Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!-Chapter 2199: Sinner

Xu Huo went to an old hospital with some history and found a retired old doctor to inquire about the offspring of Outer Zone players born in this district.

The time of birth for this district is not short. Logically speaking, the stranded Outer Zone players should have produced at least two or three generations. If, as some Outer Zone players say, offspring from the combination of Outer Zone and district residents are mostly normal, then there should be some players with normal development in this district now.

"There are some, but Outer Zone people don’t trust hospitals here. Their children are rarely sent to the hospital for treatment." The old doctor thought for a moment and added, "But someone has mentioned that children of Outer Zone people, once raised, are all quite healthy and rarely get sick. It might be because they take the Evolution Potion from a very young age."

"If you want to know more about these children’s situation, you can ask at the Divine Temple."

"District residents believe in the Goddess. Even when combining with Outer Zone people, they don’t change their faith. If they don’t tell the hospital, they will tell the Goddess."

"During the years you’ve been practicing medicine, you should have seen the offspring of Outer Zone players," said Xu Huo. "They inherit district resident genes. Do they still retain two reproductive systems, and does it affect their lifespan?"

The old lady wasn’t completely unaware. After all, practicing medicine for so many years, there are friends or neighbors who must have some instances.

"I’ve only seen two or three grow up," she said. "Although they’re not dual-gender, their bodies are quite good. As for whether lifespan is affected, I don’t know... Most who become players die in the game."

"Outer Zone and district people find it hard to have children. Incomplete dual-gender physically can’t survive, having even lower survival rates than district people. Most children sent to the hospital for treatment are like this."

The old lady sighed, "That’s why I advocate not marrying Outer Zone people, and even if you do, it’s best not to have children. Only with luck could relatively healthy children be born, and those with poor health die before reaching half a year old, pitying both the children and adults."

This was different from the discussions Xu Huo overheard before. According to the stranded Outer Zone players, the ratio of normal children is relatively high, with fewer dual-gender cases. Of course, it’s possible the hospital has more concentrated examples, and for children born normal or healthy, Outer Zone players likely won’t send them to the hospital.

The old doctor couldn’t access hospital records, so Xu Huo went to the director’s office to find records from the past fifty years of Outer Zone player medical treatments — it’s not easy for Outer Zone players to hide their identity, but it can’t be ruled out that children born in this district later changed names, so the information in the records is very limited.

Of course, it’s not that Outer Zone players never send their children to hospitals for checks; inside, there are nine cases marked where one parent was an Outer Zone person. The children of these nine pairs of parents are all normal, only possessing one complete reproductive system.

Naturally, these children born in the hospital never returned thereafter.

It’s easier for Outer Zone people to change identities, but not all district residents changed. Xu Huo used the medical records from three hospitals to find a district resident who once had a normal child with an Outer Zone player.

This was a woman who no longer lived at her original address. He expanded his search range to eventually find her at a clinic a few streets away from the hospital’s given address.

The small clinic is government-funded, treating patients who aren’t very mobile but don’t need long-term hospitalization. The woman is a nurse in this clinic. When Xu Huo approached the door, he happened to see a patient frantically beating her. The woman didn’t resist, just covered her head and silently endured the beating. The clinic’s two other doctors and nurses quickly came over to pull the patient away, uneasy about lashing out at the patient, angry eyes turned to the woman. But upon seeing finger marks on her face, they had no more words.

"Go apply some medication," the doctor said gruffly.

Another young nurse soothed the patient, then came to pull her into the back room for medication.

"Honestly, why stand there letting her hit you?" The young nurse said crossly, "The Goddess tells us to be kind to others, but she didn’t say we lose face to take another’s slaps."

"She’s ill, sick people are emotionally troubled. It wasn’t on purpose." The woman mumbled with her head lowered.

"It was deliberate! Can’t you see she’s targeting you? She always gets upset when you change her dressing, why doesn’t she hit me?"

The woman lowered her head further, "...I deserve it..."

The young nurse was angry at her lack of resistance. At that moment the doctor called her from outside, so she thrust the medicine into the woman’s hands, "It’s almost closing time anyway, go home first, tonight I’ll cover your night shift."

The woman looked up wanting to say something, but the young nurse hurriedly left.

After standing still for a moment, the woman slowly placed the medicine back on the table, changed into her coat, and took a small cloth bag before leaving through the back door.

After leaving the clinic, the woman went to a nearby market to buy two greens before heading into an even more secluded alley. This place was home mostly to elderly residents, and the whole alley was shrouded in a heavy atmosphere.

No one greeted her, nor did she lift her head to look at anyone. The surrounding gazes mixed with some disdain, but no one troubled her. Finally reaching her home deep in the alley, bending down she picked up bread left by someone unknown at the corner of the door. Darting her eyes around after a moment, she put it elsewhere before entering alone.

The door shut before the neighboring door opened — an old lady peeked out, muttering as she came to retrieve her bread.

The woman’s dwelling was very cramped, with kitchen, bedroom, living room squeezed together. Without tables or chairs, the room seemed hard to navigate. She sat there numbly for a while, then used clean water to boil the greens with leftover rice for dinner.

Silently cooking, silently eating, then washing dishes and cleaning up. Following that she sat on the bed looking vacantly at the wall, until the outside sunlight faded into dusk.

Once the room was engulfed in darkness, the woman began to act, pulling out a box from underneath the bed and slowly stroking the photos inside. A lengthy numbness made even sorrow feel exhausted. Fingertips rubbed repeatedly over faces in the photos, after a while she hugged the photos and lay down. Tears slipped down her cheeks and into her hair, and in a daze, she seemed to see the Goddess appear before her.

"Goddess... I know I’ve erred, please punish only me for any sins... forgive my child and lover, don’t let them suffer anymore..." The woman slowly knelt on the ground, beginning her repentance.