Accepting Treatment

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

As they emerged from the dark underground sewage network, the blinding noon sunlight struck them head-on.

Kamo Chitsubaki was pinching a wet wipe between two fingers, wiping the black sludge from the edges of her Martin boots with visible disgust.

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

Lu Ping turned his head and looked at the high ponytail swaying slightly beside him.

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

She raised a brow and curled her lips. "You'll 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 just to try my luck. Who would've thought your ringtone would come from the drain right under my feet?"

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

"You and I both know what the old man is thinking. Although Naobito Zenin did me a favor back then, one thing is one thing... I'll judge you with my own eyes."

Lu Ping remained calm and said nothing.

Two geniuses of pivotal standing 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 the Ten Shadows Shikigami, you used nothing but a cursed-tool longbow and the cursed energy of a Grade 2 Sorcerer to kill three curse users of the same rank in succession within that cramped terrain."

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

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

"Hello? Shoko? Come out for hot pot, at that new place in Shinjuku. Yes, the Zenin Clan's 'future clan 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 freaks are always out on assignments, while Shoko spends every day in the infirmary dealing with dead bones. Jujutsu High is practically turning her into a left-behind child. Someone's treating, so we have to bring her out for some fresh air."

Lu Ping watched her forthright manner, his gaze shifting slightly. "You and Shoko seem pretty close?"

"You could say we're best friends. She's also my lifesaver." Kamo Chitsubaki's voice suddenly dropped for a moment, but she quickly returned to normal.

"If the old Zenin clan 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 some side room of the Kamo Clan that year."

Acute myocardial infarction.

Lu Ping sharply caught that term.

For a first-rate genius of the Three Great Families who had refined cursed energy for years and possessed physical strength far beyond ordinary people, this kind of cardiovascular disease normally seen in the elderly should never have appeared.

Especially since Kamo Clan sorcerers were experts in 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, prying into another family's inherited trump cards or physical ailments was deeply taboo.

Yet Kamo Chitsubaki seemed 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, she took the initiative to explain.

"No need to guess. Modern medicine calls my condition [Polycythemia Vera]. Simply put, my bone marrow's blood-forming function is overactive, and I have several times as many red blood cells as an ordinary person. That makes my blood as thick as canned syrup. If I lose control of my cursed energy even a little, my blood vessels can be completely blocked by clots."

She raised her right hand and looked at the dark crimson blood energy faintly flowing in her palm, laughing at herself.

"Ironic, isn't it? The Blood Manipulation that the Kamo Clan has been proud of for a thousand years became a life-taking poison in my hands instead. That's why I have to see Shoko regularly and rely on her Reverse Cursed Technique to stay alive."

The two boarded a train bound for Shinjuku.

The carriage was somewhat empty, and the sonorous clatter of metal wheels striking the rails echoed beside them.

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 her trademark, were beginning 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 barely lift her eyelids and yawn.

"You left so hurriedly this morning that you skipped even the routine examination. You really don't take your body seriously."

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

A warm, gentle flow of cursed energy instantly traveled through Lu Ping's entire body along his pulse.

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

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

A faint white glow flashed and vanished.

Lu Ping stood to the side, silently watching it all with the extreme senses enhanced by the Three Corpses within him.

In his view, Shoko's use of the Reverse Cursed Technique was extraordinarily precise.

That positive energy entered Kamo Chitsubaki's aorta through her neck, treating the lipids, fibrous tissue, and early-stage plaques accumulated along the vessel walls due to her thick blood as "excess impurities" to be removed, then dissolving them in a targeted manner.

The plaques disappeared, and the vessel walls were "refreshed" in an instant, returning to the smooth, healthy state they had possessed before disease.

That was the true value of Jujutsu High's sole designated physician.

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

"Phew... 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 keep worsening, the next stage—precise thrombolysis and vascular reconstruction—will be the real undertaking. But your blood circulation is still fairly smooth for now, so you don't need that level of trouble yet."

The three walked shoulder to shoulder through Shinjuku's bustling pedestrian streets.

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

The last time their group of four—Satoru Gojo, Suguru Geto, Shoko, and Lu Ping—had finished watching that boring movie here, though those two little devils had slipped away halfway through on some excuse.

At that moment, a man dressed in a strange performance outfit stood outside the theater, energetically handing out flyers for a comedy theater to passing pedestrians.

Lu Ping recognized him at once.

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