Chapter 508 Medal
Su Xiaoxia?
Su Xia pursed her lips. It sounded like a girl's name.
Of course, even without the "小" in the middle, his real name still sounds like a girl's name.
The issue of his name dates back to when he was just born. His mother named him "Su Dabao" and his father named him "Su Xiaoqiang", and the two argued endlessly.
The last uncle couldn't stand it anymore and gave him the name Su Xia.
Retracting his thoughts, Su Xia took off the card from the sensing device.
Then, a "beep" sound was heard.
The door cracked open a crack, and a faint light shone into the dark corridor.
Behind the door is a tunnel with glowing light strips on both sides. The tunnel is wide enough to accommodate cars.
Su Xia continued walking forward, and after about twenty meters, he reached the end of the tunnel.
He stood at the end of the tunnel with a calm look, looking out.
"This is Dragon City, or rather, part of Dragon City..."
What appeared in Su Xia's vision was a city under a dome.
After the mountain was hollowed out, a huge hemispherical dome supported this small world.
The city under the dome is not big, and the buildings vary in height. Most of them are six-story buildings. Only in the city center are there a few high-rise buildings of more than ten stories. All the buildings are gray, retaining the original color of the cement walls.
It is also night in this gray little world.
On the dome, there are thousands of crude display screens. These screens are combined together, some are dim, some are faintly glowing, to form a simple but beautiful starry sky.
In the city, street lamps emitted a soft white light, the windows of most buildings were darkened, and many Dragon City residents had fallen asleep.
"It's not as messy as I thought." Su Xia's eyes swept across a large area, "But this is just a part of the surface, let's walk around and see..."
Su Xia's first impression of this city was its quietness.
It was so quiet, all the vehicles were parked neatly on both sides of the road.
Without those noisy horns and engine noises, the whole world was half quiet.
Su Xia recalled her childhood life in the countryside. The nights back then were also so quiet. Later, when she moved to the city, she never enjoyed such tranquility again.
He looked carefully and found many similar tunnels around the edges of the city.
Some of the tunnels should lead to other parts of the mountain.
After all, this is just the belly of a mountain.
According to Zhang Fang, the entire Dragon City is connected by small worlds in the belly of sixteen large mountains, and can be regarded as a big city composed of sixteen small cities.
Longcheng’s headquarters is a large square building that houses offices of various departments, seminar rooms, conference halls, etc.
In this small city in the mountains, Su Xia did not see the big building.
"According to the map Zhang Fang gave me, I should be in the belly of the mountain numbered '7', and the headquarters of Longcheng is at the location numbered '9'..."
Following the instructions on the map, Su Xia walked towards the mountain where the headquarters was located.
He knew that the current Dragon City was definitely not as beautiful as it looked.
After all, the city lord was seriously injured.
During special times, the leader's physical condition concerns many people.
If the city lord had not been seriously injured, so many people would not have been so panic-stricken and sent their loved ones out of Dragon City.
At this moment, a task prompt suddenly popped up from the system.
[Mission: Dragon City Split]
[Mission Phase 1: The Eve Before Dawn]
[Task Description: In Conch City, you once received a "Dragon City Hero Medal". The recipient of this medal was the Dragon City combat hero Wang Xinglie. Please find Wang Xinglie's descendants as soon as possible and learn from them the reason for selling the medal.]
[Current mission stage requirements: Ensure the safety of Wang Xinglie's descendants]
【……】
[After completing all stages of this task, you will receive a treasure map]
[Through this treasure map, you will arrive at a mysterious area, where you will find the wreckage of an alien spacecraft and obtain a complete "Interstellar Survey Ship" from the wreckage, thus having the ability to leave this planet]
On Su Xia’s task bar, a task that had been dim for a long time suddenly lit up.
At the same time, in the storage space, the golden medal was also flickering, as if giving a hint of something.
"It's actually this mission..."
Su Xia took out the hero medal from the storage space, stared at the medal, and pondered for a moment.
The descendants of the hero have fallen to the point of selling medals, which is also one of the problems of Longcheng.
The superficial beauty is, after all, only superficial.
Only by digging deep can you dig out the rotten things.
