Chapter 285 - The Three Samadhis

Chapter 285 The Three SamadhisCradling the packages of herbs, Xiao Chen retreated to a small cabin where he instructed a pair of maids to help him prepare a furnace. He busied himself in his work and returned four hours later, coming back to Ye Mulian’s room with a bowl of medicine.

Just as he walked in, the smell from the medicine filled the room with a pungent but naturally sweet-smelling aroma. Everyone gaped with silence, especially Gongsun Tai who eyed him with disbelief.

“I can’t believe that brewing medicine would take you so long,” Zhiluan grumbled disdainfully, “What a shame.”

Xiao Chen merely smiled. He walked to the bed and placed the bowl down. “Come on, Leopard Cat Spirit,” he said suddenly, “This bowl of medicine still needs something.”

“Ah? What else do you still lack…” Zhiluan muttered at first, before he noticed the knowing stare from Xiao Chen and a wicked smile curling on the edges of his lips. A sense of dread dawned upon him when he finally realized, staggering backward up against a wall. “B-boy!? HOW DARE YOU! I’m warning you! You’ll not get away with this!”

“Come on, it’s just a little bit. I’ll give you some elixirs that would help increase your powers after this as compensation.”

“Y-you! D*mmit!”

Zhiluan dragged itself to the bowl. Biting hard on its paws, it grimaced at the pain and watched mournfully as a drop of blood from its wound dripped into the bowl.

Fearful that Xiao Chen might squeeze another drop out of it, Zhiluan immediately drew away like a bolt of lightning as soon as his drop of blood splashed into the medicinal tonic.

“Look at you,” Xiao Chen jested, chuckling. “The drop would do the trick,” he mused.

Enraged, Zhiluan squealed in protest from his corner. Knowing full well the medicinal qualities of the blood of Immortal Lingzhis, Elder Plum went over to him and offered some consolation, “My deepest thanks, esteemed Immortal Lingzhi. You’ve been a great help…”

“HUMPH! I’d be expecting good food for all this trouble I’ve been through!”

“Of course, of course! As you wish.”

Xiao Chen lifted the bowl and brought it closer to the sickly girl. “Come, drink up, Young Lady.”

“Thank, thank you Master Xiao. I’ll be fine on my own.” She got up herself, albeit with difficulty and took over the bowl, gulping down its contents slowly.

Ye Lingfeng and the rest looked on, the looks on their faces fully conveying their concern and apprehension, their breaths held as they prayed for the medicine to work. Slowly, the mark on Ye Mulian’s neck diminished a little and relieved smiles began breaking on everyone’s faces.

“Good Heavens! It works! Thank you, Master Xiao! Thank you so much!”

Ye Lingfeng was beaming with reprieve and joy, while Gongsun Tai was sulking in his corner. “It’s only working because of the Spirited Lingzhi,” he snorted quietly.

Tears of happiness streamed down Lady Jiang’s cheeks and she was only held back by Xiao Chen before she could have rushed to her daughter and hugged her. But it was still too early before Ye Mulian was fully cured and allowed to be in contact with anyone.

Ye Mulian smiled. “Thank you, Master Xiao… But… do you not fear of being infected yourself…”

It had been so long since she last felt the tantalizing touch from another person’s hand. She had been a pariah, a leper whom everyone in the house had been giving a wide berth ever since she was discovered to have contracted the infection of the infernal aura. Even her parents had been kept away from her at Gongsun Tai’s insistence, and they had been continually advised against entering this cottage.

She had abandoned all hoping, longing only for a quick death, until the coming of this young man whom she never before saw, who had restored hope to her in his courage to help cure her.

“Rest assured that I’ll be fine, Young Lady,” said Xiao Chen to her, “I have a gift. A gift that protects me from any infections or malignant influences.”

Zhiluan scoffed, its paws crossed at its chest, “Just you wait. Sooner or later, you might get infected yourself. We’ll see who’ll save you then.”

“Let us hope that I’ll indeed contract the disease then. Then I’ll have you to hope for.” Xiao Chen looked at the leopard cat spirit and chuckled.

“NEVER!” Zhiluan bellowed with horror, clutching its wounded paw.

The episode drew Gongsun Tai’s attention as his eyes wandered to this thousand-year-old Spirited Lingzhi.

Xiao Chen chuckled and took out an elixir that glowed with pearly-white sheen. “Take this, Young Lady,” Xiao Chen said gently to Ye Mulian.

From his corner, Gongsun Tai’s eyes narrowed as he peered intently at the pill. As a Tier Four Elixir King, he could see that it takes at least one as skillful as a Tier Three Elixir Master to produce an elixir of such quality. “Who in the world is this young man?”

“Master Xiao,” he asked suddenly, “May I have the privilege to have the name of your teacher?”

“Oh?” Xiao Chen turned and asked curiously, “Which faculties of mine are you referring to?”

“Why, healing of course.”

Xiao Chen chuckled. “I was fortunate to make an acquaintance with a senior just a few months ago. I have had the chance to learn a thing or two from him, but I’m afraid I’m not in the position to divulge his name.”

Gongsun Tai gave no other answer nor did he press on further. Instead, thoughts swam in his mind as distant memory came back to him about a certain Tier Eight Sage of Medicine who had mysteriously gone into hiding with no news left of him.

Tier-two, Tier-four, Tier-Six, and Tier-Eight healers were commonly known as Elixir Masters, Elixir Kings, Elixir Saints and the Sages of Healing. There was also a Tier-nine, reserved especially for the best of the best, although no one, barring legends and tales, had actually achieved the most prestigious title of Healers before.

