Chapter Seventy-Six: Miracle

On the computer screen at the console, several images were tiled; the largest showed a baby’s serene sleeping face, while the others were screenshots of online comments. As the doctor moved the mouse and tapped the keyboard, comments of all sorts began to switch from slow to rapid, gradually covering the baby's face more and more.

The baby's sleeping posture shifted as well: sometimes his brows furrowed and lips pouted as if caught in a nightmare; at other times, a faint smile appeared. Surrounded by the words of those comments, he seemed to be dreaming of faces hidden behind the internet—faces showing laughter, anger, sympathy, suspicion...

The doctor reviewed the brief one-minute video, then moved the progress bar forward.

From beyond the frame, sounds began to emerge.

Crying, at first distant, drew closer and closer, then abruptly exploded like a thunderclap outside the screen.

The baby’s eyes snapped open. His pupils were jet black, but his eyes were not sharply contrasted in black and white; instead, there was a peculiar misalignment, as if ink had fallen into clear water, spreading smoky tendrils throughout the whites of his eyes.

The baby turned his head, the camera still trained on those strange pupils, gradually zooming in.

Now only one eye filled the frame, and within its reflection, a slightly chaotic crowd could be seen.

"…That’s our baby! He’s our child! What right do you have to refuse to let us take him!"

"My baby—oh, my poor child! Mama’s here to take you home! Mama’s here!"

Bang! Bang!

"Don’t bang on the glass! Don’t smash anything! Please listen to us—"

"Your hospital is inhuman! You won’t let us take our child!"

"We’ve already called the police. When they arrive—"

"Even if the King of Heaven came, he couldn’t stop us from taking our own child, right?"

"Whether it’s your child or not requires a DNA test. It’s not enough just to say he is."

"What do you mean by that? What are you implying? You think we’re lying? Why would we lie? What are you trying to say?"

"Enough! Stop arguing! This is a hospital, not a market! Whether the baby is yours will be determined when the police arrive and conduct the parentage test. If he’s your child, deal with the abandonment charge first, and then you can talk about taking him!"

Fang Simin’s figure suddenly appeared in the baby's pupil reflection. The spreading ink in his eyes swiftly diffused. The baby’s entire eyeball turned a deep, pure black, crisscrossed with strange, intricate lines—like an iris, but more elaborate. The winding patterns formed a mysterious design.

"What abandonment charge? Don’t try to scare us!"

"My baby! My child! Ah—Mama’s useless, Mama can’t take you home! Waaa…"

"You can wail and shout all you want—it’s no use. The baby was found by a kind stranger, and the police have already registered him and been searching for his birth parents. If you’re found, you’ll be prosecuted for abandonment. There’s plenty of evidence. Since you claim to be his parents, wait here for the police."

Fang Simin’s reflection, shrouded in those mysterious lines, remained impassive as she faced the snarling, exaggerated couple, continuing, "We’ve already seen what you posted online and reported it to the police. Since you’ve come today, it saves the police a trip. Just wait here for them."

"Why should we listen to you?" The man’s expression changed slightly, and he tugged at the woman beside him.

The woman choked back her tears and cries, glancing uneasily at the man, then glared at Fang Simin with forced bravado.

All three faces were magnified in the baby's pupil, twisted together beneath the bizarre patterns, their features merging into a grotesque tableau.

In front of the screen, ten fingernails emitted a cacophony of eerie laughter and sobbing, like a group of ill-intentioned onlookers jeering.

Suddenly, the doctor reached out and pressed the mouse.

Halfway through the video, the image froze on the three entwined, imprisoned faces.

The jeering of the ten fingernails subsided to mutters.

The doctor stood up and left the control room, passing through the dark television lounge.

Inside, a huge screen displayed another frozen image: the baby cradled in Fang Simin’s arms, her smile gentle and loving. The baby gazed wide-eyed at Fang Simin, as all children do when encountering something new—puzzled, curious, deeply bewildered.

The doctor opened the television lounge door and stepped into the brightly lit consulting room.

The television lounge door closed automatically. At the same time, the doctor opened the door to the consulting room.

Sheng Yao stood at the threshold, his expression grave.

