After washing up, Bibi Dong picked up the two books with great curiosity and carefully browsed their contents under the light of the rank-one Soul Tool-the Black Lamp.
"Why does the human body have so many acupoints? And there are even some along every meridian. This must be the key to Long Qianming's acupuncture."
After briefly looking through the chart of human acupoints, Bibi Dong was stunned by the densely packed points, 1,081 in all. She had met some physicians before, but their methods of treating illnesses and saving lives had all been very limited, mainly involving medicinal supplements and lowering fevers.
They rarely used acupuncture, and even those who did only worked with forty or fifty acupoints. Yet reading this today had given her an entirely new understanding of so-called ordinary physicians.
"Thank goodness. Thank goodness I only need to remember these acupoints, not truly understand the relationship between each one and the human body."
"How did Long Qianming remember so many acupoints while also managing the close connections between each point and the human body? How did he do it?"
Bibi Dong was very intelligent. After looking through the chart of human acupoints once, she had already thought of the complex relationships between the acupoints, as well as those between the acupoints and the human body.
She raised her head, propped a hand beneath her forehead, and stared blankly toward Long Qianming's room, her heart filled with admiration. Remembering so many acupoints was already immensely difficult, yet he also had to master the relationships between them to identify the causes of illnesses.
This was far beyond what anyone could accomplish in nine years!
"Could Long Qianming's master be very powerful? No wonder he didn't want my gold hairpin back then!"
At that thought, she felt incredibly fortunate. Luckily, she had forced the gold hairpin on Long Qianming then, or she would have missed out on such an outstanding divine physician.
It was just that his Soul Power was a little low. He was the same age as her, yet his cultivation was only at the Soul Grandmaster level.
When Bibi Dong opened the next book, the illustrated catalog of dried medicinal ingredients, her eyes filled with disbelief. Eagerly turning page after page, she kept leafing through the records of dried medicinal ingredients.
"Whoa! More than three hundred kinds! What are moon-gazing sand, coiling dragon of the left, and night-bright sand? And this..."
She had never seen the medicinal ingredients recorded there. There were only hand-drawn illustrations of the dried ingredients and a few precautions. Long Qianming had not included any more detailed explanations.
"Whatever. This divine physician is shrouded in mystery, and even his methods of treating illnesses and saving lives are so different. Tomorrow, I must ask him what exactly these medicinal ingredients are."
"I'm sleepy. Time for bed."
For some reason, Bibi Dong was particularly sleepy that day. Back at Spirit Hall, at this same hour, she would still have meditated for another hour before going to bed.
Just after Long Qianming and Bibi Dong had both entered dreamland, Ling Yuan stood beside a window in a hotel over two hundred meters away, gazing curiously at Long Qianming's clinic as a complicated feeling gradually rose within her.
"This little divine physician who made Dong'er forget her manners is quite good, but having Dong'er stay at the clinic isn't entirely appropriate. Dong'er is already approaching the rank-forty Soul Power bottleneck. If some trivial matters delay her Soul Power cultivation, then I'll-"
But on second thought, this Soul Grandmaster's medical skills were truly miraculous. Almost all of Gengxin City praised him highly. If Dong'er could use these six months to learn some of his medical skills, that would also be a good choice.
More importantly, the moment Bibi Dong had first made contact with Long Qianming, Ling Yuan had hurried to the Martial Soul Sub-Hall and retrieved all the detailed information on him.
Yet she had discovered that, apart from his approximate Soul Power Level and information known to ordinary people, Long Qianming's origins and background were unclear.
Two points did catch her attention, however. The first was that Long Qianming often hunted Soul Beasts alone at night, and most of the Soul Beasts he obtained were of the darkness attribute. That was easy enough to understand.
The second was that his Martial Soul was a spear, though he generally disliked using it.
Aside from those, the most important point was his excellent relationship with the Divine Craftsman Lou Gao. That was precisely an opening the Supreme Pontiff could use to bring the Blacksmith Association into the fold.
Based on these points, Ling Yuan would not interfere too much with Bibi Dong's decisions. As long as Bibi Dong did not act recklessly and Long Qianming did not teach her nonsense, she would not step out of the shadows into the open and take Bibi Dong back to Spirit City.
The next day, the first rays of morning sunlight spilled over the earth.
Long Qianming had prepared the medicinal meal bright and early.
Knock, knock, knock-
As the orderly knocking sounded, Long Qianming called from outside the door,
"Bibi Dong, come out and eat. Afterward, I'll explain the work you need to do in detail."
"All right, I'll be right there."
By then, Bibi Dong was already at the dressing table, carefully tending to her hair and appearance. She pulled open the door and walked toward the food, brimming with delight.
"Divine Physician Long, what delicious dishes did you make this morning? I thought yesterday's sweet-and-sour ribs were very good."
"Sweet-and-sour ribs first thing in the morning? Aren't you afraid of getting fat?"
Hearing Long Qianming's reply, Bibi Dong immediately shot back,
"No. Your food doesn't make people fat. I ate so much last night, and I'm still eight-"
She had spoken so quickly that she almost blurted out her weight. Bibi Dong hurried forward to avoid finding herself in an awkward situation.
After the two finished breakfast, Long Qianming brought her to the very front of the clinic. Pointing to the enormous medicine cabinet, over four meters tall and about seven meters wide, he introduced the medicinal ingredients in its little drawers to Bibi Dong one by one.
"This is white clove. It tastes rather bitter and smells unpleasant, but it also..."
"This is spirit-gathering grass. You should know something about it. It's commonly used to treat coughs."
"And this is chicken-dropping white. Its effects are similar to white clove's, and some medicinal meals call for it."
Whether they were medicinal ingredients common to this world or ingredients used in traditional Chinese medicine, Long Qianming gave her a brief introduction in simple, readily understandable language.
This would both deepen Bibi Dong's impression of the ingredients and make dispensing them faster later. Dispensing medicinal ingredients, a task with little difficulty, was one of Bibi Dong's duties.
When Long Qianming reached the medicine in the thirty-fifth drawer, Bibi Dong answered before he could speak.
"I know this one. It's flying squirrel droppings. It aids gastrointestinal digestion and is also an ingredient in medicinal meals."
"That's right. You read the illustrated catalog of medicinal ingredients last night."
Bibi Dong did not answer. She folded her arms across her chest, looking very confident. The next moment, however, she picked up a few bits of flying squirrel droppings and tasted them without Long Qianming's permission.
Instantly, her expression tightened, and she repeatedly spat out the flying squirrel droppings she had put into her mouth.
"Didn't the catalog say these flying squirrel droppings weren't bitter? Why do the ones I tasted differ from what the catalog said? They're not only bitter, but a little rank, too."
"Hahaha-"
At the sight, Long Qianming was momentarily speechless. Seeing Bibi Dong's somewhat comical appearance, he could not help laughing aloud before explaining awkwardly,
"You can't eat this medicinal ingredient dry. Although it won't do much harm to the human body, eating it like that is no different from swallowing rat droppings."