thebusnovel Chapter 106
Chapter 106
Chapter 106: Prison Warden Ye Desheng
"Grand Love Alliance of Heaven and Earth?"
"That sounds a bit familiar... but I just can't place it."
Regardless.
Setting aside that absurd message.
The Sovereign Lantern was undeniably a powerful Cursed Object.
Even though it started at only Grade F.
The two attributes—"unlimited growth potential" and "forcibly absorbs and imprisons souls"—
meant it was a Kill Line–class piece of equipment.
'As long as I drive the enemy past the Kill Line, I can pull them straight into the lantern...'
A cold glint flickered in Jiang Nan's eyes.
Every top-tier faction and Cursed Creature in this hospital—
weren't they the perfect hunting ground for charging and upgrading this lantern?
"Heh..."
Jiang Nan let out a quiet laugh.
Then his gaze sharpened, and power erupted from his body in an instant!
‘Come out!’
With one final, forceful pull—
"Ahhhhh!!!"
Piano was finally pulled free.
She lay on the floor, eyes rolled back, twitching.
Jiang Nan casually grabbed a bath towel and wrapped it around his waist.
He glanced at the clock on the wall.
06:30.
Only 1 and a half hours remained before the high-stakes Slot Machine showdown.
Swoosh!
A notepad slip drifted down and landed on Piano's still-convulsing face:
【Put your clothes on. Get ready to show them what true love looks like.】
......
"Oh my, oh my~ What a haul!"
"I've been playing Werewolf with everyone for so long, I almost forgot I was running low on funds."
"Now I've finally got enough for the entry ticket to the 10th Floor High-Stakes Game!"
Silk-Stocking Desperado lounged lazily on the sofa, fingers spinning 3 dice.
Inside the Card Room on the 19th floor, she had just wrapped up her latest round of gambling.
The kill record hovering above her head had now reached the terrifying figure of【77/1】.
And inside the black chip bag in front of her, her funds had exploded to 6,480 Ghost Coins!
"Ughhhhh!!!"
Across the gambling table, 2 ghost gamblers who had lost every last chip they owned let out screams of despair.
The Supervisor on the ceiling dragged them out of the room.
Their destination: the 9th floor.
That was where the Ghost Doctors lived—and where Gundam Parts were harvested.
As for the 10th floor above that...
that was where the High-Stakes Game was held.
"Little bro, what are you spacing out for? Get to work."
Silk-Stocking Desperado gave Guan Ming a nudge with her foot, gesturing for him to bag the scattered Ghost Coins on the table.
Guan Ming gritted his teeth and stepped forward, clumsily scooping the chips into the bag with his only remaining right hand.
His expression was ghastly, lips dark with discoloration.
Where his left arm had been severed, the bandage had long since soaked through with black blood, throbbing with a dull, deep pain.
Guan Ming's mind flashed back to the Supervisor's rusty Bone-Cleaving Knife that had taken his arm...
'That blade had to be coated in bacteria on par with the Ganges River!'
'The wound... is probably infected.'
Guan Ming felt his vision blur, his entire body running cold.
If he couldn't get effective antibiotics and proper wound debridement before the High-Stakes Game—
he'd likely drop dead from fever complications before long.
Silk-Stocking Desperado naturally noticed something was off with him.
She stopped spinning the dice, one brow arching slightly.
Then she reached into her windbreaker pocket and pulled something out, dropping it flat onto the table.
"Here, take it."
It was a pale, severed hand—nails painted red.
"I just won this as a side prize off some female ghost a moment ago."
"You're short a hand anyway, so I'm giving it to you now. Make do with it!"
"......"
Guan Ming stared at the female ghost's hand radiating a cold Yin aura, and his face immediately crumpled into a mask of suffering.
"Come on... Big Sis!!!"
"What good is just a hand to me?!"
"Never mind how awkward it'd be to slap a female ghost's hand onto a perfectly normal man's body..."
"The real question is—HOW do you even attach it?! Superglue?!"
Guan Ming screamed internally, but the searing pain had stolen even the strength to speak.
Silk-Stocking Desperado saw his state, and scratched her head with a mild headache of her own.
"Tch... can't attach it, so what do we do now?"
"Getting a ghost nurse to do a reattachment surgery would cost at least 10,000 Ghost Coins."
"Pay for the surgery and we won't have enough for the entry ticket."
"But without this guy as my partner, the High-Stakes Game rules say I can't play..."
"We're a bit stuck between a rock and a hard place~"
She propped her chin in her hand, genuinely puzzled.
And right at that moment—
a familiar voice suddenly rose from directly behind her.
"No. 4."
The moment she heard that name, the hand spinning the dice went rigid.
