Accepting Treatment

Leather boots stepped onto the sloped concrete, producing dull, sticky sounds.

Emerging from the dark underground sewer network, they were struck head-on by the glaring noon sun.

Kamo Chitsubaki was pinching a wet wipe between two fingers, disgustedly wiping the black sludge from the edge of her Martin boots.

"By the way, how did you get my private number?"

Lu Ping turned his head to look at the high ponytail swaying slightly beside him.

Kamo Chitsubaki crumpled the used wipe into a ball and casually tossed it into the sorting bin nearby.

She raised an eyebrow and curled her lips. "You'd have to ask that old drunk Naobito Zenin. I received an assignment this morning, and before I left, the old man specifically had someone send your contact information to the Kamo Clan. I called on the way here just to try my luck. Who would've thought your phone ringtone would come from the drain beneath my feet?"

At that, she stopped walking and tilted her head as she stared at Lu Ping's utterly impassive face.

"We both know what the old man is thinking. Naobito Zenin did me a favor back then, but that's one thing and this is another... I'll see the truth with my own eyes."

Lu Ping remained calm and did not respond.

Two geniuses who held considerable weight among the younger generation of the Three Great Families walked side by side around a deserted street corner, sharing an unspoken understanding.

"Still, what you did down there really surprised me."

Kamo Chitsubaki started walking again, both hands tucked into the pockets of her black uniform, her ponytail swaying behind her.

"Without relying on Ten Shadows shikigami, you used only a cursed-tool longbow and the cursed energy of a Grade 2 Sorcerer to eliminate three curse users of the same grade in succession within such confined terrain."

"I just got lucky. The information gap was too severe on their side," Lu Ping replied flatly.

Kamo Chitsubaki gave an inscrutable chuckle, then took out her phone and skillfully dialed a number.

"Hello? Shoko? Come out for hotpot—the newly opened place in Shinjuku. Yep, the Zenin Clan's 'future head' is treating. We'll meet at the south exit of Shinjuku Station."

After hanging up, Kamo Chitsubaki turned to explain to Lu Ping.

"Those two second-year monsters are out on missions every day, while Shoko spends all day in the infirmary dealing with dead bones. Jujutsu High is practically turning her into a left-behind child. It's rare for someone to treat us, so we have to get her out for some fresh air."

Lu Ping looked at her forthright manner, his gaze shifting slightly. "You seem pretty close with Shoko?"

"You could say we're best friends. More importantly, she saved my life." Kamo Chitsubaki's voice suddenly dropped for a moment, but quickly returned to normal.

"If the old Zenin family head hadn't acted as an intermediary and sent me to Shoko for treatment related to the Reverse Cursed Technique, I probably would have died of an acute myocardial infarction in one of the Kamo Clan's side rooms that year."

Acute myocardial infarction.

Lu Ping immediately caught the term.

For a top talent of the Three Great Families, someone who had long refined cursed energy and possessed physical strength far beyond ordinary people, this sort of cardiovascular disease usually seen in elderly civilians should not have appeared.

What was more, Kamo Clan sorcerers were experts at manipulating blood.

Unless it was some kind of irreversible congenital defect.

He did not press further.

Within the high walls of the Three Great Families, probing into another person's inherited techniques or physical ailments was an extremely taboo act.

Yet Kamo Chitsubaki appeared unusually open-minded, as though she had long since emerged from the shadow cast by that illness.

As she walked through the shade cast across the sidewalk by the trees, she took the initiative to explain.

"There's no need to guess. In modern medicine, my condition is called [polycythemia vera]. Simply put, my bone marrow's blood-producing function is overactive, and my red blood cell count is several times that of a normal person. That makes my blood as thick as canned syrup. If I lose control of my cursed energy even slightly, blood clots can completely block my vessels."

She raised her right hand, looking at the dark crimson blood aura faintly flowing through her palm, and laughed at herself.

"Ironic, isn't it? The [Crimson Blood Manipulation] that the Kamo Clan has been most proud of for a thousand years became life-taking poison when it came to me. That's why I have to regularly seek Shoko out and rely on her Reverse Cursed Technique to keep this life going."

The two of them boarded a train bound for Shinjuku.

The carriage was somewhat empty, and the clanging of metal wheels striking the tracks echoed in their ears.

Half an hour later, at the south exit of Shinjuku Station.

Ieiri Shoko wore an oversized Jujutsu High uniform jacket. The faint dark circles beneath her eyes, already becoming her trademark, had begun to show, and she held a can of iced coffee in one hand.

She leaned listlessly against a signpost. Only when she saw the two approaching side by side did she reluctantly lift her eyelids and yawn.

"You left in such a hurry this morning that you didn't even do your routine checkup. You really don't take your body seriously."

Shoko muttered as she reached out and grabbed Lu Ping's wrist.

A warm, gentle stream of cursed energy instantly traveled through his entire body along his pulse.

It was the power of the Reverse Cursed Technique. After making a circuit through his body and confirming that there was nothing seriously wrong, Shoko released his hand.

Then, she pressed her palm against Kamo Chitsubaki's carotid artery.

A faint white light flashed and vanished.

Lu Ping stood to the side, silently watching everything with the heightened senses granted by the Three Corpses within his body.

In his vision, Shoko's use of the Reverse Cursed Technique was extraordinarily exquisite.

That positive energy entered Kamo Chitsubaki's aorta through her neck, treating the lipids, fibrous tissue, and early-stage plaques accumulated on the vessel walls due to her viscous blood as "proliferative impurities" that needed to be removed, then dissolving them with precision.

The plaques vanished, and in an instant, the inner walls of her blood vessels were "refreshed" to their smooth, healthy state from before the lesions had formed.

This was the true worth of Jujutsu High's sole designated physician.

Ieiri Shoko could combine professional medical knowledge with a high-precision Reverse Cursed Technique to achieve unbelievable therapeutic effects.

"Whew... I feel much better."

Kamo Chitsubaki closed her eyes and let out a long breath.

"This is only basic vascular clearing, washing away the grime on the surface."

Shoko withdrew her hand and accurately tossed the empty coffee can into a trash bin two meters away.

"If your symptoms continue to worsen, the next stage—precision thrombolysis and vascular reconstruction—will be the real undertaking. But your blood circulation is still relatively smooth right now, so there's no need for that level of trouble yet."

The three of them walked side by side along Shinjuku's bustling pedestrian street.

As they passed that familiar movie theater, Lu Ping's gaze paused briefly at its entrance.

The last time, their group of four—Satoru Gojo, Suguru Geto, Shoko, and Lu Ping—had watched that boring movie here, though those two little devils had found an excuse to slip away halfway through.

At that moment, a man in strange stage clothes stood at the theater entrance, energetically handing out flyers for a comedy theater to passing pedestrians.

Lu Ping recognized him at once.

It was Fumihiko Takaba, the struggling comedian he had seen on the promotional poster last time.