A: Go Up and Give Teacher a Massage

Guter walked toward Serie, calling out softly.

"Teacher."

"Hmm?"

Serie glanced sideways at her approaching disciple, her eyes showing no desire to move at all.

Once he reached her side, Guter bent his knees and lowered himself until his gaze was level with hers, then said.

"Thank you for coming to help me maintain that state of rapid magic growth. As repayment, please let this disciple do something for you."

"What... do you want to do?"

Serie asked her disciple in confusion.

But Guter didn't answer his teacher's question. Instead, he sat down on the bench beside Serie, looked at the feet so close at hand, and reached out to place his hands on them.

"Mmm???"

Even the somewhat slow-witted elf turned her head to glance at her disciple.

"Teacher, don't move. Let me handle it."

Guter said, shifting his hands slightly upward to grip Serie's ankles, pulling her a little closer toward him until her calves rested fully on his thighs.

Then, he spread his hands, breathed warm air into his palms, and quickly rubbed them together.

Because of his martial arts training, Guter's blood and qi were naturally more vigorous than an ordinary person's, and with this friction, his palms soon grew hot.

The moment those warmed palms touched her calf, the sensation changed instantly.

"Mmm~"

Serie, lying flat, let out an involuntary, comfortable nasal sound. The tension that had stiffened her body from the close contact softened in an instant.

As his palms glided over her fair, delicate skin, feeling the muscles beneath begin to relax, Guter let out a breath. A trace of nostalgia and confidence flickered in his eyes.

He hadn't used this massage technique in a long time.

Its name was the Huanglian Ancient Massage Technique, a national intangible cultural heritage technique formed during the Qing Dynasty of his past life, rooted in Shunde's Huanglian. Its founders included both the famed Qing physician Ye Tianshi and the martial artist Wong Fei Hung. It was a massage method that combined martial arts practice with traditional Chinese medicine health preservation.

It had a miraculous effect on relaxing tendons and activating meridians, making it perfect for Teacher Serie at this moment.

As for why Guter, a modern university student in his past life, had mastered this intangible cultural heritage skill—that came from a rather lively story.

In his senior year of university, the school required all students to find off-campus internships for the entire semester. But Guter couldn't be bothered to become a beast of burden that early, so he simply rented a place off campus.

It was just a change of location, a change of bed, scrolling through his phone and playing games.

Finally, living this idyllic life, one morning Guter stretched after waking up and successfully twisted his neck.

Helpless, he hailed a taxi and headed to the nearest massage parlor.

Under the treatment of an old master, the two struck up a conversation. The more they talked, the more they clicked. After the massage, the master casually asked, "Young man, what do you do for work now?"

And the next day, a young comrade joined the organization for the Huanglian Ancient Massage Technique, an intangible cultural heritage.

The patients under his hands flew through the air.

The master watched as Guter, using the techniques he had taught, massaged a patient with a minor muscle strain all the way into muscle spasms and pain-induced unconsciousness. His expression was complicated.

Fortunately, the customer had come with a 9.9 yuan group-buy coupon. After receiving triple compensation for unsatisfactory service, the shop didn't lose much money.

Of course, to keep the intangible cultural heritage banner from falling into ruin on his watch, the master first used his own techniques to wake the patient, then called Guter over to watch closely.

The master personally worked on the patient, correcting the damage Guter's quackery had caused, while explaining to Guter where his technique had gone wrong and what major taboos he had violated.

After curing the group-buy patient of his symptoms, the master also threw in a comfortable full-body massage before the patient was willing to leave.

"So, kid, this massage trade isn't simple, is it?"

"Yeah. Between every push and press, there's real skill."

"Hmph. Now that sounds like something worth saying." The master finished, then walked back into the shop with his hands behind his back. His old-fashioned Tang suit and thin silhouette gave off a hint of a true master's aura.

"Hey! Xiao Liu, there's a group-buy order here. He's probably going to leave a bad review. Keep an eye on it for me. Here's the order number: XXXXXXX"

Guter's eyes twitched. The master's lofty image as a skilled artisan instantly crumbled.

After the master came back out, Guter pulled up the group-buy app's ratings and asked, "So this is how you keep your high scores?"

The master shot Guter a disdainful glare and retorted, "Kid, you don't actually think you can get high ratings just on skill alone these days, do you?"

"I deal with a few malicious reviews and extortion attempts from competitors every month. But a case like yours, where the service genuinely wasn't good, is a first."

"Kid, be grateful for this society." The master clasped his hands behind his back again and sighed. "Back in my day, if some prodigy disciple had massaged a customer into that state, the master would've dislocated every joint in your body to appease the customer."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk."

Watching Guter, who seemed to be packing up to leave, the master shook his head, a hint of regret in his eyes.

"Hey, old man."

Suddenly, Guter, who was fiddling with his things, stopped and called out to the master.

"What is it, kid?"

"The deposit on your shop must be pretty high, right?"

Guter said, pulling a blank internship certificate from his bag and handing it to the Master.

"Here, my indenture contract."

"As for wages, pay me or not—if I massage a customer into a medical condition, you can cover the compensation for me."

The Master's eyelid twitched. He silently calculated his shop's security deposit and his own pension in his mind, gritted his teeth, steeled his heart, and picked up a pen to sign Guter's internship contract.

After that began the legendary massage therapist Guter's journey of leveling up. Thanks to the Master keeping watch by his side, the patients under Guter's hands finally stopped flying through the air.

Because anyone who did fly up was promptly shoved back down by the quick-eyed, swift-handed Master beside him.

Thanks to over a dozen customer complaint records in a single month, Guter's massage techniques improved by leaps and bounds. And miraculously, the Master's massage shop rating on the group-buying platform actually went up? It even broke into the city's hot massage rankings?

That day, Guter and the Master stared at their phone screens in silence for a long time.

Finally, the internship ended, and Guter's skills had been tempered through sheer hardship.

Fortunately, the Master's shop security deposit wasn't completely drained, and his pension still had a decent amount left. In fact, business even picked up a bit thanks to the rising store rating.

All in all, it counted as a good karmic bond.

Guter returned to school for his graduation thesis defense, planning to visit the Master at the massage shop afterward.

But who could predict the vicissitudes of life? During the all-night celebration after passing his defense, Guter played a round of the newly returned Overwatch, got so tilted he broke through his limits, and transmigrated to another world.

The memory ended.

Guter turned his palms into fingers and traced along Serie's calf, up and down, quickly locating the corresponding bones and acupoints. Using kneading and rolling techniques, he began physiotherapy for Teacher Serie.

"Don't use that brute force recklessly on your hands, and find the acupoints more accurately."

Vaguely, Guter seemed to hear the Master's earnest, painstaking advice ringing in his ears.

Guter smiled, his movements becoming more precise.

"Got it, Master."

"Mmm?"

Serie let out a questioning nasal sound, thinking Guter was talking to her.

But the next moment, the soothing comfort radiating from her calf instantly overwhelmed that thought.

Serie's ten fingers gripped the leather cushion of the bench tightly, unable to suppress a soft moan from escaping her lips.

Outside the carriage.

The middle-aged man driving the cart fell silent for a long while before finally letting out a helpless sigh.

"Young people these days."

[Some readers said it was padding, so today's three chapters—here's an extra one]

[Also, thanks to the friends who spotted the meditation bug in the last chapter. That was my mistake; it's all fixed now. I'm sending you my gratitude manually here.]

Note: This story is purely fictional and has no connection to reality.

What it describes is an illusory parallel world, unrelated to the real world.