Blood-Red Trap

If neither left nor right would do, then go argue with my forbidden power.

[Year 11]

This was the first year you followed the sect's medical cultivators down the mountain.

Several villages in the mountains had been struck by an epidemic. Many commoners burned with fevers that would not break, and the Verdant Medicine Sect sent disciples to treat them.

Your cultivation was still shallow, and you could not yet diagnose and treat people on your own.

All you could do each day was boil water, grind herbs, then carry bowl after bowl of brewed medicine to the patients.

Even so, whenever the villagers saw you, they would respectfully call you Immortal Master.

At first, you would always unconsciously turn around, thinking they were addressing the sect elders behind you.

Only later did you realize that those faces filled with reverence had been looking at you all along.

You felt a little embarrassed.

You could only imitate Grandma Zhou's usual manner, nodding with feigned calm.

But once you turned away, the corners of your lips refused to stay down.

[Year 13]

As your cultivation grew, you began learning the most basic Rejuvenation Technique and hemostasis spells.

It was also this year that you first watched someone die before your very eyes.

She was a girl afflicted with the epidemic, around your age.

When she was brought in, she was still conscious. Clutching your hand, she softly asked when she would be able to go home.

You told her she would be going back very soon.

But that night, her condition suddenly worsened.

You exhausted every method you had learned, yet still could not steady that breathing again.

At dawn, the hand holding yours slowly lost its warmth.

You sat alone by the bed for a long