Chapter 71-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World
Chapter 71 The Black Dental Clinic-2
My profession is a dentist.
But there's someone living in my tooth. I don't know how to describe it. That day I woke up and was brushing my teeth when I suddenly heard a voice:
Hey—
I was the only one in the house. The bathroom was empty. I looked at the mirror, and my reflection stared back with a numb expression.
Hey—
He called me again.
The voice seemed to come from inside my teeth? Although I don't know why I had this feeling, it really seemed to come from inside my teeth.
I tapped my teeth with my toothbrush and heard a muffled sound. He didn't speak again.
After washing up, I had to go to work. This was my daily routine. The dental clinic was located in the slums. I lived in the same neighborhood, so I just had to go downstairs to get to work. My commute time was less than five minutes.
This clinic was left to me by my father. On the way to the dental clinic, I had to pass through a pitch-black corridor. I grew up here.
Later, my father passed away. They said there was metal contamination here, so some neighbors moved away, but new neighbors moved in.
The new neighbors were all Defectives. They knew early on that they were going to die. Once they got money, they would inhale a new hallucinogen called Black Dream. Over time, it would corrode their teeth.
I never found them annoying because when their teeth went bad, they would come to me to fix them.
In business, the scariest thing is running out of customers one day, but my customer base was endless.
Due to technological development, many dentists have been replaced by machines. Being a dentist has become somewhat of a retro profession. Now many medical pods can treat teeth—painless, more precise than humans, with an excellent overall experience, but very expensive.
Many people simply couldn't afford it and could only come to me for handcraft work. I've always served these people. They call me the Black Dream Dentist.
They say I specifically make a living off the aftereffects of hallucinogens. I never deny it. There's nothing to deny.
The top-tier plutocrats devour the lower classes, exploiting layer by layer. I'm just at the last segment of the food chain.
I can't save these Defectives, but I can treat their teeth.
Every day I have to pass by many Defectives to get back to my clinic. I often feel like someone wants to kill me. They just lie openly in corners. Who knows, maybe one day they'll overdose and have hallucinations, and they'll kill me.
I've always been aware of this, but I've never thought about moving. I feel like ending it this way wouldn't be so bad.
Sometimes I'm curious—what exactly is that Black Dream? Why do they lie in corners after inhaling it? Aren't the corners dirty?
But I've never tried it out of line. Every day I just repeat my life: wake up, go to work, open a patient's mouth, see a mouthful of black teeth. Over time, I could even recognize who someone was by their teeth.
Actually, there's very little I can do, because no matter how I repair them, those teeth will continue to decay. So I'm just treating the symptoms, not the root cause.
But I've been observing these people's teeth. Everyone's teeth are different. Each tiny tooth seems to have its own independent life.
What a strange thought. I haven't even inhaled Black Dream yet, and I'm already having hallucinations.
Days passed like this until my tooth started talking.
At first, he just called me. Hey!
Hey—
These "heys" had different tones, as if expressing different moods. I found it very annoying. Too noisy.
Really, more annoying than those Defectives. When he spoke, the sound would transmit directly into my mind. I couldn't escape, couldn't plug my ears.
No matter how loud I played music, the music couldn't drown out the voice from my tooth.
I asked others if they could hear it. The assistant doctor looked at me in horror, as if I had asked a very strange question.
No one could hear it. Only I could hear it. So I was the only person he could annoy.
This was too unbearable. A person has another person living in their tooth, or rather, a person lives inside another person's tooth. This should be unbearable for both of us.
Sometimes I would fantasize—what does it feel like for this person living in my tooth? What does he do every day? Does he also brush his teeth after waking up every morning?
I took many photos of my teeth. I would take one every day. I wanted to find where he was. I wanted to understand him more deeply.
But no matter what machines I used or what methods I tried, I couldn't find him.
I even went to see other dentists, but that doctor didn't find my lesion and instead told me to see a psychiatrist.
So unprofessional. I clearly came to see about my teeth. Why did he tell me to see a psychiatrist?
