Chapter 30: Chapter 29: We need to talk.
I was working, me doing my thing while she was just rolling on her floating chair and doing nothing productive, like learning math or whatever children do these days.
Suddenly, she stopped spinning. "So, what's the plan?"
"Which plan?" I replied, putting the glasses on my eyes.
They've worked now, which is good.
"What are we going to do now? Do you have a plan?"
"Oh, yeah, that plan," I replied. Now I had to make up a plan. Great. "I finish my work here and then we leave; is that good enough?"
It wasn't good enough, not even by my standards.
She was clearly unimpressed. "That's your entire plan? Why are you even distributing those cards of yours?"
"Now, that's an easier question." I nodded to myself, clearly pleased to answer something that I had actually thought about: why would I even prepare a plan when there are so many things about plans that can go wrong? "Do you know what's the main cause of death for common people?"
She shook her head, and I was happy. "Me neither; I didn't do any statistics; I have other sh*t to do, but I'm pretty sure that infection is pretty high up there; I saw some really, really awful things while I was here."
I shivered at the mere memory of the kind of things that people did in this place that had so much potential for just straight-up killing them.
I didn't want to even think about it.
"Do you have any idea how many things could go wrong with those cards of yours?" She replied, looking at me with weird eyes.
"Nothing can go wrong. Jasmine, I've thought about it; I took every possible precaution." I explained it to her, but I could see it in her eyes; she didn't believe me in the least. That was offensive.
Since when did I do things without thinking?
So, the barrage of questions began: "What if someone gets in the way of the distribution?"
"Why would anyone do that?" I asked, but I was prepared: "Anyway, there are a ton of copies; if a few go missing, it doesn't matter. I did plan to educate everyone; I can't do that with a limited number of copies."
"Why, you ask? You truly don't understand what these mean, right?" She looked at me, a flash of understanding finally reaching her eyes as she gasped slightly.
"They mean many people will no longer die of stupid, predictable things, right?" I asked, but by the way she said it, I was sure that I was somehow wrong.
"Oh, so you truly don't understand..." She muttered, but she stood up and took one of the cards from my table. "The technique for knowledge transfer comes from a higher realm; it's not really rare there, but here?"
"Here, it's a divine technique, and you just showed everyone unashamedly that you know better than any of them, not to talk about the way you actually accomplished this," she ranted, but she was kind of making some good points, but wouldn't it be a good thing? To grow my reputation: "These runes of yours are a completely new system to utilize Profound energy; they make formations completely redundant."
Well, when she put it that way, it did sound important: "So what, what's wrong with that?"
"Nothing's wrong with that," she sighed and recomposed herself, "you should just wish that nobody realizes what these truly are and believe them to be some divine technique, because if anyone realizes the ease with which you can make these, it's going to cause an uproar."
"What kind of uproar?" I asked back, weirded out that she was speaking so highly of something I made almost at random.
After all, there was nothing complicated at all in my runes; I just threatened the world itself with very bad things if it didn't do what I wanted it to do, all tied to a small, often unrelated drawing of something.
"Well, in the best-case scenario, you'll be widely acknowledged and invited to work for every single major sect in this realm as a highly recognized crafter and whatever else you can do with these." She explained.
That didn't sound bad, but I was already hired as a doctor by a whole empire; I was already taken.
I didn't see the problem here: "And in the worst case?"
"Worst case, someone finds you, kidnaps you, enslaves you, and forces you to tell them everything you know before killing you in an excruciating manner."
"Oh."
"Yes, the latter is a more likely case than the former." She replied, acting as if this was none of her business.
"You do remember that if I die, you die with me, right? Why didn't you tell me this stuff before I widely distributed my knowledge?" I asked back, confused by the situation rather than angry; I wanted to understand.
"Two reasons," she said as she held up two fingers, "First, I doubt that you would have changed your mind anyway, and second, I thought you knew how groundbreaking your runes were."
Ok, I would have done it anyway, yes, but still, "How would I have known? I've been in this world for one year."
She pursued her lips but refused to elaborate.
"You just didn't think of warning me, didn't you?" I asked, her behavior being strangely suspicious.
"And so what? What is done is done, and it's probably too late to change your mind anyway; it's common knowledge that new things should be kept a secret; should I also tell you that the sky is blue?" She replied, spinning in her chair and looking elsewhere.
This little brat
My thoughts on how to punish the child for her smugness, likely involving some very loud metal music that she seemed to hate, were interrupted by a knock on my door.
My office door, not the outer door, and it was late at night, so it definitely wasn't a customer, said, "Seems like that kid woke up."
I turned to look at the little girl that lived in my house rent-free, and she was gone, prompting me to sigh and turn back to the door, saying, "You can come in."
The door opened, revealing the boy that I had saved from having his cultivation crippled indefinitely. I didn't know how they treated such things, but given that Lan Xueruo had made a big deal out of it previously, it had to matter a lot.
"It's nice to see you've woken up; please sit down." I told the boy with a gentle smile on my face.
"My name is Zhan Han; I greet the benefactor." He said that, and instead of sitting down, he bowed low in front of me.
This was going to be a headache. "Sit down; we need to talk about your situation."
He sat down, and I continued, "I'm your doctor, and this is my clinic; how much do you remember from before the incident?"