"What is it this time?" The doctor’s tone was not impatient, but neither did it hold much warmth. Hands in pockets, he turned, sat at his desk, and didn’t so much as glance at Sheng Yao.

"I want to ask about the baby," Sheng Yao entered, getting straight to the point.

"What about it?" the doctor countered.

Sheng Yao sat in the empty chair and looked at the doctor intently. "What do you want me to do? Is something wrong with the baby?"

The doctor tilted his head slightly, the deep blue of his eyes reflecting Sheng Yao’s face. He didn’t blink. Sheng Yao held his gaze.

Suddenly, the doctor smiled. His mouth stretched wide beneath his mask, distorting his face as if it had suddenly swelled. From his pocket, the fingernails murmured boisterously.

Sheng Yao remained unmoved.

"All I’ve done is offer you an opportunity. What you do with it, and where your life leads, is beyond my control," the doctor said, his exaggerated smile fading. "It’s all your own choice."

"When you say ‘opportunity,’ you mean…?" Sheng Yao frowned.

The doctor’s mouth split in a grin again. "To you, it might be called a miracle. Something that transcends the limits of the human species, restricted only by… your imagination."

In the doctor’s deep blue eyes, light flickered, but there was also a darkness that could consume everything, leaving nothing but that blue—no room for anything else.

A chill ran through Sheng Yao.

He recalled the other patients he’d met and abruptly stood up.

The doctor’s tone turned curt. "Enough, you need to go now."

Sheng Yao, a little flustered, feigned calm as he thanked the doctor. He turned to leave, but his shaken state was obvious—even his hand trembled as he opened the door.

Once Sheng Yao left, the consulting room grew deathly quiet.

The ten fingernails did not make a sound.

The doctor stared at the empty desk.

Suddenly, a medical record appeared out of nowhere. The consulting room’s style shifted—colorful furniture, cartoon posters on the walls—it was now clearly a pediatric office.

The record bore no patient name, but its contents had grown into a thick stack.

With casual indifference, the doctor flipped through the pages, the blue of his eyes reflecting the words as they flashed past.

Time passed unnoticed.

Ring-ring-ring—

A phone outside interrupted the tense atmosphere.

The doctor frowned, then relaxed, and with a motion, a phone appeared atop the medical record.

"Doctor, doctor!" Boss Le’s flustered, anxious voice came through, accompanied by a GPS navigation prompt. "I’ve got a puppy here—it’s not going to make it. I’m driving over right now! You’re at the clinic, right?"

The doctor’s frown deepened, the ten fingernails erupting in noisy protest. "I’m here."

"That’s good…" Boss Le breathed out in relief.

He didn’t hang up, but as he waited at a red light, he glanced at the dog carrier in the passenger seat and murmured to the limp little puppy, "Hang in there, little one! We’re almost there. Be strong! You’ve got a long dog life ahead of you!"

He rambled on until the light turned green, then fell silent, forgetting to hang up.

The doctor didn’t hang up either; he left the phone in the consulting room and walked into the television lounge.

The giant screen there had vanished, replaced by the familiar small television.

Sheng Yao sat on the sofa, gazing absentmindedly at his hands.

Bai Xiao approached with a cup and placed tea before him.

"What are you doing?"

"Well… The doctor said he gave us an opportunity, and now… we’re only limited by our imagination…" Sheng Yao mused. "Liu Yu, Mao Mao, and Zheng Yichao… Imagination…"

He muttered to himself, the camera giving him a close-up, then switching to Bai Xiao.

Bai Xiao looked at Sheng Yao blankly; gradually, confusion appeared on her face. "What does that mean?"

"I think it means that the doctor’s medicine lets us do anything, as long as we want to…" Sheng Yao hesitated.

Bai Xiao burst out laughing. "How could that be possible?"

Sheng Yao hesitated, offering no answer.

But Bai Xiao didn’t seem to expect one. Instead, she asked, "More importantly, how’s the baby? I saw online that his parents have come for him."