He clicked on the mission details and saw the location of the mission target in the details.
"In the small city numbered '8', which I happen to be heading to."
Su Xia put the medal in his pocket, took a step forward, and walked towards a tunnel in the distance.
The city was very quiet. He was the only one on the street, not even a patrolling soldier.
This made Su Xia feel like walking in an empty city.
To avoid trouble, he still turned on the stealth function.
Logically speaking, it's not even midnight yet, so there should be a few people on the street, there shouldn't be no one at all.
"Is there curfew?"
Su Xia thought of this.
In extraordinary times, when the city lord was attacked and seriously injured, a curfew is normal.
Not long after, he came to the entrance of another tunnel. Looking inside, he saw dim light strips on both sides of the tunnel, and there was no end in sight.
He entered the tunnel and walked for about ten minutes before reaching the exit.
Outside the exit is a small city numbered "8".
This long tunnel is just one of the connections between the two cities.
"City No. 8 is similar to City No. 7..."
Su Xia looked up and saw the same star-studded dome. Under the dome were concrete buildings of varying heights, all with gray surfaces.
According to the mission instructions, Wang Xinglie's descendants are in a building on the edge of the city.
Su Xia walked out of the tunnel and headed towards the target location.
Soon, he approached the building.
The building has six floors and is similar in style to residential buildings outside. There are a few street lamps on the road outside the building. Most of the residents upstairs have turned off the lights, and only a few windows are still lit.
Wang Xinglie's descendants live in Room 102 of this building.
Su Xia was wearing life-sensing glasses and could see through the wall that there were two dark red figures in the room.
He released another group of nanorobots, which sneaked in through the crack in the door and confirmed the identities of the two people in the room.
A young girl and a middle-aged woman, they are Wang Xinglie's daughter and wife respectively.
“Ahem…”
The middle-aged woman did not seem to be in good health. Her face was sallow and her body was thin. She lay on the shabby bed and coughed occasionally.
Next to the bed, there were many medicine boxes and a large number of remaining medicine tubes.
Seeing this scene, Su Xia understood why they were selling medals.
Get ill.
No matter what era, a serious illness can drain the savings of an average family.
He approached the door and knocked gently.
"Boom boom boom."
The knuckles collided with the wooden door, making a dull sound.
The two people in the room had puzzled expressions on their faces, probably wondering why someone would knock on the door so late.
The girl wanted to open the door, but the middle-aged woman grabbed her, shook her head gently, then got up from the bed with difficulty and staggered to the door.
“Ka——”
The door lock turned and the door opened a crack.
There is also a metal chain between the door and the wall to prevent bad guys from rushing in directly.
Through the gap, the middle-aged woman looked at Su Xia cautiously, and then asked, "Excuse me, what can I do for you?"
"Yes, someone asked me to treat you."
As he spoke, Su Xia took out a medicine box from behind him as if by magic and showed a pharmacist's ID.
The middle-aged woman was startled: "This... our family..."
"No need to pay, someone has already paid for you." Su Xia knew her difficulties and spoke first.
"Have you paid?" The middle-aged woman was puzzled, but did not ask any more questions. Instead, she opened the metal chain on the door, opened the door, and invited Su Xia in.
The woman's name is Liang Qian.
On the shoe rack at the entrance are her wedding photos with Wang Xinglie when they were young.
Their daughter was called Wang Mengqi, she was about fifteen or sixteen years old, short and thin, and was diligently preparing tea for Su Xia.
"Doctor, please have some tea." She wiped the water stains on her hands and brought the tea to Su Xia.
"good."
Su Xia nodded slightly and took the tea.
He put the tea aside, sat on the chair, and began to carefully observe the condition of the woman Liang Qian.
After a while, he said softly, "Lung cancer?"
"yes……"
Liang Qian answered with difficulty. She was thin and her face was haggard.
In the trash can nearby, you can see bloody paper balls. All the blood was coughed out by her.
It's already in the late stage. If it were on Earth, we could basically start arranging our funeral affairs.
"You are the family members of a hero, why don't you have free medical care?" Su Xia opened the small medicine box and asked while taking out medicine.
