Chapter 1020: The World Is a Kaleidoscope (2)

Following the servant, she headed for the Magistrate’s estate, and the moment he saw her in the courtyard, the Magistrate rushed out, clasped his hands, and started pleading for the life of his son.

“He was a son I had only in my old age, and even then he still has not produced an heir, because for generations our line has been so thin. At this rate, the Shanghai Jo Family is going to vanish. So please...!”

But the Shanghai Jo Family?

Was that even allowed? Wasn’t it national law that officials were not assigned to their home regions?

Well, in this counterfeit Central Plains, how many things actually worked according to national law anyway?

In truth, Shanghai was not a formally designated county, but a temporary one.

To put it in the terms of Qing’s homeland, it was closer to the concept of a special municipality, so officially the county office of Shanghai County fell under the administration of Suzhou.

However, in rural places that occupied positions too important to ignore—militarily, or in trade and the like—it was also common to temporarily appoint a local great clan as acting County Magistrate and have them govern in the state’s place.

And in that kind of case, there was a hopeful version.

Since the County Magistrate had lived in the region for a long time, he knew the residents well, and since a local great clan usually already possessed plenty of wealth by default, there were many cases where they did not grow overly greedy and instead won popular support.

There was also a despair version.

Since the local great clan that already ruled the region now possessed an official title on top of that, there were of course also cases where they enjoyed the power of a king over a little kingdom of their own and committed every sort of outrage—but anyway.

Fortunately, the Magistrate of Shanghai County belonged to the hopeful version, which was why, when his son fell ill, the officials had rolled up their sleeves and run all over the city shouting, “Is there a master here within the county?”

Thus Qing also hurried along at a brisk pace toward the patient, went straight to the door, slid it open—

“Khh... nghhh...!”

And there was Jo Ryung, tied up even more tightly than yesterday.

And on top of that, he was letting out agonized groans and jerking hard, then jerking again—no, more than jerking, it was closer to flopping, convulsing in a way like a fish thrashing out of water.

“Ah, you’ve come?”

The Gold-Worshiping Divine Physician, whose eyes were dark underneath and whose whole face looked utterly hollow with exhaustion, bent courteously at the waist.

The physician’s manner was notably calm, so Qing relaxed for the moment too, because if the patient were truly in critical danger, the physician’s own bearing would have been urgent and anxious.

“No, wait, did you not sleep last night?”

“I spent the whole night performing percussion-and-unblocking....”

“The whole night? No, then you should have called me earlier.”

“How could I dare? It was not a patient whose life hung by a thread, so how could I wake the sleep you were taking? The price would not balance.”

“That damn price talk again. But doesn’t this look a little different from yesterday? Yesterday it was like these black veins were swelling up all over.”

“The symptoms are not the same either. Last time, the pain was severe enough that his consciousness was clouded.”

“Kghh! Ughhh! Kghh...!”

Right on cue, the tightly bound Jo Ryung flopped and thrashed again like some carp that had been hauled out of water, spilling another grotesque groan.

“Isn’t this serious?”

“He is merely itching, that is all. He scratches so much that his skin was on the verge of being torn off everywhere, so I had him bound. He says there is not a single place on his entire body that is not itching badly enough to kill him.”

“Ah....”

Qing’s eyes filled with pity.

She had wondered why he was flopping around like he was having a seizure, but of course, if itching was left alone, eventually it grew beyond mere itching, and before one knew it, the body started convulsing.

And if you scratched, it only felt relieving while you were scratching. The moment you stopped, it became even itchier than before and drove a person completely insane.

But his whole body itched?

Ugh. That must have been a very long night....

“Next time, just call me even if it’s in the middle of the night. At my level, it’s not as if I get particularly tired from staying awake for a day or two anyway.”

“Next time....”

“Anyway, should I do the same thing as yesterday? Is it because the evil qi filled back up in the meantime?”

“Yes. Please. I beg you.”

So once again, slurp-slurp on the evil qi.

Ugh, it’s packed in so tight it doesn’t even suck out well....

Inside Qing’s lower dantian, the door opened, and thick, acrid evil qi oozed in and unraveled thread by thread into the form of natural qi.

Yay, feeding time again.

The little True Qis came rushing over and busied themselves gobbling down the honey-twist-like natural qi as it came undone.

Meanwhile, there it was again—the Heaven-Crushing Demonic Energy that had crept along the wall and snuck in.

It reached both hands out into the dense raw concentrate of evil qi before it unraveled into natural qi, smeared itself with it, and busily licked it off at its mouth.