"I doubt those are his real parents," Sheng Yao collected himself. "Nurse Fang already called the police, and they’ve been found. Just a couple of opportunists—figured the baby’s got so much attention now, and all those donations…"

"That’s awful," Bai Xiao said worriedly. "It would be better to have him adopted soon."

Sheng Yao gave a bitter smile. "With all the online scrutiny, it’ll be even harder to adopt him now."

Bai Xiao fell into thought.

"Don’t worry. Nurse Fang is taking good care of him," she murmured, nestling against Sheng Yao’s arm. "I just want to hold him, that’s all…"

Sheng Yao quietly patted her hand.

The camera zoomed in as Sheng Yao gently stroked the ring on Bai Xiao’s finger.

Suddenly, the doctor narrowed his eyes and snapped his fingers.

The television picture flickered; the ten fingernails became excited.

Car accidents, corpses, urns, tombstones… and Bai Xiao stepping out of the operating room… Her figure overlapped with the image of her standing behind a glass door, gazing out at Sheng Yao through a torrential downpour.

Over this, the doctor’s earlier words to Sheng Yao echoed: "…To you, it might be called a miracle. Something that transcends the limits of the human species, restricted only by… your imagination…"

The voice stretched out, ethereal and distant, as if drifting down from the heavens or echoing up from the abyss.

The doctor’s deep blue eyes glimmered; for the third time that day, he flashed his exaggerated smile and leaned forward, almost pressing against the television screen.

But the scene on the television was drawn back to reality by the wedding ring under Sheng Yao’s finger.

"Doctor…" Boss Le’s voice came from outside, muffled by distance and the phone connection.

The doctor’s body stiffened and he slowly turned toward the bright consulting room.

The ten fingernails also turned in unison, the faces painted on them all looking toward the office.

Boss Le’s voice, softer than usual, carried a note of sorrow. Yet even from far away, the doctor could still hear every word.

"…The puppy’s gone. Sigh… I won’t come over after all. I’ll just take him back to the kennel. Sorry for making you wait for nothing."

The doctor suddenly raised his hand, and a receiver appeared in his grasp.

His blue eyes shimmered. "You can still bring the puppy here."

Boss Le made a confused sound, then chuckled. "No need…" he paused, then said, more solemnly, "I just checked—he’s really gone."

The doctor let out a long hum. "I see…" He looked up at the small television.

Sheng Yao gripped Bai Xiao’s hand, the two of them leaning close, lost in thought, their gaze on their joined hands as if peering through them at something beyond.

The doctor tapped his finger, and on the television, the image changed to Liu Yu.

Liu Yu stood before the company building, one hand fully transformed into a fleshy mass.

In the next instant, Liu Yu disappeared, replaced by Mao Mao in monstrous form.

Then, Zheng Yichao, no longer human in appearance.

The screen lingered on Zheng Yichao, while the background was filled with the chatter from Kong Yajie’s table at the class reunion.

Before the remembered conversation could finish, it faded away, replaced by Sheng Yao’s own heartbeat and breathing. On screen, Zheng Yichao no longer stood still but charged at the camera.

The television’s content became Sheng Yao’s first-person view.

The perspective shifted wildly and rapidly, but the breathing and heartbeat remained steady, almost unnaturally slow. In contrast, a sound like blood rushing was woven in. Each muscle contraction and relaxation was accompanied by distinct noises.

The fight was not yet finished when the television snapped back to the rented room in Dragon City.

Sheng Yao’s eyes were cast down.

Off-camera, Bai Xiao’s voice could be heard: "…Can we adopt him? Can we take that child in? …When I saw you vanish that day, and that child suddenly appear at the clinic, do you know what I thought of? Us… our child… I just want to hold him…"

The voice from the memory grew distant and faint, and suddenly Sheng Yao’s hand disappeared.

His wrist vanished completely, the "disappearance" spreading like ink in water, reaching up his arm and even erasing his sleeve in an uncanny way.

Sheng Yao’s gaze followed, as if he could see his missing arm.

He murmured, "…To you, it might be called a miracle. Something that transcends the limits of the human species, restricted only by… your imagination…"

Bai Xiao’s eyes widened; she gripped his arm tightly.

On the nape of her neck, beneath her hair, dark scars bloomed.