Not just her—even Guan Ming, who had been on the verge of blacking out from the pain, jolted sharply!
That voice...
was their Warden!
Ye Desheng!!
Guan Ming turned his head.
There, standing at the Card Room doorway—appearing without anyone noticing—was a man.
He wore a gold mask that covered his face, leaving only his eyes exposed.
But that voice, that build—there was no mistaking it!
"It's you?"
Silk-Stocking Desperado didn't turn around, only keeping her back to him.
The playful teasing that normally laced her voice was completely gone.
"Say what you came to say. Make it quick."
Ye Desheng walked slowly into the room.
"You had already recognized me during the 'Revolver God's' gambling match, hadn't you?"
"So why didn't you say anything then?"
Hearing the question, Silk-Stocking Desperado let out a cold laugh.
"Heh heh..."
She tossed the 3 dice in her hand onto the table. They tumbled and rolled to a stop—【4】【4】【4】.
"If you came all this way just to ask that pointless question..."
"Then get out of my sight. Fast."
"Before I lose my temper... and make sure you never leave this place."
Boom!
A killing intent surged upward from her body like smoke.
Guan Ming shrank into the corner beside them, not daring to breathe a word.
The pressure radiating off these 2 was overwhelming, and beyond that...
these 2 clearly had a history. That atmosphere of old grudges layered over fresh hatred pressed down like a physical weight.
Ye Desheng walked forward, unbothered.
"Since you don't want to discuss the past, we won't."
"I'm only here for 1 thing."
"The Bath Emperor and Chen Daozi..."
"Are inviting you to come down to the 2nd floor for a chat before the High-Stakes Game on the 10th floor."
"There's something important they need to say to you in person."
"Oh~"
Silk-Stocking Desperado turned around.
"Would you look at that?"
"The Warden who once sat high and mighty in Xingcheng Prison, all righteousness and order—"
"Now running errands for Cursed Creatures and prisoners?"
"Quite the nimble little lackey, aren't you?"
"Color me impressed. Really, I'm impressed!"
She crossed her arms and refused without hesitation.
"Go back and tell those 2 that I have zero interest in that 'Hospital Director' position."
"All I want is to get out of this godforsaken hospital!"
"Entering the High-Stakes Game..."
"Is nothing more than a way to get the clearance pass so I can leave."
"I have no interest in getting tangled up in your little power struggle!"
"The wise bend with the wind, No. 4."
Ye Desheng didn't rise to her taunting.
"This pre-game meeting—you have no choice but to attend."
"Because an uncontrollable development has emerged inside the hospital."
"And it's a development that supersedes even that so-called 'Revolver God.'"
"Hmm?"
At those words, Silk-Stocking Desperado's tone finally grew slightly more serious.
A development more extreme than the Revolver God?
What kind of monster could this hospital possibly produce now?
"Fine, I'll agree to come listen."
Silk-Stocking Desperado relented—but immediately pointed at the near-collapsed Guan Ming beside her.
"But first... I need to get my partner treated."
"Otherwise he's going to die on me."
Ye Desheng followed her gaze to Guan Ming, then to his severed arm, then to the female ghost's hand lying on the table.
"Of course. It's a simple matter..."
Ye Desheng stepped forward toward Guan Ming and extended his right hand—gloved in black leather.
He reached for the female ghost's severed hand that Guan Ming was clutching tightly.
Guan Ming instinctively flinched back.
It was the reflexive fear and awe of a former subordinate toward this iron-fisted superior.
Ye Desheng said nothing more.
Riiip!
He tore the bandage clean off Guan Ming's severed arm in one motion!
Because the blood had dried and crusted, the pull tore away an entire layer of rotting flesh along with it!
"Ahhhh!!!"
Guan Ming screamed in agony, his only remaining right hand clamping down on his thigh so hard his knuckles went white, nearly blacking out from the pain alone.
Ye Desheng continued his "treatment" with an expressionless face.
He reached into the breast pocket of his uniform and produced 2 strips that resembled adhesive bandages.
He pressed 1 strip against the wound on Guan Ming's severed arm, and the other against the cut surface of the female ghost's hand.
Then, he aligned both ends and connected them.
Ssssss...
The moment the 2 strips made contact with flesh and blood—
they dissolved instantly, transforming into countless crimson threads of sinew!
The threads darted frantically back and forth between Guan Ming's severed arm and the ghost hand's wrist, weaving and pulling and binding!
Guan Ming watched in horror.
'What kind of ability is this?!'
'This doesn't look like healing at all—it looks more like something a Cursed Creature would do!'
