Samsara Paradise: Dream Weaver of Connections.

Dorothea moved much more swiftly than Lin Yi had expected. She rummaged through the row of half-collapsed auxiliary stone houses on the west side of the square and cleared out a relatively intact small room in less than ten minutes.

The stone house was probably originally a place to store scriptures or sacrificial utensils. The floor was paved with neat square bricks, and several stacks of parchment scrolls that had rotted so badly that the writing was illegible were piled up in the corner. The air was filled with the smell of old paper mixed with lime.

Dorothea used a worn-out broom to gather the dust and debris on the ground into a corner, and then moved a fairly sturdy wooden bed from her room. The bed was covered with a layer of dry straw, and on top of the straw was a piece of coarse linen that had been washed white but was clean.

After she finished doing all that, she stood with her hands on her hips at the door and surveyed the scene. Then she ran back and brought back an oil lamp and half a candle, placing them on the low stool by the bedside. Only after confirming that the light was neither too bright nor too dim, did she nod in satisfaction.

She brushed the dust off her hands, turned around, ran across the square to Lin Yi, and the deer bone helmet bounced and jingled on her head as she ran.

She stopped in front of Lin Yi, put her hands on her hips, and raised her chin towards the stone house on the west side: "It's all tidied up. Go and take a look. There's absolutely no problem. My room-tidying skills over the years are no joke."

Lin Yi handed two candies to the little beetle, stood up, and followed her over.

When he reached the door of the stone house, he stopped outside the threshold. His gaze moved from the stacks of rotten parchment scrolls to the oil lamp emitting black smoke on the low stool by the bed, and then to the bed covered with coarse linen. Several light yellow water stains on the linen stood out in the dim light.

Dorothea stood beside him, waiting for praise. The curve of her lips slowly changed from initial confidence to doubt, and then from doubt to unease. After ten seconds of silence, she couldn't help but nudge Lin Yi with her elbow: "How about it? Isn't it so clean that you can't even speak?"

Lin Yi turned to look at her, his face expressionless, his tone as flat as a straight line: "Are you cleaning up a hospital ward or a grain warehouse?"

Dorothea paused, her mouth opening and closing again. She looked down at her dusty hands, then looked up at the furnishings in the room, her voice tinged with grievance: "I laid out straw, covered it with burlap, and lit a lamp. Isn't that enough?"

Lin Yi stepped across the threshold into the stone house, grabbed the stack of rotten parchment scrolls in the corner, lifted them up, and walked out. The scrolls broke into pieces in his hand and fell to the stone slabs outside the door, causing a cloud of dust to explode.

Dorothea called out "Hey!" from behind and took two steps to catch up: "I kept those to prop up the table legs."

“Every single piece of paper in this pile of paper rolls is covered in mold, and this lamp burns animal fat. The particulate matter in the black smoke will settle on the alveolar walls after being inhaled. When the patient is performing surgery, she will be lying underneath you inhaling your candle smoke. Are you trying to make her get pneumonia while being cut open?”

Dorothea, standing at the doorway, shrank back at his words. She fanned herself in front of her nose twice, her voice lower than before: "I... I didn't know there were so many intricacies to these things. Back in our monastery, when healers treated people, all they needed to do was lay out a clean cloth and light a bright lamp."

"That's treating external injuries, it's completely different from opening the chest and transplanting organs." Lin Yi took out the silver-white shadowless lamp from his space, unfolded the folding bracket and placed it directly above the bed. After turning on the switch, the cold white light instantly filled the entire stone house, illuminating every corner of dust and moss stains on the walls with exquisite detail.

Dorothea squinted at the light, raised her hand to shield her forehead, and let out a short gasp.

Lin Yi lifted the coarse linen cloth, folded it neatly, and placed it on the stone platform next to him. The pale yellow water stains on the cloth were so glaring under the shadowless lamp that he frowned.

He turned to look at Dorothea: "Where did you find this piece of cloth?"

Dorothea stood behind the door frame, only half her head showing, like a cat that had done something wrong: "It was left by the people who used to live in this house. I've washed it several times and left it in the sun for three whole days."

"It's indeed clean, but the fiber structure of the linen itself is already loose. And look at these yellow stains, they're not dirt, they're formed by the oxidation of body oil and sweat from the previous user who lay there for a long time. They can't be washed off." Lin Yi pulled out a complete set of medical bedding from his space: a waterproof isolation pad at the bottom, a sterile cotton pad in the middle, and a light blue medical non-woven fabric on top. He laid them out layer by layer with such efficiency that Dorothea watched in astonishment.

The light blue fabric was smooth and flat, gleaming with a cool sheen under the operating lights, making it seem like a completely different world compared to her wrinkled, coarse linen bed.

Dorothea took a half step forward, reaching out her finger to poke the blue cloth before pulling it back, as if afraid of soiling the clean object: "Just how many strange and wonderful things are you carrying on your person?"

Lin Yi did not answer the question. He took out an air purifier from his space and placed it in the corner of the wall. After turning it on, the white square box emitted a low and steady hum. The air intake began to draw in the stale air in the room, and after multiple layers of filtration, it sent out clean air.

