"Though it mostly feels like an illusion, it really is effective."
Old Swire straightened his back. The old man, who just moments ago needed Swire's support simply to sit up, was now actually able to sit up on his own.
"A treasure like this... if it could be developed... Sigh, I'm just indulging in idle dreams."
As a merchant, his first thought was immediately directed toward commercial value. But it was clear that mass-producing such a good thing was likely impossible—even if production were limited, it would be an absolute guaranteed profit. However, it was simply impossible to get one's hands on it.
"Grandpa, this is Doctor Bailu's private formula," Swire felt compelled to remind him. "She is a Draconic Girl and very likely comes from Baizao. The Swire Family doesn't have the status to try anything."
She was deeply afraid her grandfather might do something irrational, because when a person is nearing death... even if it was her own grandfather, she couldn't be entirely certain.
"No, you're wrong, child," Old Swire shook his head. "She has nothing to do with Baizao. If she were from the True Lung's lineage, the entirety of Yan would never let her take a single step out of Baizao."
"But that doesn't mean we..." Swire felt a sense of unease and hurriedly opened her mouth to say something.
"What, worried I'll use unscrupulous means?" Old Swire just laughed heartily and winked at her. "Beatrix, you child, you're still so kind-hearted."
"Rest assured, your grandfather knows his limits. Her identity... is not something our Swire Family can covet."
"Ugh, Grandpa!" Seeing this, Swire realized her grandfather was teasing her and pouted in annoyance.
"Haha, who told you to wait so long before coming to see me?" Old Swire squinted. "I was just teasing you."
"By the way, Beatrix, the Family Fund is now fully open to you. Whatever that doctor wants, buy it for her. You absolutely must not offend her, understood?"
"I definitely wouldn't do something that stupid," Swire muttered. "Right, Grandpa, you said she isn't from Baizao, then she's..."
"Sigh," Old Swire shook his head. The Swire Family were outsiders after all, separated from the local powers by a layer.
Though they often chatted and laughed together, Lin Gray's daughter already knew that person's origins, and Wei Yenwu's niece was directly living with her. As for Beatrix... sigh, she was still being kept in the dark even now. And frankly, if they didn't need to use his information channels, he would likely be kept in the dark as well.
"No one knows where they come from," a strange light flashed in Old Swire's eyes.
"They?" Swire frowned.
"Mhm. Not just that Miss Bailu, but also a noble knight," Old Swire sighed and said. "They should be sisters."
"Grandpa, why do you know so much?" Swire asked curiously.
"Because Wei Yenwu and the others already came over to ask me," Old Swire sighed. "They needed the family's intelligence network in Victoria."
"Miss Bailu is from Victoria?" Swire looked completely incredulous. "But her racial characteristics are clearly of the Yan lineage."
"I'm not sure about Miss Bailu, but her sister definitely has an inseparable connection to Victoria," Old Swire's eyes held an unreadable expression. "Sigh, it's time I told you."
"Do you know about the Purge Fleet consisting of ten Ursus Warships that was annihilated on the Snowfield a few months ago?"
"Of course," Swire answered without thinking. "Because of that, the number of Ursus people flooding into Lungmen has increased recently. The LGD has a real headache over it."
"Actually, after the incident occurred, the various major powers of Victoria began to investigate the truth of that matter in unison," Old Swire said with a solemn expression.
"Why?" Swire was utterly confused. "The annihilation of an Ursus fleet might be noteworthy, but it shouldn't be enough to move all of Victoria simultaneously... Ah!"
"Is it that rumor?"
"Yes," Old Swire said with emotion. "A Two-headed Giant Dragon descending from the sky annihilated the fleet with incomparable, absolute power. As a protector of the Infected, it would surely burn all of Ursus with those blazing golden flames."
"I always thought that was just a rumor!" Swire's eyes widened.
"Regrettably, it's no rumor," Old Swire sighed. "Our people saw those destroyed Warships on the Snowfield. The attack clearly descended from the sky and sliced a Warship in two... no one in the world can easily do such a thing."
"Even if the Witch King could stir up Catastrophes, he could only do so by relying on the Spire System of all Leithanien. Without the support of those spires, the peerless Witch King was struck down by the Twin Empresses."
