Chapter 53 - Bai Qingxian’s Surprise
A few weeks had passed since the Bai family settled on White Lotus Peak, and the quiet mountain had undergone a subtle transformation. Under the meticulous care of Elder Bai Zhen, the overgrown eastern slopes had been cleared and tilled. What was once a wilderness of jagged rocks and thorny weeds was now a series of neat, terraced spiritual plots.
Everyone on the peak had lent a hand to the effort. Lin Yao had used her flames to incinerate the stubborn brush, while Wang Tian had spent hours carting away heavy rocks. Even Su Ming had helped lay down the foundational boundaries.
Currently, Su Ming stood at the edge of the plots, holding a bronze array compass. He adjusted a node flag, checking the flow of spiritual Qi. Finetuning the balance of local energy was a tedious process, but it was necessary to ensure the plots could sustain the delicate herbs they planned to grow.
Later that afternoon, a spiritual crane landed outside his study, carrying a document from the Administrative Hall. Su Ming unfolded the parchment and scanned the ink. The registration was officially complete. Elder Bai Zhen was confirmed as an elder of White Lotus Peak, while Bai Qingxian was registered as a Senior Physician under the Medicine Hall, assisting directly under Elder Lu and Master Physician Song.
Su Ming stared at the document, a trace of disbelief passing through his mind. He had always viewed Elder Lu as a harmless old man who spent his days leisurely. The old man never gave off the aura of a senior. Yet, the administrative stamp on the registry was clear. Elder Lu was one of the managing elders in charge of the Medicine Hall, reporting directly to the Administrative Peak. The old man had hidden his authority behind a mask of an ordinary elder so well that Su Ming had never suspected a thing.
To facilitate Bai Qingxian’s daily travel to the Medicine Hall without worry, Su Ming had rented a simple carriage from the transport peak down in the valley. It was a mundane wooden vehicle drawn by docile cloud-hooved horses.
The carriage rolled to a stop at the base of the peak. Bai Qingxian stepped down, carrying a small pouch of basic medical ingredients. The cold wind of White Lotus Peak stirred her hair as she began her walk up the stone terrace.
As she reached the middle landing, she paused. Near the edge of the courtyard, Wang Tian was alone, performing basic wood-sword drills. He had no cultivation, no Qi to stabilize his stance, yet every strike was executed with a relentless, mechanical precision. Sweat soaked his rough gray tunic, and his hands were raw and blistered. What drew Bai Qingxian’s attention was the quiet, absolute single-mindedness of his practice. Every strike was delivered with a heavy, physical force that seemed to push his mortal body to its limits.
Intrigued by her physician’s instinct, she stepped down into the clearing. "Wang Tian."
The boy halted mid-swing, lowering the wooden blade. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and bowed, his shoulders square. Despite his lack of cultivation, he carried the quiet, unshakable dignity of a former clan successor. "Lady Bai."
"Your movements are steady, but your body is under immense strain," she said, her voice calm. "May I check your pulse?"
Wang Tian hesitated for a fraction of a second, then nodded and extended his arm. Bai Qingxian placed her fingers against his wrist, closing her eyes. She sent a thin, gentle strand of her spiritual sense into his meridians.
Within moments, her heart sank. The destruction inside him was catastrophic. His dantian was a cold, empty void, and the main meridians branching from his spine were shredded like old rope. It was a brutal, clean destruction.
"The demonic cultivator, Lin Fan, did this during our encounter, and I could not stop him," Wang Tian said quietly, noticing the shadow in her eyes. "He shattered my dantian and tore my meridian pathways. Master saved the city, ended the threat, and then took me in as his disciple. He told me that if I did not give up, he might find a way to help me."
’A way?’ Bai Qingxian thought, her mind clouding with doubt.
She slowly withdrew her hand. A wave of silent horror washed over her. Seventy to eighty percent of the boy’s meridians were entirely gone. To tell a person that such damage could be repaired was not only careless; it was irresponsible.
