Matrix Survival: One random treasure chest per day

Chapter 529 What does ten thousand times ten thousand equal?
"We're acquaintances, and Yakumo was very helpful when I first arrived in the outer city. I heard that she has a sister who is seriously injured and in a coma and has been receiving treatment here, so I thought I'd come and see if there's anything I can do to help."

Li Zheng casually explained that he was never an ungrateful person. Yakumo kindly took him around and even brought him here for a medical check-up after noticing his health problems.

Although Yakumo's primary motivation was the brokerage fee, Li Zheng had just easily earned 300,000 by selling a few items. Compared to that, the 20 white crystal coins for the medical examination seemed like a joke.

Li Zheng didn't believe that Yakumo hadn't intervened to get the doctor to reduce his medical examination fees.

This is also the main reason why Yakumo brazenly embezzled his 3,300 white crystal coins, and he did not insist on demanding them back.

"It's kind of you to have this idea," the doctor said seriously. "Then come with me."

Li Zheng then followed the doctor into the side door he had used during the physical examination.

Upon arriving at this point, the doctor stopped and asked Li Zheng to step back a little. He then gently pressed a button by the door, which lit up a light screen.

Switching to a different language, the doctor spoke a series of commands to the little figure on the screen.

Immediately afterwards, Li Zheng felt a slight tremor under his feet, and he was deeply shocked.

"This...this huge space is actually an elevator?!"

So, all my previous medical checkups were actually done in an elevator?!

But then again, it must have cost a lot of money to build such a large elevator in the outer city, right?

Not to mention the many different medical devices, each of which had a "valuable" label in the information bar displayed by Lao Pu.

The doctor's terrifying wealth is simply beyond the reach of most people.

"What's wrong? Are you surprised?"

While we waited, the doctor chuckled and said, "Simple treatments can be done upstairs. The patients downstairs are all suffering from difficult and complicated cases that are currently hard to treat. They generally need a quiet environment, otherwise it will cause some unnecessary trouble."

Boom!
As they were talking, the elevator stopped abruptly.

"arrive."

The doctor didn't open the door immediately, but instead warned Li Zheng and Kota, "Don't make any noise when you go in, understand?"

"Understood!" Li Zheng and Kota nodded in unison.

The doctor then opened the door he had come through, and the scene behind the door had completely changed, revealing a deep, dark corridor.

There is a large metal door at intervals on both sides of the corridor. The door is not designed in a sophisticated way. You can tell from the huge turntable outside that it is controlled by an old mechanical mechanism.

"The patients I take in almost all have the same illness. The cause of the illness is not yet clear, but it is speculated to be related to the final catastrophe."

The doctor kept his voice very low as he explained things to Li Zheng and led them inside.

"These patients have one thing in common: they look no different from ordinary people when they are brought in, but they will not wake up no matter how much they are stimulated by the outside world."

Therefore, I can only maintain their physical vitality with life support systems to prevent them from dying of thirst or starvation.

Upon arriving at a ward, the doctor opened the observation window for Li Zheng to see for himself.

The ward is about 80 square meters, and apart from a medical bed, almost all the space is occupied by other equipment.

The largest of the devices has a transparent tank containing a substance that resembles a nutrient solution.

Based on the doctor's description, Li Zheng originally thought these patients were similar to vegetative state patients on Earth.

However, when Li Zheng saw it with his own eyes, the Eye of Preys gave a completely different message.

Name: Unknown
Race: unknown

Strength: Unknown

Gender: Unknown

Status: Sub-healthy (organs have suffered minor damage due to prolonged lack of proper nutrition)
Description: Beneath his seemingly normal appearance lies a hidden secret; do you think he's in a vegetative state?
Then you're wrong. People in a vegetative state can still maintain weak brainwaves, and a few can even respond to external stimuli.

They were like the dead, receiving no brainwaves, only their bodies strangely maintaining physiological functions.

"This is the initial state; apart from maintaining bodily functions, no treatment has been used."

The doctor closed the observation window and led Li Zheng to another ward.

"This person received initial treatment, but something went wrong, and this is how it turned out."

