"I’m telling you, it’s really the Mayor, I’m not lying to you," The man in the patterned short sleeve shirt kept moving forward along the secluded alley, he reached out and touched the bone conduction earpiece on his ear, "I swear, I’ve compared it over a dozen times—my goodness, he looks exactly like the Mayor! No, he is the Mayor!" "My silly little brother, wake up. Look at where you are now?" A voice tinged with frustration came through the earpiece, "You’re in the Southern District, the most chaotic and disgusting sewer of Yilan City, ruled by murderous gangs and bloodthirsty banks, where even the Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn’t dare send just two or three people to operate, "And then you tell me you met this city’s Mayor on a broken-down bus in the Southern District, and he even squeezed onto the bus with you, my brother, have you been bewitched by those political façades of ’joy among the people’? "Don’t you know that when politicians queue up for a burger with a crowd of extras, they need to circle the burger joint a dozen times over, and then postulate three machine-gun positions and seven sniper spots? "What makes you so special that you can sit on a broken-down bus with the Mayor? Or a bus that’s been patched up by gangs after getting wrecked in conflicts!? The person on the phone softened his tone with a sigh, "I know you still have some expectations for those politicians who learn to lie before they can walk, some fantasies about the city government that’s more rotten than the Southern District’s cotton candy-like crap, "I suggest you face reality sooner; you have to go to work tomorrow morning, and I have training. Don’t waste your time on useless things." "But I really did see the Mayor, brother, I promise you," The young man paused in his speech, "And you saw this morning’s speech too, didn’t you? Although many people who went to work this morning haven’t had the chance to watch it yet, eventually they will come across it. Now the whole internet in Yilan City is spreading this news, "And did you see that report about last night’s assassination? Mayor Lin En protected everyone near the Low-rise District last night." He slowed his steps a bit and took a deep breath, "Brother, I feel that Mayor Lin En is different, different from the past Mayors." "Different how? Where is he different? How are these Mayors any different?" The voice on the other end of the phone hesitated, as if finally unable to restrain its anger, the tone rose slightly, thundering lowly, "I’ll tell you where you’ll meet the Mayor of Yilan City—in between the towering buildings of Saint Ilan District, escorted by black security vehicles, his car driving over roads cleared and isolated by the police—he’ll sit in the back, roll down the window, and through dozens of meters distance and seven or eight sentries, he will give you a seemingly warm smile. "You’ll feel he cares about you, that you should vote for him. "But damn it—all of that is bullshit! All of the seemingly nice stuff is fake! These guys have been deceiving people since they were born! "Do you know why the TV shows made in Yilan City are as bad as a pile of shit? Because the best actors in Yilan City are on the podium! "Anger, kindness, intimacy, all the emotions, they can perform them—all as if they were real! "If they want to show they care about you, they’ll confide in you, be meticulous, you’ll feel they care more than your own mother does, and the Federation’s best actors would feel ashamed and want to crawl into a hole when they see the emotions on their faces. "But in truth? They don’t care about you at all; they only care about making money for themselves, about finding a high-paying retirement job in a consortium after their term is up. "They just want to use you, wring you out like a dry orange thrown into a juicer, and then heartlessly toss you into the trash heap." At this point, the person on the other end seemed to notice the silence on the line, and his tone gradually lowered, whispering, "Listen to your brother, go back home. You still have to work tomorrow, and you don’t have much time to rest." "Brother, I know, have you forgotten? I’ve also met many politicians, I know everything you’re saying," The youth’s advancing steps slowly came to a halt, standing in the darkness, looking at the deep dark path ahead, "But I still want to go and see, I want to see Mayor Lin En myself. Somehow, I feel that he’s different." The voice on the other side fell into a moment of silence, and finally, a slightly subdued voice rose again, "I hope your choice is the right one." Passing through a narrow alley, stopping in front of an old three-story low-rise building, the woman leading He Ao gently rang the doorbell beside the small iron gate. After a brief pause, a somewhat hoarse and weary voice of a middle-aged man came from the doorbell, "Who is it? We’re closed for today, if it’s not an emergency, please come back tomorrow morning." The woman with the cane lowered her head and approached the doorbell, speaking briskly, "Doctor Kewis, I’ve brought you a visitor." The voice behind the door sounded slightly confused, "Please wait a moment." Then the sound of hurried footsteps came from behind the door, followed by the sound of a bolt being turned, and then the iron gate was pulled open from the inside. A middle-aged man with balanced and robust muscles, cultivated appearance, wearing a gray short-sleeved shirt and optical glasses that glowed with a brownish brilliance, appeared in He Ao’s field of view. He looked at the two people outside the door, and his gaze quickly fell on He Ao, who was holding a brass cane. Then he looked at He Ao and asked with some