Dorothea squatted next to the air purifier, tilted her head and listened for a while. She reached out and felt the warm, clean air from the vent. When she looked up at Lin Yi, her eyes were filled with a sense of resignation, as if she had given up on asking any more questions.

Lin Yi then took out a roll of sterile disinfectant cloth from his spatial storage and had Dorothea carefully wipe the walls from top to bottom. After the accumulated dust and moss were removed, the original gray-white stone color was revealed.

"Should we wipe the ceiling again?"

"what ever."

The entire cleaning process lasted about twenty minutes. When Lin Yi put the last piece of disinfectant cloth into the waste bag, the stone house had been completely transformed. The corners were so clean that there wasn't even a single blade of grass, and the walls were spotless.

Lin Yi straightened his cuffs, stood up, and glanced at her: "Who did you treat injuries for during your years at the mission site?"

Dorothea thought for a moment: "The little beetle once cut its ankle on a piece of gravel. I washed the wound with liquor, then applied herbs and bandaged it. It was healed in three days."

"That's because she's young and recovers quickly; it has little to do with how well you bandaged her. Never mind, I can manage on my own." Lin Yi walked towards the door, tossing a comment to Dorothea as he passed by, "Go and call Youying over; everything's ready."

Dorothea said "Oh," turned around, and jogged across the square. Her footsteps pattered on the stone pavement. When she reached the second doorway, she stopped, bent down, and called out, "Shadow, that guy told me to call you over. The house is all ready."

There was no immediate response from the darkness. After about three or four breaths, a figure slowly emerged from the depths of the doorway.

The shadowy figure was still wearing that close-fitting black outfit, with a mask covering most of his face, leaving only a horizontal slit for his vision.

As she walked to the door, her gaze swept across the square and landed on the stone house on the west side, which was lit by a cold white light. Her steps froze for a moment, as if she had been nailed to the spot by something.

Dorothea noticed her unusual behavior and stepped back to clear the way to the door: "Let's go, others are waiting."

Shadow did not answer. When she took her first step, the muscles in her legs were very tense. After taking the second step, the stiffness became even more obvious. Her fingers curled slightly at her sides, and her pupils behind the slits of her mask contracted sharply under the cold white light. Her breathing went from steady to rapid and then to erratic.

Her gaze was fixed on the direction of the stone house. The sealed memories in her mind were suddenly lifted, and the white light of the operating room lamp, the cold metal instruments on the operating table, the crisp sound of the white-robed figures moving at the edge of her vision all rushed up.

Dorothea noticed the change in her breathing and took a half step back.

Lin Yi stood at the entrance of the stone house and saw Youying's condition from afar. He prepared to knock her unconscious the moment she lost control and suddenly attacked.

But there was movement in the darkness of the third doorway at the top of the circular steps first, and Wu Zhong walked out of the doorway.

Wu Zhong raised his withered hand, which was much larger than a normal person's, and pressed it in the air towards You Ying's direction. His hoarse voice squeezed out from his almost cracked face: "Stay calm."

Under the suppression of Wu Zhong's aura, Youying's body swayed slightly, and her impending attack was forcibly suppressed. She was like a pot of boiling water suddenly covered with a heavy wooden lid, the churning underneath still happening but the surface flattened.

Her breathing gradually calmed down after several violent rises and falls, her pupils slowly dilated to adapt to the intensity of the cold white light, and her fingers gradually loosened from their curled position.

She stood there quietly for a few seconds, then gently pushed away Wu Zhong's arm that was pressing down on her, and began to walk step by step towards the stone house that was bathed in white light. Lin Yi stood on one side of the doorway, making way for the entrance: "Come in."

Youying stepped across the threshold and entered. She stopped in the white light of the operating lamp, her gaze sweeping over the bed covered with blue medical sheets, then over the humming air purifier in the corner, and finally landing on Lin Yi's face.

Her voice sounded more muffled than usual through the mask: "This room is not quite the same as I remember it."

"What's different?"

“The smell in those places used to be a mixture of rust and disinfectant, it was pungent.” Shadow’s gaze fell back on the bed. “You have a clean smell here that I can’t quite describe, like the smell of stones after rain.”

Lin Yi tidied up the workbench, took out a pair of thin gloves from the drawer and put them on: "Lie down and take off your mask."

Shadow reached behind her head and untied the veil, revealing her chiseled face as the dark gray fabric slid down her face.

The cold white light of the operating lamp shone on her pale cheeks, making the light-colored radiating scars on either side of her mouth stand out clearly in the light and shadow.

She walked to the bedside and sat down, supporting herself on the edge of the bed with both hands and slowly flattening her body. When the back of her head touched the blue sheets, she stared at the overhead operating light for a few seconds, and then closed her eyes.

Lin Yi walked to her side and stopped. He took out a transparent syringe from his spatial storage, which was filled with a pale amber liquid.

He removed the protective cap from the end of the syringe and pressed his finger against the inner elbow crease of Shadow's arm to locate the vein: "Do you want anesthesia? It might affect your combat power, but the intensity of the anesthesia can be adjusted."