I spent money to see a medical pod specifically for treating teeth. One session cost a lot—30,000 new coins.
That supposedly high-tech medical pod didn't detect any problems. "Your teeth are very healthy," the medical pod's mechanical female voice told me.
I was disappointed, but I still kept this habit. The first thing I did when going to work every day was to turn on the equipment and take a photo of my teeth.
Over time, my home was filled with photos of teeth. They looked uniformly identical with no differences.
But I felt these photos were beautiful. I'm a dentist. I pay great attention to protecting my teeth. Every tooth is very healthy.
Sometimes I would look at each tooth with an appreciative gaze, as if surveying my own territory.
Later, he seemed to learn to speak. He didn't just say "hey." He said his first sentence: "Toothache."
Then a more complete sentence: "My tooth hurts."
"Doctor, my tooth hurts."
I often heard this sentence. "Doctor, my tooth hurts." Every patient basically opened with this line.
At this time, I would patiently ask which tooth exactly hurt, how it hurt. I would tap the surface of their tooth and ask, "Is it here?" I would turn on the bright light, probe into their oral cavity, and carefully observe that bad tooth.
Doctor, my tooth hurts.
Under normal circumstances, this is how I should handle it.
But he confused me because he lived inside my tooth. I couldn't see his mouth, couldn't see his teeth.
Would there also be someone living in his tooth? Would the person in his tooth also tell him about toothaches?
More and more annoying. I thought to myself, my patience has limits. He can call me "hey, hey, hey" like this, but he can't shout day and night in my tooth: "Doctor! My tooth hurts so much!"
I mean, this is rude, very rude.
That day I was doing a root canal treatment for someone. When he shouted like this, my hand shook. I didn't control the drill well. I almost pierced through that patient's cheek.
I paid some compensation. The other party was a Defective. He was going to die soon anyway, but he deliberately came to my clinic to scam me. I paid out half my fortune.
Then I started to think carefully about this matter. This couldn't go on. I must have encountered some problem and needed to save myself.
I posted on an anonymous mutual aid forum, hoping someone could solve my problem.
But they were all mocking me sarcastically. I was very patient, just as patient as I was with each of my patients, replying to them.
"I'm not joking. I'm serious. He says his tooth hurts. I'm a dentist..."
I tirelessly replied to netizens' messages, but no one cared about me. They were all mocking me.
This made me sadder than the person in my tooth. Why were there so many people talking? Why were there so many people replying to this post, yet not one person cared about me?
Why couldn't they hear me talking? I mean, I was talking, but they seemed unable to hear. They kept talking about their own things.
We were all talking, but we weren't communicating.
"Doctor, my tooth hurts." That little person started again.
"Doctor, it hurts so much. Can you save me? It's so cramped here."
Of course it would be cramped. A tooth is only so big. Even if completely hollowed out, there's not much space.
Then let me save you.
Saving people is a doctor's duty. I felt I had been a bit arrogant. I should treat all patients equally. A patient was right in my tooth, and only now did I think of treating him.
This made me seem unkind. I wanted to be a kind and responsible person.
The clinic hadn't had many patients since the last incident. My assistant doctor suspected I was sick. He had resigned long ago.
Now there was only me in the clinic. Conveniently, no one would discover what I was about to do.
I picked up the drill facing the mirror, feeling a bit nervous inside. They say doctors can't treat themselves. I had never treated my own teeth before.
The high-speed rotating drill aimed at my tooth. Actually, I didn't know exactly where he was, so I could only try one by one.
My first target was the third tooth on the lower right side. I can't say why I chose it first. At the time, I thought if I were to live in someone's tooth, this tooth would be more comfortable. It looked spacious and clean.
Buzzzz—
When the machine started, it made a buzzing sound. The high-speed rotation of the drill created friction and some heat. I smelled the scent of the drill boring through the tooth—the scent of tooth being ground into fragments.
I drilled a hole in that tooth. If that tooth really was someone's home, then their ceiling had just been lifted off.
I looked with a super-strong light. Empty. Just an ordinary tooth.
