It seems that the villain is targeting me.

Ah Chen shivered against her chest. Xiao Niao whispered a few words to comfort her and quickened his pace to rush towards the taxi parked on the street.

She opened the back door and pushed Chen Xiaoyue inside.

"Master," Xiao Niao panted, "Let's go to the Second People's Hospital."

------

-

The hospital was quite deserted at night, but the good thing was that there was no need to queue. She registered for Chen Xiaoyue in the emergency room and found a bed with the guidance of the nurse on duty.

The nurse came over with the equipment and measured Chen Xiaoyue's blood pressure, then put the thermometer in Xiaoniao's hand.

"Family members, please take your temperature," the nurse said, glancing at the wound on Chen Xiaoyue's face. "And your wet clothes—change them quickly."

Xiao Niao took the thermometer swiftly, made an OK gesture to the nurse, pulled the curtain over and began to strip off her wet clothes.

Chen Xiaoyue was so excited that she shivered. She didn't know whether she was awake or not. She whimpered and wanted to snuggle into Xiaoniao's arms.

"Teacher, teacher, I'm cold, I'm cold..."

Her teeth were chattering, and a thin layer of watery light flickered in her dark eyes, which always seemed dangerous in the past, with a sense of pleading and weakness.

"It's okay, it's okay," Xiao Niao patiently comforted her, his hands moving non-stop, "It will be fine in a while."

"Uncomfortable..."

"I know you're sick," she said. "Don't be afraid, the teacher is here."

Xiao Niao borrowed hot water and towels from the nurses' station and changed Chen Xiaoyue into a hospital gown. During this time, someone else came to her to arrange hospitalization - paying the bill, going to the pharmacy, and getting an IV drip. The whole process would make a serious adult exhausted.

When Xiao Niao returned to the ward, his back was soaked from running.

She went to Chen Xiaoyue's bed, took out the thermometer, and took a look at the temperature.

For a moment, Xiao Niao wanted to pick up this kid and teach him a lesson: Trying to be brave, huh? Getting wet in the rain, huh? Acting like a big shot, huh?

Now it’s set to 38.8 degrees.

She was really depressed: she had worked so hard to guide this man onto the right path, spending money, effort and venue, and it was no different from raising a daughter.

But when something really happens, Chen Xiaoyue will still subconsciously want to hide it from her.

"Where did this child learn such virtues..."

Xiao Niao gritted his teeth and thought for a long time before coming up with a suitable description.

It's probably the kind of person who, when falling into a river and about to drown, would calmly wave to the people on the shore and say, "I'm a good person."

"Oh, that's easy to understand, isn't it?" Xiaoliu glanced at Chen Xiaoyue with a lack of interest. "Aren't all of you humans like this? You don't want to expose your unsightly side in front of people you respect."

Xiao Niao raised his eyebrows in surprise: "Hmm...you know this?"

"I'm just researching it when I have nothing else to do," it said awkwardly. "Well, after all, we'll be partners for a long time to come..."

Xiao Niao dragged a stool out from under the bed and sat down.

Her entire upper body collapsed on the bed, she covered her eyes wearily, and murmured, "Tsundere has retired now..."

Xiaoliu: [Don't meddle in our system's affairs.]

Xiao Niao: "Yes, this unruly style suits you better."

41006 hummed a few words in her mind, and she didn't know if she listened to the bird's words.

The ward was silent for a few seconds, and for a moment the only sound was the beeping of medical equipment.

After lying down for a while, Xiao Niao seemed to have recovered and sat up to check on Chen Xiaoyue's condition.

"...My breathing is still heavy, and my fever hasn't subsided." Her brows furrowed. "The doctor said it might be lung inflammation. I need to get a CT scan later..."

Xiao Niao sighed as he spoke, and lay down limply again.

"Oh, my money..."

[…Sometimes I really don’t understand what you’re thinking.]

Xiaoliu in my mind started complaining.

