Chapter 15: Who Stole My Sword Seeds

A cat's meow? Chen Ji falls into thought. Originally, Wu Yun spoke in a way that others couldn't hear. It wasn't that Wu Yun could speak human language, but that he could understand cat language! He changes the subject and says, "Senior Brother Liu, why are you still not asleep at midnight?"

Liu Quxing looks at the open book, "General Outline of Medical Arts," on the counter and says helplessly, "You're studying so hard, it's very difficult for me to sleep, ah..."

Chen Ji silently closes the "General Outline of Medical Arts." He's not studying to become an imperial physician, but to hide his identity, but Liu Quxing wouldn't think that way.

At this moment, Liu Quxing leans in and lowers his voice, "Today, someone from my Liu family came to invite Master to diagnose an illness, and casually asked Master if he has a direct disciple now."

"What did Master say?"

"Master said he will decide who the direct disciple is recently," Liu Quxing says.

Chen Ji uses a bamboo stick to pick the lamp wick, making the light a bit brighter. "Senior Brother, what is the meaning of these words?"

Liu Quxing gathers his draped clothes on his shoulder, considering his words. "Chen Ji, although imperial physicians are leisurely, they are still in the official field. It's not so easy to get along in the official field. If you're not careful, it's possible for your whole family to be exterminated."

Chen Ji is doubtful. "Senior Brother Liu, what exactly do you want to say?"

Liu Quxing is rarely sincere. "You and She Dengke are actually both not suitable for the official field. Your knowledge, your social manners, your connections are all destined, even if you enter the official field, you won't have a future? Just right, your family is also unwilling to pay your tuition anymore. I'll contribute a sum of money, you leave the medical hall and do a small business. From now on, you won't need to rely on your family's support, how about it?"

Chen Ji doesn't comment.

Liu Quxing finally says, "Chen Ji, after you came to the medical hall, you learned characters slower than even She Dengke, and your pulse-taking is also not accurate. You have no talent to inherit Master's mantle, give up."

Chen Ji smiles and replies, "Senior Brother has considered it very thoughtfully for me, but may I consider it for a bit?"

"Okay," Liu Quxing nods. "Then you consider it carefully." Saying that, he turns back to the backyard.

Chen Ji sees a black shadow on the counter ground chasing Liu Quxing, and it swooshes out. Fortunately, he is quick-eyed and quick-handed, lifting Wu Yun by the neck and pulling him back. "What are you doing?"

Wu Yun is angry in mid-air, baring his teeth and waving his claws. "He looks down on you, ah!"

Chen Ji doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. "You are also very impolite to me, ah."

Wu Yun: "That's not the same!"

"Okay, okay, I can understand him," Chen Ji sighs. "In this era, it's not easy for everyone to fight for a way out. If they encounter an opportunity, they must grasp it..."

Before the words fall, Chen Ji's face suddenly changes, becoming ugly for a quarter of an hour. The ice flow arrives as promised, just like blood flowing through ice sand. This time, the ice flow comes more fiercely than before. It and the melt flow seem to have a ten-thousand-year grudge, innately incompatible.

The ice flow gradually permeates his body, as if an ice tree is growing in his body, constantly branching and leafing. Chen Ji even breathes out white frost gas. In just a short breath of time, the ice flow doesn't even give him a chance to stand in a negative-stone-holding pile posture, and then gradually freezes him like a sculpture.

What to do? Chen Ji stiffly and slowly turns his head to look at the medicine cabinet. He wants to struggle to take ginseng, but discovers that both of his legs have lost sensation, frozen in place!

Wu Yun looks at Chen Ji breathing out frost gas, stunned in place. "You... how?"

Chen Ji wants to open his mouth to let Wu Yun help him find the ginseng, but discovers that his lips are already stuck together. He can only watch himself gradually lose vitality...

Not right, there's still a chance! At this time, Wu Yun sees Chen Ji's miserable state and is already anxious and distraught, circling around him. It wants to save Chen Ji, but doesn't know how to save him. "Say something, ah, what should I do?"

The next moment, Wu Yun notices Chen Ji staring intently in one direction... It follows Chen Ji's gaze and finds that it's suddenly the medicine cabinet in the medical hall. Wu Yun leaps to the medicine cabinet and uses its claws to pull open the drawers one by one. It doesn't know what's inside the drawers, but since Chen Ji is staring intently here, there must be a reason!

The medicine cabinet is densely packed, and it doesn't know which one it should bite. It simply quickly pulls open all the drawers and bites the medicines inside one by one to test them! Angelica, not right. Chen Pi, not right. Cistanche, also not right. Wu Yun fails repeatedly, anxious to go mad. He turns his head to look again and discovers that Chen Ji's eyes have already lost their spirit.

...

...

Chen Ji seems to be back in that long dark night again. The sound of wind, rain, and oars rowing on the water surface. Someone uses a small boat to carry him through the sea of black clouds. In this dark night, he hears sounds, the sounds of shouting and killing that he often heard in his dreams when he was a child! The sounds rumble as if on an ancient battlefield, the sea water hangs upside down, the mountains collapse, and even the sky cracks open several gaps. In the boundless nothingness, there is a grand sound like a large bell ringing, questioning:

"Who steals my divine path?"

"Who steals my sword seed?"

"Who steals my green mountain!"

Chen Ji doesn't answer, and doesn't know how to answer. Who is the one opposite? What do divine path, sword seed, and green mountain refer to? He doesn't know any of it. After a long silence, that grand sound finally speaks again: "Forget it, I can just use your body to come to the world again!"

