“Your Doctor Perl doesn’t treat human life as anything at all.” Isabel’s fingertip nearly jabbed into Troy’s nose, her voice laced with hate tempered like frozen ice, as if standing before her wasn’t Troy, but the doctor she loathed to the bone.
“She did this to my husband, and to other patients too. She only cares whether her new treatments work, even if it means dragging patients to the worst possible state before she acts! Those who survive call her a miracle healer, but the hundreds who died under her knifeโwho speaks for them!”
The smile on Troy’s face was long gone, erased clean as if wiped away with a rubber band. Her face was stiff, muscles hard as plaster, even her blinking slowed by half a beat: “The doctor isn’t like that… she always thinks of her patients first, there must be some mistake…”
“You smell the air in this house and can still say that?” A murky tremor rolled from Isabel’s throat. “When Helmut took his last breath, she just said ‘sorry’ and turned to leave. To this day I can’t understandโhow did he ever trust her? Trust a doctor who didn’t care whether he lived or died!”
“That was a surgical accident… surgeries always have accidents…” Troy’s voice drifted like a feather, so faint even she couldn’t grasp it.
“So all of you can only say that kind of thing?!” Isabel’s shriek shattered like glass on the floor, smashing Troy’s excuses into fragments.
“Why isn’t there even a sincere apology? Why, from the very beginning, have you never looked at us squarely?”
Sincerity?
Troy’s mind felt filled with lead.
Whatever Isabel said after that about human experiments and corpse trading, she couldn’t hear clearly anymore. She only felt those words like little insects, burrowing into her ears.
She suddenly wished she could be dumberโdumb enough to keep trusting Perl unconditionally, dumb enough not to have to think about these awful things.
But once certain thoughts surface, they can’t be suppressed.
Perl really did seem to care less and less about life.
Even if she fought through every surgery until her white coat was soaked with sweat, even if she could recite every patient’s allergy history and family medical history from memory, when she discussed cases with Troy, she was always cold, as if reading from an unimportant book. And Troy knew the people written in that book died under her scalpel the very same day.
Before, Troy only thought that was Perl’s composure. But now, facing the hysterical Isabel, she doubted for the first time: did Perl have even basic reverence for life at all?
Perl always wore a smileโthinking back on it now, it was actually a cold sneer. When discussing patients, her dark eyes would sink, as if shrouded in a layer of mist, distant and far away.
If anyone else had seen it, they’d get goosebumpsโthat look was no different from a person watching ants move their colony.
She really was more interested in rare and difficult diseases, more attentive to patients’ physiological responses, not to the “people” themselves.
Ever since Bremer died, Perl had changed. Was it that she carried too much responsibility she shouldn’t have, or had she deliberately become this way to bear those responsibilities?
Troy suddenly frozeโshe lived in the Bremer Residence every day, but how much did she really understand about the current Perl?
She only remembered the doctor who was like a mother, gentle, who would listen to her talk, who would pat her head.
“Mmph.” Troy raised a hand and slapped her own face. The warmth of her palm scalded her enough to make her flinch, like forcing herself awake after staying up till dawn.
She whispered to herself: “Troy, you can’t be like this. No matter what, you have to keep going.”
Isabel was still talking, endlessly, but Troy stopped listening. She pulled out the pocket watch from her chest, and the lid sprang open with a clickโ3:50 AM. She’d been here twenty minutes already.
It was still raining outside, but the body had to be moved. If she waited until daylight, it would be trouble.
She glanced at the metal reflection on the back of the watch, and the figure inside startled her. That wasn’t herโskin pale as paper, sunken eye sockets ringed with dark circles, as if veiled in watery mist.
‘Am I already dead?’ When that thought surfaced, Troy actually laughed.
“Sorry, I don’t have time to listen to you anymore.”
Troy raised her right hand, and flickering orange-red flames began to emerge from her palm. The searing heat made the air subtly warp, and the firelight reflected on Isabel’s face, illuminating her terror clearly.
“We suspect your husband’s illness is connected to the plague about to break out. We need to dissect his body. Lookโhe’s rotting this fast, which isn’t normal to begin with. For the sake of the capital’s people, we need you to make this sacrifice. We’ll compensate you afterward.”
The flames in Troy’s hand danced more violently with her surging emotions, sparks scattering everywhere.
She was clearly weak, her fever hadn’t broken, yet the mana inside her seemed to awaken, spilling out through her fingertips. The fire element that could once only be used to heat Perl’s coffee could now condense into a searing hot fireball. This surprised her and excited her at once.
“Even dead, you won’t let him go…” Isabel backed away two steps, her voice trembling.