The shadows below the timbers stretched like a bony finger as the evening sun beckoned from the western horizons. Xiao Chen could only suppress the spread of Ye Mulian’s infection for now. He’d need more study on Gui Xian’s notes and observation of her condition before the blight of the infernal aura could be utterly expelled.

He settled some arrangements and everyone left the cottage. Zhiluan began howling about his throbbing hunger to the amusement and chagrin of Elder Plum and the others. Fortunately for them, the kitchens had prepared the food ready as was instructed by Elder Plum earlier.

At the dining hall, Elder Plum presented to Zhiluan a dish of steamed carp. “This dish is called The Frozen Carp…

And this, The Envied Fish…

And this, The Decisive Harvest…”

Zhiluan pored over the food with mouth-watering delight, nodding with approval at the dishes before him. He pointed a paw at a soup of spring onions. “Why is there no fish in this?”

Elder Plum feigned a bashful cough and cleared his throat. Quietly, he muttered with a chuckle, “That dish is called the Crystal Spring…”

“YOU! HOW DARE YOU!” Zhiluan bellowed, “This is a farce! Crystal Spring my eye! A clear soup with no fish?!”

A pair of chopsticks banged on its paw. It was Xiao Chen. “Enough of that. You never have enough of fish, do you? Sometimes I wonder if you are actually a cat demon masquerading as an Immortal Lingzhi.”

After the meal, Xiao Chen went out to have an evening walk around the city. He made some purchases along the way, procuring some medicinal herb. Between the abundance of potions and elixirs in the Governor’s private stores and the Three Friends of Winter who had offered in helping to heal Huangfu Xin’er, Xiao Chen focused merely on helping with Ye Mulian’s condition before he began seeking a way back to Tianyuan City.

He then returned to his studies, riffling through the pages of Gui Xian’s notes until he finally came upon an entry about the infection of the infernal blight. But there was little he could do, at least for now, with his lacking skills in healing.

It was midnight and the blare of the third gong of the night resounded through the silent house. Xiao Chen was still wide awake, his forehead creased in a troubled frown. “Fool though the leopard cat spirit may be, it is right,” Xiao Chen brooded quietly, “Humans have three samadhis: the heart, the liver, and the bladder.”

“With all three infected, expelling the infernal matter now affecting the girl is well nigh impossible.”

“Why are you still up for, lad…”

Zhiluan wrapped itself comfortably in his blanket, mumbling in his sleep. Xiao Chen had intentionally asked to share a room with him in fear of Gongsun Tai, who might be coveting the Immortal Lingzhi for his own.

“Hey, stupid cat. Do you know any way to expel the infection from one’s liver, heart, and bladder?”

“Good grief… Fish… Fish… Don’t take my fish…”

The following morning, Xiao Chen was in the yard, pounding some medicine with Zhiluan beside him, helping him in selecting them. Two young men walked up to them. Xiao Chen peered at them and recognized the two men, one clad in green and the other purple, as students of Gongsun Tai.

“How can I help you?”

As he spoke, Xiao Chen reached and took an herb that Zhiluan had selected for him, hardly even looking at them. The man in green grew annoyed at Xiao Chen’s indifference and muttered, “We heard that you possessed skills in healing. We are here, humbly seeking your advice and demonstration!”

“Advice and demonstration” were nothing more than a challenge to a duel. Xiao Chen smiled thinly and said, “I see. What do you wish me to advise on and demonstrate?”

Xiao Chen spoke as if he was a tutor giving a lesson to the pair of young men and this angered them. Feeling that Xiao Chen was being haughty, the man in purple remarked, “How about a duel. Let’s see who’ll be able to cure Young Lady Ye the quickest!”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to decline. I’m trying to save a life, not contesting a duel with it,” said Xiao Chen before he said nonchalantly to Zhiluan, “Hand me eight grams peony roots, Leopard Cat Spirit.”

“That does it! How dare you treat me like a menial laborer! Remember about your promise! I’ll hold you to it!”

“All right, all right. You have them as soon as we’ve returned to Tianyuan City.”

The two irate young men grew livid at being ignored. “You are a confident one, aren’t you?” The man in purple sneered. “I trust your history to be an illustrious one too. Three years ago, I have fought a battle at Xishan where I slew thirty-two enemies from the Devil’s Practice and I saved the lives of seventeen who were infected by the infernal aura! And last year, I had earned a Foundation Building Elixir of impeccable quality!”

“And two years ago,” continued the man in purple, “I’ve slain eighteen monsters and demons before I extracted their souls to brew elixirs and pills! Surely you have your own tales of heroics to tell?”

Xiao Chen smiled, still in engrossed in his work as he nonchalantly remarked, “Nothing much, although I’d slain a dragon by chance and killed a warrior of the Nascent Soul Realm. I’d say I have scarcely anything to bluster about when it comes to curing people.”

“Hahahaha!” The two men guffawed with contempt after hearing Xiao Chen. “You’re good with your hyperbole; I’d give you that. You should even add that you’ve slain a cultivator of the Nirvana Realm before!”

“Maybe that will come soon enough,” Xiao Chen muttered lightly as he received another herb from Zhiluan.

The two men were laughing their heads off when cascades of slight footfalls came from outside the yard, before a voice that froze the air around them rang from behind.

“He was not in the least joking.”