The Joyous True Qi glared with murderous eyes and beat it up, but curled into a ball and huddled over its stolen mouthful—krrhghk, the Heaven-Crushing Demonic Energy was smiling again today....

So in the end, it was like a jeweler—no, Qing—had made a profit of a million won. She had helped someone and built up more True Qi too, so it had turned into a situation where she alone had come out ahead.

The problem was why this bizarre illness had come back.

“But what did you pick up and eat this time to get yourself like this again? You’ve been lying sick the whole time, so it’s not like you went out and caught another snake to eat.”

“I-I have eaten nothing except the tonic that the honored physician prescribed for me....”

“If you didn’t eat anything, then where did all this evil qi come from? From the look of it, if someone says it’s good for virility, you just gobble down anything and everything without discrimination.”

“T-that is because our family line is thin, so in trying somehow to continue the family....”

He was a young man who, notably, did not deny the part about gobbling down anything said to be good for virility.

But if the family line had been thin for generations, did that mean weak virility ran in the family? Like, if the little tadpoles were all limp and lacking mobility....

“Enough. Be honest. What did you pick up and eat this time to end up like this?”

“I really ate nothing. Other than the tonic that was prescribed, I only ate an ordinary dinner.”

“What did you eat for dinner?”

“W-well, eel, and ginseng pickled in honey, and braised oysters with chives, and fried shrimp with garlic, and also...”

Listening to him, Qing thought,

No, he really did eat everything they said was good for virility....

“No, you really stuffed yourself, didn’t you? How can a sick man suddenly eat all that? Hm, ginseng? Was it not ginseng, but mountain ginseng? And rotten mountain ginseng at that?”

“Not only I but my wife ate it together with me, so I do not think the ginseng itself was bad. It was also too plump to be wild mountain ginseng.”

“No, then where the hell did all this evil qi come from? Evil qi is still qi too. If it could fill up overnight—no, not even overnight, in just that little gap after dinner—then why would martial artists bother learning breathing methods at all? They’d just purify it and use it.”

“C-could it really be that the feng shui was broken? It seems that serpent was fated to become a dragon. Perhaps touching it was what brought all this wrongness....”

“Nonsense! What kind of ridiculous talk is that!”

The Gold-Worshiping Divine Physician barked the words out.

But listening from the side, Qing found it weirdly plausible.

“Honored Physician. What if the feng shui really was broken? Like, what was it? Once you eliminate all the impossible things, whatever remains is the truth?”

“That sort of thing—those tales of spirits and monsters—are nothing but absurd superstition. In the first place, how could something like a serpent possibly become a dragon? And even if it did, how could a serpent that is already dead still exercise miraculous power?”

“But martial artists build up qi, blast it out, and fly through the sky.”

“...? That is a skill in which True Qi is accumulated and used through breathing techniques, is it not? It is an entirely different matter from baseless spirit tales. Is that not plainly within the domain of nature?”

The words were polite enough, but the meaning was, That’s that and this is this, so what do the two have to do with each other?

Qing had come from a world where qi did not exist.

A serpent’s bitter curse because it had been about to become a dragon, and a martial artist wrapping sword aura around a blade and making it sparkle—were they not equally absurd either way?

Why was a martial artist shooting sparkly starlight somehow plausible, while a spirit serpent placing a curse was somehow impossible?

“If this humble one may dare to say it, the Master taught that one should keep one’s distance from tales of spirits and monsters. Most especially, you of all people must keep far away from such things and remain on guard.”

“If beasts truly possessed miraculous powers, then what use would flood control be? Those that are said to become dragons are more plentiful in the waters than on land, are they not? Then what of a catfish that has lived for several hundred years? If there is drought, all one need do is offer a human to the river and the matter is solved, and if there is flood, one need only offer a human to the river and borrow the power of some miraculous spirit-creature. That is precisely the sort of thing the Master spoke against. Most especially, you must not lend an ear to absurd talk.”

“But isn’t cutting it off so absolutely a bit much? I mean, just look at me being here right now. Isn’t that because of, what was it, the sorcery of those Indian shamans?”

But the Gold-Worshiping Divine Physician shook his head.

“Are not shamans merely frauds who say their own power is miraculous if they succeed, and blame a lack of sincerity if they fail? However, the roots of medicine do lie among such people, and it is said that medicine is what remains after gathering only the effective prescriptions from those among their spells that actually succeeded in healing patients. Therefore, my task is to remain here for a time, discover what exactly this bizarre illness is, and record it. If I simply say, ‘Ah, the serpent grew angry,’ and leave it at that, how could that be the duty of a physician?”

