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“Why should I! Thinking you can take advantage of me, impossible!” Zhao Xiaoqing snorted coldly, haughtily turning her head to the side.

“Aren’t you asking me to check? How can I diagnose anything if I don’t take your pulse?” Xu Fan said, exasperated.

“Oh, what’s this, pretending to be an old traditional doctor? Just to expose your lies, I’ll reluctantly let you touch this lady’s fair wrist.” Zhao Xiaoqing unwillingly rolled up her nurse uniform’s sleeve, revealing a fair wrist, and then lifted her hand toward Xu Fan, stretching it out: “Here, quickly take the pulse. Just make sure you detect something. Don’t blame me if you end up losing face.”

“No problem,” Xu Fan nodded, extended his hand, and gently grasped Zhao Xiaoqing’s wrist, then his middle finger slowly came to rest on her pulse.

No sooner had Xu Fan touched Zhao Xiaoqing’s wrist than a milky voice spoke up from the side, “Daddy, why are you holding this pretty sister’s hand?”

Tongtong, who had snuck over at some unknown point, looked with suspicion first at Xu Fan and then at Zhao Xiaoqing with her large, curious eyes.

Zhao Xiaoqing’s face flushed with embarrassment upon hearing Tongtong’s words.

“Daddy is treating this sister,” Xu Fan said to Tongtong, giving an awkward smile.

“Do you need to touch hands to treat someone? Tongtong wants Daddy to treat her too,” Tongtong said, thrusting out her chubby arms and acting coquettishly toward Xu Fan.

“Tongtong, don’t be naughty, you’re perfectly healthy and don’t need any treatment,” Xu Fan said, patting his daughter’s little head to stop her antics.

“Instructor Xu, just how long are you going to keep checking?” Zhao Xiaoqing asked with flushed face and out of breath.

“Huh?” Xu Fan’s expression suddenly turned serious, and he pressed a bit more firmly on Zhao Xiaoqing’s wrist.

“What’s wrong?” Seeing Xu Fan’s change in expression, Zhao Xiaoqing’s heart sank, wondering if he had really detected something.

“Your heart is beating so fast; don’t be nervous,” Xu Fan said to Zhao Xiaoqing gently.

“I………” Flustered and annoyed, Zhao Xiaoqing thought Xu Fan might actually possess some real skill, but it turned out he was just trying to flirt with her.

Just as Zhao Xiaoqing was about to pull her wrist away from between Xu Fan’s fingers, she saw him, with a grave expression, sternly say, “Don’t move!”

There seemed to be some magic in Xu Fan’s words; after hearing him, Zhao Xiaoqing suddenly gave up the idea of pulling away her wrist and quietly waited for Xu Fan.

After pondering gravely for several seconds, Xu Fan slowly released Zhao Xiaoqing’s wrist, looked around, and said to her, “Come with me.”

“Why should I go anywhere with you,” Zhao Xiaoqing stubbornly said.

“Su Jingfeng, you go keep an eye on their training, and Tongtong, go and play with Ben Ben for a while,” Xu Fan said seriously.

“Yes, Instructor!” Su Jingfeng responded and ran over to where the War Wolf Squad was training.

And Tongtong, sensing Xu Fan’s seriousness, obediently took Ben Ben and ran off to the grass nearby.

“Do you still want to live to see 25 years old!” With just a soft word, Xu Fan broke through Zhao Xiaoqing’s mental defenses.

Zhao Xiaoqing’s eyes instantly reddened.

Just last year, she had gone with her parents to America’s top St. Cyprus Hospital for an examination, and the doctors had given her an ultimatum. According to the ultimatum, Zhao Xiaoqing could live up to 25 years at most.

Zhao Xiaoqing was already 22 years old, which meant she had, at most, only three years left to live.

At that time, her parents had actually kept the diagnosis from Zhao Xiaoqing and hadn’t shown her the results. However, the bright Zhao Xiaoqing had taken the diagnosis out while her parents were asleep at night, and after reading it, she knew about her condition.

However, she did not let her parents know that she was already aware of her condition. She continued to pretend to be completely oblivious, wanting only to spare her parents any additional worry, quietly calculating how much time she had left in this world.

Zhao Xiaoqing, unwilling to leave any regrets, chose to return to the medical office at the training base. Since her arrival, she had become exceedingly attentive to the health of the team members. Although she knew she had no chance of surviving, she hoped to use her efforts to spare as many people as possible from the torment of illness.

