Chapter 54 - The Reasoning and the Risk
The silence in the study was heavy, broken only by the quiet hum of the night wind rustling the pines outside the window. Bai Qingxian stood by the wooden desk, her gaze fixed on the red and blue ink lines mapping out the anatomy of the human body. Even as a former Saintess of the Medicine Valley, she could find no major flaws in the layout. The placements of the stabilization nodes and the path of the energy needles were mapped with surgical precision.
She turned her head slowly, looking at the young Peak Master standing beside her. "This mapping is detailed down to the marrow. Did you find an ancient medical inheritance, or is there a physician saint guiding your peak from the shadows?"
Su Ming stood with his hands tucked into his wide sleeves, his expression as calm as ever. "There is no physician saint, and no ancient inheritance. I designed the blueprint myself, based on anatomical logic and meridian flow calculations."
Bai Qingxian looked at him, her skepticism clear in her eyes. "You? A Golden Core sword cultivator designing a meridian reconstruction? Peak Master Su, such a procedure requires decades of medical training and a deep understanding of spiritual anatomy. A single misplaced pathway would destroy a person’s foundation permanently. To draft this without any prior medical experience is simply impossible."
"Nothing is impossible if you analyze the structures step-by-step," Su Ming replied, his voice flat. "The human body is simply a complex network of pathways. If you understand the flow of energy and the points of friction, you can map a path through it."
A sudden spark of heat rose in Bai Qingxian’s temples, breaking her quiet composure. His detached dismissal of the human body as a mere network of pathways—as if he were repairing an array formation rather than deciding a boy’s future- provoked a rare flash of anger. She stepped forward, her voice tightening.
"Even if the calculations are correct, the reality of this operation is a nightmare!" she said, her breathing shallow as she stared him down. "Why are you doing this, Peak Master Su? What makes a crippled mortal boy worth such a massive, reckless risk?"
Su Ming turned his gaze to the window, looking out toward the dark silhouette of the peak. "It is not a matter of blind charity. In Greenwall City, this young master of the Wang Clan was at the height of his standing. But his path was shattered. The conflict was not his fault. The demonic dual cultivator, Lin Fan, suffered a setback; he lost his cultivation, and then his marriage engagement was annulled by his fiancée’s family. That family instead promised her to Wang Tian. Out of sheer jealousy and spite, Lin Fan fell to demonic dual cultivation, seeking to siphon others’ talents to rebuild his own strength."
He paused, his eyes narrowing slightly in the dim light. "During their encounter, Lin Fan attacked Wang Tian, brutally shattering his dantian and tearing his meridian pathways. But he did not stop there. Lin Fan also had his eyes on my first disciple, Lin Yao, intending to target her as a potential dual-cultivation siphoning source. I caught him, and later took Wang Tian in as my disciple."
Bai Qingxian listened, her fingers tightening slightly against the edge of the desk. She had heard of the demonic cultivator incident of the Withered Valley, but she had not known the personal details of the clash.
"I did not take him in because I felt pity for his crippled state," Su Ming continued, his tone remaining pragmatic. "I took him in because of his will. After losing his cultivation, his clan, and his standing, Wang Tian refused to submit. He crawled out from his rest to thank me. Later, in his condition, he climbed the stairs of the White Lotus Peak alone. He did not beg for help, nor did he curse the heavens. He simply kept practicing. Pursuing the sword path does not begin in the dantian; it begins with the will. If the boy has the grit to endure, I am willing to build a path for him."
Although Su Ming did not reveal every detail, he meant what he said.
Bai Qingxian looked down at the desk, her expression clouding. She could respect the boy’s willpower, and she could see why Su Ming valued such determination. But as a physician, she could not ignore the brutal reality.
"You do not understand the sheer cruelty of what you are proposing," she said, her voice turning sharp and urgent. "Reconstructing seventy to eighty percent of a mortal’s meridians is a clinical nightmare. In order to anchor the new channels, the patient must remain fully awake and conscious for the entire duration of the procedure. The pain of having your marrow reshaped and your meridians welded is unimaginable. They must use their own willpower to anchor the Qi loops as they are formed. If they pass out for even a second, the Qi loops will collapse, permanently damaging their body."
She leaned forward, pointing directly at the central nodes on the blueprint. "To weld a shattered foundation requires an expert who can guide the Qi thread by thread with absolute precision. You are a Golden Core cultivator, not a master physician. Without a Saint-rank physician to guide you and handle this reconstruction, you will simply kill him."
The warning hung in the quiet air of the study, heavy and absolute. Bai Qingxian watched him closely, waiting for him to realize the foolishness of his attempt, to see the impossible weight of the task.
Su Ming looked at the blueprint on the desk, tracing the red ink lines with his eyes. He did not flinch, nor did his breath quicken. His face remained a mask of calm, calculated focus.
"Then I will simply have to ensure that I do not make a single mistake," he said, his voice quiet but steady. "I promised him a path, and I intend to deliver it."
Bai Qingxian stared at him, her words dying in her throat. The words of this young Peak Master carried a heavy, unyielding weight. She had expected to find a man acting out of naive optimism or ignorance, but Su Ming was fully aware of the horrific risks. He knew the chances of failure, he knew the pain the boy would face, and yet he was prepared to proceed anyway.
’He is not playing a joke,’ she realized, her chest tightening. ’He is completely serious.’
The sheer resolve in his quiet voice shook her assumptions. For the first time since her arrival, she saw past the polite, sarcastic, pragmatic mask of Peak Master Su Ming. Beneath his guarded exterior lay a cold, ironclad determination that refused to bow to the constraints of the world.
She looked back at the detailed sketches on the desk, the red and blue ink shining under the oil lamp. The logic of the nodes was beautiful, pointing toward a medical path she had never seen. A faint, reluctant spark of professional curiosity flared in her mind, warring with her shock.
Peak Master Su Ming was indeed a mystery, but the path he had chosen was far more dangerous than she had ever imagined.
As Bai Qingxian stared at the blueprint, she realized that Su Ming was not simply trying to repair a body; he was attempting to force a miracle into existence. The sheer complexity of the node paths on the desk defied standard medical texts, yet they possessed a hidden harmony that she could not totally grasp. It was a structural balance that suggested a deeper harmony than the twelve standard pathways.
’If he succeeds,’ she thought, the breath caught in her throat, ’.....’
But the cost of failure was absolute. She turned back to Su Ming, her eyes scanning his calm face. "I cannot allow you to attempt this alone, Peak Master Su. Not because I doubt your resolve, but because I know the limits of a cultivator’s Qi. Even if you do not make a single mistake, your spirit force will run dry before the final channels are connected. The strain of guiding the Qi thread by thread for days will inflict damage on your own foundation."
Su Ming did not answer immediately. He looked at his hands, then at the blueprints on the stand. "The risk is mine to carry."
"No," she said, her voice quiet but carrying a strange, steel-like weight of her own. "If you fail, you destroy a boy who trusts you with his life, and you doom your peak. If you are truly determined to walk this path, then you will need a physician who can stabilize him while guiding you through the procedure."
Su Ming raised his eyes, looking at her in the quiet study. The shadow of the oil lamp flickered between them, casting long silhouettes against the wooden wall. In his mind, he calculated the advantages.
"Then, we will begin the preparations tomorrow," Su Ming said, his voice lowering to a steady murmur.
Bai Qingxian nodded once, her expression resolute.