Reconstructing shattered meridians of this scale was an extremely difficult task. Even the Saint-rank master physician of her home world would hesitate to attempt such a task, knowing that a single slip would permanently damage the patient. Without a miracle, any attempt to force Qi through these broken channels would simply tear the boy’s body apart.
’Did Su Ming truly have a plan, or was he playing a cruel, empty joke on this desperate boy?’
Determined to find the truth, Bai Qingxian walked toward the Peak Master’s study. The mountain air was cold, but her mind was filled with a rising agitation. She reached the door, finding it slightly open. She knocked once, but there was no answer. Hearing only a low, rhythmic scratching of ink, she pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The moment her foot crossed the threshold, the air in the room froze.
Su Ming was hunched over his wooden desk, his eyes focused under the Halo of Insight. His left hand was hovering over a sheet of parchment, tracing intricate lines of red ink. Startled by the sudden intrusion, his paranoid instincts flared instantly.
Before Bai Qingxian could even blink, a flash of crimson light cut through the dim room. A sharp, terrifying pressure locked down the space around her.
She froze. The cold, sharp edge of the Crimson Heaven Sword was pressed directly against the side of her neck, close enough to feel the heat radiating from the blade. Su Ming stood before her, his eyes cold and dangerous, his posture ready to strike.
For a second, neither of them moved. Then, the intensity in Su Ming’s eyes faded. He blinked, recognizing her, and the cold tension left his shoulders.
With a low sigh, he withdrew the sword, sliding it back into its scabbard with a soft click. "My apologies, Miss Bai. I was in deep concentration. It is a bad habit of mine."
"But this is my private study, and I would like some privacy here if you don’t mind."
Bai Qingxian let out a slow breath, raising a hand to touch her neck. The skin was untouched, but the absolute speed and precision of his strike had left a lingering coldness on her neck. "You are far too guarded, Peak Master Su. If I had been an ordinary servant, they would be dead."
"White Lotus Peak does not have ordinary servants," Su Ming replied, walking back to his desk. He slipped his hands into his sleeves, his expression returning to its usual calm, detached mask. "And the mountain is quiet enough that anyone approaching should have knocked."
"I did knock," she said, stepping closer. "But you were too absorbed in your drawing."
She looked down at his wooden desk. Spread out across the parchment were detailed sketches of the human body. Unlike the simple meridian charts sold in the sect’s markets, these drawings were terrifyingly complex. Su Ming had mapped the exact layers of muscle, bone, and major blood vessels. Every shattered pathway in Wang Tian’s body had been drawn in red ink, with blue ink indicating proposed alignments, node distances, and structural anchors.
Bai Qingxian’s eyes widened as she scanned the diagrams. She recognized the logic immediately. The placement of the energy nodes, the stabilization arrays, the precise angles for needle insertions—it was a comprehensive medical plan.
She looked up at him, her voice carrying a mix of shock and disbelief. "Are you trying to save Wang Tian by performing a meridian reconstruction?"
Su Ming stood by the desk, his hands tucked quietly into his sleeves. He looked at the blueprint, then at her. He did not deny it, nor did he offer a convoluted explanation. He simply nodded. "Yes."
Bai Qingxian stared at him, speechless. The young Peak Master stood in the dim light of his study, completely relaxed, as if he had not just admitted to planning a feat that defied the laws of the norms. The silent confidence in his posture was not the arrogance of an ignorant genius, but the cold calculation of a man who had already mapped every step.
’He is mad,’ she thought, her heart hammering against her ribs. ’He is truly mad.’
Yet, looking at the meticulous red and blue ink lines on the parchment, she could not turn her eyes away. The details of the nodes were structurally sound, pointing towards a logic not so ordinary. A faint, reluctant spark of curiosity flared in her mind, warring with her shock.
Peak Master Su Ming was indeed mysterious, but the path he had chosen was far more dangerous than she had ever imagined.