My Computer Leads to an Instance Dungeon-Chapter 154 - 129: I Am an Old Chinese Doctor

A little over thirty minutes later, Fang Zhen arrived at Xiahai City People's Hospital.

The restaurant where he'd eaten wasn't far from the hospital, but he had made a trip home in between to grab a bottle of Gwendolyn's Alchemy Ointment.

Xia Siwei's face had been slashed. If Fang Zhen hadn't known, he would have left it at that. But now that he did, his personality compelled him to get involved.

It wasn't some hero complex, just basic human decency.

Xia Siwei and Fang Zhen weren't close, but she had helped him before. They were no longer strangers and were starting to get to know each other.

Isn't that how relationships are built—through mutual help and a little give and take?

Now, Xia Siwei's face was injured and would be scarred. Fang Zhen knew exactly what being disfigured meant for a girl, especially a young and beautiful one.

If he didn't have the means to help, that would be one thing. But since he had Gwendolyn's Alchemy Ointment, which could heal wounds without leaving a scar, he couldn't just stand by and do nothing.

After getting the address, Fang Zhen went home to get the ointment and came straight to the hospital.

He entered the hospital, asked a nurse at the information desk for directions, and made his way to room 3705 in the inpatient department on the third floor.

He knocked on the door. Finding it unlocked, he pushed it open and went inside.

「Inside the hospital room.」

He found himself in a private room.

Xia Siwei was sitting up in bed, propped against a pillow. Her eyes were vacant as she stared at the ceiling, seemingly in a daze. She barely reacted when he came in.

There was a sofa in the room with a fruit basket in front of it. A half-peeled apple sat on the bedside table. It looked like someone had been keeping her company, but they were gone for the moment.

Fang Zhen took it all in before turning his gaze to Xia Siwei.

"No one's here with you?" he asked.

"My aunt was here, and my mom came to stay with me," Xia Siwei said. "But I'm in a bad mood and didn't want to take it out on her, so I asked her to step out for a bit and give me some space."

"Are you okay?" Fang Zhen asked.

"Probably not," Xia Siwei said listlessly, as if her spirit had left her. She turned her head to look at Fang Zhen. "Sorry, you have to see me like this."

"Life is full of accidents. It's not like you wanted this to happen. Nothing to be sorry for," Fang Zhen said, walking over to the chair by her bed, which was quite close to her.

Xia Siwei instinctively turned her head away, not wanting Fang Zhen to see the square gauze patch on her cheek.

Sunlight streamed in through the window, falling on the other side of Xia Siwei's face.

Fang Zhen narrowed his eyes slightly.

'Putting her injury aside,' he thought, 'the light and the mood of the scene... from this angle, Xia Siwei actually looks surprisingly beautiful on her sickbed. The light is like a holy glow, bathing her in a golden sheen.'

'She looks a little haggard right now, not her usual energetic self. Instead, there's a certain female fragility to her. That, combined with the gauze on her face and her sorrowful expression, gives her a pitifully endearing look. It really brings out a man's protective instincts.'

So, Fang Zhen just appreciated the view.

Xia Siwei had been wallowing in a bit of self-pity, but after a moment, she suddenly felt a gaze of appreciation on her. She turned back and her eyes met Fang Zhen's.

"Hey, you don't look when I'm perfectly fine, but now that I'm injured and disfigured, what are you staring at?" Xia Siwei said, her feigned anger tinged with real frustration.

"You looked really beautiful from that angle just now. Too bad you turned your head and spoke; it ruined the mood. I didn't get a picture with my phone. A shame there won't be another chance," Fang Zhen said.

"Hey! Are you here to visit a sick person or to piss me off? I'm in this state, and you're not even treating me like a patient? I'm disfigured! Do you get it? Dis-fig-ured! For a girl, being disfigured is like a guy becoming impotent, okay?" Xia Siwei snapped, exasperated.

She seemed extroverted, but she was actually quite soft. Although she was throwing a fit, she didn't use any profanity, and her tone wasn't truly nasty. She was just a little angry.

"Yes, you're disfigured, I know," Fang Zhen said with a calm, smiling face. "Done pretending? Done forcing a smile? Done relying on your talent instead of your looks?"

Xia Siwei's cheeks puffed out in anger. Seeing Fang Zhen's cheerful expression, completely unaffected by her mood—impossibly emotionally stable—she was suddenly overcome with a sense of helplessness.

Xia Siwei pounded the headboard twice in frustration, then pulled out her pillow, looking like she wanted to bite it. But then she remembered she was in a hospital—full of germs and not clean—and she had a wound on her face. She couldn't bring herself to do it.

"Hahaha," Fang Zhen laughed, watching her antics.

Xia Siwei shot Fang Zhen an angry glare and didn't speak for a long time.

As time passed, Xia Siwei's anger gradually faded, replaced by a touch of sorrow.

"You were just trying to cheer me up, weren't you? Trying to get me to not bottle up my emotions."

"Yelling at you just now did make me feel a little better."

"But I can't bring myself to be happy at all."

"My face is ruined. I used to think I didn't care about my looks, but now I see I'm just a shallow woman. I can't stay calm about this at all." 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

"And I don't even know who to talk to about these feelings. It might seem like I know a lot of people, but there are very few I can actually talk to. Only my family is close enough to truly care for me. Others might not really care that I'm disfigured; some might even be waiting to laugh at my misfortune."