Meanwhile, Ye Desheng looked entirely unperturbed, and took advantage of the surgery's intermission to strike up a casual conversation with Guan Ming.
"You're Guan Ming—the one sent from the Criminal Investigation Unit, correct?"
"I saw your photo in the transfer documents at Xingcheng Prison before."
Guan Ming bit through the pain and answered with great effort.
"Huh... hah... Yes. Warden."
Even as he answered, a deep bitterness welled up inside Guan Ming's chest.
He raised his head and glanced sideways at Silk-Stocking Desperado, watching with cold detachment.
Then he looked at the man before him—the man who had once stood for absolute justice and order.
Before this moment, he had seen with his own eyes what lay beneath Silk-Stocking Desperado's windbreaker...
The injuries were nothing short of harrowing.
The Desperado had described it offhandedly as a gift from this very Warden.
But in the heart of Guan Ming—an upright, by-the-book detective—he had refused to believe it.
'That Warden Ye, so respected throughout the law enforcement world, couldn't possibly be a sadist who employed such depraved torture methods!'
And so.
He refused to give up.
He told himself the Warden must have had his reasons—or perhaps had simply lost his way in this wretched end-of-days world.
He wanted to use the bonds of family to call this superior back to his conscience.
So, numbed somewhat by the sheer intensity of the pain, Guan Ming rasped out the words he'd been holding back.
"Warden... Miss Ye... she misses you!"
"She's been looking for you all along!"
At those words—
the hand guiding the sinew threads in their suturing gave the smallest pause.
But the gaze beneath the mask held none of the surprise or emotion Guan Ming had hoped for.
Instead, there was only...
confusion and indifference.
"Oh?"
Ye Desheng's voice carried no inflection whatsoever.
"So Yilin... is still alive?"
"In a hospital that devours people like this, I'd assumed she had already died long ago."
"What?!"
Guan Ming was completely stunned—the pain forgotten entirely.
He raised his head and stared at Ye Desheng with barely contained fury, disbelief etched across his face.
"How can you say that?!"
"She's your own daughter!! Aren't you even worried about her safety?!"
"Heh heh..."
Ye Desheng gave a cold laugh.
"Officer Guan, you're not in any position to lecture me."
"She is, indeed, my daughter."
"And it is precisely because of that..."
"That I would prefer she had died cleanly and swiftly, the moment she was transported to this terrifying world."
"Rather than doing what she's doing now—clinging to life by a thread..."
"Slowly savoring that despair of living a life worse than death!"
"In a world where even gods can fall, family bonds are the cheapest form of dead weight."
Ye Desheng stared down at Guan Ming coldly.
"Death is the greatest mercy I could offer her."
Hearing this inhuman declaration, Guan Ming's entire body trembled.
‘Unhinged.’
‘Every single person in this hospital...’
‘Is completely unhinged!!’
Ye Desheng paid no attention to Guan Ming's shock.
He turned his head and glanced at Silk-Stocking Desperado, who stood to the side with an unreadable expression.
"However..."
"Since she's currently by No. 4's side, that's no longer my concern."
"It falls to her now... to fulfill the 'obligation' that needs fulfilling."
"Fulfill... an obligation?"
Guan Ming heard those words and went completely blank, his mind a void.
What obligation?
Did Silk-Stocking Desperado owe Miss Ye something?
Or was there some kind of arrangement between Warden Ye and Silk-Stocking Desperado?
Numbed by the waves of pain, he finally couldn't hold back the question that had been gnawing at him for so long.
"Warden... her injuries..."
"Was it... really you?"
Ye Desheng's suturing hand paused for just a moment.
A beat passed.
Ye Desheng didn't look up. He didn't evade.
"Yes."
"What she told you is correct."
"Every scar on her body was put there by my hands."
"I will offer no defense for it."
Hearing the unambiguous answer, Guan Ming lowered his head and fell silent.
Something inside his chest felt as though it had shattered.
That tall, towering image—in this instant—came crashing down, crumbling into dust.
Clack!
With one final sound of bone locking perfectly into place—
the female ghost's hand had fused seamlessly with Guan Ming's arm!
The surgery was complete.
Guan Ming flexed his new hand experimentally.
Surprisingly agile.
Ye Desheng rose to his feet, then turned to face Silk-Stocking Desperado.
"Let's go. Down to the 2nd floor."
"The 2 of them have already been waiting there long enough."
With that, he turned and strode out of the Card Room.
Silk-Stocking Desperado gave no reply—only stood.
"Let's go, little bro."
She gave the still-dazed Guan Ming a pat on the shoulder.
"Let's go see what this is about..."
"And find out what kind of scheme these old foxes are cooking up behind closed doors."
Bunny-Bunny