The dog’s beast ears drooped listlessly. His breathing was so faint it seemed a single touch might shatter it. He lay there, motionless, utterly devoid of life.
When Jiang Ying placed a damp towel on his forehead to cool him, her fingertip brushed his eyelid. She noticed his eyeballs were trembling uneasily beneath it.
Su Heng was not lost in deep sleep, but he wasn’t lucid either. Half-awake, half-asleep, he felt a trace of coolness drawing near him.
Soft and cool. Her scent.
It felt so good.
Gasping for breath, he rubbed his face against the hand she hadn’t yet withdrawn. Such a simple motion drained what little strength he had. In the end, he couldn’t catch up as she pulled away.
The water-soaked towel quickly absorbed the heat from his forehead, losing its cooling effect.
Under the high fever, his consciousness grew hazier. It seemed he was seeing the nightmares again—the ones that hadn’t appeared for so many years.
The operating light blazed overhead. In his ears, the drip of IV fluid. A doctor pushed a syringe closer, a cold voice reporting on the first batch of prosthetic body integrations.
He heard them say that the white tiger beastman, whom he’d been on the best terms with, had developed a severe rejection reaction. A little snake, usually low-key and seemingly a bit simple, hadn’t woken up for three days. The griffin who had always opposed them was already dead.
The coldest voice told them to shut up.
It said that the Bayer Empire would not permit another failure of the prosthetic body experiments. They were to use the best medicine, summon the most authoritative doctors and scientists. The future of humanity rested in the hands of these beastmen in the laboratory.
They were the heroes of Bayer. The kind and tolerant Prime Minister Jin Congmin would arrange the best life for the beastmen who survived.
…Really?
In his blurry consciousness, a needle pierced his neck. An unknown liquid, hot and spicy like strong liquor, a temperature like blazing flames, was forcefully pushed into his veins. The young him jolted violently, then went still again.
A medical worker beside him bluntly and coldly announced the result.
Experimental Sub-Beastman Subject 2348729669 has developed a rejection reaction with the prosthetic mechanical arm. Severe bodily dysfunction. Experiment—failed—
In that instant, only one voice remained in his mind.
Just as expected.
Humans are truly such despicable and selfish creatures.
The Bayer Empire couldn’t tolerate beastmen. It couldn’t tolerate anyone whose will opposed the rulers, threatening their power, status, and safety.
Using excuses about heroes or sacrifices to eliminate beastmen, who surpassed humans in both strength and lifespan, was an inevitability in the struggle for limited resources after the apocalypse’s reconstruction.
But he refused to accept such a fate. Even more, he couldn’t bear to see thousands upon thousands of his fellow beastmen meet such an end.
Su Heng wanted to speak.
He wanted to tell them he was still alive. They had taken his arm; they couldn’t take his life again with such a rash declaration.
But apart from being unable to open his mouth, he was also clear: no matter how loudly he shouted, no one would care.
No one would…
“Su Heng.” A cold touch pressed against his forehead, replacing the now-warm, dry towel.
Jiang Ying lowered her head, brushed aside the hair on her forehead, and pressed her own brow against his.
A human’s body temperature was much lower than a canine beastman’s. Compared to a towel that quickly grew warm, her body heat could last longer. She thought, perhaps this could ease some of his pain.
She used her fingertips to smooth out his tightly furrowed brow, pressing her palm to his cheek.
When her palm warmed up, she flipped it over and used the back of her hand.
“Poor doggy.” She trembled with heartache, her lashes fluttering. “Are you feeling any better?”
Whether it was psychological or something else, Su Heng truly seemed a little better than before. With a raspy voice, he managed to force out indistinct words.
“Don’t… don’t go…”
It was the beastman language.
When a person (or a beastman) was in a state of emergency or blurred consciousness, they always remembered their mother tongue first.
Jiang Ying couldn’t hear him clearly, nor could she understand. Yet it seemed that at this moment, words weren’t necessary. Following her heart, she tidied the damp strands of hair stuck to his forehead. She used an alcohol wipe to gently clean the insides of his beast ears and the palms of his hands that were sweating slightly, trying her best to wick away the overly exaggerated heat radiating from his body.
She instinctively responded to his unintelligible pleas: “Mm-hmm, I’m right here. I’m not going, I won’t go.”
“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid.”
“Good doggy.”
“Don’t be scared, it’s alright.”
…
When Jin Chuyu walked in, she saw Jiang Ying squatting like that in front of the sofa, stroking the beastman before her over and over, patiently offering comfort that had no substantial effect.
It perfectly suited something a bewildered dog owner would do.
“What’s the situation exactly?” Jin Chuyu asked, carrying a large medical kit as she walked to Jiang Ying’s side.
Jiang Ying suddenly felt like an incompetent owner.
She had no idea what was wrong with Su Heng.
“On the way home just now, he was getting rained on the whole time. I… I didn’t notice…” The corner of her mouth sank with regret, her speech quickening with anxiety. “Then as soon as we got back, he fainted. His whole body is burning hot, as if he has a fever.”
Jin Chuyu reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder, signaling her to calm down.
“Yingying, I’ll tell you upfront: I haven’t treated beastmen in a long time. I’ll take a look first; if I can’t handle it, you’ll have to take him to a beastman clinic.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Jin Chuyu was the person Jiang Ying trusted most in this world.
Jiang Ying nodded. Jin Chuyu took out a thermometer specifically for beastmen from her medical kit and approached Su Heng, who seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep on the sofa.