"I remember that I was fighting, then that bastard from the Cloudy Sun Sect abused his Cloudy Sun Chains on my legs and injured my profound veins, then he kicked me out of the ring, and I passed out." His eyes were bloodshot just from remembering the act.
I silently crossed out amnesia from the mental list of possible problems that he could have had after that kind of trauma.
"Don't worry, you haven't sustained any life-changing injuries, but it will take you a long time to recover as you were before." I explained to the boy, as his pale face finally regained a bit of color at my words.
"Thank you, benefactor," he stood up and bowed to me again, "I can never hope to repay this life debt I owe you."
I waved a hand to quiet him down, but he was bowing too low to even see me move, and after briefly wondering why I ever made that motion, I replied, "Let it be; if you want to thank someone, thank the one who hired me to help out at the banquet; I'm just doing my job."
His eyes seemed to grow even more heated as he almost screamed, "You're too humble, benefactor; you're the one who saved me from the fate of being a cripple. I will be sure to repay this debt to the best of my abilities!"
"Quieten down," I said, "it's late at night; don't disturb the neighborhood."
The neighbors couldn't hear anything that happened inside my clinic, but I just didn't want to hear him talk that loudly.
"I understand; I apologize for the transgression, benefactor." He replied, this time keeping his voice at a reasonably low level.
"Good, now, about your situation," I said, causing him to straighten up on his chair where he had sat down once again, eagerly listening to my words: "Your legs had some second- to third-degree burns, but last time that I looked they seemed to be getting better; in a week or two you should recover well enough, leaving a few scars at most."
That lotion that I was given seemed to have some real effects. Their doctors may not be the best in general medicine and surgery, but I had to admit that their pharmaceuticals were fantastic.
Then again, it was rich people's magical medicine, so it had to amount to something.
"Your Profound Veins were affected as well, which made up the majority of the damage; they were scorched and ripped in various places. I've done my best to patch them up, but those will take a long time to recover. How do they feel? Flow some energy through them very gently." I asked, looking at the boy with my new and enhanced glasses.
I saw his energy slowly flowing through his legs as he tentatively placed some light burden on them. I couldn't seem to see any leaks or any actual problems, so it seemed that light exercise wouldn't injure him too much. "How does it feel?"
"I can feel that if I were to use a technique with my legs, then my veins would explode." He replied, and his face, which had just gained some color, got completely drained once again.
"Don't worry," I replied while trying to cheer him up somewhat. "The incident has just happened; slowly you'll recover. Can you feel those rough patches on your Profound Veins?"
He seemed to concentrate, then he nodded. "Good, those patches will aid you in reconstructing your veins; do not, under any circumstance, force them or prod them with your energy; it might interfere with the process."
"I understand; thank you, doctor. How long will I have to wait before I can cultivate again?" He asked, his eyes filled with hope.
I pondered, given that a light exercise might actually be beneficial, and I gave it some thought: "I would advise waiting for a full recovery, but maybe you could try cultivating, not at full speed obviously, in short bursts after a month or two, to see how those patches react to the exercise. After that, depending on what happens, you could gradually and slowly increase the speed of your cultivation until you're fully healed."
To be completely honest, I would love to be able to see a record of his recovery process and how the runic patches react to flowing energy, but alas, I would leave shortly.
He seemed to have taken the answer relatively well, but his face was still a bit pale from the news. Given that it was either this or never again, it was a good trade.
"Doctor, please, how can I ever repay you for your kindness?" He asked, his eyes filled with eagerness.
"I really don't need anything; this was part of my deal with the Profound Palace, and I've learned a lot from your case." I replied, trying to ease his mind.
It wasn't the first time that cultivators reacted like this after receiving my care; Jing Yun wasn't much different; maybe he had been even more deferential towards me than this child.
These people were weird, but they loved their doctors. I didn't need to worry about being sued over nothing here, at least, so that was a plus over my old world. Now I needed a thousand more pluses to get into the positives.
"But Doctor—" I interrupted him, saying, "Well, there is one thing that you could do for me."
"Yes, Doctor, I owe you my life." He replied, his eyes filled with zealotry and confidence in his words. I didn't doubt that if I asked him to kill someone, he would just reply, How many?
"Nothing difficult, I assure you, but it is important to me," I replied, and I began explaining in detail what I wanted. "I'd like you to keep a diary, where every day you write down how your veins heal in as much detail as you can. Can you do that for me?"
Yes, Doctor, but isn't that too little to repay you?"
"Don't worry about that; this can give me a good understanding of the recovery of my patients. I would like to do it in person to be more accurate, but I'm leaving the city shortly." I replied.
"In that case, yes, Doctor, I will do what you ask me." He replied with the same passion as before.
"Good, now there are a few things you should pay attention to, like—" I explained a bit more for some time, until he finally reached the general gist of my requirements. I then forced him to go back to the bed I had assigned him and wait for somebody from his sect to come and fetch him.
Now, "Jasmine, come back; we need to talk, young lady."
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Hey people, what's up, it's yo boy, what do you guys think of the direction the story is going in? I was hoping to add some fights soon, but i can't find out a way to do it without just straight up pulling it out of my ass and ruining the immersion, but what do you think?
Anyway, i was thinking of writing another fanfic in my spare time, but there are so many works that seem cool, but i just can't decide.
Have a good day, bye!
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