Chapter 1799: Chapter 20: Discharged from the Hospital

“One morning I threw away yesterday, and from then on my steps became light.”

—— Tagore, Stray Birds

Zheng Qing felt this sentence fit his mood perfectly, so he marked it with a wavy line using a feather pen. Then he stretched, closed the poetry collection in his hand, and looked up at the window.

Outside the window, it was daytime.

Birds sang in the shade of trees, insects buzzed over the bushes, butterflies fluttered their wings, dodging the saliva spewed by Grass Spirits, while flowers smiled happily, watching the scene cheerfully.

The sun warmed the earth, and a pleasant wind blew into the hospital room from outside, brushing against his face, warm, soft, extremely comfortable. The outdoor temperature was twenty degrees Celsius, and the weather orb created by the School Works Committee ensured the school would have the right rain or snow, winds, and clouds at the right time and place.

Welcome to First University.

This is the world that belongs to life.

Here, no wizard needs to risk life, sticking out his tongue to lick a stone just fished out of magma. Nor do wizards need to save a bit of magic power by scorching off all their body hair.

Wizards here only lie on the grass, with a half-opened “Encyclopedia of the Wizarding World” on their chest, a bamboo basket by their side filled with soft cakes and sweet green bean pastries, and perhaps two cans of icy Green Bee.

A stray cat slowly passed by the basket, sniffed the cake’s aroma, hesitated for a few seconds, shook its whiskers, and walked away indifferently. A squirrel with three tails stealthily snuck under the tree, grabbed a few seeds from the basket, and sprinted away.

From behind it came the wizard’s laughter.

This is the taste of life.

Closing his eyes, smelling the abundant magic power flowing in the air, Zheng Qing’s mind flashes with the oppressive, dead-silent, withered scent of the Black Prison World, savoring the beauty of life.

Creaaak.

The hospital room door was pushed open, and the young wizard turned back, seeing a long horse face holding a feather pen and a notepad, a stethoscope hanging from his neck, followed by a group of young ones in white robes.

“Your senior and junior classmates started their jobs at the end of July, and they’re following me for rounds today.” Doctor Ma casually pointed behind him with a feather pen, then stood before Zheng Qing’s hospital bed, looking at the chart hanging in front of it, copying down the data.

Taking this chance, Zheng Qing stretched his neck to look out the door, hoping to see something surprising, but unfortunately, besides the monotonous white walls, there was no other color.

Doctor Ma kept writing and glanced at the young man: “Want to leave?”

Zheng Qing nodded honestly.

Anyone trapped in a hospital for a month would want to escape the endless whiteness. Zheng Qing wants to run wild at the Hunting Ground, wants to close his small store, would like to nap in Greenhill Mansion’s garden, and even go on an adventure in the Silent Forest.

He’s even willing to spend a disciplined week clocking into the library, from nine to five, like a monk, copying assignments, as long as he no longer has to drink those bitter, smoky magic potions.

The only thing he doesn’t want is to continue staying in the School Hospital, where apart from eating, sleeping, and walking downstairs, he can’t do anything else.

Doctor Ma put away the notepad, placed three fingers on Zheng Qing, checking him while casually asking: “How do you feel today?”

“Uh… I feel like I can kill a bull now.” Zheng Qing caught a glimpse of several pretty witches among the interns, habitually becoming glib.

Indeed, a bell-like giggle filled the room.

The doctor raised an eyebrow, pulled out his law book, flipped it open, and quickly wrote a spell with a feather pen, then pressed his hand down, exclaiming:

“Sky-born Yellow Bull, I quell my guest!”

The smile on Zheng Qing’s face froze immediately. Before he could think of how to beg for mercy without losing face in front of the witches, he heard an explosion-like roar in the void:

“Moo!”

Soon, Zheng Qing felt the entire hospital room — even the whole building — tremble violently, as a foul wind blew past the young man, flapping the white curtains hanging on both sides of the window with a clatter. Several Flower Sprites playing and chasing in the sunshine outside, upon sensing the odor in the wind, were frightened and forgot they had wings, screaming and stiffly falling downward.

Plop, plop.

Faint sounds of Flower Sprites hitting the grass outside came through the window.

Plop, plop.

This was Zheng Qing’s heart crazily pounding, pumping scalding plasma through his veins to his limbs. In the blink of an eye, the young wizard’s face turned crimson, and his eyes became bright and sparkling.

He had reason to be nervous.

Because right in front of him, a robust yellow bull was glaring at him with eyes as big as bronze bells. The bull’s front hooves stood on either side of his bed, with its hind legs on the floor, its humped shoulders nearly touching the ceiling, squeezing out the few burning magic candles.

The sprites in white gauze clothes cried out angrily, trying to pull the long hair on the bull’s back to drive it out of the room, but their power was too weak, not even half as bothersome to the bull as several gadflies.

Pant, pant.

The bull’s heavy breaths hitting Zheng Qing’s face mixed with the scent of grass, inexplicably stirring his appetite. He tried to lean back, trying to avoid the immense pressure in front of him, but the bed was only so long, with the slick, cold wall behind him, leaving him no place to retreat.

“Take this.”

Doctor Ma brusquely handed Zheng Qing a thick, bulging law book, and a feather pen dipped in ink. The book’s pages were yellowed and somewhat sharp to the touch, while the pen’s tip was fresh; only the feathers were folded jumbled together, appearing quite chaotic.

The pen wasn’t great, the book wasn’t great either, but undoubtedly, they were still usable.

Zheng Qing immediately understood Doctor Ma’s intention — his hospitalization was due to a magic power backlash caused by lack thereof, with one major symptom being magic power chaos, making it impossible to use magic normally. Therefore, if Zheng Qing could prove to the therapists that he could now use magic normally, it would naturally be easier to apply for discharge.

Thinking of this, disregarding the enormous bullhead so close, he grabbed the feather pen and quickly wrote his most familiar spell on the law book:

“Binding Ge Zhitianxi and this bull!”

Dozens of green vines emerged from the void, effortlessly tying the bull up like a dumpling, not even sparing its tail, tightly binding it to its hind legs.

The interns huddled with their notebooks, whispering to each other.

Doctor Ma didn’t comment, just nodded simply, pressed his own law book: “Expel the Wild Bull.”

A flash of clear light swiped by, and the huge yellow bull vanished in the blink of an eye. The tiny room felt suddenly vast and empty after losing the bull that filled it.

“You can prepare to be discharged.” Doctor Ma waved his hand, leaving with a group of interns, leaving the young warlock alone in the hospital bed, happily punching the air.