The clinic was a sacred place to the people of District 25.
If gods truly existed in this world, then everything that had happened since the apocalypse proved one thing clearly—
Those gods were human beings themselves.
In this impoverished place, the only people capable of dragging someone back from the line between life and death were doctors, not fantasies or miracles.
From beginning to end, humanity could only rely on humanity.
Because of that, everyone in District 25 followed one unspoken rule, whether out of justice or long-term self-interest:
Any time you entered a clinic, you handed over your gun.
To better protect the clinics, all the gang leaders in District 25 had reached an agreement long ago. No matter what conflicts existed outside, fighting was absolutely forbidden inside a clinic.
Some gangs even sent their own men to guard the doctors.
Lansi helped Matt walk deeper into the clinic. But the moment he saw the inside, he couldn't help sucking in a sharp breath.
The entire clinic had been converted from an abandoned factory building. Ventilation was terrible, and the inside was dimly lit. The only source of fresh air came from a tiny window high near the ceiling.
That alone would have been manageable.
The real problem was the environment.
Hospital beds were crammed tightly together throughout the entire factory floor. Patients lay on them groaning in pain nonstop.
Every patient looked different.
Some had pale, waxy complexions. Others had bloody bandages wrapped around their heads. A few had swollen abdomens that looked disturbingly unnatural.
Some patients had hung old rags between the beds to create a little privacy, but the cloth barely concealed anything. It was more psychological comfort than actual separation.
At the far eastern side stood a battered folding screen. Across it, three crooked words had been written unevenly:
"Operating Room"
Lansi stared at everything in stunned silence.
Oh my god.
In other words… this place didn't even have a real operating room?
Not long after they entered, a woman walked over. She glanced at Lansi and Matt before asking flatly,
"Where does it hurt?"
Lansi hesitated, about to say that nothing was actually wrong, but before he could speak, Matt suddenly began groaning dramatically while leaning against him.
"Ohhh, my leg hurts. It hurts so badly. There's a tumor in my leg. I'm dying."
For someone supposedly dying, he sounded incredibly energetic.
The woman sneered and smacked the notebook in her hand directly against Matt's head.
"I don't care whether you're dying or not. Shut up. This place needs quiet."
Lansi: "..."
The woman waved them toward a bench nearby before opening her notebook and writing something down.
"Sit there. Don't wander around. Wait for Doctor Li to see you."
Then she turned and left.
Watching her walk away, Lansi silently concluded that she was probably the head nurse here.
"Let's leave."
Lansi lowered his voice and whispered to Matt,
"It's quiet outside now. The assassins are probably gone."
"They're definitely gone."
Matt spoke lazily, sounding nothing like someone who had been "dying" moments earlier.
"The guards outside probably beat that assassin half to death already."
"Then why are we still here?"
Lansi asked curiously.
"Since we're already here, I might as well see someone."
Matt's green eyes darkened slightly. He looked toward the patients lying on the hospital beds in the distance, as though remembering something unpleasant, before letting out a cold laugh.
"I want to see exactly what kind of vixen she is."
A vixen?
Immediately, Lansi's curiosity exploded.
With great interest, he leaned toward Matt and confidently declared,
"I know what happened to you."
Matt froze briefly before turning to look at Lansi with a complicated expression.
"Oh? And what exactly do you know?"
Actually, Matt's situation wasn't complicated at all.
Yesterday, after Lansi pinned him down and tortured him with the world's simplest "leg-stretching punishment," Matt had practically spilled everything he knew.
Still, he had never mentioned anything about the clinic.
Lansi had been curious about that for a while, but instead of asking directly, his brain had already invented an entirely different story.
"Forbidden love. Definitely forbidden love."
Lansi shook his head dramatically and happily continued building his absurd theory.
"The two brothers shared an unspeakable relationship, but the younger brother couldn't endure the pressure anymore. In the end, he abandoned his older brother and went alone to the Upper City, where he fell in love with a doctor at first sight.
"Years later, the younger brother wanted to erase that shameful forbidden past, so he hired assassins to kill his brother. But unexpectedly, the older brother survived and came here yearning for the doctor who once treated him…
"Only to discover that the doctor was actually his younger brother's lover."
Lansi sighed emotionally.
"Brothers turning against each other over the same person. Is this the collapse of morality, or the distortion of human nature?"
Matt listened expressionlessly to the entire ridiculous story.
Finally, unable to endure anymore, he slapped Lansi across the back of the head with a pained expression.
"I honestly thought you were a normal human being. But this is the conclusion you came up with? Are your brain circuits even human? How are they this weird?"
What a waste.
With imagination like this, Lansi could probably become a bestselling novelist.
Rubbing the back of his head, Lansi answered very seriously,
"I'm really not human, though."
The statement was technically true.
Unfortunately, after all the nonsense he had just spouted, it sounded completely fake.
Matt immediately rolled his eyes.
Completely unaware that he had just missed hearing an actual truth.
At that moment, the nurse from earlier returned with the doctor.
