I'm not a drama god

"You...how did you get in here??"

Dr. Jia was startled and took several steps back in fear, leaning against the wall to steady himself.

Chen Ling parted the newspaper wrapping with his fingertips, revealing scattered capsules and pills inside. His gaze, sharp as a venomous snake, was fixed on Dr. Jia before him…

He walked forward step by step.

"What are these?" His voice was chillingly cold.

"It's...it's medicine!"

"I'll give you one more chance." Chen Ling reached into her sleeve, and then, a strange boning knife with centipede legs gleamed coldly in the air. "What... are these?"

Dr. Jia seemed stunned. He swallowed hard, hesitated for a moment, and then finally spoke:

"It's... starch, vitamins, and... a little bit of... painkiller."

"These are the prescriptions you usually give to your patients?"

A suffocating sense of oppression surged from Chen Ling's body. His red eyes, which seemed to be above everything, were fixed on Dr. Jia, who was standing close by. He suddenly plunged his knife into the wall next to Dr. Jia!

Swish, swish, swish——

The centipede legs on the knife handle made a rustling sound near Dr. Jia's ear. Under Chen Ling's oppressive presence, he was stiff as a statue, unable to move even a finger.

“You don’t have that many drugs at all! You’re just using these things to fool them… You’ve been a fake doctor from the beginning.”

Chen Ling's voice seemed to come from the netherworld.

To be honest, how this doctor lied and sold fake medicine had nothing to do with Chen Ling; he had seen plenty of people like that... But at this critical juncture, Chen Ling was indeed pinning his hopes on him, and when Chen Ling discovered that Kong Baosheng's lifeline was nothing but a laughable lie, he was already furious.

Under this terrifying pressure, beads of sweat seeped from Dr. Jia's forehead. His already exhausted mind was completely overwhelmed, and an indescribable sense of despair and anger surged into his heart!

"Me? I'm a fake doctor??"

"That's right, I sell fake medicine! I'm just scamming those people!! But do you think they could buy real medicine if I didn't scam them?!"

“Where can you find medicine in the entire Hidden Cloud Realm right now? I told them before, told them not to struggle, not to fantasize, that any medicine they can get now is fake! But they didn’t believe me… They want to live, they desperately want to live!”

"To survive, they were even willing to believe real con artists, being cheated out of food, their bodies, and even their children... Even so, they were still willing to believe those con artists!!"

"And what about me? I only took some of their material possessions! Gold, jewelry, ornaments—what use are these things in this day and age?! Do you think I really like those things?! It's just that if I don't make them pay something in return, they simply won't trust me!"

Dr. Jia became increasingly agitated. He even ignored the boning knife next to his ear and kicked the cabinet next to him hard.

The already dilapidated and old cabinet was kicked open, and countless gold and jewels tumbled out, piling up like garbage on the cramped floor...

"Will these junk fill my stomach?! Will they cure my illness?!"

"In this world, all these things combined aren't even worth a decent loaf of bread... If I had even a shred of selfishness, I wouldn't have ended up like this!"

The boning knife sliced ​​across his shoulder, leaving a gash in his old white coat that revealed his emaciated, starving body and the strange, tumor-like lumps beneath.

Chen Ling was stunned. He looked at Dr. Jia, who had been driven to the brink of collapse and madness, and was speechless for a moment.

"Yes, I know you're very capable..."

“When I pulled you back from the crematorium, I didn’t do anything at all, and you recovered most of your strength on your own… From that moment on, I knew that you were definitely not an ordinary person.”

"You're not an ordinary person, so how could you possibly understand the suffering of ordinary people like us?"

"You think I'm selling fake medicine and cheating people, but I can tell you with certainty that before that Dr. Han came, I was the one who truly healed and saved lives in this realm!"

"Without my 'placebos,' without my continuous supply of 'hope' to those people, they would either have committed suicide by burning charcoal at home, or been tormented by their own psychological suggestions to the point of having an outbreak of illness. They wouldn't be alive today!"

"They've been able to hold on until now because of me! Because of me!!"

"Who says only real medicine can save lives?! Who says only those who can cure diseases are true doctors?!"

After the intense emotional outburst, Dr. Jia felt completely drained... Hunger and pain once again overwhelmed him. He leaned against the wall and weakly slid down to the ground...

He hung his head, sweat mixed with raindrops falling from his hair to the ground.

"I don't have any medicine..."

"you……"

"If you want to kill, just kill."

Chen Ling was silent.

He gripped the boning knife handle tighter and tighter until his knuckles turned white. But in the end... he still didn't kill Dr. Jia.

Chen Ling knew very well that if this were a peaceful era, Dr. Jia's actions would be absolutely condemned by heaven... but in this chaotic and desperate era, he was indeed saving many people.

Chen Ling did not deny Dr. Jia's way of doing things, but what truly made him resentful was that he had lost hope of getting the medicine for Baosheng.

“…I won’t kill you.” Chen Ling took a deep breath and closed her eyes helplessly. “It’s not your fault that you don’t have the medicine.”

He shoved the boning knife back into his sleeve, glanced deeply at Dr. Jia, who was sitting pale on the ground, turned around, opened the door to the storage room, and prepared to leave.

Just then, Dr. Jia's hoarse voice sounded from behind him:

“I know who you are now… the theatrical robe, the boning knife, and that chilling sense of oppression… you are the Red King of the Twilight Society.”

Chen Ling's steps paused slightly.

He glanced back at Dr. Jia. "So?"

“I’ve seen a lot of news about you…you’re amazing.” Dr. Jia looked at him quietly as well. “Could you help us solve the plague, the hunger, and the internal strife?”

“…I can’t do it,” Chen Ling answered truthfully. “No one in this world can do it.”

"Oh……"

Dr. Jia leaned weakly against the wall, his weary and empty eyes staring at the window where raindrops were pouring down. His chest heaved like a broken bellows, and after a long while, he finally spoke in a hoarse voice.

"But there's one thing you should be able to do."

"what?"

"This era is terminally ill." Dr. Jia paused for a moment, his calm voice tinged with a longing for liberation.

"Since we can't be saved... let's make our painful process a little shorter."

"Rather than ek out a living in this shitty era..."

"Death is also a kind of liberation."