Little Skeleton Ch.25

Chapter 25: Genius Little Skeleton

Fu Heqing listened as the familiar voice played slowly along with the sound effects of the voice message. Next to him, the little skeleton was holding the phone, frozen in place.

“I—I didn’t secretly chat with the painter’s doctor,” Mu Mu said, his lie sounding especially guilty.

Fu Heqing looked at Mu Mu and reached out his hand toward him.

Mu Mu, thinking Fu Heqing was about to confiscate his phone again, hesitated nervously but eventually handed it over.

“He was the one who added me first!” Mu Mu shifted the blame like a typical human jerk, but the little skeleton had never learned the art of seeming justified while being in the wrong. His tiny voice carried almost no authority.

Fu Heqing took the phone, ignored their chat history completely, and immediately blocked and deleted the other party.

“Hm, I trust you, Mu Mu.”

He returned the phone to the little skeleton.

Mu Mu took it in a daze, not even opening it to check what was inside, when he heard the painter speak again: “This one’s a scammer.”

“So it’s not your fault, Mu Mu.”

After saying this, Fu Heqing tapped lightly on the little skeleton’s head, then went back to his own business as if nothing had happened, no longer concerned with Mu Mu’s previous mistakes—completely different from how the painter had once directly confiscated his phone.

Mu Mu glanced guiltily at the blocked contacts, then closed the phone and ran over to Fu Heqing, hopping onto his lap. He asked very seriously, “Painter, this doctor said you had originally agreed to his desensitization treatment but then went back on it. Is that true?”

He didn’t care that this stranger had been blocked and deleted, but Mu Mu did care about something else—something concerning his good friend’s illness.

Fu Heqing looked at Mu Mu and fell silent for a moment.

“No lying, okay?”

Mu Mu stood up and stared straight at him. After thinking for a moment, he added a tiny threat: “If you lie, I won’t talk to you for three days!”

Fu Heqing seemed amused by Mu Mu’s threat. He set down his brush and paints, looked seriously at the little skeleton before him, and slowly replied, “Hmm.”

“Then why did you go back on your word?”

Mu Mu stepped forward, grabbed Fu Heqing’s finger, and spoke earnestly, “Don’t you humans value things like a gentleman’s word being unbreakable?”

Fu Heqing looked at the little ghost who always liked to tug at his finger, speaking in that “experienced adult” tone without actually understanding what it meant. He couldn’t help but smile a little.

He withdrew his finger and lightly tapped the skeleton’s head. “Don’t try to learn everything.”

Mu Mu was tapped again. It didn’t hurt, but he didn’t quite understand what the painter meant.

Unable to figure it out, he started going through the logic from the beginning. Eventually, he realized that Fu Heqing’s words had nothing to do with his question, so he quickly said, “Don’t change the subject.”

Fu Heqing looked at the little dazed skeleton and, with his usual patience, explained, “I wanted to go out before mainly to find the conditions for Mu Mu to become human. Accepting the desensitization treatment was just a secondary thing.”

“But now that you’ve already found them, doesn’t that make the desensitization treatment meaningless?”

Mu Mu listened carefully, still wary that the painter might try to sidestep the question or say something else to avoid answering. But by the end, he kept nodding. “What you’re saying kind of makes sense.”

Fu Heqing’s eyes carried a smile, and with a mischievous glint, he said to Mu Mu, “See? So it’s understandable that I refused.”

Mu Mu nodded again.

Just as the little ghost was about to be completely convinced by Fu Heqing, Mu Mu suddenly asked, “D-Do you really think that desensitization treatment works?”

Fu Heqing looked at the little skeleton tilting its head cutely and asking questions. He didn’t overthink it, paused for a moment, and replied, “It works, but not much.”

The moment he said this, Mu Mu’s eyes immediately lit up.

“That’s great!”

Mu Mu cheered happily. “Then let’s try this desensitization treatment!”

Fu Heqing: …?

“I already refused.”

Mu Mu watched the painter’s cold refusal, blinked, scratched his head, and asked in confusion, “Huh? Didn’t you refuse that doctor?”

“I’m the one inviting you now.”

Pointing at himself to make sure Fu Heqing understood, Mu Mu repeated, “It’s me, it’s me! I’m inviting the painter to try this desensitization treatment with me.”

“If the painter is with me during the treatment, it definitely won’t be too painful! The doctor is bad—gives medicine but no candy—but I can secretly prepare some for the painter.”

“I also won’t use such big needles. If I give the painter injections, there won’t be any bleeding, and it won’t hurt.”

“So… how about it? Not so scary now, right?”

Mu Mu stood on Fu Heqing’s lap, tilting his head up with an expectant expression, waiting for his answer.

Fu Heqing looked at the little skeleton, who didn’t understand anything about treatment, standing in front of him and trying to comfort him with a shallow, movie-style idea of medical procedures.