“If that’s how you want to see it, that works too.” The corner of Troy’s mouth curled up again. “But if you dare go out and talk, I’ll…”
The fireball suddenly expanded a full circle with a “bang,” and Isabel flinched, shrinking back in terror.
Troy smiled, withdrew the fire, and muttered softly to herself.
“Doctor, I think I’m sick again.”
Claudia knocked more than a dozen times with no response, and she knew she’d come too late.
She gripped both hands on the door handle, braced her shoulder against the door panel, and with a slight push, the old broken door creaked open.
A thick stench of rotting corpses rushed out, choking her into holding her breath. She glanced at the rain marks on the door hingesโnot dry yet. The other party had left not long ago.
“Anyone here?” she called out.
From the silent room came a faint thumping soundโsomething hitting the floor.
Claudia searched around and found Isabel in the kitchen cabinet, bound tightly with rope.
Troy rode Helmut’s old horse slowly down the street. By now the downpour had stopped, and the horse’s hooves tapped lowly against the wet cobblestones in the silence.
The night after the rain’sๆด็คผ was crisp and clear, the Milky Way stretching across the sky. As she rode home, a cold half-moon accompanied her overhead.
Her mood was surprisingly good, and she even hummed a little tune, trying to suppress the joy threatening to overflow her chest.
When she’d knocked out Isabel, she’d seen faint black spots on Isabel’s body too. After all, Isabel had stayed with Helmut for so longโhow could she not be infected?
So the corpse wrapped tightly in waterproof canvas behind the horse, swaying gently with its gait, could definitely become important evidence for the doctor to investigate the plague. The thought that the doctor could escape those rumors because of this made Troy unable to stop smiling, the corners of her mouth refusing to come down.
“I knowโDoctor Perl became this way because of the responsibility of being the Bremer family heir.”
Her eyes were swollen, red bloodshot veins crawling across the whites, but there was not a trace of regret in her gaze.
“As long as she accomplishes something big, she can shake off all this pressure.”
If Perl was the first to prove the existence of Death’s Decree, she would be the one who saved this city, a hero who prepared before the storm. Just like her adoptive fatherโold Bremer had lost his wife and daughter in a magic research accident in his early years, then spent his whole life advancing the capital’s medical cause. No one resented him; everyone respected him.
Perl needed a story like that too.
That way, people like Isabel would have no right to speak ill of her.
This plague was her story.
How reasonable. Her own misfortune, those unfair thingsโthey all had a reason after all.
Troy held the reins with one hand while the other fumbled through the leather bag hanging by the saddle. This pulled her sleeve taut, exposing a little of the skin on her arm.
There were black spots there.
Had it already started?
Her heart suddenly pounded, every muscle in her body trembling. The joy that had been floating on clouds moments ago sank like a stone.
She closed her eyes, shook her head, and looked at her arm againโstill fair and flawless, just like before.
“It’s psychological. I’m just exhausted tonight.” she told herself.
This was why she carried the medicine. This was a critical moment; she knew her body and mind were nearly out of control, and she had to rely on the drugs to hold on.
“I’m sick now, I need to take my medicine.” She picked up a medicine bottle, bit off the cap with her teeth, shook out a few pills, swallowed them, and tossed the bottle back into the bag.
‘I’m not an idiot. I know the dosage.’
She picked up another bottleโthese medicines had to be taken together.
‘Has Isabel woken up already? When I tied her up, was my strength enough?’
One more bottle.
‘Would it have been better if I’d killed her back there? The smell in that house can’t be hiddenโit’ll be discovered tomorrow or the day after, right?’
No more medicine left.
“Killing people is wrong! I’m going to be a doctor in the future.”
She threw the last bottle back and chewed the remaining pills in her mouth hard.
She felt much better.
She knew she’d done wrong things, but they were necessary. This was her mission.
When she came back to her senses, she realized a fast horse was riding toward her from the opposite direction. The rider wore a black formal suit, had short black hair, and was a woman.
In that brief instant, their eyes met. The other’s gaze pierced through like a predator’sโTroy understood immediately that she was the target.
Before she could react, the woman suddenly raised her hand, and several ice spikes shot from her fingertips, striking precisely into the old horse’s flank.
The old horse reared up in pain, front hooves thrashing wildly. It could no longer be controlled and charged madly toward the stone wall by the roadside.
Troy yanked the reins desperately, her fingers turning white from the strain, but the horse’s pain had long overpowered its commands, and it only ran in a frenzy. She could only hug the horse’s neck tightly, waiting for the impact of the crash.
A dull sound exploded. The old horse slammed heavily into the stone wall, collapsing to the ground in convulsions.
Troy was flung off by the inertia, falling together with the December starry sky.
Then everything went black.