"But it's not surprising for a draconic, heavily scarred, and incredibly ancient Feranmut to be capable of such a thing."
"And with the Victorian throne currently vacant, any news of a Draco will be focused on with great intensity. And as it happens, among those Infected Guerrillas on the Snowfield, there is a Draco leader."
"And since even a Giant Dragon looked upon her with favor—that fleet was precisely going to encircle and suppress them. You already know the result."
"So, someone thinks that Draco on the Snowfield has the qualifications to participate in the struggle for Londinium?" Swire immediately made the connection.
"Actually, while you don't know that Draco, you know her sister," Old Swire held his granddaughter's hand. "Chen Huijie."
"Wait, Ch'en Sir... Chen Huijie and she are sisters?!" Swire was beyond shocked.
"That is also what surprised me," Old Swire sighed. "Her Highness... her identity is truly staggering. She is the daughter of a Yan Princess, the foster daughter of an Ursus Grand Duke, and possesses a claim sufficient to contest for that crown, along with the protection of a powerful Giant Dragon."
"Victoria, which has long been distant from the Aslan, might not be without the possibility of returning to the Draco's rule. The people of Londinium do not mind being ruled by a new King."
"But, what does that have to do with Miss Bailu?" Swire still didn't understand.
"Because, that lady lived among the Infected as a Doctor while on the Snowfield," Old Swire sighed. "She likewise could heal the diseases of the Infected with Golden Light."
"It was precisely because of this that more and more Infected gathered around her and the Draco. Ursus couldn't sit still and sent a fleet to suppress them."
"Of course, all of that is empty talk now. No one in Ursus dares to provoke them anymore."
"So, Miss Bailu is..." Swire finally figured it out.
"Mhm. That lady is a great person," Old Swire thought of the intelligence Wei Yenwu had shared with him and said. "Once, she was a Hero who sealed an Evil God within her body. She originally intended to head to the regions outside civilization in the final moments of her life, to take the danger away from the land of Terra."
"But Ursus really acted too inhumanely, forcing her hand. In the end, the seal within her body became unstable, and she could only hastily head to sea to distance herself as much as possible from this continent."
"As for Miss Bailu, she was asked by Chen Huijie's sister to help deliver a letter to Chen Huijie. But since that lady's body can no longer enter cities, she can only have her sister deliver the letter in her stead."
"Is that why Miss Bailu is staying at her house?" Swire felt she understood. "But... an Evil God? Is that true?"
"It's highly likely," Old Swire said with a face full of helplessness. "The fact that Ursus hasn't dared to utter a single word of retaliation to this day is proof. Because that lady said that if Ursus truly seeks death, she will release the seal on the Snowfield and burn all of Ursus."
"So even though ten Warships are gone, they still haven't dared to make a sound."
"Miss Bailu's background is actually that massive?" Swire was stunned; that was a major power. It was just intimidated like that.
"So, go and befriend her, Beatrix," Old Swire looked at his granddaughter. "Even if you can't befriend her, you must leave a good impression. That is never a bad thing."
"You have all the money in the Family Fund at your disposal. Remember, at any cost. With that enviable ability, there will certainly be no shortage of petty people lurking about."
"Uh, that might be..." Swire gave an embarrassed smile. "Today, even though I offered to pay, Miss Bailu insisted on sending the bill to the Governor's Mansion."
"Heh, that Wei Yenwu has truly profited," Old Swire's eyes turned red with envy. "The great matter of healing over a hundred thousand Infected—and he settles it with just a few meals? Do you know how much prestige this brings to Lungmen? Next, all the major renowned institutions in the academic world will come to Lungmen for research, and how much capital will turn its gaze toward this city?"
"They don't dare go to the harsh environment of the Snowfield, but they wouldn't dare not come to the prosperous and open Lungmen. But what did he pay? Food expenses? How much money is that!"
Doubtless, Wei Yenwu's face must be splitting from a grin right now.
"And medical fees," Swire said weakly. "Though it's nominally a Free Clinic, Miss Bailu still charged the Governor's Mansion."
"It's all the same, how much money can that be!" Old Swire repeated once more.
