Chapter 52

Lin Tantan felt the decidedly unfriendly aura coming off Ye Xiao, so she didn't act rashly. Peering over Ye Xiao's shoulder, she saw the tear-streaked man ahead looking terrified, he'd even stopped crying, mouth open like a frightened little mouse.
He didn't look threatening; he'd called her "Doctor Lin" a moment ago. In this world she only earned that title after opening the makeshift clinic, and people began addressing her that way, so he must be a patient or a patient's relative seeking help?
Crying so miserably, his condition must be pretty bad, then?
These days she'd often run into people desperate for treatment or those angling to get on her good side; she wasn't unfamiliar with that. She tended to make quick judgments and wasn't as observant as Ye Xiao, so she hadn't noticed the oddness in Xu Tianjin's emotions.
Lin Tantan stepped aside and, from behind Ye Xiao, revealed her full face. "Can I help you?"
Ye Xiao glanced at her, then addressed the man before them. "What's your name? Where are you from? What do you want to say?" His tone was icy. Xu Tianjin, already a jumble of emotions, had run over on impulse and his words weren't formed; Ye Xiao's scare left him completely dazed.
"N-nothing." He said it and hunched his shoulders, then ran off.
Lin Tantan: "..."
Ye Xiao turned, put the hat back on her that had slipped, and smoothed a stray curl. "Don't pay attention to people like that."
"Mm." Ye Xiao's movements were natural and straightforward, but the warm brush of his fingers against her cheek still made her a little uncomfortable. She tilted her head. "Let's go."
Ye Xiao withdrew his hand as if nothing had happened.
At dinner, Lin Tantan sat on the sofa beside Bai Cheng and said, "Bai Cheng, I need some help."
Bai Cheng was slicing an orange, somehow he'd managed to get it today, fresh and juicy. He handed a slice to Lin Tantan. "What kind do you need? How many? For what purpose?"
"Not ability users, ordinary folks will do. Big, burly types who can act as bodyguards, mainly to maintain order. I'm going to the shantytown tomorrow." Lin Tantan bit into her orange; the sweet-tart juice was delicious.
"To the shantytown?" a voice sounded. Ye Xiao, having washed up, came down the stairs with beads of water still in his hair.
Steam clung to Ye Xiao; he wore a loose white thin sweater, casual trousers and slippers. He looked relaxed and at ease, very different from his daytime self.
Because Lin Tantan had been deliberately avoiding him lately, by the time he returned she'd already gone to her room; they hadn't shared a space even when in the western quarter. So this was the first time she'd seen him like this, like a handsome lead in a comic who dazzles and intimidates outside, but at home sheds his armor and switches from elite mode to home mode in an instant.
In short: disarmingly harmless, warm, soft, the sort of person you'd want to cuddle without restraint.
Startled by her own urge to cuddle him, Lin Tantan cleared her throat and lowered her head to continue eating her orange.
Ye Xiao sat on the single sofa beside her and asked again, "What are you going to the shantytown for?"
Ning City base was large and heavily populated, naturally divided into many districts without formal names. The so-called shantytown was an area where survivors had built houses themselves from bricks, earth, tiles, planks, foam boards, even rags and oiled paper.
The residents were very, very poor, essentially the base's lowest rung.
The shantytown Lin Tantan meant was the one nearest to this villa.
Lin Tantan gave him a quick, assessing look. His damp hair glinted under the light, there weren't beads of water running into his collar, but there was a faint post-shower freshness about him, and perhaps because of his warmth that scent carried a subtle hint of warmth too. It felt... a little delicate.
She felt a little uneasy again.
She glanced at Bai Cheng.
Bai Cheng didn't look up at Ye Xiao; he remained focused on slicing his orange. Huh, had she not been paying attention lately, or had the bromance between them cooled off?
Lost in such thoughts, she forgot once more to answer Ye Xiao, until he called, "Tantan?"
"Hm? Oh, I'm going tomorrow afternoon, to check on the patients there," Lin Tantan hurriedly replied. "The rain's eased; people are coming out and mingling. Once there's more contact, the flu will spread badly. I heard they have the most sick people over there."
Visiting her clinic required paying with supplies, and few shantytown residents could afford treatment. With the poor living conditions there, the number of patients was extremely high.
Ye Xiao frowned. "Just to take a look."
"Uh, to take in some seriously ill patients." Thinking of a certain report, Lin Tantan's eyes darkened. "I heard there was a death today."
If someone died from ordinary causes, or even if an epidemic broke out, Lin Tantan's reaction would at most be heavy worry. She wasn't a professional doctor and had never sworn any oath when she took the job; she didn't hold a lofty savior-of-lives ideology. Being a therapist was how she made a living and repaid her parents and teachers. Later, the state paid her a lot of attention, showered her with awards and privileges, and patients repaid her with gratitude and gifts, so the circle of reciprocity had simply widened.
In truth she didn't think her profession was noble or that she was especially selfless; plain and simple, it was a job.
But this flu had been triggered by the downpour, and with the suspicion that the storm had been hastened because of her, Lin Tantan felt a stone on her chest. That's why she'd recruited several wood-type ability users to run the clinic with her, and why they saw hundreds of patients a day.
And now there were deaths.
Bai Cheng said, "I heard about it too, but those patients mainly succumbed because they couldn't get enough nutrition. It's more accurate to say they starved to death than that the illness itself killed them." There were many such people at the Ning City base every day.
He told Lin Tantan, "Patients in the shantytowns are hard to treat."
"I know, but we should still go and see." Lin Tantan persisted. If the flu exploded out of control and deaths spiked, she wouldn't be able to sleep. Saving a few hundred or a few thousand might not change the larger situation, but she couldn't stand by and do nothing.