"I'm so sad... I want to cry."

As Xia Siwei spoke, she couldn't hold it in any longer. The tears came just like that, falling in large drops. There was no sound of sobbing, but the tears just wouldn't stop.

Fang Zhen let her cry for a while. When it seemed like she was about done, he pulled a tissue from the box on the bedside table and handed it to her.

Xia Siwei took it and wiped her eyes.

"Done crying?" Fang Zhen asked.

"Not done, but the mood is gone. I don't feel like crying anymore," Xia Siwei said, her eyes red. She glared at Fang Zhen again. "How can you be so heartless? Couldn't you just be sad with me for a little while?"

"Being sad won't solve the problem," Fang Zhen said. "I didn't bring a fruit basket this time..."

"I wouldn't eat it anyway," Xia Siwei said.

"...But I did bring something that can keep your face from scarring," Fang Zhen finished.

Xia Siwei's eyes widened, and she stared at him with her tear-swollen eyes.

Fang Zhen took out Gwendolyn's Alchemy Ointment.

"Take off the gauze on your face. Let me see the wound," Fang Zhen said.

"Don't look. It's ugly," Xia Siwei said, shaking her head repeatedly.

"Just take it off. How am I supposed to apply the medicine if you don't?" Fang Zhen said.

"What do you mean?" Xia Siwei finally snapped back to reality. "You really think you can help me avoid a scar?"

"It's useless. If technology like that existed, I would've used it already. My wound is hideous; there's no way it won't leave a scar. Nothing you use will work. Nothing can be better than modern medicine."

Seeing her resistance, Fang Zhen watched her for a moment, then asked, "So, this is the worst-case scenario."

"Since you've already accepted the worst, why not take a long shot?"

"What if it actually works?"

"Well..." Xia Siwei was at a loss for words.

'He has a point,' she thought.

Xia Siwei's resolve began to waver.

Seeing this, Fang Zhen didn't hesitate and reached out to remove the gauze from her face.

"What are you doing?" Xia Siwei yelped, startled.

"Don't move. If I touch the wound, you're the one who'll feel the pain," Fang Zhen said.

Xia Siwei really didn't dare to move after that.

Fang Zhen removed the gauze from the left side of Xia Siwei's face and saw the wound. He was taken aback.

'The wound really is a nasty one,' he thought.

The cut was deep, slicing the skin wide open. It wasn't just a clean slash; there were also torn edges, like a laceration.

It had already been treated and sutured.

But an injury like this would inevitably leave some kind of mark.

Standard treatments and surgeries wouldn't be enough. The skin on the face is thin and rich in blood vessels, making it especially prone to scarring.

Even after being cleaned, disinfected, and surgically closed with hidden stitches, a visible scar would still remain.

Treating this would typically involve skin grafts or flap surgery, followed by laser treatments and chemical peels, and finally, the use of silicone sheets and ointments.

But even after all that, some trace of the scar would still be left behind.

Seeing how deep Xia Siwei's wound was, Fang Zhen winced in sympathy.

For such an outgoing girl, Xia Siwei now seemed a bit self-conscious, lowering her head to avoid his gaze.

Fang Zhen didn't say anything either. He simply took out the Alchemy Ointment, opened the bottle, scooped some out with his index finger, and applied it to Xia Siwei's wound.

Xia Siwei let out a small cry.

"What is this? Why is it so cold?"

"Ah! The wound is so itchy! What's happening?"

Xia Siwei instinctively tried to turn her head away, but Fang Zhen held her still.

"Don't move. It's almost done."

Fang Zhen held Xia Siwei's head to keep her from moving, then evenly spread the Alchemy Ointment over the wound.

Then, right before his eyes, the sutured wound began to heal at a visible rate.

In about five seconds, the wound on Xia Siwei's face had already formed a scab.

Fang Zhen reached out, peeled the scab off her wound, and Xia Siwei cried out in pain.

"What are you doing?!" Xia Siwei asked, a little angry.

Fang Zhen tossed the scab into the trash can, then took out his phone and opened the camera, pointing it at Xia Siwei's face.

"Look, problem solved. Your face won't scar," Fang Zhen said, pointing at the phone's screen.

Xia Siwei saw it and was so shocked she was completely speechless. She forgot all about being angry.

She raised a hand and touched her left cheek.

It was perfectly smooth, even smoother than before. She couldn't feel anything.

With a look of disbelief, Xia Siwei grabbed her own phone from the bedside, opened the camera app, and switched it to the selfie view.

The wound was gone. Completely gone. The only difference was that the skin where it had healed looked especially fair, a slightly different color from the rest of her skin.

"Don't panic about the skin color. That's new skin, so it's a bit tender. It'll match after getting some sun a couple of times."

"The sutures are buried inside, so don't worry about them either. Surgical thread these days is self-dissolving," Fang Zhen explained.

He stood up. "Alright, problem solved. I'm heading out. Bye-bye."

"Hey, hey, hey, don't go, don't go!" Xia Siwei's brain short-circuited. She pushed herself up in bed and asked, "What on earth did you do? How is my wound just gone? And without a scar?"

"What kind of technique was that?"

"Don't ask," Fang Zhen said with a smile over his shoulder. "If you have to ask, then let's just say I'm an old master of ancient medicine."