He kept going on and on about price and value, but at times like this he sounded exactly like a proper physician.

At that, Qing grew awkward and scratched the back of her head.

Using sound reasoning like that was cheating....

“More importantly, how long do you intend to remain in Shanghai?”

“Ah, because of the patient? Because he might relapse again? Hmm. I’d originally been thinking about going to see the East Sea. But the patient comes first.”

“No. How could that price possibly balance? If you would only permit it, even if the patient were to follow behind you on your journey, we ought to pay a thousand gold for the privilege. How could you possibly stay here just to look after the patient? If you permit it, I shall make arrangements at once. You as well—prepare to depart.”

“M-me, Honored Physician?”

“Who else? Or are you not going to go? If it relapses again, then next time you may have to lie there the whole while until some master capable of True-Qi Guidance can be found. Last time it was pain, this time it was itching. It would hardly be surprising if some completely different symptom appeared next.”

“Hhk. I’ll go!”

“Can you simply go because you say you’ll go? First you must ask whether you may dare follow.”

“Great Hero! I truly wish to follow you! Please allow me to come with you!”

Jo Ryung blurted that out without realizing it, then looked strangely puzzled.

“But, Honored Physician, who exactly is this lady, that you are showing her such extreme courtesy...?”

“That is not something I can dare answer! Should you not first ask permission as to whether you may ask her directly?”

“U-um, may I ask what kind of person milady is? That is to say, may I seek that permission...?”

Jo Ryung really did exactly as he was told.

Qing waved a hand.

“Come on, I’m just some passing master, so don’t worry about it. And how could I possibly do that? I did work as a medical attendant, you know. Sightseeing with a patient trailing behind me would be such enormous fun.”

“Hoh. Still, that is a problem.”

“Huh? What is?”

“If that is the case, then how in the world are we supposed to repay this debt? This immense kindness cannot even be assigned a value, so what are we to do?”

“I told you, I’m not the one who bothers about price.”

Anyway.

As a result, fear entered the way Jo Ryung looked at Qing, and he became extremely, extremely cautious around her.

“So then... what should we do now?”

“You should go back and continue enjoying your tour. If it relapses later, I will send someone to inform you. Ah, and if you wish to see the East Sea, ask the Magistrate that you would like to visit the eastern watchtower. As for me, I shall stay with the patient and, if there is another relapse later, take his pulse then and measure how exactly this strange illness arises.”

“H-Honored Physician, then I am still not completely cured...?”

“Even after I thoroughly burned away the evil qi last time, the symptoms relapsed. So where is the guarantee that it will not relapse a second or third time? We must remain here at least half a month and observe the situation. Since we do not know when, or in what manner, the symptoms may flare up again, do not leave my side.”

Rather than the physician saying he would stay by the patient, the patient was being told to stay attached to the physician. Somehow it suited them perfectly.

At that, Jo Ryung made a miserable face.

“U-um, Honored Physician, the thing is, I still do not have any children, so at night I must continue the family line....”

“You fool! Is that really what matters right now?”

“I am the sole son of three generations, Honored Physician. Surely I must still have enough face left to meet my ancestors....”

At that, even the Gold-Worshiping Divine Physician flinched.

Back in Qing’s homeland, the fact that he was the sole son of three generations would have been brushed off as, So what? But this was still the Central Plains, counterfeit or not.

The sole son of three generations. That meant his grandfather had been an only son, his father had been an only son, and he too was an only son.

It also meant that if he did not have a child, the family line would end then and there.

“Hoh. So that is what you meant by the line being thin. No wonder you were so crazed about virility. Still, at a time like this....”

“Precisely because it is a time like this, I am all the more desperate. Even if something goes wrong, should I not at least leave behind a child before I die?”

“Hm, then it cannot be helped. Do the deed in the room next door. If something happens, ring the bell at once.”

Did that really qualify as cannot be helped?

Listening to this, Qing let out a long sigh.

So the Divine Physician was to stay here indefinitely, and the patient was supposed to keep glancing at his mood while trying to make a baby?

More importantly, in the first place, was there any need to wait around for the illness to flare up again?

“Honored Physician. Rather than that, how about asking the Dutch for help? Yesterday they were certainly confident enough when they stepped forward claiming they could treat him, so doesn’t that mean they must know what this bizarre illness is and how to cure it?”

At that, the Gold-Worshiping Divine Physician replied,

“Oh.”

No, what do you mean, “oh”?