However, the moment Jin Chuyu drew near him, a pair of smoke-gray eyes suddenly snapped open. In that instant, a flash of dark red crossed them. The thermometer was snatched by Su Heng with a reverse grip and pressed against Jin Chuyu’s neck.
“I mean no harm,” Jin Chuyu said calmly.
“A Heng!” Jiang Ying realized what was happening and grasped Su Heng’s hand to soothe him. “Chuchu is here to treat you. Don’t be afraid, I’m right here.”
Su Heng froze for a moment. The vigilance and hostility in his eyes faded a bit, only fully softening when he saw Jiang Ying’s face.
“Sorry, I…”
His throat felt completely blocked. The moment he opened his mouth, it sent him into a coughing fit, preventing him from speaking a complete sentence.
Jiang Ying held him loosely, gently patting his back to help him breathe, her voice soft as she coaxed him.
“It’s fine. You don’t have to speak, I understand. When I have a fever, I don’t know what’s going on around me either. My brain is all mush. My mom—”
She paused, a nostalgic look in her eyes as she recalled a memory from another world. “When my mom was feeding me medicine, I thought the teacher had caught me reading a novel in class and was coming to confiscate my book. I knocked the spoonful of medicine flying, spilling it all over my mom.”
The more she spoke, the more her words jumbled together, the point getting lost. In the end, she didn’t know if this completely unrelated story could soothe him.
But luckily, the burst of aggression and oppressive pressure that had exploded from him vanished the moment she held him.
As for Jin Chuyu, who had been threatened, she didn’t react much.
She was far more concerned about his arm than about a canine beastman’s instinctive defensive attack.
When Su Heng had attacked Jin Chuyu just now, he had instinctively extended the mechanical prosthetic on his right hand.
It was a killing tool, soaked in countless amounts of blood, from the laboratory to the battlefield.
Around Jiang Ying, he was always extremely careful, doing his best not to touch her with this hand.
Jin Chuyu didn’t mind his attack itself. What she minded was the cold gleam revealed at his cuff when he attacked.
And the bloodstains that no amount of washing could remove.
“Yingying.” She pulled Jiang Ying a little further away, her expression serious. “Do you know the origin of that prosthetic arm of his?”
Jiang Ying shook her head, speaking quietly. “It seems like A Heng didn’t want to mention it from the start… He always hides that hand, and he often wears gloves. I feel like he doesn’t really like people looking at that hand, so I haven’t asked… What’s wrong?”
“That prosthetic model is far too old.”
Jin Chuyu frowned. “Back then—when I studied beastman medicine, the professor showed us the first batch of prosthetics tested on beastman ‘volunteers.’ The first-generation prosthetics were developed for war, and I remember the look of those prosthetics vividly…”
Every prosthetic that had been stripped from a beastman was stained with blood that couldn’t be washed away.
Just like the one on Su Heng’s hand.
Jiang Ying couldn’t see it, and as her friend, Jin Chuyu didn’t want her to suffer over such a dark history. She didn’t mention this detail.
“Your Beastman Guide Dog—the prosthetic on his hand is that mechanical arm that went missing after the experiments ended.”
Of course, such information could never have come from some beastman medical school.
This was something Jin Chuyu had discovered accidentally in Jin Congmin’s study when she was still a student, before she “ran away from home.”
Jin Chuyu lowered her voice: “This mechanical arm is the Federation’s—no, the Bayer Empire’s—‘masterpiece.’”
“Could it be a mistake?” Jiang Ying was momentarily stunned, vaguely realizing that what her friend was saying might involve some dangerous secret. “Is A Heng actually…?”
Before she had transmigrated, Jiang Ying had seen posts about using beagles as experimental animals.
And in this world, having such things done to beastmen was just as hard for her to accept.
“Yingying. The test subjects who had this batch of prosthetics… by all rights, none of them should have survived. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Jin Chuyu drew a deep breath. “At least—at least, until you are capable of protecting yourself, and until I am capable of protecting you, don’t probe into his identity. And don’t take him to any beastman hospital. Once the thing on his hand is discovered, both you and he will immediately be taken by the Federation.”
Jiang Ying nodded. Her temples throbbed.
But there was something she was more concerned about than his identity.
“Is his condition very serious?”
“The technology back then was limited; that first batch of prosthetics should have been scrapped long ago. It’s a miracle that it has coexisted stably with him until now. To trigger rejection and backlash, all it takes is a catalyst.”
The catalyst was this rainstorm—the consequence of him protecting her while neglecting himself.
Jiang Ying’s eyes flickered.
Sure enough, Jin Chuyu continued: “It’s been too long; its lifespan has reached its limit. Humans have already become immune to the extreme post-apocalyptic climate, but this arm has reached the point where it can no longer resist the erosion of the special substances in the rainstorm.”
Jiang Ying was stunned speechless. “How can we help him? He seems to be in so much pain.”
“Right now, without a professional, we can’t remove his prosthetic. I don’t have any medicine on hand to control his condition. I’ll ask my senior brother to bring some over. Don’t worry, Yingying; my senior brother is someone we can trust.”
“I trust you, Chuchu.”
Jiang Ying returned to the sofa and crouched down beside Su Heng.
He seemed to have truly fallen into a deep sleep, like a weak little dog, his cheek rising and falling against her palm with each breath.
She thought to herself, she absolutely had to cure him.
Her doggy had gone through such a past. Now that she was his owner, she would definitely treat him twice as well.
Even if he had lost his arm, she would work hard to make up for the other things he lacked.
Just as he had become her eyes.