hesitation, "Doctor Linen?" He Ao stepped forward and extended his hand. Kewis hurriedly reached out and shook hands with He Ao. At this moment, He Ao also noticed the silver ’rings’ worn on Kewis’s right-hand fingers. These rings were placed at the tips of his fingers, from which a series of fine lines emerged, running along the fingers and the back of the hand forward, converging on a silver ring at the wrist. This was a simple external hand-assist device, which could use mechanical structures to control finger movements, generally used to assist people with less nimble fingers. By this time, Kewis had already let go of the hand and was looking at He Ao with a mix of shock and puzzlement, "Doctor Linen, what brings you to the Low-rise District?" Then he looked up and glanced at the silent darkness around him, then lowered his head and asked with some bewilderment, "Did you come alone?" "There’s another companion, but they didn’t come in," He Ao shook his head and looked at Kewis, smiling, "Won’t you invite us in to sit?" "Please come in, please come in," Kewis immediately stepped aside, allowing He Ao and the woman with the cane to enter the house. The entrance led to a spacious hall, with a row of glass cabinets against the left wall containing various medicines. On the right was a bed that seemed to be used for simple diagnostics and treatments, behind the bed was a table laden with mechanical devices and lubricants. From the looks of those parts, they seemed to have been placed on the table not long before. "I was just maintaining my arm Mechanized Body when you arrived." Kewis shut the room’s door, hurried over to the table, and quickly began to tidy up the mechanical devices and lubricants on it. He Ao’s gaze fell on his left hand. That seemingly muscular left hand didn’t contain any flesh and blood components; it was purely a Mechanized Body. "Back when I fought in the underground fights in Wick District, I refused to throw a match and offended the local gang. They cornered me in an alley and chopped off my left hand," Perhaps noticing He Ao’s gaze, Kewis spoke softly to explain, "After that, I spent all my savings on a second-hand mechanical Mechanized Body replacement, but I couldn’t continue to mix in Wick District, so I moved over here." "Doctor Kewis, you’ve fought in underground fights?" The woman by his side widened her eyes slightly in surprise. "It’s all in the past, nothing to talk about; I never told you guys before." Kewis smiled, placed the last component into a drawer, and closed it. "But Dr. Kewis, isn’t that hand of yours..." The woman’s gaze shifted to Kewis’s right hand fitted with the assistive device. Doctor Kewis glanced at his right hand and shook his head, "Just some inflexibility in the fingers. With an assistive device, I can still swing a fist." He chuckled, brought out two stools, and handed them to He Ao and the woman. "When I first started here, some people always tried to steal money. I beat them up and threw them out. After a while, word spread, and no one came anymore." "I was wondering why those habitual thieves haven’t shown up in a while." The woman with the cane took the stool and suddenly understood something. "In the Southern District, you need some street smarts to practice medicine," Doctor Kewis said with a smile. Then he turned to He Ao, who was quietly waiting for them to finish their conversation, and asked tentatively, "Doctor Linen, did you come here following those flyers? When I was in the central part of Nevus District, I heard your name and got a flyer, but when I went to your clinic, there was no one there anymore, and I haven’t heard any news of your free clinics since." "It’s normal that you didn’t find it. I haven’t held any free clinics since then." He Ao shook his head. "You’ve been busy with the mayoral campaign," Doctor Kewis nodded slightly, "I saw you on my wristband this morning," He paused a bit in his speech, glancing at the pile of flyers stacked on a glass cabinet and then spoke softly, "If you object... I can destroy these..." "It’s alright, it’s not about the flyers. You did well," He Ao shook his head. He looked around the hall and then lowered his head to ask softly, "You don’t have a medical license?" Doctor Kewis shook his head, "I didn’t attend a medical university. I dropped out of high school, and without a letter of recommendation from an alumnus celebrity, it’s almost impossible to get into medical university. Without a formal medical degree, you don’t even have the qualifications to learn medicine. "After I dropped out, I studied with an underground doctor for a few years. Later, he was killed during a gang disturbance, leaving me only some medical notes. But I couldn’t absorb it all, so I went into underground fighting. "After I lost my arm, I locked myself in a room, went back through his medical notes, and then began to pursue the path of medicine properly. "But as I treated more and more patients, the knowledge from that book of medical notes was not enough. I had no choice but to spend a lot of money to buy some medical e-books, but these books often didn’t delve deep." He sighed lightly, "Now, I can only treat minor illnesses. For many serious diseases, I can only prescribe some palliative medicines. Further treatment is beyond my capability, and I can’t even get stronger medications. "However, even these minor illnesses shouldn’t be happening. Many people are dragged to their deaths by such unnecessary illnesses. But I’ve always had only a vague feeling about this, without systematic knowledge, not knowing how to deal with them," He raised his head, looked at the flyers on the glass cabinet, and spoke softly, "Until I saw that