[This girl is no longer relevant to the mission... You've been spending too much time on her.]

"I know," Xiao Niao moved his head, "but this has nothing to do with the mission..."

At the beginning, Xiao Niao's purpose of approaching her was indeed to collect intelligence and get close to the characters in the plot.

But as they got to know each other better, she discovered that this person's nature was not bad at all.

"She can grow up to be a good person," Xiao Niao said, closing his eyes unconsciously. "Even if there was a more reliable adult who could provide her with help as she grew up, Ah Chen would not have gone down that path in the future."

It's just that fate was too cruel to her, forcing her branches to grow in a twisted direction.

"And what we time travelers... or 'field workers', do, in essence, isn't it 'defying fate'?"

Resist the fate of going astray, resist the fate of dying alone, resist the fate of the destruction of the world.

What the time travelers need to fight against is actually the unreasonable story trajectory set by the so-called "world will".

Xiao Niao said with a smile: "If I were the kind of person who is afraid of trouble and would just follow the plot and play the role of a smooth-talker, I guess you wouldn't partner with me, right?"

Xiaoliu was almost convinced by Xiaoniao.

“Of course,” it hummed, “this kind of brainless plot should be crushed and flushed down the toilet.”

[Unfortunately, this is a low-magic world, and my system permissions are too low.]

Xiao Liu said with regret: [——Otherwise, we should just kill those damn guys! Then we can put the Son of Luck under house arrest or cripple him, and see what else he can do with a dung bag hanging from his neck!]

Xiao Niao really laughed this time.

"You really just think about fighting and killing all day long."

She couldn't help but grumble quietly, "I've always said that society isn't that simple..."

"What should I say?"

Xiao Niao thought for a moment and said, "Well... our real goal is to maintain the stability of the small world, right?"

"This cannot be achieved by killing all criminals or villains," she said. "It requires a healthy social system, normal morals and legal concepts."

Destruction is easy, because after that you don't have to worry about anything anymore.

The real difficulty lies in construction and maintenance.

Xiao Niao made a metaphor: "It takes months of careful care to grow a crop, but only a second to destroy it."

"And if it's infested with insects, just killing the insects won't work."

"We need to kill the pests, find the root causes of the pests, and add nutrients to the damaged crops to restore them to a healthy state."

Xiao Niao took a deep breath and said, "That's why I hope that the Son of Fortune will ultimately be judged by law, rather than being subjected to personal lynching... This kind of procedural justice is necessary. Modern society needs it to function healthily."

Xiaoliu didn't quite understand this kind of obscure metaphor.

It thought: Isn’t it still farming after all? How can you be said to be an innate farming holy body?

Chapter 89: The Heavy Rain in Her and Its Memory (Part 2)

In the middle of the night, her low-grade fever became severe.

The body was very hot, and a burning sensation spread from the lungs up the trachea, making it so uncomfortable that breathing was difficult.

Chen Xiaoyue tossed and turned in her bed, unable to sleep.

After a while, I felt a lot of cold sweat on my body, soaking my underwear.

I don’t know how long it took before the sticky and dull feeling disappeared.

She was so delirious with fever that she couldn't even open her eyes, but she could vaguely sense movement in the room: someone was sitting in front of her bed, wiping her armpits and behind her knees with alcohol.

The slightly stinging, cold touch was not pleasant. She curled up her legs and feet out of stimulation, but was then grabbed by the ankles and pulled back forcefully.

Don't move.

The other party should have been saying this, but she was too sick to even tell whose voice it was.

But even though she couldn't see or hear clearly, Chen Xiaoyue knew who the person sitting next to her bed was.

In this world, there is only one person who would do this, wiping alcohol on her feet to cool her down when she is sick, and even patiently massaging the soles of her feet.

"teacher……"

She murmured softly, and couldn't even remember when she fell asleep.

When I woke up again, it was already daytime.

Chen Xiaoyue's mind was still a little confused. She slowly got up from the bed and looked around unconsciously, but she didn't find the bird.

