The Paralel World Doctor

Three Dollars

She came out again almost half an hour later.

She still walked with her chin raised, but her face was paler than before. Her lipstick had been fixed, her hair was still neat, and her smile was still there, but Peter saw how her breath paused every three steps. Her body was bargaining with pain, and pride was a poor broker.

The parking attendant, who was counting coins, turned first. “Why are you out again so soon? Was the VIP room boring, or was your breath too short?”

She looked at him once. The parking attendant immediately pretended to organize his tickets.

Peter opened the pill box. “One pill. Sixty dollars.”

She gave a short laugh. “With a table like that, you dare say sixty dollars?”

The red haired hostess smoking by the door came closer. “Do not buy it. What if you recover and become stupid?”

A drunk customer leaning on a car laughed. “If the medicine works, give me one too. I will pay with a song.”

The parking attendant raised five fingers. “Bro, if she pays three dollars, that is already a miracle. Treat the rest as charity for the entertainment world.”

Several people laughed. She enjoyed the laughter because, for a moment, their attention was not on her pale face, but on Peter’s miserable table. She took a small wallet from her bag, opened the loose cash section, and pulled out three crumpled dollar bills.

“Here,” she said. “Take it if you want. If not, keep your red pill to fool someone else.”

Peter looked at the money. In his original calculation, one pill was worth sixty dollars. In reality, the six hundred dollars he imagined from ten pills had not become anything, while three dollars in her hand sounded like a small slap delivered in front of an audience.

But he needed the first proof more than the first money.

“Three dollars for this time,” Peter said. “After you know how it feels, the next price will not be a pity price.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Very confident for someone who has not sold even one.”

“If I am wrong, you saved fifty-seven dollars.”

The parking attendant laughed until his shoulders shook. “Good answer, bro. Too bad the table still looks poor.”

Peter accepted the money and handed her one pill. She took it with two fingers, as if touching something dirty. She brought it close to her nose, smelled the faint herbal scent, then looked at Peter deliberately.

“If I get worse, I will drag you to security.”

The security guard at the door lifted his chin. “I heard that.”

She swallowed the pill without water, not because she believed him, but because she did not want to look afraid. The red haired hostess waited with a smile ready to mock. The parking attendant leaned forward. The drunk customer even counted loudly, as if the pill had to make her fly before it could be called effective.

At first, nothing happened.

She almost smiled with contempt, but a soft warmth rose from her throat. It was not the burn of alcohol or the harsh spice of cheap cough medicine. It was a gentle flow opening her airway little by little. The chest that had felt locked began to loosen. She inhaled, and for the first time that night, air entered without burning.

The mocking smile froze halfway.

Peter noticed the change faster than anyone. The color of her lips shifted slightly. Her shoulders lowered. The pulse at the side of her neck no longer raced so wildly. The pill worked.

But what made Peter go still was something returning to his fingertips. A warm current, very thin, but clear. It did not come from the air or the pill. Her meridian reaction reflected a trace of recovery Qi back toward the maker.

In Zicari, that only happened in bodies with special constitutions or old injuries that held energy. On Earth, he had not expected an ordinary body to preserve such traces.

She touched her throat. Her eyes changed for a moment, not with admiration, but with fear that someone might see the admiration.

The red haired hostess stepped closer. “So, how is it? Are you dead yet?”

She immediately raised her chin. “Do not be happy yet. Maybe it is just a coincidence.”

The parking attendant looked at her suspiciously. “But your breathing sounded easier just now.”

“Mind your tickets.”

People laughed again, but the laughter was not the same. A little doubt had entered it. Peter put the three dollars into his pocket. Too small to be called a victory, but enough to prove that the first path had opened.

She turned away, still arrogant, still refusing to lose, but her steps were no longer as heavy as before.