Seeing Old Doctor Chen Again (Please Bookmark and Keep Reading)

That night, Lu Qing slept especially soundly, without even a single dream.

Xiao Yan did not wake up in the middle of the night as she usually did, calling for him to soothe her.

The brother and sister both had a good night's sleep.

Lu Qing even slept so deeply that Xiao Yan had to wake him in the morning.

Still bleary-eyed, he helped Xiao Yan put on her outer clothes, brushed her teeth and washed her face, then casually tied her hair into two little buns before finally starting on his own morning routine.

Using a willow-twig toothbrush to clean his teeth half-heartedly, Lu Qing's unfocused gaze drifted aimlessly around the room.

After brushing for a while, he suddenly sensed that something was wrong, and his eyes gradually sharpened.

He walked over, staring at the two utterly empty Bamboo Strips rings on the pole, his eyes slowly widening.

Well, damn. Which heartless bastard had stolen his two huge pieces of fish?

Could it have been someone from the village? That was Lu Qing's first thought.

But he quickly dismissed it.

Though the villagers were not well-off now, none of them were so poor that they had to steal two pieces of fish.

Yesterday, when he had invited everyone to eat fish, every one of them had turned him down.

Besides, if someone truly wanted to steal, would it not have been better to take the whole lot in one sweep? Why steal only two pieces?

More importantly, he noticed that some fish flesh still remained on those two Bamboo Strips.

Clearly, the two pieces of fish had been forcibly torn away.

What sort of thief made such a commotion when stealing something? Were they afraid of not waking anyone up?

Unfortunately, he had slept too deeply last night and had not noticed any movement outside.

Lu Qing carefully searched the area. In the end, he found several muddy prints resembling plum blossoms on the wall.

Each print had several tiny holes in it.

He found several similar prints on the ground as well.

He silently looked at the muddy prints.

Before long, a faint White Light emerged from them.

White Light?

Lu Qing was slightly startled.

He hurriedly looked at the two lines of text that appeared.

Mud Footprints: Judging by their shape, they seem to be the footprints of some mysterious little beast.

The tiny holes in the footprints indicate that this creature has sharp claws.

Looking at the descriptions in the two lines of text, a scene instantly appeared in Lu Qing's mind.

A mysterious, nimble, unknown little beast kicked off with both feet, borrowed force from the wall, pounced at the fish on the bamboo pole, and forcibly tore it down.

What could it be? A cat? Come to think of it, did this world even have cats?

A question surfaced in Lu Qing's mind.

At any rate, he had never seen any household in the village keeping a cat.

Still, since he had confirmed it was not a person stealing food, that was enough.

Lu Qing let out a breath of relief.

If it had been a villager stealing from him, that would not have been good news.

Fortunately, it was only a wild beast. Judging from the footprints, it was not very large either.

The village where he lived was not far from the mountains behind it. Wild beasts occasionally coming down was perfectly normal.

It seemed that in the future, he would have to be more careful to shut the doors and windows tightly before sleeping.

Otherwise, if some wild beast slipped in during the night and hurt Xiao Yan, that would be bad.

Once he figured out what had happened, Lu Qing no longer paid much attention to it.

The key was that there was no point competing with a wild beast. He could only put everything away after nightfall from now on.

Thinking of this, Lu Qing suddenly remembered something. His eyes widened, and he hurried into the kitchen.

After a while, he emerged with a relieved look on his face.

Fortunately, he had kept the Red Moon Carp in the Wooden Basin and brought it into the kitchen last night.

To prevent the fish from jumping out, he had tightly covered the Wooden Basin with a wooden board weighted down by Shitou.

Otherwise, it would have been hard to say whether that beast might have carried it away in its mouth.

After that little incident, Lu Qing was completely awake.

He did not tell Xiao Yan about it. He simply made breakfast, and after the brother and sister finished eating, they carried the Red Moon Carp in a wooden bucket toward the small slope where Old Doctor Chen lived.

This time, Lu Qing deliberately delayed before going to see Old Doctor Chen.

He was afraid that if he went too early and happened to see the Old Doctor practicing his fist forms again, he would not be able to resist using his ability to simulate the man's cultivation method.

The Old Doctor had treated the siblings so well; he could not do something so ungrateful.

So he simply cut off that possibility altogether and avoided putting his moral bottom line to the test.

Lu Qing's strategy proved quite effective.

When Xiao Yan and he arrived at the Half-Mountain Courtyard, they happened to see Old Doctor Chen slowly drawing in his stance. He had clearly just finished practicing his fist forms.

"Grandpa Chen, we came to see you!"

Upon seeing the Old Doctor, Xiao Yan happily ran forward.

"Oh, Xiao Yan's here!"

When Old Doctor Chen saw Xiao Yan running over, he scooped her up at once, his old face blooming like a chrysanthemum.

"Good morning, Grandpa Chen." Lu Qing also stepped forward and greeted him respectfully.

"You're here. Why did you come later than last time today?" Old Doctor Chen asked.

"Because Brother slept in!" Xiao Yan giggled. "Xiao Yan had to wake him up this morning!"

Lu Qing's face reddened slightly. "Yesterday, I spent the whole morning fishing by the river and was a little tired, so I slept more deeply."

"It is good to sleep more." Old Doctor Chen nodded. "You two are at the age when you are growing. Proper rest is still necessary."

The Old Doctor looked over Lu Qing and Xiao Yan's complexions. Compared with a few days ago, they had improved considerably.

Knowing that they had likely been doing fairly well these past few days, he felt quite satisfied.

"Grandpa Chen, Brother and I went fishing yesterday, and Brother caught such a huge, huge fish!"

At that moment, Xiao Yan began showing off to the Old Doctor.

"Oh? How huge was it?" Old Doctor Chen asked with a smile.

"Huge, huge! It was as big as Xiao Yan!" The little girl spread her arms as wide as she could.

"This big?" Old Doctor Chen was genuinely surprised now.

He had thought the big fish Xiao Yan mentioned would weigh at most two or three jin. If it was truly as large as she said, it would be far more than that.

"Mhm, mhm! That big fish was not only delicious, it also had a very beautiful stone growing on it. Brother made it into a pendant and gave it to Xiao Yan. Grandpa Chen, look, this one. Is it pretty?"

Xiao Yan pulled out the Fish Stone Pendant around her neck and showed it to Old Doctor Chen.

"This is... an Azure Armor Fish Stone?"

Once the Old Doctor clearly saw the pendant around Xiao Yan's neck, he was even more surprised.

Hearing that, Lu Qing's heart stirred.

He also put on a surprised expression. "Grandpa Chen, you know what this stone is?"

"What, you do not know?"

"I do not." Lu Qing shook his head. "When I killed that big fish, I found this stone around its throat. I thought it looked pretty, so I made it into a pendant for Xiao Yan to wear."

"Then your luck was quite good. This Fish Stone can be considered something rare, yet you happened to come across one."

Old Doctor Chen picked up the pendant and examined it.

"The big fish you caught should have been an Azure Armor Fish, and an old fish that had lived for quite some years at that."

"Otherwise, it could not have nurtured a Fish Stone of such fine quality."

"Once an Azure Armor Fish Stone undergoes jade transformation, it gains a rather wondrous function: it can calm the mind. At the same time, it is also a rare medicinal ingredient. Ground into powder and taken with water, it can settle a child's fright."

"By the way, where did you catch this Azure Armor Fish?"