flyer. I can’t describe how I felt when I saw it... It was as if the issues that had plagued me for so long were suddenly resolved, and the solution felt so perfect..." He turned back, looking at He Ao with a mixture of emotion and admiration, "Doctor Linen, your flyer can really save a lot of people. To be honest, I’ve seen many doctors, and they’ve saved many lives, but the number of people your flyer could save may exceed all those saved by doctors in their entire lifetimes. "It’s a shame, though, we haven’t been able to distribute enough of the flyers." The woman with the cane also looked at He Ao, seeming to finally find an opportunity to speak, "Since the beginning, I’ve wanted to say, "Doctor Linen, your flyer has really been a huge help to us, especially for those with children and the sick at home. Even a slight cold or minor illness could bring a weak person to the brink of death. "Since we started following the advice on your flyer, we’ve gotten sick much less over the years and our overall health has improved a lot." He Ao looked at the two individuals in front of him. The woman with the cane almost instantly chose to trust him the moment she recognized ’Doctor Linen.’ But Doctor Kewis was different from the woman with the cane; he knew of the identity ’Mayor Lin En.’ From a social status standpoint, "Mayor Lin En’s" status was far higher than that of "volunteer doctor Lin En." But the underground doctor before him had never called He Ao "Mayor"; in his eyes, there was only "Doctor Lin En." Here, what was revered and trusted was Doctor Lin En, not Mayor Lin En. "Actually, Doctor Lin En," Doctor Kewis looked at He Ao, hesitated for a moment, then continued to speak, "Perhaps if you had continued on in the field of medicine, you could still have saved many people, and your achievements would have been significant without facing the risk of assassination now..." "So you want a business license? Do you want an outstanding and legitimate famous doctor as a teacher? Do you want to gather many medical experts together, thoroughly perfect this health promotion method, and use the greatest strength to truly spread it, saving countless lives?" He Ao turned to look at Kewis and slowly stood up, "These are things that ’Doctor Lin En’ cannot accomplish." "But this path will be very difficult, much harder than being a doctor," Kewis opened his mouth slightly, looking somewhat bewildered, "What you’ll be facing are the Consortia that hold power across the entire Federation, far more terrifying than one or two gangs." "But some things still need to be done," He Ao bowed his head, gazed at Kewis, and slowly extended his hand, "I need someone to spread these fundamental health care matters," Kewis, through self-study, had become a renowned local doctor, and in fact, his medical talent was not bad. In the worst environments, he persisted in distributing health care flyers and did his best to lower medicine prices to help common people, which was enough to prove his character. And moreover, he internally agreed with this path, sharing the same goal as He Ao. He Ao looked down into Kewis’s eyes and continued, "But I need to tell you that the road ahead is difficult. As you said, our enemies are not comparable to the small gangs that could chop off your hand. It’s very likely that you’ll die along this path; you don’t have to accept my invitation, you’re not obliged to." Kewis looked down at the hand He Ao had extended. He could feel the sound of his own heart beating fiercely. At this moment, the ’Doctor’ before him seemed to finally merge with the ’Mayor’ who had been giving a speech on TV that morning. He actually knew that what He Ao said was right; just one or two volunteer doctors could not spread health measures like these or even perfect a complete plan. But he had no good feelings towards the City Government; he could not trust the City Government. Those who lived in the Southern District were people abandoned by the city; they despised politicians full of lies and were furious at the insatiably greedy Consortia. Kewis was accustomed to seeing those who had amputated limbs in factories, those who had fallen ill in mines; he knew the terror of the Consortia and extremely loathed such formidable entities. So naturally, he wanted to persuade ’Doctor Lin En’ to stay away from that dirty whirlpool and terrifying danger. But now he finally fully realized that the ’Doctor Lin En’ before him was "Mayor Lin En," and that City Government, which was an extension of the Mayor’s filthy power, might not be completely hopeless. If it had been the incumbent or even the prior mayor standing before him, promising high-ranking and lucrative posts, he might have directly turned them away. But the person standing in front of him now was ’Doctor Lin En,’ who hadn’t promised him any money or power, just told him a bunch of intangible things. Then he was told that he would face dangers far greater than any enemy he had encountered in his life, even likely to die on this path. Dim silence spread through the simple clinic. The woman with the cane no longer spoke; she watched the two doctors before her. Although she did not fully understand He Ao’s words, she realized that Doctor Kewis was facing an exceptionally important choice. "Maybe this goes against what I said just now, it even makes me feel a bit crazy myself," The man in the grey short-sleeved doctor’s coat took a deep breath and raised his head to look at He Ao. "You can think it over a bit more." He Ao said softly to him. "I have thought it through." Kewis abruptly raised his hand and once again grasped the hand extended toward him. The crisp sound of the doorbell rang from outside.