Chapter 572: Disorder

Chapter 572 -569: Disorder

“It’s over…”

Poke stood by the stream, staring blankly at the spreading pollution.

Wherever the river water flowed, the plants on the banks limply collapsed. But that wasn’t all. Soon, they began to swell, slowly inflating like balloons, their soft bodies puffing up and bulging.

Then, right before Poke’s shocked eyes, they burst into pieces.

This “inflation pollution” was still spreading relentlessly along the riverbanks, while the contaminated stream continued to flow downstream.

It wasn’t hard to imagine that the other branches of the stream were suffering the same fate.

After seeing this, Poke could no longer control his body and collapsed limply to the ground.

“It can still be fixed… It can still be fixed…”

He struggled to his feet and ran back the way he came.

‘I just need to fix the lake water.’

Poke rushed to the lake’s edge and plunged his hand in again. But this time, he was repelled by a powerful force. Unwilling to accept it, he thrust his hand in once more.

But how could the lake, now mixed with immense energy, be affected by him? The chaotic medicine had already fused with the water. For Poke to hope to reverse it was just a pipe dream.

Xi watched him silently from behind. He wanted to help Poke, but he was powerless.

Flung back again, Poke sat dazedly by the lake, staring helplessly at the calm water.

Explosions echoed from the surroundings from time to time. This rainforest was stepping, step by step, toward its death. All living things were inevitably inflating and exploding, and the culprit behind it all was Poke, sitting by the shore.

Poke raised his trembling hands. “Xi, what have I done?”

“This isn’t your fault,” Xi said, trying to comfort him worriedly.

‘He knew none of this was Poke’s doing.’

But Poke, convinced he had made a terrible mistake, couldn’t hear Xi’s words at all. He looked at his hands as the ball of light trembled nonstop. In that moment, he felt a profound doubt about his own healing power.

“Xi, you’re lying to me, aren’t you? There’s no such thing as a chaotic medicine. It was me. I mixed the medicine wrong. You were just too embarrassed to say it, so you made something up to deceive me, right?”

“Of course not. It’s just that you can’t see it…” Xi retorted weakly.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. I know you’re just trying to comfort me.” Poke’s hands trembled even more violently.

“It’s always… It’s always you helping me. My healing isn’t as good as yours, my knowledge isn’t as good as yours, and I don’t have your patience. I’m not as good as you at anything. Leaving the Hua Sheng Islands was my own selfish idea, and I messed up, and now you have to be the one to comfort me. I’m so ashamed. I don’t deserve to be a healer.”

“I want to heal them too, but I don’t have the ability… Xi, you don’t know how much I envy you. The Elders all say you’re a genius, that you can quickly find the cause of any illness…”

“Xi, did you know? I’ve always seen you as my idol, always been chasing after you. I know you want to leave the Hua Sheng Islands too, to save more patients. But as a genius, you’re under greater restraints. The Elders would never let you leave.”

“But I can. No one pays any attention to me. I can do the dangerous things, I can do what you wish you could…”

“But now, I can’t even do this one simple thing right. I’m so useless.”

Poke’s hands reached for the lake water again, but Xi stopped him.

“Don’t try…”

“There’s still a way,” Poke said, his voice trembling. He pushed Xi’s hand aside and plunged his own into the lake.

“Xi, do you know about Root Cause Healing?”

“If I can just erase this parasitic plant from the timeline, then none of this will have happened. The patient who came to the Hua Sheng Islands won’t have come, I won’t have left the Hua Sheng Islands, and I won’t be here now, having made this mistake.”

With a burst of effort, Poke thrust both hands into the lake. Immediately, the ball of light above his head flickered and plunged into the water as well.

“Poke! What are you doing?”

Poke’s voice grew more and more distant, as if sinking to the bottom of the lake. “Root Cause Healing requires immense power. And it’s right here. I just need to guide it to the right place, and I can open the channel for Root Cause Healing…”

Xi couldn’t hear the rest of his words clearly. He only knew that Poke was attempting something with a slim chance of survival. Xi clenched his fists and, without hesitation, plunged his own hands into the lake.

The ball of light on Xi’s head trembled violently before it too detached and dove into the lake.

A majestic power surged from all around, and Xi was buffeted, staggering. But he still struggled to charge downward, trying to find Poke.

But this vortex of power was not so easily broken. The immense force churned him until his consciousness blurred. He saw flashes of light in the water, multicolored fragments mixed with all sorts of powers, ripping his already weak healing power to shreds.

Just as he was about to be completely shattered, Xi sensed Poke’s location. He charged forward recklessly…

After a blinding flash of light, Xi found that his surroundings seemed to have calmed.

There was no vortex of fragments, no chaotic power. He was standing, completely unharmed, in the middle of a jungle.

Lush green plants, sunlight filtering through the gaps in the leaves, creating pillars of light in the air. A gurgling stream flowed past his feet…

“Hm?”

‘What’s going on?’

‘Did I actually return to where it all started?’

While Xi was still confused, a figure suddenly darted out from behind a nearby tree.

“Xi! I knew you’d come help me!”

Poke grabbed Xi, trying to pull him away, but Xi stood rooted to the spot.

“What’s wrong?” Poke asked, confused.

Xi looked at Poke and was silent for a long time before speaking again. “Are you okay, Poke?”

“Of course. I’m just struggling with something, feeling a bit troubled.”

“What is it?”

“I’m planning to completely eradicate the parasitic plants… I have a plan, Xi. Listen.”

“The source of all the streams in this rainforest is a lake. I’m going to put a medicine that can completely wipe out the parasitic plants into that lake. That way, the medicine will spread through the streams to the entire rainforest…”

“I’ve already thought of the formula: Suppression, Annihilation, Withering, and Constriction… What do you think?”

Poke asked Xi earnestly, but a storm was already raging in Xi’s heart.

‘It’s the same conversation again, with only minor differences.’

‘The same plan, the same formula, the same goal…’

“Poke, why do you want to destroy those parasitic plants? Is it because of Root Cause Healing? Are you planning to erase them from the timeline?”

Hearing Xi’s question, Poke faltered for a moment, then replied:

“What are you talking about? It’s just to stop patients from getting infected again, to solve the problem once and for all…”

“Just tell me, is there a problem with my formula? I’ve been adjusting it for a long time, but I still haven’t dared to go ahead with the plan because I’m afraid I’ll get it wrong. But now that you’re here, everything will be fine.”

“You’re a genius. You’re never wrong…”