I was a bit disappointed. Where exactly are you?
"Doctor, my tooth hurts." He called me again.
"Don't rush me." I started getting irritated.
Then the second tooth. Empty.
The third tooth. Empty.
The fourth tooth. Empty...
I held the drill, boring through tooth after tooth, like a lumberjack rushing into a forest. After the drill sounds, trees fell one after another. My teeth were left with hole after hole.
I only had one last good tooth left. He must be here.
Facing my mouthful of rotten teeth, I actually felt a sense of relaxation. This matter was about to end. It would end soon.
I aimed the drill at this tooth. I heard the familiar buzzing sound. I smelled the scent of tooth fragments. I felt the heat generated by friction.
Very real, as if it were right beside me. Not just my tooth felt it—my whole being felt it.
Buzzzz—
A rumbling sound came from overhead. The ceiling cracked.
I stared blankly as the ceiling split into pieces, as if something was about to drill in.
A drill—I saw a drill coming in headfirst. Under high-speed rotation, the ceiling wall was forcibly drilled through. For a moment, debris flew everywhere.
I should stop, but I couldn't stop.
I watched helplessly as a giant drill descended from the sky.
...
"Thank you everyone, my problem is solved."
This was the last sentence the dentist left on the forum.
Zhu Ning kept scrolling down. The dentist only said someone lived in his tooth, then appeared again saying it was solved. What happened in between?
Netizens weren't buying this kind of story. "What the hell, the story isn't even finished. Where's that person?"
"How was it solved? Can the OP explain? Recently someone in my tooth has been talking too."
"Is the person above for real or just trolling? Kind of scary."
"Although I don't know what happened to the OP, I wish you peace in the future." This was the warmest sentence in the entire thread.
Unfortunately, there was no reply. This OP never appeared again. The thread quickly sank.
People immediately went to pay attention to other people's problems, but when it was brought up, they would find it strange. Right, there was once someone who said someone lived in his tooth and kept telling him about toothaches.
"What happened after?"
"I don't know either. Maybe the OP made it up and couldn't continue."
"He already said he recovered. Everyone disperse." This was the last comment on the thread.
The dentist never explained how he solved the problem. Could the dentist himself also be a person living in a tooth?
The dental clinic's address was also in the slums, very close to Zhu Ning's previous Hive, only a fifteen-minute walk.
Zhu Ning remembered that previously when she needed a Contamination Zone to lure away Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals' assassins, Prometheus had pushed her a different address, not this one.
Prometheus probably felt this place wasn't suitable for luring people away, or he wanted to ensure Zhu Ning would be the first to contact the clues after entering.
The entire thread revealed very little information and was somewhat nonsensical and absurd, but after reading it, one felt uncomfortable.
Clearly, Song Zhizhang was still telling Lin Xiaofeng a bedtime story next door. His gentle voice came through the wall, and this was a place Zhu Ning subconsciously considered very safe, yet she felt a chill down her spine. After reading it, it felt like something wet was crawling on her back.
Without even going to the scene, the mental contamination had already transmitted through the screen. Very strong contamination aura.
Ding—
[System notification: Congratulations on triggering a random quest: The Black Dental Clinic. Quest objective: Help resolve the dentist's inner conflict, find the secret of the toothache, assist in finding the truth of death, purify the dental clinic. This is a random quest, not mandatory. Please choose whether to accept.]
[This quest will automatically close before dawn. Please make your decision carefully.]
Here it comes again. This quest mentioned assisting in finding the truth of death. Could there be something hidden in the Contamination Zone? But what does Zhu Ning's death have to do with dentistry? Did she visit this dental clinic before she died?
And what does resolving the dentist's inner conflict mean? How does one resolve a contaminated entity's inner conflict? Is Zhu Ning supposed to moonlight as a psychologist for the contaminated world?
Zhu Ning clicked yes.
[Quest accepted successfully. Please complete before dawn.]
Author's Note:
Everyone must brush their teeth well. The first half is from the dentist's personal perspective. Ning Bao doesn't know about this part.
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