The infusion needle in his hand had been pulled out, leaving only the metal infusion stand standing at the head of the bed.

Strangely, her skin did not feel sticky like dried sweat. She slept all night, but when she woke up she felt refreshed.

One or two fragmentary fragments suddenly flashed through my mind: I was sitting on the bed like a stupid puppet, asking people to raise their hands and wipe their face, and obediently letting the little bird play with me.

She lowered her head and found that the clothes she was wearing had turned into a long-sleeved cotton shirt without her knowing.

Chen Xiaoyue unconsciously grabbed her collar. After a while, she carefully buried her nose in the collar and took a shallow breath.

She recognized that these were Xiao Niao's clothes - this person usually didn't buy pajamas specifically to wear, he would just change into loose clothes before going to bed.

He must have gone back home last night and brought some spare clothes.

teacher……

So, did the teacher come to see me last night?

Chen Xiaoyue felt mixed emotions for a moment, and couldn't tell whether she was happy or sad.

Chen Xiaoyue couldn't imagine the circumstances under which Xiaoniao found her last night - she hadn't even thought that the teacher would take the initiative to find her.

After all, she was the one who was timid, cowardly, and chose to run away first.

The more she felt that she owed someone, the more she felt that she could never repay him.

There was a thermos on the bedside table with hot water inside. Chen Xiaoyue had been burning the water all night and was very thirsty at the moment, so she quickly drank up all the water in the cup.

Her body was still a little weak, but she forced herself to get out of bed and put on her shoes, then she staggered out the door with the thermos in her hand.

Naturally, there was no one she knew in the hospital. Chen Xiaoyue silently lowered her head and walked across the corridor, preparing to get some hot water from the water room.

She was already quite low-key, subconsciously walking close to the wall, but many people still looked at her intentionally or unintentionally on the road.

Chen Xiaoyue knew that this was all due to the bruises on her face.

Although there are many patients with various illnesses and injuries in the hospital's inpatient department, people like her who have obvious bruises on their faces are still quite eye-catching.

These were clearly bruises from a beating, and they couldn't be disguised as falls or bumps.

Chen Xiaoyue ignored the gazes of those people and just quickened her pace and left.

But even though she had tried her best to avoid the strange looks from passers-by, the stinging pain in the corners of her eyes inevitably reminded her of what happened yesterday.

Rather, she couldn't forget such things even if she tried hard.

In fact, she had been hiding from birds during this period. The school gave teachers and students more than ten days of New Year's Eve holiday. She ran to the head teacher's office to ask if she could stay on campus, but was told that even the dormitory manager had to go home to celebrate the holiday.

Chen Xiaoyue had no choice but to pack her luggage and return to He County.

In fact, Chen Xiaoyue was not completely without anywhere to go. Xiaoniao tentatively asked herself a few days before the holiday whether she wanted to spend the holiday with her - they could take the bus back together, which was very convenient.

Chen Xiaoyue knew that the teacher meant well. If it had been earlier, she would probably have agreed immediately after Xiaoniao asked this question.

But in the end she refused.

The reason was not as complicated as imagined. Chen Xiaoyue simply did not have the courage to face Xiao Niao again.

She could sense the bird's alienation and rejection of her from some subtle details.

In the past, this person always showed his preference for me obviously, occasionally stuffing candies and snacks into my mouth, hanging a down jacket at the door of the dormitory when the seasons changed, giving me extra tutoring and ruthless urging when I couldn't keep up with my studies.

During the holidays, they would drag her out of the empty student dormitory, make dumplings and stew pork ribs for her at a restaurant, and in less than half a semester, she had grown rapidly in height.

She shouldn't have kissed her then.

After such a clear rejection, Chen Xiaoyue found it difficult to

He shamelessly pretended that nothing had happened and continued to stick to the bird.

Chen Xiaoyue thought that she was indeed too greedy.