Chen Ji has a premonition that when he is completely ice-sealed, it will be the time when the opposite borrows his body to be reborn! Could it be that Li Qing Niao sent him to this world just to help this unknown existence awaken? Is he going to die? But he just got a cat. Chen Ji thinks randomly, already at the moment of death.

However, just at this time, Wu Yun bites a ginseng with a missing root and runs back, putting the ginseng at the edge of Chen Ji's mouth! The instant the old ginseng contacts Chen Ji, it suddenly draws away a large part of the ice flow like a whale sucking, turning into six crystal-clear beads that fall on the counter and roll towards the edge of the counter. He's saved! Chen Ji, before he is completely ice-sealed, uses his last strength to turn his eyes, hoping that Wu Yun can understand his meaning. And Wu Yun, also in despair, truly grasps this lifeline for him.

The next moment, Wu Yun chases the beads rolling on the counter one by one and swallows them into its mouth one by one. A massive melt flow feeds back from Wu Yun's body, drilling into Chen Ji's eyebrows. The remaining ice flow is all pressed back into the dantian, rushing through his body, and also pulling Chen Ji out of the darkness!

After he recovers consciousness and action, he immediately closes his eyes tightly, his legs sinking and knees bending, resisting the ice flow with the negative-stone-holding pile technique. When he assumes the negative-stone-holding pile posture, the melt flow suddenly surges up, rising! Just like an army, once without a commander, and now with a general. The general rides an armored war horse, holding a king's flag! Chen Ji is doubtful in his heart why the negative-stone-holding pile that Old Man Yao casually taught is actually so suitable for him.

Wait! After the melt flow presses the ice flow back to the dantian, it is attracted by the Tian Shu acupoint on the left side of the dantian, swallowing down nearly all the melt flow like a vortex! In an instant, a vigorous furnace fire is lit inside the Tian Shu acupoint. That stock of ice flow inside the dantian shrinks further towards the depths, seeming a bit afraid of this furnace fire. "With the guardian of this furnace fire in the Tian Shu acupoint, can this ice flow be thoroughly suppressed? No, one acupoint is still not enough." Within the twelve meridians, there are a total of four 'dantian gateways': the left and right Tian Shu acupoints, and the left and right Da Ju acupoints. Lighting only one Tian Shu acupoint is not enough to seal the ice flow. Unfortunately, after the melt flow lit the Tian Shu acupoint on the left side, there is very little left...

Just thinking, Wu Yun gently lifts its claw and touches Chen Ji's index fingertip with its furry claw. Boom! The melt flow within Wu Yun's body also all surges into Chen Ji's body, and rushes directly to the right Tian Shu acupoint, lighting the second furnace fire! The two furnace fires continuously moisten Chen Ji's body. Abundant power roams within his body, the sense of fatigue is swept away, and his strength is also greater!

He suddenly remembers Old Man Yao saying: Heaven has three treasures: sun, moon, and stars; people have three treasures: essence, qi, and spirit! Essence sufficient, no desire for lust; qi sufficient, no desire for food; spirit sufficient, no desire for sleep. So this is the feeling of qi complete and spirit sufficient! Chen Ji opens his eyes, his pupils are vibrant with spirit, and there are flames burning in the bottom of his eyes. So, this is cultivation!

He smiles and looks at Wu Yun, reaches out and gently touches its head, softly saying, "Thank you, ah."

"Actually, it didn't take much effort," Wu Yun raises its head and says, as if it casually did a small thing.

"Mm, then thank you anyway. Without you, I would have already died... Wu Yun, you are the most powerful cat in this world!"

"Not bad, this is just the beginning!" Wu Yun raises its head even higher.

The oil residue lamp on the counter has been burning for a long time, and the firelight is gradually dimming. Chen Ji stands in the middle of the main hall, his gaze like fire surveying the new world before him. But this fire is soon extinguished again by a basin of cold water: the ginseng is gone!

Chen Ji: "I'm finished!"

Wu Yun is doubtful. "What's finished?"

"I am finished." Chen Ji turns over and gets up, takes out the medical hall accounts, and flips through them. "Let me see how much that ginseng is worth... What the heck, thirty taels of silver?!" One bun costs two coins, carrying a vat of water is two coins, now about nine hundred coins can exchange for one tael of silver, and this fifty-year-old ginseng wants thirty taels of silver. Is this ginseng made of gold?! Selling Chen Ji isn't enough, ah!

He originally owed two hundred forty coins in tuition and three hundred twenty coins in medicine debt to the Zhou residence. Now he adds another thirty taels of snow-white silver, making his already not wealthy family add frost on snow! "So poor, ah, why am I so poor? If this root of ginseng is not replaced, will Old Man Yao kill me?"

Wu Yun listens to Chen Ji mumbling for a long time, and is silent for half a day. Finally, it struggles for a long time, then seems to have made a tragic decision: "Or you take me to the sky street to perform arts, ah, I can do a backflip!"

Chen Ji respects solemnly, "...That's really a very big sacrifice, ne."

Just as he is speaking, there is actually a sound of knocking on the door outside the medical hall. Thump, thump, thump. Thump, thump, thump. The comer knocks twice continuously, not in a hurry and not slow. The muffled sound appears especially abrupt at midnight, as if knocking directly on the heart. Chen Ji uses his eyes to signal Wu Yun to flip back to the Jing Wang residence from the backyard. He then slowly approaches, saying vigilantly, "Who is it, ah?"

The comer responds with a light laugh, "Cloud Sheep." This time, Chen Ji doesn't have Master by his side.