Volume Two: Blood Spattered on the Bodhi Tree Chapter Nine: The Divine Healer I

“I do understand what the young master means,” Li Bai said with a nod. He took a sip of wine and looked up at the bright moon hanging in the sky.

He knew Xiao Yan meant well.

Xiao Yan smiled faintly and did not continue speaking to Li Bai. Instead, he lowered his head and began to write poetry.

In one breath, he copied out every poem by Li Bai that he could remember.

Page after page.

For example, the lines from Knight-Errant’s Journey: “With ten paces he can slay a man, and a thousand miles leave no trace.”

Or from Looking at the Moon and Thinking of the Past: “I stand before this emptiness and sing myself hoarse; how deep my thoughts of you grow.”

And so on.

Everything he could think of, including Quiet Night Thoughts, he wrote out in one go.

This left Li Bai utterly stunned. Though he was a roaming hero of the martial world, he had come from a prominent family and knew a thing or two about poetry. Any single line from these poems would have been enough to startle a person to death, yet Xiao Yan had written out more than a dozen sheets of paper in one breath.

Hundreds of poems.

Li Bai kept looking, then pinching himself, muttering under his breath all the while, “I’m drunk, I’m drunk. My tolerance really has gone downhill...”

He could not believe what he was seeing.

After Xiao Yan finished writing, he stuffed the papers into Li Bai’s arms and said something that only made Li Bai more bewildered: “I’ve given all your poems back to you. I can only help you this much.”

With that, Xiao Yan smiled, climbed down from the rooftop, and left Li Bai standing there with a blank expression.

It was a long while before Li Bai slowly began to read the sheets in his arms one by one.

After reading for quite some time, his expression grew stranger and stranger, because he kept feeling as though every one of those lines struck straight at his heart.

Night was deep, and She Qianqian was still reading medical texts, unwilling to give up on finding a way to heal Xiao Yan’s dantian.

Yet there was still one thing she could not understand.

Li Bai’s injuries had healed far too quickly, and the infection she had worried about never came.

“Could it really be that if a knife is heated over a fire and then the wound is cleaned, it can prevent infection?” She Qianqian frowned and thought for a long while, but in the end she still shook her head.

She could not make an unsupported conclusion like that. As a physician, she could not speak recklessly.

Still, she remembered that monk seeming to say at the time that it was because the blade had many germs on it. What were germs, anyway?

The more She Qianqian thought about it, the more questions arose.

Knock, knock, knock...

Just then, a hurried knocking came from outside the door.

Frowning, She Qianqian walked out and opened it, only to see a woman supporting a burly man, with an old gray-haired grandmother standing behind them.

“Evil... Divine Doctor She... please save him...” the woman said anxiously as she rushed in, helping the burly man to the bed, the words for help spilling from her mouth over and over. “I’m begging you...”

The old grandmother also followed in nervously, though her face was far from kind.

“Calm down,” She Qianqian said.

She helped the burly man lie down, then reached out to take his pulse and asked, “What happened?”

Behind the woman, the old grandmother wore a dark expression. Pointing at the woman, she cursed, “It’s all this shameless wretch’s fault. She’s going to get my son killed...”

“Divine Doctor She, my husband he...” The woman hesitated. Halfway through speaking, she stopped, her expression turning odd, and said no more.

“If you won’t speak, I won’t treat him,” She Qianqian said, noticing the woman’s expression and frowning.

“I... all right... my husband is actually under some evil influence,” the woman said, frowning as she hesitated for a moment. She had wanted to go on, but the old grandmother cut her off.

The old grandmother grabbed the woman by the hair and shouted, “I told you not to come here! What does this little girl know about saving people? I heard she eats people... Let’s go... We should find a great master to cast out the demon...”

“Mother... you know very well those great masters demand the deed to the house the moment they open their mouths. If we give them the deed, what are we supposed to live on?” the woman said through tears, sounding aggrieved.

“You shameless thing! Is my son more important, or the deed to the house? If anything happens to my son, I’ll beat you to death, you wretched woman! I can see what you’re up to—you want to kill my son and then take the money to remarry that old Wang next door!” the old grandmother said through gritted teeth, then fixed her glare on She Qianqian. “My son does not need your help. I’m taking him to find a great master.”

“No... Divine Doctor She... please take a look at him...” The woman protected the burly man as best she could and tugged at She Qianqian, begging her.

She Qianqian frowned, her expression growing a little strange, but she said nothing and simply took the pulse with great care.

In the town, “evil influence” was what people called it. Recently, a strange illness had been spreading there. Many people suddenly collapsed unconscious, then after waking for a while would begin to froth at the mouth, and within a few days they would die.

None of the town’s miracle doctors could do anything about it. With the number of dead growing higher and higher, panic spread through the town.

Fortunately, a few days after the illness appeared, a group of Taoist priests arrived in town. They were said to be great masters from Mount Hua, and they called this illness “evil possession.”

It had to be said that after these priests drew talismans on paper and had the patients swallow them, the illness really did improve.

However, the priests also said that the talismans were extremely hard to draw, and without money, there was basically no hope of asking them to save a life.

The woman had already searched everywhere for doctors in town, and even every doctor she could find in the surrounding area. But the moment those doctors heard the words “evil possession,” none of them dared to treat him.

With no other choice, she had brought her husband here.

She Qianqian frowned and took his pulse for a long while, yet still could not identify the illness.

“Well?” the woman asked anxiously.

But the old grandmother shoved the woman aside and scolded, “What else could it be? What skill can that little girl have? I’m taking my son to find a great master and have the demon driven out!”

P.S. Starting tomorrow, the twice-daily updates will resume.