Youying opened her eyes, turned her head to look at him, and said in a very clear and decisive voice: "I need numbness. I'm not a masochist. Before the modification, I was just an ordinary person. I'll use what I need."

Lin Yi inserted the needle into the vein on the inside of her elbow, and slowly pushed in the pale amber-colored medicine.

Youying's shoulders tensed the moment the medicine entered her veins, then relaxed at a visible speed. Her eyelids began to feel heavy, and her gaze slowly drifted from Lin Yi's face to the distance. She mumbled vaguely, "Your question is better than those people's. They never care whether I'm in pain or not."

After the medicine was administered, her eyes closed completely, her breathing changed from steady to deep, and her body, having lost all its active support, sank down onto the bed.

Lin Yi lifted her from behind and helped her land steadily on the blue sheets, then reached out and completely removed her mask, placing it on the operating table next to her.

He began to work, the surgical scissors cutting along the seams of the shadowy black bodysuit from the collar to the waist. The fabric opened to the sides, revealing the old stitching marks all over his body, with dark, raised ridges running from his collarbone to his lower abdomen, each one like a slender centipede crawling on the skin.

But the most striking feature was the area right in the center of her chest, where the skin was stretched into a fist-sized bulge. The surface of the bulge was so thin it was almost translucent, and the dark red tissue underneath was pulsating slowly.

Lin Yi gently brushed the skin on the surface of the bump with tweezers, then turned to the little beetle guarding the door and said, "Keep an eye on Dorothea for me, don't let her come in and cause trouble."

The little beetle leaned against the door frame and grunted, standing guard at the door like a bodyguard.

Lin Yi turned his attention back to the operating table, and the scalpel was turned at his fingertips to cut into the surface of the bulge above Youying's sternum.

After the skin was cut open, a dense fibrous membrane was exposed underneath, enveloping the alien heart and all the connecting tubular tissues.

As he peeled off the membrane, he muttered to himself, his voice so low that only he could hear it: "These guys are really daring, just shoving a foreign heart in there without even a transitional plan."

Lin Yi didn't look up, his hands continuing to peel away the skin without stopping.

The Shadow's body not only had a heart, but her lungs and liver were also replaced with those of an orc, otherwise human organs wouldn't be able to support the heart's output power. A biofilter was also installed at the heart's outlet to prevent the foreign blood from burning through the blood vessels.

This solution was so crude, it was like assembling building blocks, but it actually worked after it was assembled.

It can be said that Youying's body has been operating at its limit, and the fact that she has been able to hold on until now can only mean that her foundation is much stronger than that of ordinary people.

Lin Yi used vascular clamps to clamp several main blood vessels at the heart's outlet one by one, then carefully peeled the dark ochre-red foreign heart from the adhesions and held it in his palm above the operating table.

Even after the heart detached from its host body, it continued to beat at its own rhythm, and each contraction and relaxation was clearly visible under the light of the operating room lamp.

Dorothea had somehow slipped to the doorway. She peeked inside on tiptoe and let out a short gasp when she saw the still-beating heart in Lin Yi's hand, before being stopped by the little beetle.

Dorothea crouched down outside the door, resting her chin on her knees and hugging her calves with her hands, her voice low: "I'm just looking, I won't do anything."

Lin Yi ignored the commotion outside. He placed the alien heart on the operating table and observed it for about ten minutes before picking up the scalpel and beginning to repair it.

He removed excess myocardial tissue, reshaped the size of the ventricular cavity, and adjusted the diameter of the output port to fit the scale of human blood vessels.

Next came the lungs and liver. He took out the two orc lungs completely, rearranged them according to the structure of human lungs, cut off the excess, and trimmed the oversized parts to ensure a precise match with the space in the Shadow's chest cavity.

The liver was also reduced in size in a similar way, with the excess 20% removed and the cut surface tightly sutured.

Dorothea squatted outside the door for nearly two hours. Her knees went numb from squatting, and she changed positions several times. The last time she changed positions, she accidentally knocked over a piece of gravel at the door, making a sound. She quickly covered her mouth.

When the last stitch was finished, Lin Yi put the scalpel back in the tray, and the metal made a crisp sound as it touched metal.

As he straightened up, his spine made a protesting click, and he took two steps back to catch his breath before taking off his blood-soaked gloves and throwing them into a waste bin.

Dorothea peeked halfway in from the doorway, glancing at the shadowy figure lying quietly on the bed, then at Lin Yi's expression: "Finished with work?"

"I'm done with work." Lin Yi leaned against the wall and rubbed his wrist. "The rest depends on my recovery. It should be fine."

Dorothea saw that the centipede-like scars that had once covered her torso had been replaced by new, smooth skin, which glowed with a uniform pinkish hue under the light.

Dorothea muttered softly, "This is too outrageous. Do you think she'll be so moved that she'll cry when she wakes up and finds that her scars are gone?"

Lin Yi leaned against the wall and glanced at her: "The clinic charges fees, but mine is free."

"Alright, I'll rest for a bit. Just wake me up when she wakes up." (End of Chapter)