The second Lansi saw him, he blurted out in surprise,
"Doctor Li Si?"
Li Si had not noticed Lansi earlier. But the moment he saw that iconic white hair, panic flashed briefly across his eyes before he quickly forced himself to calm down.
"It's you, Lansi."
Matt watched Li Si approach, his expression shifting several times, though he remained silent.
"Why are you here?"
Lansi asked curiously.
"Aren't you a doctor from the Echo Organization?"
This place was a complete mess. For someone like Li Si to work here felt almost like charity work.
He wasn't even wearing a proper white coat. Instead, he had on an ordinary suit stained in several places, as though he had rushed over immediately after finishing surgery elsewhere without even having time to clean himself up.
Strictly speaking, Li Si's appearance violated all sorts of medical regulations. In wealthy districts, patients probably would have filed countless complaints already.
But in District 25, a living doctor was more precious than a living fossil.
As for things like regulations?
Nobody here cared.
Li Si's expression stiffened slightly. He forced a smile toward Lansi.
"I'm just here to help… Lansi, are you feeling unwell somewhere?"
"To help?"
Before Lansi could continue speaking, Matt suddenly interrupted in a strange tone.
"Does your lover know you're here?"
Li Si's eyes immediately shifted toward Matt.
When he saw Matt's green eyes, his expression froze slightly. A few seconds later, Li Si turned back toward Lansi and asked hesitantly,
"He is…?"
"Just some poor nobody. Don't mind him."
Matt continued provoking Li Si relentlessly, clearly determined to pick a fight.
"Doctor, you secretly brought medical supplies and equipment from the wealthy districts into District 25. If someone catches you, that counts as smuggling."
Matt narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Aren't you afraid of dragging your lover down with you?"
Li Si's face instantly turned pale.
He staggered backward, nearly collapsing onto the ground.
"Doctor Li?!"
Lansi reacted immediately, stepping forward to catch him before the back of his head could hit the floor.
Then he quickly motioned toward the nurse nearby.
"Bring a chair over!"
Supporting Li Si carefully, Lansi lowered his head and asked worriedly,
"Are you alright?"
The nurse standing beside Doctor Li was startled by what had just happened. After Lansi spoke, she hurriedly dragged over a chair from nearby and helped Li Si sit down.
Looking distressed, she said softly,
"Doctor Li, please rest for a while. You've been exhausting yourself lately."
"Allie, go ahead first."
Li Si sat weakly in the chair and forced out a faint smile.
"I'll rest for half an hour and talk with them."
The nurse hesitated and glanced suspiciously at Lansi and Matt before finally nodding and leaving.
"Good. Since there's no one else here now, let's just speak openly."
The moment the unrelated people left, Matt dropped all restraint and continued mocking Li Si mercilessly.
"You're supposed to be such a good person, so what exactly are you doing here playing the hypocrite? Satisfying your own pathetic sense of compassion?"
His green eyes narrowed coldly.
"How many people do you think you can actually save just because you studied medicine?"
Every sentence made Li Si's face grow paler.
By the end, he looked so unsteady that it seemed like he might faint at any moment.
Even Lansi, who had been watching from the side, could no longer tolerate it. He pinched Matt hard and hissed angrily into his ear,
"What's wrong with you? Why are you acting so bitter?"
Then he turned toward Li Si.
"If Doctor Li Si can save even a few people, isn't that still better than letting them die?"
Matt merely sneered.
"I know I can't change the entire situation."
Li Si lowered his eyes and smiled bitterly.
"I just want to do what I can within my own ability."
Then he hesitated briefly before continuing quietly,
"As for my lover… I don't know why you brought him up. I really did come here without telling him. I'm afraid he would despise me."
If Li Si's actions were exposed online, countless people would probably mock him for having some kind of martyr complex.
Li Si himself understood that very clearly.
Being punished wasn't what frightened him. What he feared was the public pressure that would follow if people in the wealthy districts discovered what he had been doing here.
After all, he and Michael were already under heavier scrutiny than ordinary couples to begin with.
Matt let out a mocking whistle.
"Oh? Then the two of you really are a perfect match."
One hid his true identity.
The other secretly came to the slums to play doctor.
Li Si raised his head suddenly. His gaze was firm, almost stubborn.
"What exactly are you trying to say?"
He stared directly at Matt.
"And how do you know me?"
Matt remained silent.
"Enough! Stop it already!"
Lansi suddenly exploded.
With a dark expression, he scratched at his hair in frustration.
"I might enjoy reading melodramatic gossip stories, but I absolutely hate this kind of nonsense happening in real life!"
He pointed accusingly at both of them.
"Why can't either of you just explain things properly? This isn't some serialized drama!"
It was seriously driving him insane.
Would saying one extra sentence really kill them?
This wasn't one of those ridiculously drawn-out romance novels where people hesitated for hundreds of chapters instead of communicating—
If the plot dragged on too much, readers would abandon the story!
So over the next half hour, Lansi passionately waved his arms around and enthusiastically explained his entire ridiculous "forbidden love" theory to Li Si.
