Before night had fully fallen, dark clouds were already drifting across the distant sky.
"Acid rain's coming. Go home," Ren Xiaosu said expressionlessly.The woman was still wailing, but no one paid them any attention.
The man's injuries clearly weren't accidental. Ren Xiaosu could tell at a glance that they were knife wounds. So it definitely wasn't some factory mishap—he'd been killed outright in a fight.
By the time they returned to their shack, the acid rain had already come and gone. It always arrived fast and left just as quickly.
Yan Liuyuan sat on the bed and suddenly said,"Brother, you want people's sincere gratitude, right? Being a doctor should make that easy. Back when the old doctor was still around, everyone was grateful to him. But I don't recommend it. First, doctors easily get stuck in impossible situations. Second… you don't know any medicine at all."
Ren Xiaosu slowly turned his head, his face blank."Then why are you spouting this dog-shit nonsense?"
Wait.
Ren Xiaosu suddenly felt like he'd overlooked something.
Sure, he didn't know medicine—but he could learn it.
Those two skill-learning blueprints the palace had rewarded him with were still unused. All he needed was to use one, and he could learn someone else's medical skills, right?
Then he could treat people, or at the very least, if he or Yan Liuyuan got sick, he'd be able to handle it himself.
When the old doctor was still alive, he often went out to gather herbs. He'd once joked that although the wild beasts had grown more dangerous, medicinal herbs had also become more potent.
Relying on his ability to identify herbs and his solid medical skills, the old doctor had indeed cured many people—and sold his medicine cheaply.
Ren Xiaosu wasn't a saint. He simply thought that having medical skills would be useful in emergencies—and profitable.
Yan Liuyuan's wishes usually resulted in side effects like colds, fevers, headaches. Ren Xiaosu didn't want him to suffer backlash from wishing, but sometimes circumstances forced their hand.
"I'm going to be a doctor," Ren Xiaosu said, determination flashing in his eyes.
"Brother, are you okay?" Yan Liuyuan was stunned."You don't know medicine! You'll kill someone! We may not save people, but at least we don't harm them…"
Ren Xiaosu lightly smacked the back of his head."You talk too much. When have I ever gone out of my way to hurt anyone?"
At this point, Ren Xiaosu was already planning things out. If he became a doctor, he could definitely make money. That meant stable income.
People in the town got injured all the time. Treating wounds was a rigid necessity.
Once he decided, he acted immediately. The next morning, Ren Xiaosu skipped school, shoved a couple pieces of black bread into his mouth, and squatted in front of the clinic waiting for it to open.
The clinic, however, was infuriatingly lazy.
He waited until noon. Still closed.
By afternoon, the bell inside the refuge barrier rang at two o'clock. Only then did the young doctor slowly open the door, stretching lazily and stepping out to bask in the sun.
Before he could finish stretching, he was startled by Ren Xiaosu squatting at the doorway.
"You here to see a doctor? Got money?" the doctor asked.
He didn't even ask what illness Ren Xiaosu had—only about money.
Ren Xiaosu smiled."I'm not seeing a doctor. You do your thing."
The doctor looked confused. If you're not seeing a doctor, why are you squatting at my door?
At that moment, Ren Xiaosu silently used the first skill-learning blueprint from the palace.
Inside his mind, the parchment-like blueprint burst into flame without fire and burned away completely.
"Randomly learning target skill.""Randomly selected skill: Boasting. Learn?"
Ren Xiaosu froze.
The hell? Learn boasting?!
Only then did he remember—the blueprint randomly selected a skill from the target. You didn't get to choose.
But why the hell did this guy even have a boasting skill?! That counted as a skill now?!
Ren Xiaosu glared at the doctor, disgusted. He was here to steal the man's livelihood, sure—but beating him up afterward would be too unethical.
The doctor grew uncomfortable under his stare and finally remembered who Ren Xiaosu was.
Ren Xiaosu had never come here for treatment, but both had heard of each other—one was the town's only doctor, the other was a notorious hardcase. That was normal.
So the young doctor immediately chickened out.
"What… what do you want?" he asked weakly.
"Do you usually brag a lot?" Ren Xiaosu snapped.
The doctor was dumbfounded."What?"
Ren Xiaosu didn't bother explaining. That boasting skill was useless anyway—he considered that blueprint wasted.
He used the second skill-learning blueprint.
"Randomly learning target skill.""Randomly selected skill: Deception. Learn?"
Learn my ass!
What kind of garbage is this?!
Ren Xiaosu stared at the young doctor intensely."For someone so young, you sure have a lot of messy skills."
The doctor was on the verge of tears."What are you even talking about?!"
"Aren't you fond of lying to people?" Ren Xiaosu asked."Who have you scammed? Tell me."
"Don't accuse me! I didn't scam anyone!"
Ren Xiaosu was a rational person. After suffering such heavy losses, he calmly analyzed the situation.
He had to learn medicine eventually. The palace would surely reward him with more skill blueprints in the future—he just didn't know when the next mission would come.
What he needed to know now was whether this doctor's medical skills were even worth learning.
He asked in his mind,"What level is this doctor's medical skill?"
"Target has been learned. Information can be provided.""The target has no medical skill."
You bastard!
Are you kidding me?!
Ren Xiaosu nearly smashed the iron pot he was carrying—he'd brought it along that morning.
No wonder this guy had deception skills. Turns out he didn't know any medicine at all. He'd been scamming people for years!
How could the old doctor have raised such a useless successor?!
This kid had been living off the old doctor's leftover reputation. Since there was no second doctor in town, he shamelessly kept up the scam.
If patients survived, fine. If they didn't, people accepted it—death was common anyway, and even the old doctor couldn't save everyone.
Besides, the old doctor had left behind plenty of herbs labeled with symptoms. All the kid had to do was prescribe blindly.
Ren Xiaosu learned his lesson that day.
Next time, if the first skill extraction failed, he'd make damn sure the target actually had the skill he wanted before wasting another blueprint.