there. Don’t make the patients wait any longer. They are not liars, and neither am I. Prepare for surgery.”

All the wailing in the rain of blood came to an abrupt halt. As the scarlet rain slowly faded away, indistinct figures seemed to emerge from beyond the curtain of falling water.

The crumbling Time Ruin, teetering on the edge of collapse, seemed to find its pillar once more. It was clinging stubbornly to life, refusing to perish.

It wasn’t over yet. There were still doctors here.

***

Ten minutes later, a medical trolley was salvaged from the ruins and brought before Ji Jue, fully stocked with surgical tools.

The flattest area within the rubble had been turned into an operating table. The enormous, shriveled flesh tumor, so massive it was nearly the size of a car, had been laid upon a dust sheet that now served as a makeshift sterile drape.

Countless faces rose and fell across its surface. Their hollow eyes streamed with tears as they stared blankly at the doctors[1]. Their lips moved soundlessly. They no longer had the strength to pray or call out.

“I assume you're ready for surgery.” Ji Jue reached out and gently touched their faces. “Try to cooperate. This is everyone’s first time. It’s my first time being a doctor, and it’ll be your first time being cured... and your first time dying. I promise.”

Perhaps he would not become a good doctor in this lifetime. Ji Jue knew that better than anyone. He lacked patience, let alone compassion. He had no tolerance for fools or idiots. Whenever people landed themselves in trouble through their own stupidity, all he could do was frown. There was no way he could keep reaching out to help the same patients over and over again without end. If someone insisted on throwing their own life away, he’d probably just stand by, sneer, and watch the show.

The only things about him that even remotely qualified as “doctor-like” were him saying, “You’re beyond saving,” “Get ready to die,” and “Farewell.”

And yet, out of nowhere, someone had gone and told him he had to become a good doctor. How was that any different from a curse as a dying wish?! People who told others to pursue the path of medicine deserved to be struck by lightning!

Besides, he was doing just fine on the path of a craftsman. In the future, ability, authority, and wealth would all come easily with a wave of his hand. His prospects were incredibly bright. So could people please stop messing with his life plans already?!

Well, I’ll just treat this as a side gig. Don’t expect too much from me.

Ji Jue tightened his grip on the bone blade. “You long for death, don’t you? This essence born from you is perfectly aligned with your own desire.”

The despair that denied hope, the yearning for death after rejecting life, and the doctors’ final act of mercy—what emerged from all of it was a blade as clear and flawless as crystal. Faint crimson veins flowed beneath its surface. Under the catalysis of the Pacifier, layers of bone fractured, breaking apart one after another. Through the Dissociation Technique, they disintegrated into ash.

Without hesitation, Ji Jue stripped away countless essences, wastefully consuming a power that originally held infinite possibilities. There was no resistance at all. It was as if the very thing itself was cooperating with Ji Jue’s refinement. Everything proceeded smoothly, without the slightest obstruction.

In the end, what appeared in Ji Jue’s hand was a slightly curved bone knife, just over forty centimeters long. Its shape resembled a surgical scalpel, though it was much bigger than any standard scalpel. A faint, crystalline edge extended along its length, dazzling like an illusion, or a dream of salvation made real.

The moment he raised the blade, Ji Jue could not help but recall a past conversation with Professor Ye.

“Teacher, if Flawless Craft and Spirit Primacy are used together, can they really extract a soul?”

“Theoretically, it’s possible.”

Now, he found himself asking one more question. “Mr. Qian, can doctors really save patients?”

Unfortunately, no one answered. Yet somewhere in the unseen depths, a resolute reply seemed to echo. It told him, Absolutely. Doctors can save patients. Doctors will save patients. This time, the doctors will definitely save the patients. No matter what.

Ji Jue lifted his head. Looking up at the shattered heavens, he saw a faint phantom emerging high above. It was hazy and unreal, like a mirage[2]. It seemed to be a vast pale structure, so enormous that it filled the entire sky. Though bathed in endless light, it carried neither warmth nor compassion.

The paradise of bliss[3] at the end of life, the Great Abomination known as White Hall, which denied both life and death, revealed its presence. It gazed down with cold indifference, mocking those challengers who dared reach beyond their limits.

Ji Jue did not hesitate. He brought down the first cut upon the patient before him.

The doctor had begun the operation.

***

The administration of anesthesia, the disinfection procedure, as well as the patient's condition and diagnostic analysis had been omitted. With detection and scanning provided by the heavily protected Tong Hua, Ji Jue raised his blade and cut open the flesh before him.

The doctor would save the patient. The doctor would give everything he had to kill the patient!

Blood gushed forth like a waterfall. Countless writhing organs and limbs poured from the wound, spilling in a grotesque flood as the patient squirmed and wailed. Even within the shriveled mass of flesh, innumerable new buds of meat continued to grow. A brief moment of weakness could not extinguish the life of the aberrant. The Undying Disease still raged unchecked.