Ye Xiao looked at the slight furrow between her brows, sighed inwardly, and reached out to tousle her hair. "If she wants to go, let her. Old Bai, assign more people to her." The shantytown over there was chaotic, "Get more wood-type ability users."
Lin Tantan was pleased to see the approval in his eyes; it felt good to have his support.
With that settled, Lin Tantan didn't linger; she said she'd get some sleep and went upstairs. The three of them were seated with Bai Cheng in the middle of the long sofa, her to his right, and Ye Xiao on the single sofa beside her.
Sitting between the two of them, she felt like she was practically glowing, like a high-wattage bulb, and decided she'd better leave.
Ye Xiao's gaze followed her. Bai Cheng smiled, "You really are the same."
One of you runs out in the rain every day to fight zombies on the city walls; the other would rather hold free clinics in the shantytowns to save a few more people.
Maybe he's lacking in idealism, he certainly didn't share that spirit himself. But having comrades like that by his side was a comfort.
Ye Xiao's expression softened with warmth. "I'll go see Lu Jianping tomorrow." Lu Jianping was the base commander.
"See him?" Bai Cheng quickly caught on. "To talk about the flu?"
Ye Xiao said, "The base has been far too passive about flu prevention."
"Didn't you say you wouldn't meddle here?" Even going to fight a zombie needed an excuse, but Bai Cheng knew what he meant. He shook his head and said no more.
The next day Lin Tantan handled her morning appointments, then closed the clinic in the afternoon and took a number of people to the shantytown.
Bai Cheng had hired her a professional bodyguard team, veterans from a pre-apocalypse security company, far more professional than someone like Jiang Zhongyi. He'd also paid well for dozens of wood-type ability users. In a large base like Ning City you could round up hundreds of wood-type ability users casually, but Bai Cheng had recruited genuinely capable ones.
That's the advantage of an agency with a reputation; otherwise there would be no way to pull together so many wood-type ability users so quickly.
Many of them had come for Lin Tantan, eager to see what the legendary ability-user who could almost bring people back to life was like.
Lin Tantan felt none of the embarrassment of being gawked at; she was glad to have these ability users join, and along with her clinic's regulars there were several dozen people in all.
A high-level wood-type ability user needed roughly five sessions to bring a flu patient close to cured. Their powers let them handle twenty or thirty patients in a day, which means it would take five days to fully treat those twenty or thirty.
Don't let the humble numbers fool you, several dozen such people could process over a thousand patients in a single day.
The shantytown they were heading to wasn't very large, fewer than a hundred thousand. If one in ten had the flu, that's under ten thousand; if one in ten of those were severe, that's under a thousand. With her and the team, they should be able to treat everyone at least once in an afternoon.
When they arrived outside the shantytown the vehicles couldn't go in; everyone had to get out and walk. The drainage was terrible, the standing water deep and full of debris, filthy. Lin Tantan frowned; even without the flu, that environment would breed other illnesses.
She didn't let the team go in. Instead she set up a row of tents, tables and chairs outside. As they finished, residents who had heard the news came. They were thrilled to learn the clinic was free, but Lin Tantan had the intake conditions written down clearly: anyone with symptoms milder than specified would not be treated.
Some muttered in discontent, others protested angrily, some wept and begged, while others were ecstatic and ran back to fetch the bedridden. Soon each wood-type ability user had been assigned patients and the queue kept growing.
Xu Tianjin was sharper this time. He wasn't ill and didn't know anyone in the shantytown, but he'd been watching from a corner for a while. He saw an old woman who'd been given a number for Lin Tantan barely breathing, and the man supporting her was sallow and gaunt, nearly collapsing from carrying her. No sooner had he sat down than the woman vomited again, and the man couldn't handle it alone, so Xu Tianjin quickly pretended to be a helpful bystander and rushed over to assist.
"Thanks, brother." The man freed a hand to clear away the mess, apologizing to those nearby and thanking Xu Tianjin, who had been looking after his mother.
"Don't mention it, it was nothing. Just a little help. Brother, you've been holding the old lady by yourself, I was worried for you. I'll help you take her over in a bit. What's your number?"
"Number six. She'll be called soon. Really, thank you, brother."
Xu Tianjin felt sheepish.
"Next: 06." After the long, anxious wait, that announcement finally came. Xu's heart raced; he swallowed, stiff with nerves, and together with the man half-supported, half-carried the old woman forward. He lifted the tarp and saw Lin Tantan sitting at the table, writing with a pen, he felt as if he'd been struck.
She looked exactly the same!
"Help her lie down," Lin glanced up. "One family member is enough to stay."
Xu Tianji helped the woman onto the bed, but when it was time to leave he froze and wouldn't move.
The man didn't want to push him either and looked helpless.
Lin Tantan wrote a few more notes, symptoms from the previous patient, and, seeing two people still standing there, said, "Which of you will go out? There's no need to have two family members stay."
The man hurriedly explained he was the patient's son and that Xu Tianji was a helpful stranger. Lin Tantan looked at Xu Tianji and felt a vague familiarity, oh, the fellow who sobbed his heart out at the memorial yesterday and then bolted.
Never expected him to be so kind-hearted.
Warm-hearted people always put others in a good light; Lin's tone softened a little, but she still told him to step outside.
Xu's lips trembled. "Dr. Lin, are you Dr. Lin?" he asked, voice shaking.
Lin Tantan, puzzled: "Yes, I am."
"Do you remember the National Central Hospital?" Xu took two steps forward, asking in a trembling, barely controlled tone.
Lin froze, thinking she'd misheard. Her eyes widened and her pupils fluttered slightly. Tantan
In this world the term "National Central Hospital" shouldn't exist. What does this person mean...?
Xu Tianji continued, "National Special-Class Therapist."
Lin Tantan let out a small exclamation and sprang to her feet.