Li Zheng opened the observation window and saw a robust creature with the head of a jackal sitting cross-legged in the ward. However, it behaved like a newborn child, crawling on the open ground and opening and closing its mouth as if saying something.

"Is this... intellectual decline?" Li Zheng frowned.

Preys' Eye displays: [Status detection in progress...]

After a moment, the information updated to: [Target too powerful, detection failed!]

This indicates that the jackal in the ward was originally at least on par with Yakumo and his ilk in terms of strength, or if he was slightly weaker, he wouldn't be too far behind.

"Sort of, but not quite the same." The doctor closed the observation window and sighed, "This guy used to be an old friend of mine. I watched him climb up from the bottom and finally get a public office from several major races."

At the time, his strength ranked ninety-seventh in District 902. Unexpectedly, shortly after returning from a terminal mission, he fell into a state of unconsciousness, and now he's become this wretched state.

“I used some stimulating therapy on him to try to awaken his past memories and get his brain working again. But… this is the result, he’s like a completely different person.”

They walked away from there, and the doctor led the two further inside.

In the next room, the observation window opened, and Li Zheng looked inside, momentarily stunned.

"Kota?"

The life in the ward is of the same race as Kota, but judging from her size, she is a woman.

Or rather... female.

When Kota heard his boss call him, he moved forward and immediately saw the figure in the ward, freezing on the spot.

After watching for a while, he became emotional, pressed his face against the observation window, his eyes reddening and brimming with tears: "Mom...this is my mom! Why is my mom here? She...I...we always thought she and Dad were dead..."

This carefree tiger-man brother, whom Li Zheng had always thought wasn't very bright, trembled all over upon seeing his mother, tears streaming down his face.

If he hadn't remembered the doctor's instructions and dared not make a sound, he probably would have been sobbing by now.

"You mean this is your mother?" The doctor suddenly pushed up his glasses, a white light flashing on the lenses. "That's great. She's been here with me for... well, at least seven or eight years, and we haven't been able to find any family to pay her medical bills. Since you're here, settle the bill for me later."

"I'll pay whatever it takes!" Kota wiped away his tears and choked out, "As long as my mother can live a healthy life, I'll risk my life to earn enough for her medical expenses!" "Don't speak too soon. All the expenses over the years have added up to nearly ten thousand red crystals. Can you afford it?" The doctor pulled Kota away and closed the observation window to prevent Kota from becoming too emotional and causing too much of a commotion.

"One...ten thousand red crystals?" Kota was momentarily stunned by the price. "Ten thousand white crystals can be exchanged for one red crystal, so I need to make money..."

He counted on his fingers for a long time, but still couldn't figure out how many white crystal coins he had to pay.

"One billion." Li Zheng didn't even have the heart to remind him, because in his opinion, this price was outrageously high. No wonder Yakumo seemed to be obsessed with money.

"One billion..."

Kota forgot his sadness when he heard the number; he and his two brothers combined had never seen so much money in their entire lives.

Let alone a billion, the most he ever had was 50,000 white crystal coins, which wasn't even enough to exchange for one red crystal coin.

Even if you sold the three brothers for a billion white crystal coins, you wouldn't earn even one percent.

Doctor: "...Something seems off?"

Li Zheng asked the doctor, "Even Kota, as her son, doesn't know that his mother is with you. Where was this patient admitted?"

"You suspect me of secretly taking innocent people as test subjects in order to study this disease?" The doctor glanced at him. "This Tagore patient was sent from Block 950. At that time, I had just started to come into contact with this disease, so I temporarily took her in."

According to the law enforcement team member who brought her there, they found her while on a mission in the wilderness.

She wasn't the only one present; many people of different races were torn to pieces. She was one of three survivors; the other two were members of Block 835, so I didn't accept them.

"Wait a minute..." Kota finally realized what was happening and asked, "You just said that everyone else at the scene was torn to pieces?"

For a moment, the expression on his face became incredibly complicated.

I don't know whether I should feel relieved or even more sad.

"So, my dad's definitely dead?" Kota murmured softly.

Seeing his state, Li Zheng comforted him, "You should take it easy. At least you, who thought you had lost both parents, now have a mother again, don't you?"