According to his story, the protagonists were two brothers born in the slums, and everything else unfolded exactly as he had previously imagined.
By the time he finished, the entire clinic had fallen into dead silence.
Entertainment in District 25 was scarce to begin with, and this was the first time anyone had heard such outrageous drama unfold in real time.
Even the patients lying on nearby beds had stopped groaning. One by one, they secretly perked up their ears, waiting eagerly to hear how the story ended.
"Anyway, that's basically the situation."
Lansi carefully concealed the fact that his own identity was fake while using vague descriptions to cover up everyone's personal information.
Li Si: "..."
His expression turned completely blank.
It seemed he had finally realized that, in Lansi's version of events, he was apparently the "white moonlight" being fought over by two brothers.
The mental impact was so severe that his brain seemed to have temporarily stopped functioning.
Matt: "..."
The corner of his mouth twitched violently.
He, meanwhile, had apparently become the older brother hopelessly in love with his own sibling.
At that moment, Matt sincerely wanted to sew Lansi's mouth shut forever.
After a long silence, Li Si finally took a deep breath. Once he regained his composure, he lowered his voice and asked quietly,
"When you came to see me today… does Michael know about it?"
Matt shook his head.
"Coming to see you today was purely an accident."
He paused briefly before correcting himself with a strange expression.
"No… maybe it's more accurate to say it was fate."
Michael probably never could have imagined that his plan would somehow end like this.
After all, the biggest problem was that Michael had never anticipated someone as wildly unpredictable as Lansi.
A series of completely unplanned events collided together, and after everything finally followed the path Michael had carefully arranged, the ending somehow turned into something entirely different from what he imagined.
For example, Michael never expected Matt to lose to Lansi.
He never expected Matt and Lansi to end up escaping together and hiding inside the clinic.
And he definitely never expected that Lansi hated melodramatic misunderstandings so much that he would simply expose everything directly.
As long as even one link in the chain had been missing, Michael's secrets would not have unraveled this quickly.
It could only be described as fate playing tricks on people.
Li Si lowered his head, avoiding both Lansi's and Matt's gazes as he whispered softly,
"So… does this mean the 'Michael' I know never actually existed?"
The conclusion was cruel.
But it was also true.
Even now, Li Si still didn't know Michael's real name.
And if even the identity itself had been fabricated, then how could Li Si be certain whether he had fallen in love with "Michael"… or merely the personality Michael had created for him?
They had overcome countless difficulties just to be together. Their marriage had once seemed hard-earned and precious.
Yet in the end, it all turned out to be an exquisitely crafted lie.
The reason Li Si had stubbornly chosen Michael despite all the pressure around them—and why he had risked himself by coming here to save patients—was because he had always been an idealist.
No matter how terrible the apocalypse became, he still believed true love existed in this world.
But now, the existence of "Michael" had shattered that fantasy completely.
Thinking about it more deeply, Li Si suddenly realized something even more terrifying.
What if Michael approaching him from the very beginning had been nothing more than a carefully planned conspiracy?
The thought made Li Si feel dizzy instantly.
He wanted to cry.
But he also understood very clearly that tears were the most useless thing right now.
"How did you end up here?"
Taking a deep breath, Li Si forcibly held back the tears in his eyes and suppressed the ache in his chest before continuing quietly,
"Is Michael… hunting you down?"
Lansi and Matt both fell silent at the same time.
That silence alone already answered the question.
"He wasn't like this when he was with me."
Tears finally gathered in Li Si's eyes.
"Why… why did he become like this?"
If even his personality had been fabricated from the beginning, then everything Li Si believed in felt as though it had been trampled beneath Michael's feet.
All the pressure he had endured just to stay with Michael…
Now it all felt like a cruel joke.
Watching Li Si's face pale to the point of lifelessness, Matt pursed his lips slightly.
He looked like he wanted to say something.
But in the end, he remained silent.
Perhaps Lansi's ridiculous melodramatic theory really wasn't entirely wrong.
Maybe the older brother truly did possess an abnormal obsession with his younger brother.
Maybe he really would do anything to eliminate anyone his younger brother loved.
A tear finally slipped onto Li Si's hand.
Blankly, he lifted his head and asked in a hoarse voice,
"Then what should I do?"
Lansi sighed softly.
Li Si's situation was completely different from his own.
Compared to Michael, Wen Yu at least had one redeeming quality—
He wasn't nearly as calculating.
Michael was simply too clever.
A person like that, once they began telling lies, would create countless additional lies to maintain the original one. And the result was that the moment someone finally pierced through the illusion, they would discover a bottomless abyss hidden underneath.
By then, there was no fixing it anymore.
As for Wen Yu…
Perhaps fortunately, Wen Yu didn't even think like a normal human in the first place. Deep down, he still operated more like a beast. He didn't hide behind layers upon layers of schemes and calculations.
"Just ask him directly."
Lansi answered honestly.
"At least hear his explanation first."
After all, Lansi had always been the straightforward type.
Completely straightforward.