That’s why she was so furious after Xu Fan forced Xiao Bei to train.

No one understood the taste of losing one’s health better than she did.

This diagnosis at the age of 25 was a secret Zhao Xiaoqing kept hidden deep in her heart. No one knew about it except for her parents.

How could Xu Fan have possibly known that she wouldn’t live past 25? Could it be that Xu Fan really saw something?

“What did you find?” Zhao Xiaoqing asked Xu Fan, her face pale and her voice low.

“Haven’t you, since childhood, periodically fallen into a deep sleep? And as you’ve grown, these periods have become longer, now shortening to once per month. On the night of the full moon each month, you fall into a deep sleep for an entire day, right?” Xu Fan asked Zhao Xiaoqing gently.

“How did you know?” Zhao Xiaoqing asked in disbelief.

This was the deepest secret she had buried in her heart—one that no one but her parents knew. There was absolutely no way Xu Fan could have known about it.

“Each time you fall into this deep sleep, you enter the same dream, correct?” Xu Fan continued, his tone solemn.

“Yes! Yes, it’s always the same dream. It’s the same one I’ve had since childhood,” Zhao Xiaoqing said, fear suddenly appearing in her eyes as she spoke weakly to Xu Fan.

“Then I’m right,” Xu Fan nodded slightly. He hadn’t expected to encounter such a strange illness from his past life in this world. He thought to himself that if anyone in this world could cure Zhao Xiaoqing’s illness, it would be him, and no one else.

“Your condition will worsen soon. After ten more full moon nights, you’ll fall asleep every ten days. After three hundred sixty days, it’ll be once a week. Thirty-six weeks after that, you’ll sleep every five days, and so it will go for thirty-six cycles until you’re sleeping every three days. Once that cycle completes, you’ll fall into an eternal sleep,” Xu Fan said to Zhao Xiaoqing gravely.

“I’ve known this would be the outcome for a while now,” Zhao Xiaoqing’s eyes reddened, and tears fell like unstoppable pearls, streaming down her face.

She had forgotten the tension between her and Xu Fan, overcome by the thought of her fate.

“Now do you believe in my diagnostic abilities? If I say Xiao Bei’s injury is not serious, then it’s absolutely not serious,” Xu Fan said, flipping his hair and speaking softly to Zhao Xiaoqing.

“Instructor Xu, I’m sorry, I wronged you,” Zhao Xiaoqing wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand and said to Xu Fan with a choked voice, her expression one of pitiable remorse.

“To err is human, to forgive divine,” Xu Fan smiled and said, “Don’t be so downhearted. Tell me, what were the results of the foreign tests you took?”

“I was tested at the most prestigious medical institution in America. The test showed a shadow in my brain that would increasingly affect my biological clock, causing me to periodically fall into deep sleep. But they couldn’t determine what the substance was. There was even a panel of experts who discussed the possibility of brain surgery, but they concluded that since the shadow was located at a crucial part of the brain, the chances of death from the operation were as high as ninety-nine percent. That’s why my parents brought me back to Yan Country; they wanted me to do whatever I liked as a final memory,” Zhao Xiaoqing said with a touch of sorrow in her eyes, speaking slowly to Xu Fan.

“The technology in America, although somewhat useful, is still quite lacking. The crux of your condition is indeed in your brain, but it’s not a shadow. It’s a living creature,” Xu Fan said, articulating each word.

“A living creature?” Zhao Xiaoqing was startled, feeling as if her whole world had turned upside down.

“Have you ever heard that among the Miao people in the Xiangxi region of Yan Country, many wizards are skilled in raising various kinds of Gu insects?” Xu Fan explained to Zhao Xiaoqing.

“Are you saying there’s a Gu insect in my brain?” Zhao Xiaoqing asked, a flicker of realization crossing her face as she spoke to Xu Fan.

“Exactly!” The shadow in your brain is a very rare kind of Gu insect, nonfatal but sinister enough to lull a person to death slowly. It’s called ‘Di Sha Mian.’ From the onset, you go through thirty-six cycles of deep sleep, and once those cycles conclude, you fall into an eternal sleep,” Xu Fan explained.

“I suddenly remember, as a child, my mother took me on a trip to Xiangxi. It seems that not long after returning from that trip, I started experiencing these deep sleep episodes.”

“That settles it!” Xu Fan said with a slight smile.