Even though Mu Mu’s words were childish, Fu Heqing could no longer treat the situation jokingly. He let out a small sigh and said to him,

“This is complicated. It’s not as simple as you think, Mu Mu.”

“I can learn,” Mu Mu said, keeping the same posture, expression, and even tone as before.

“I just checked, I think I downloaded all the doctor’s files. There are twelve in total, each one only a few dozen pages.”

“If there’s still something I don’t understand, I could… add the doctor back?”

Mu Mu paused here, sneaking a glance at Fu Heqing’s expression. Then he changed his mind mid-sentence: “No, I won’t add them back. I can call Kitty and have Kitty ask the doctor on my behalf.”

“If that still doesn’t work, I’ll just dig through the Spider Web to find the really advanced expert papers. I’ll gnaw, gnaw, gnaw, gnaw, gnaw!”

His words immediately shattered the overly serious atmosphere. Fu Heqing couldn’t help but smile wryly and corrected her: “Not the Spider Web, it’s CNKI. And if you want something really advanced, go look at SCI publications.”

Mu Mu nodded humbly. “Okay!”

“So… do you agree?”

Fu Heqing lowered his gaze at Mu Mu. He didn’t answer immediately, but he didn’t completely refuse either. After a long pause, he finally said, “After you finish reading all those documents… if you still insist.”

“I can definitely do it!”

With a clear answer, Mu Mu immediately sprang into action. First came the twelve documents—he spent an entire week on the first pass, reading every line, memorizing every sentence—but he didn’t understand a single thing.

So Mu Mu began furiously looking up all the technical terms. He called Li Yiyi every day, and Li Yiyi would use her brother’s phone to contact the doctor, acting as a relay and bridging the communication between the two.

Dr. Chang was amazed at Mu Mu’s learning ability and memory. At one point, he even asked how old he was, which school he attended, and what his major was.

“I don’t know how old I am, and I’ve never been to school,” Mu Mu answered without missing a beat.

He continued asking related questions, completely ignoring the shock and awe of the three people on the other end.

Mu Mu spent a full half month working day and night.

They say 100 hours is enough to get started in any field, so Mu Mu spent 360 hours mastering everything Dr. Chang had on the painter’s desensitization treatment.

All the years of Dr. Chang’s research and data on Fu Heqing’s psychological state suddenly seemed to have been copy-pasted away.

So, when Mu Mu heard from Dr. Chang that “there’s nothing more to teach regarding this part,” he didn’t even hang up the phone before excitedly running straight to Fu Heqing’s side.

On the other end of the line, Dr. Chang was still trying every trick in the book to recruit him, saying things like he graduated from Harvard, that none of the people under him had Mu Mu’s talent, that he could make recommendations for him, and that he was cut out for medicine, born for this field…

But no matter what he said, Mu Mu didn’t hear a word. Only Li Yiyi and her brother listened to the whole thing.

“Dr. Chang, have you ever heard this saying?” Li Yiyi didn’t hold back her complaint.

“Trying to convince someone to study medicine… may lightning strike them…”

Mu Mu, who had just been talking to Fu Heqing, heard the argument escalating beside him. He went over to hang up the phone and then came back, continuing,

“Dr. Chang said I’ve learned everything, and I’ve stuck with it. So now… Mr. Painter, you’re going to keep your word too, right?”

Looking at Fu Heqing, Mu Mu added a preemptive warning:

“If you tell me you’re going to go back on your word, I’ll be angry.”

He gestured with his finger. “Like… even twenty little cakes won’t make me forgive you!”

Fu Heqing reached out and gently lowered his finger. “I’m not going back on my word.”

He had seen all the effort Mu Mu had put in these past days. He had forced him to sleep several times, only for him to quietly get up and study again, taking advantage of the fact that as a little ghost, he wouldn’t get overworked or suffer from exhaustion.

How could he ever bear to disappoint such determination?

Fu Heqing looked at the little skeleton before him, his eyes filled with emotions that no one else could understand.

“Perfect timing. My painting… just needs the final stroke to be finished.”

Fu Heqing lifted the little skeleton up right in front of the painting, smiling as he said, “Mu Mu is about to become human again.”

Mu Mu looked at the painting, completely amazed.

“Wow!!!”

“I haven’t been paying attention to what the painter has been drawing lately! Was this when I was setting off fireworks during the New Year? It’s so beautiful!”

Fu Heqing smiled and said to the little skeleton, “Yes.”

“Yes, that day.”

“Tomorrow, when you become human, will you take me along for the treatment too?”

Mu Mu’s eyes lit up instantly, and he agreed almost without hesitation. “Yes, yes!”

…

The next morning, Mu Mu was woken up by the painter.

He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and instinctively tried to float or move using his little skeleton body—but suddenly realized he had already become human!

He was still completely naked, but a small silk blanket covered his body.

“This is clothes customized for you, Mu Mu. You’ll change into them in a moment.”

Fu Heqing handed him a box. Mu Mu opened it and exclaimed,

“Huh? A dress?”

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