"Yes, but..."
Liang Qian opened her mouth, wanting to speak but stopping herself, as if she had some difficulty. She looked at Su Xia and asked carefully, "Mr. Doctor, you are not a resident of Dragon City?"
"Yes, I just got here today." Su Xia did not hide anything. "Let's continue talking about Longcheng's medical care. You are in such a bad condition, you should go to the hospital and lie down. Why are you still at home? Doesn't the hospital provide free treatment?"
"this……"
Liang Qian hesitated for a moment, then began to explain the current situation.
The families of heroes like them do have many benefits, such as free medical care, housing, education, etc. If all these can be implemented, they will definitely be able to live a good life.
But the problem is that many people inside Longcheng are relatives of heroes.
As long as they are the family members of a soldier who has won combat medals, medals of courage, medals of heroism and other medals, they can be considered the family members of a hero.
When there are too many people, there won’t be enough resources.
Medical resources within Longcheng are particularly tight, and there are simply not enough beds in the hospital.
It takes half a year to make an appointment for a simple lung check-up.
Free is indeed good, but when resources are scarce, its benefits cannot be reflected, so that many people have to spend a lot of money to seek treatment from private institutions.
The resources of those private institutions are all smuggled in through various channels and are extremely expensive.
"So that's how it is."
Su Xia thought about it and understood the problem.
Ultimately, it’s a question of resources.
Only when there are enough resources can free services be truly implemented and benefit the residents of Dragon City.
But when Su Xia saw Liang Qian's hesitant expression, she suddenly thought of several other questions.
Since private institutions can obtain a large amount of resources through various channels, why can't Dragon City officials do the same?
Who is controlling those private institutions behind the scenes?
How do they smuggle it in?
"I understand." Su Xia nodded slightly to Liang Qian. He had been thinking about something else just now, but now he thought of the key point.
The so-called free in Longcheng is to throw out a little bit of resources for everyone to grab for free, while most of the resources are placed in so-called private institutions for sale at high prices.
Those who cannot get a ticket or cannot wait in such a long queue will have to go to private institutions.
Without the tacit approval of the top leaders, this kind of thing would never have been able to continue for long.
In this way, you can gain face in public and make money in secret, which is like killing two birds with one stone.
Through communication, Su Xia learned that this situation existed not only in the medical field.
The so-called free education is also a big pit.
The free ones all teach very poorly. If you want your children to learn anything, you have to spend a lot of money to hire tutors from private institutions.
"A bunch of dogs. How do they treat the families of heroes?" Su Xia frowned. The inside of Longcheng was in such a horrible state. Did the city lord know about this?
For some reason, Su Xia hoped that he didn't know.
His mood was inexplicably complicated. Without asking any more questions, he picked up the medicine he had just taken out and began to make a treatment plan for Liang Qian.
"Take three bottles of this blue medicine every day, one each in the morning, noon and evening. It doesn't matter whether you take it before or after meals." Su Xia placed boxes of medicine in front of Liang Qian, writing as he spoke.
"These white pills can temporarily relieve your pain, but don't take too many. Only one pill a day, or you may become addicted..."
"This dark red medicine is used to replenish qi and blood. It does not require injection and can be taken orally. Three bottles are also required every day..."
Su Xia's small medicine box was like a treasure chest. More and more things were taken out of it, and gradually they were piled up on the table into a small mountain.
This strange scene surprised both the mother and daughter.
How can you take out so many things from such a small box?
Soon, Su Xia took out the last medicine.
"This box of medicine is not for you. It's for your daughter." Su Xia pointed at the thin Wang Mengqi standing beside her.
"Me?" The little girl was stunned. She was not sick and should not need to take medicine.
"Your physical condition is very poor and you are malnourished. This box of medicine can enhance your physical condition." Su Xia said.
"Oh, thank you, doctor." Wang Mengqi thanked him hurriedly.
"No thanks, this is what you deserve."
As he spoke, Su Xia reached into his pocket, took out the hero medal, and gently placed it in front of the mother and daughter.
On the table, the medal shone with dazzling gold, like the rising sun at dawn.
"Keep this honor and don't sell it again."
