Chapter 67: Before the God Was Born

Badminton Expert, One-Armed Champion. And they stacked.

Any other time, pulling these two back-to-back would have had Lin Yan seriously wondering just how ridiculous he could make his right arm.

But was this really what he needed right now?

"Fuck me. Couldn’t this luck have shown up at a better time?"

Anyone looking at the results would think he was preparing for some kind of one-handed competitive event.

The third result followed right behind.

[Diving Enthusiast — White]

[Long-term underwater activity has given you superior breath control.]

[Effect: Maximum breath-holding time is doubled.]

He was a little disappointed, but it was only the third draw. There were still five Standard Draws left. As long as even one of them produced something related to souls, consciousness, or the mind, the eight thousand points wouldn’t have been wasted.

The fourth draw was another white light.

[Iron Stomach — White]

[Your digestive system possesses increased tolerance.]

[Effect: Resistance to spoiled food, highly irritating foods, and mild foodborne toxins is significantly improved.]

At least he’d be less likely to get food poisoning in the future.

"Fuck your Iron Stomach."

By this point, he was finally starting to get restless.

The area he had lost control over had already spread from his legs all the way up to his abdomen, while the remaining draws began appearing one after another.

[Absolute Pitch — White], allowing him to judge sound frequencies with almost the precision of a tuner.

The sixth draw even lit up green.

Lin Yan’s spirits immediately rose, only for [Rapid Reading II — Green] to appear in front of him. Its effect was excellent—his speed at reading, understanding, and organizing written information would increase greatly, while the mental fatigue caused by long periods of reading would be significantly reduced.

Green.

Useless for the current situation.

The last two results followed quickly as well.

One was [Sewing II — White], which would make his hands as steady with a needle and thread as someone who had been doing it for over a decade.

The other was [Clear Dreaming — White], allowing his dreams to become more complete and making them much easier to remember after waking.

And just like that, all eight Standard Draws were over.

[Current points: 800.]

"Basic. All of it."

Eight results popped up almost one after another.

[Beautiful Nails — Gray]

[Your fingernails naturally grow smoother and more attractive, while becoming less prone to splitting or developing rough edges.]

[Hand-Styled Hair — Gray]

[Your hair is easier to shape into a neat, natural hairstyle through simple hand adjustments and will hold that shape for longer.]

The remaining results followed more or less the same pattern: his palms would sweat less, he would be less prone to motion sickness, his mouth would tolerate hot soup better, cold rice would be less likely to upset his stomach, and one Trait even made him better at remembering unfamiliar faces.

The final draw actually lit up white again.

Lin Yan’s heart moved slightly.

[Whistling Expert — White]

[After hearing a melody once, you can reproduce most of it with relatively high accuracy through whistling.]

"..."

And while he poured the last of his hope into the lottery, the memories that did not belong to him never stopped coming.

At first, they were only scattered fragments—a face, a sentence whose words had already blurred beyond recognition, or someone whose name he could no longer remember.

But as more of them surfaced, those disconnected pieces gradually began to fall into place.

At some point, the sound of pages turning appeared beside his ears.

Then came the smell of dried herbs, followed by the rough texture of old paper beneath his fingertips.

Everything in the main hall began to fade instead.

By the time Lin Yan realized something was wrong, Lucia’s corpse was gone from his sight, along with the blood scattered across the floor.

A pair of small, still-childish hands rested on yellowed pages.

Several thick medical books were piled beside the table. Beyond them stood rows of wooden shelves reaching almost to the ceiling, packed with prescriptions, case records, and notes left behind so long ago that no one could say exactly when they had been written.

He knew this place as well as he knew anything.

Because from the time he could remember, he had grown up in this study.

His family had practiced medicine for generations. Exactly how far back it went, even they no longer knew. His grandfather had once treated members of the royal family, while his father had spent much of his youth serving a local lord. By the time he was born, that study already held the work of generations before him.

So what he would become had been decided long before he was old enough to understand it.

Once he learned to read, he learned the names of medicines. When he grew older, he followed his father on house calls. By the time he could truly practice on his own, he had already become a fairly well-known physician in the area.

He was no selfless saint.

The wealthy paid what they owed. If the poor had no money, they could pay with grain, cloth, firewood—whatever they had. If they had nothing at all, the debt was written down for later.

Helping people was one thing. Letting them take it for granted was another. Waive the fee once, and before long someone would start thinking it was something they were entitled to.

Of course, if someone was actually dying, he was not going to leave them there over a few coins.

He would still save them first.

Over the years, he saved his share of people. He also watched more than enough die despite everything he tried.

Medicine in that era was still painfully limited. Many illnesses had no known cause at all. Some patients could still speak when they were brought to him, only to be dead by the next morning. Sometimes a wound so small that no one thought much of it would fester and end up taking a life.

After enough years as a physician, he learned to live with it.

If not for one particular house call, he probably would have spent the rest of his life the same way his father and grandfather had—practicing medicine until old age, then passing whatever he had learned on to the next generation.

That call took him far from the city.

An illness had broken out in a small town, and he was asked to go there. He had originally planned to stay only a few days, but after arriving, he noticed something unusual.

Every household worshiped the same god.

Faith in this world had never been unified. A single city might contain several temples dedicated to different gods, and even members of the same family did not always worship the same one.

But here, no matter which home he entered, he heard the same name.

When a child was born, the parents would write that name beside the cradle. When someone fell ill, the family would gather by the bed and pray to it. And when death drew near, it was still that same name on their lips.

At first, he took it for nothing more than an old local custom.

He had been a physician for long enough to know that people reached for gods when they had nowhere else to turn.

Then, one morning, a dead man opened his eyes.