“Yes, I have a mother again…” Kota sighed and said, “It’s better that my father is dead. If he were still alive, the three of us brothers would be even less able to afford the medical expenses for both of them.”

Li Zheng: "..."

What kind of incredibly filial piety is this?
"Let's go, let's keep going," the doctor said, his tone much lighter.

I never expected that taking the two of them down for a walk would yield such an unexpected reward!
On another note, I've taken in a few patients whose identities are unknown. Maybe I should ask every patient who comes to the clinic in the future if they have any missing relatives or cases where they haven't witnessed someone's death.

Maybe we can find some more descendants to pay for the medical expenses!
"Doctor, may I go in and say a few words to my mother?" Kota asked hesitantly.

Since his parents went on a mission and never returned, he, as the eldest brother, has shouldered the burden of the entire family, worrying about his two silly younger brothers every day.

He had so many grievances he wanted to tell his mother, even if she might not understand what he was saying.

"It's not that I'm heartless," the doctor said calmly. "If you want to go in and be torn to pieces and eaten by your own mother, then go ahead, I won't stop you."

"What... is her condition different from the previous one?" Li Zheng sensed the problem.

Doctor: "Yes, the treatment used on this Tagore patient was exactly the same as the previous one, but the result was completely opposite, full of aggression."

Now I have to choose live animals for the meals I deliver every day; she won't touch any of the other cooked food.

If I let him in, his mother will think it's dinnertime and kill him herself.

Isn't this just a wild beast?
Li Zheng rested his chin on his hand, trying to find some pattern in it, but ultimately came up empty-handed.

The doctor's words carry authority in this clinic. He doesn't allow Kota to have contact with patients, and Li Zheng and the others don't dare to force him.

Kota knew how fierce his mother was. If she really went berserk as the doctor said, his small body wouldn't be enough for her to dismantle him in ten seconds.

Li Zheng was surprised to see how strong the elders in Kota's family were, as he looked at the series of "?" that Lao Pu had given him.

However, displaying "?" is still weaker than "unknown". Li Zheng estimated that if his strength improved further, he should be able to find out just how strong Kota's mother really was.

The two then followed the doctor further inside, and the doctor did not examine any other patients for them.

At first, those patients were just to give the two of them a general understanding of the topic they were currently researching.

Now that you've seen a few and have a general idea, there's no need to explain the rest further.

Li Zheng and his colleagues aren't in the medical field, so explaining it to them wouldn't have been of any use.

Following the corridor, the three arrived at a very special ward.

Unlike other wards, this one, except for the entrance door, has walls made of a sturdy, transparent material, allowing a clear view of the interior.

"This is Yakumo and Yoran's younger sister, Hisaya," the doctor said, pointing to the medical bed.

Perhaps so that Yakumo and the others could see Hisaya's face and ease their longing when they arrived, the medical bed was set up very high, so that Hisaya lying on it was almost as if he were standing on the ground.

Li Zheng was stunned when he saw the other person's face.

"What race is this? Why do they look so similar to us?"

He instinctively looked at the prompt from the Eye of Preys.

[Name: Jiuya
Race: Hachiya Cloud Rabbit

Strength: Godlike (Beginner)

Gender: Female
Status: Sub-healthy

Description: With identical symptoms, the attending physician, out of caution, has not yet used any medical intervention on her.

The Eight-Night Cloud Rabbit race has almost identical physical characteristics to Earthlings, except for the distinctive rabbit ears on their heads.

"Where do you think my appearance came from?" The doctor pointed to himself: "Except for those ears, which were too cumbersome and I removed them, all other features were based on the Cloud Rabbit Clan. Later, after seeing the general appearance of your generation of players, I added these ears to myself to make them more convenient."

As Li Zheng listened to the doctor's words and looked at Hisa, who was sleeping like a baby, he suddenly understood why Yakumo was so enthusiastic towards him.

Perhaps it was because she looked very similar to the Cloud Rabbit Clan that she was more subjectively kind to herself?

“As I just said, I’m here to help.” Li Zheng thought for a moment, “I have someone here who has achieved some success in the medical field, and he’s on the same wavelength as you now. His name is Xiao Siyuan. Perhaps you could consider taking him on as a student?”

(End of this chapter)