Ji Jue could have repeated his old method. He could graft himself into it and use the power of his watch to drain away all corruption and aberration, but the price would be total destruction of everything except himself. The patient’s consciousness and soul would also be destroyed, forever fused with the aberration and dragged away to some unknown place, never to find release.

What he intended to do now was different. He would completely separate the consciousness and souls that had long since fused with the flesh from this undying creature. Just as Professor Ye had instructed, he was going to extract spirit intelligence from the physical shell.

There was no need to hold back out of caution or tread carefully. There was no need to hesitate or second-guess himself, either.

This time, under Pacifier’s influence, the spreading flesh was effortlessly smoothed and straightened. Then the bone blade in Ji Jue’s hand came down. The clear, translucent edge seemed to exist somewhere between the tangible and the intangible, cutting through flesh and soul at the same time.

Despair born from exhausted hope and the death longed for by life itself were reconciled through compassion. With effortless precision, the blade untangled the intricate bonds linking the two together.

But even more important was the guidance that welled up from pure instinct.

The moment he made the incision, voices seemed to echo in his mind like hallucinations. They merged seamlessly with his instincts, offering guidance. Some voices were familiar, others strange, yet all felt as though he had heard them before.

“Go one centimeter deeper. Remove the tumor first, then cut from the side. The bone growths and organs are not the priority. Set them aside and ignore them. The nerves, lymphatic tissue, and internal organs here have become entangled. Seal this section temporarily. If you remove it now, the tissue that grows back will be even more badly tangled. The tangled flesh is not the real problem. The souls fused together are.”

It felt as if he were back in the conference room of the hospital. In a brief daze, Ji Jue looked up. Across from him, within the empty air, phantom figures appeared. Doctors stood there, watching him with a smile as they offered guidance and encouragement.

Using the scalpel as a medium, their knowledge and experience flowed into Ji Jue’s movements without the slightest hesitation or obstruction. For the briefest moment, the anguished wailing ceased.

As silence settled around Ji Jue, he plunged both hands into the chaotic mass of flesh. The bone blade moved like flowing water, smoothly removing every adhesion and attachment to dismantle and dissolve the boundaries between intertwined souls. His other hand, wrapped in Pacifier, shot forward and clenched tightly. He would not allow those fragile souls and fragments of consciousness to slip through his fingers. This time, he finally caught them.

“Get out here!”

Blood burst forth in a crimson spray as the severed limbs writhed. The flawless synergy between Physical Primacy and Flawless Craft allowed his physical body to act directly upon the soul. He sealed it, separated it, and then reconstructed it. Finally, he seized the one crucial thread hidden within the tangled mess and pulled it out.

A piercing cry resounded from Ji Jue’s hands.

A tiny bundle of flesh squirmed weakly as it was lifted completely free of the fleshy tumor, dragging a rotting umbilical cord behind it. Its limbs, never given the chance to fully develop, twitched feebly. On its indistinct little face, the very first tear since its birth rolled down.

It was an infant.

“I didn’t expect I’d still be delivering babies at a time like this.” Ji Jue let out a self-mocking laugh. Reaching out, he carefully wiped the spoiled amniotic fluid from the infant’s face. Its cries only grew louder as it greedily drew breath, crying out and weeping. Its dark eyes moved with all the strength it could muster before finally settling on Ji Jue. Its lips parted slightly, as though it was offering thanks.

A smile of quiet relief spread across its face. Then, it withered away in the blink of an eye. Its tiny body cracked and crumbled into drifting ash, carried off into the distance by the wind.

All that remained was a shriveled piece of aberrant flesh, which Ji Jue casually tossed into a trash bin. It had been born, and then it embraced death. A single ray of spirit matter light broke free from the corruption of White Hall, soaring freely toward a place the Abomination could never reach.

“Patient Number One... cured,” Ji Jue murmured to himself.

As the hallucinations rang in his ears, he seemed to hear ecstatic cheers and triumphant shouts. The blessings entrusted to the bone scalpel shone brilliantly, shining ever more brilliantly.

Another crack split open across the heavens. Intersecting with the previous fissure like the bars of a cage, it made the projection of White Hall appear even more distant and faint. On the opposite side of the sky, something vast and formless slowly rose. Answering the summons, it gazed down from above.

Countless star-like sparks flocked together, flickering like embers. They converged into what seemed like fuel feeding the Divine Furnace, burning silently. And, on another side, within the Putrefied Furnace, the fire within a watching eye flickered faintly.

Meanwhile, on the earth below, the surgery continued. Everything had only just begun.

1. Note: the author explicitly wrote the plural form here, so I assume there are others assisting Ji Jue. ☜

2. In ancient Chinese belief, a mirage was thought to be caused by the breath exhaled by a mythical creature called the shen (蜃), a giant clam or dragon-like beast, hence the traditional name "Sea City Mirage" (海市蜃楼). ☜

3. “极乐之园” literally means "Garden of Bliss" or "Paradise of Bliss." It usually refers to the Western Pure Land (also known as the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss) in Buddhism, the paradise presided over by Amitābha Buddha, where beings are reborn to pursue enlightenment under ideal conditions. ☜