He was truly green with envy. But who could blame them for having the advantage of being close by? He only gained access to this top-secret news because the other party needed the information Victoria was closely monitoring.
Sigh, comparing oneself to others really is infuriating.
On the other side, Xia Yu and Chen Huijie returned to her small rented apartment.
"Wash up and go to sleep," Xia Yu yawned. "It's been an exhausting day, and tomorrow will be even more tiring. There are at least ten thousand people waiting for us."
"Wait, ten thousand? What ten thousand?" Chen Huijie instantly lost her composure. "Infected?"
"What, you discriminate against the Infected?" Xia Yu asked knowingly.
"No, it's just, ten thousand Infected—can you even handle that many patients?" Chen Huijie was worried.
"Patients? What patients?" Xia Yu said absentmindedly. "Isn't Oripathy just one disease? There might be sub-classifications, but my methods can directly ignore those minute differences."
"So, just treating them in large batches is fine."
"Uh, you can do it in large batches?" Chen Huijie, unaware of the details, asked in confusion. "Does Lungmen have enough medicine stockpiled?"
"Medicine? Forget it, experience it for yourself," Xia Yu directly summoned the petite Tarnished, who cast a Law of Regression.
"This... this is!" Feeling the changes in her body under this Golden Light, Chen Huijie was greatly shocked.
"You call this medical skills?"
Clearly, 'Arts' or even 'divine Arts' would be more appropriate. After one ritualistic movement, that dazzling Golden Light had reduced the Oripathy in her body by that much!
"If it heals the sick, it's medical skills!" Xia Yu put on a stern face. "Now, go take a shower. Be gentle! Don't let the Originium Shards on your body scratch your skin again!"
Chen Huijie obediently went to shower.
Xia Yu took out the Vision and began to continue her research.
Mhm, Furina, as a holder of a Vision, could not perform the decompression operation.
What? You're asking what decompression is?
It means Xia Yu's method was equivalent to first packing a body into a compressed file and then decompressing it into reality based on the Vision program. Furina naturally couldn't do it.
It was also a bit of a stretch for the Tarnished to be fully decompressed. On one hand, she had just developed this function and wasn't skilled enough; on the other hand, the Tarnished's strength was also quite high, so the decompressed version was a 'Tiny Tarnished.'
And Acheron was an even more heavy-duty case. Even the Tarnished shrank when decompressed; Acheron simply couldn't be compressed at all. Her existence was simply too 'massive.' Forcing her in would have blown up the Vision.
Xia Yu didn't want to lose her Vision.
And Firefly... though not as heavy as Acheron, her planetary-level combat power made compressing her fraught with difficulties. Since the Tarnished became a little girl upon decompression, if it were Firefly, Sam would probably literally become a figurine.
There was no helping it; it was because the Vision was not powerful enough as a cornerstone to support such operations.
Sigh, when would she get an identity that could create clones? Or an ability would work. Like Hundred-Faced Hassan, or the Herrscher of Domination, or something like that.
By then, it probably wouldn't be this troublesome.
Thinking of this, Xia Yu shook her head.
There was an even larger-scale Free Clinic tomorrow. From Tiny Tarnished to Mimic Tear, with two people working at full capacity, she wondered if she could complete the goal if she treated ten or twenty people at a time.
Honestly, treating a hundred thousand Infected required a significant amount of energy. Though there was still a massive amount of Honkai Energy taken from Mei, it couldn't withstand this kind of one-way drainage.
She had to find a way to make up for it.
Got it, she'd go blackmail Wei Yenwu. As the Chief Executive of Lungmen, if he didn't pay, who would? She had to squeeze at least several hundred thousand Originium Ingots out of him to compensate for her losses.
Anyway, she didn't want to scrape money from the paupers in the slums. How much money did they even have? How long would it take to break even if she scraped from them one by one?
It was better to just 'eat the rich'!
Thinking of this, Xia Yu cleared her thoughts and began to get busy again. The main task was to take a portion of the supplies stored in Xi's Painting Scroll and move them into the Gate of Babylon.
And just then, in a restaurant in Lungmen.
A white-haired woman suddenly looked up from the hotpot in front of her.
"Huh?"