Doctor Huang

Xu Yan wondered if Qin Yudie had misunderstood something. Why had his reminder only made her even more fired up?

But he didn't know much about cultivators, so he couldn't be bothered to keep discussing it. He asked, "Miss Yudie, did you come here to play chess this time?"

Qin Yudie shook her head. "I won't be playing chess with Senior Xu for now."

Playing chess let her sense the Dao, but she had already sensed enough. From here on, she only needed to comprehend it slowly on her own.

Qin Yudie's eyes gleamed with excitement. Smiling, she asked, "Senior Xu, did you play the zither a few days ago?"

Three days earlier, when she was practicing the Tianren Sword Technique, she would never have broken through to the tenth level and reached mastery without the zither music's help.

She had discussed it with Qin Tian, and they had both concluded that Xu Yan had been playing. There was no one else in the entire Tianren Mountain region who could produce such mysterious music.

Xu Yan replied, "I did play the zither, in the backyard. How did you know, Miss Yudie?"

He had never played in front of Qin Yudie. By all rights, she shouldn't have known he could play.

Qin Yudie smiled. "Everyone knows there's a master zither player in the Tianren Mountain region. Who could that master be, if not Senior Xu?"

Aside from Xu Yan, she couldn't find a second person in the entire Southern Domain who could play music infused with the Dao.

Xu Yan said, "I'm no master. I only played a couple of pieces casually that day. The person everyone in Tianren City was talking about couldn't have been me."

He thought it was quite a coincidence. Just as he had been playing, there had been a master playing in the Tianren City region. But if everyone else had heard the music, why hadn't he?

Could his own music have canceled it out, leaving him unaware?

Qin Yudie knew Senior Xu wanted to keep a low profile, so she didn't press the point. "Senior Xu, I've never seen you play the zither. I wonder when I'll get the chance to hear you play."

That day, she had heard the music from all the way up on Tianren Mountain and received tremendous help. Hearing Xu Yan play a piece up close would surely help her even more.

Xu Yan didn't particularly want to play. "Maybe I'll play sometime in the future."

Whenever he touched the Floating World Zither, a sense of sorrow welled up inside him, beyond his control.

So he never touched the zither in his daily life, even though he actually loved playing it.

"Okay."

Qin Yudie nodded.

Of course she wouldn't force Senior Xu. If he ever felt like playing, she would be perfectly content just to come and listen. How could she possibly ask him to play for her?

After Qin Yudie left, Xu Yan opened the shop and resumed business.

But not long after he had opened, he saw two people fighting in the street, surrounded by a crowd of onlookers.

No matter where you went, there were always plenty of people eager to watch a spectacle, and they never minded if things got out of hand. In fact, the bigger the commotion, the happier they were.

Xu Yan reclined in a chair beneath the cherry tree outside his shop, gazing at the blossoms as his thoughts drifted.

Suddenly, he heard a panicked shout. He looked up and saw two people fighting, black qi billowing from their bodies.

They were the same two people who had been arguing earlier. From the looks of it, both had taken Black Blood Pills.

"Damn, are the people in Tianren City all this unafraid of dying?" Xu Yan ducked back into his shop, leaving a narrow crack in the door so he could watch what was happening outside.

He was just a mortal and couldn't get involved in something like this. All he could do was hope that some powerful cultivators would come and deal with it soon.

After the two black-qi-shrouded people had fought in the street for a while, several people arrived and seized them.

They were disciples from the Tianren Sect, assigned to maintain order and peace in Tianren City.

There were five of them, all at the Spiritual Consciousness Realm. Capturing two mortals who had taken Black Blood Pills was easy enough.

Just as Xu Yan breathed a sigh of relief and prepared to open the door, a face suddenly appeared in the crack, startling him.

Only after a moment did he recognize the person. He was a physician too, and ran a nearby pharmacy. People called him Doctor Huang.

Xu Yan opened the door and asked, "May I ask what brings you to my shop, Doctor Huang?"

He and Doctor Huang didn't get along very well. Ever since Xu Yan's reputation as a miracle doctor had spread, fewer and fewer people had gone to Doctor Huang. Most chose to have Xu Yan treat them instead, and Doctor Huang had come to resent him.

Doctor Huang sneered. "Xu Yan, you stole my business and made the money that should have been mine. You must be pretty pleased with yourself, huh?"

He hadn't stepped inside. His face was twisted, as if he were looking at the enemy who had murdered his father.

Xu Yan found the accusation baffling. "Doctor Huang, there's something wrong with what you're saying. We're physicians. If someone comes to us for treatment, we treat them."

"Where a patient chooses to seek treatment isn't something we can decide, is it?"

He had never advertised himself. The title of miracle doctor had spread through word of mouth from the people he had saved, and had little to do with him.

Doctor Huang ignored all that and shouted, "What more is there to say? If it weren't for you, my pharmacy would be doing many times better than it is now!"

"It's all because of you that people don't want to come to me anymore. They all say your medical skills are better than mine and that your prices are fairer."

He clenched his fists, looking ready to hit Xu Yan at the slightest provocation.

Xu Yan frowned slightly. "Doctor Huang, why are you being so unreasonable? Is it my fault that my medical skills are better? You should look for the problem in yourself. Why are your skills so poor?"

"As for the prices, I charge less to help patients. Plenty of people can't afford medical care at all. If I insisted on charging so much, wouldn't that be like watching them die for nothing?"

He didn't consider himself a particularly good person, but under normal circumstances, he still did good deeds now and then, intentionally or not.

As the saying went, doing good deeds built up one's merit. Who knew? Maybe one day he would be able to cultivate.

Doctor Huang pointed at Xu Yan's nose and cursed, "Stop spouting nonsense! Physicians are people too. Of course we charge the going rate. You're the odd one out, breaking the rules of the trade and using underhanded means to steal away patients who need treatment!"

There was one more thing he hadn't said: Xu Yan's reputation as a miracle doctor.

He wanted to say that he'd been a physician for over thirty years without ever being called a miracle doctor. What gave Xu Yan the right to earn that title through such underhanded means as breaking the rules of the trade?

Xu Yan said, "Doctor Huang, you're not acting like yourself today. You should go home."

As he spoke, he started to close the door.

But before he could shut it, Doctor Huang thrust both hands against the shop door, keeping Xu Yan from closing it.

Xu Yan's expression turned cold. "Doctor Huang, this is my home. Blocking me from closing my own door is a little overbearing, don't you think?"

He'd seen arrogant people before, but never anyone this arrogant.

The man had come right to his shop to curse him out, and now wouldn't even let him close the door.

How terrifying!