A cat's meow?
Chen Ji fell into thought. So no one else could hear Dark Cloud speak.
It wasn't that Dark Cloud had learned to speak human language. It was that he could understand the language of cats!
He changed the subject. "Senior Brother Liu, why are you still awake in the middle of the night?"
Liu Quxing looked at the General Outline of Medicine lying open on the counter and said weakly, "You're working so hard to review your lessons that it's hard for me to sleep..."
Chen Ji silently closed the General Outline of Medicine. "..."
He wasn't reviewing his lessons to become an imperial physician, but to conceal his identity. Liu Quxing wouldn't see it that way, though.
Liu Quxing leaned closer and lowered his voice. "My family came to ask Master to see a patient today. They happened to ask whether he had any personal disciples yet."
"What did Master say?"
"Master said he'd soon decide who his personal disciple would be," Liu Quxing said.
Chen Ji used a bamboo pick to adjust the lampwick, making the light a little brighter. "What do you mean by that, Senior Brother?"
Liu Quxing pulled the padded jacket draped over his shoulders closer and considered his words. "Chen Ji, an imperial physician may have an easy life, but he's still part of officialdom. It's not so easy to get by there. One wrong step, and your entire family could be executed."
Chen Ji was puzzled. "What exactly are you trying to say, Senior Brother Liu?"
For once, Liu Quxing spoke earnestly. "Neither you nor She Dengke is suited to officialdom. Your knowledge, your understanding of how to deal with people, and your connections mean that even if you entered officialdom, you'd have no future. And since your family is no longer willing to pay your apprenticeship fees, Chen Ji, I'll give you some money. Leave the clinic and start a small business. You'll never need to rely on your family to support you again. What do you say?"
Chen Ji gave no indication of agreement or disagreement.
Liu Quxing finally said, "Chen Ji, since you came to the clinic, you've been slower at learning characters than even She Dengke, and you can't take a pulse accurately. You don't have the talent to inherit Master's mantle. Give up."
Chen Ji smiled. "You've given this a great deal of thought for my sake, Senior Brother, but could you let me think it over?"
"All right." Liu Quxing nodded. "Then give it some thought."
With that, he turned and went back to the courtyard.
But Chen Ji saw a black shadow dart out from beneath the counter after Liu Quxing.
Fortunately, he was quick of eye and hand. He caught Dark Cloud by the scruff and pulled the cat back. "What are you doing?"
Dark Cloud flailed and clawed furiously in midair. "He looks down on you!"
Chen Ji didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "You aren't very polite to me either."
Dark Cloud said, "That's different!"
"All right, all right, I understand him," Chen Ji sighed. "In this era, it isn't easy for anyone to fight their way toward a future. When an opportunity comes along, they have to seize it..."
Before he finished speaking, Chen Ji's expression abruptly changed. A quarter past the start of the chou hour, the icy current arrived as expected, like slush flowing through his blood.
This time, the icy current came more violently than ever. It and the molten current seemed to share a feud ten thousand years old, naturally incompatible.
The icy current seeped through his body bit by bit, as though an ice tree were growing inside him, endlessly spreading its branches and leaves. Even the breath Chen Ji exhaled was white with frost.
In the space of a single breath, the icy current didn't even give him a chance to assume the Stone-Bearing Stance before he gradually began to freeze like a statue.
What could he do?
Stiffly, Chen Ji slowly turned toward the medicine cabinet. He tried to struggle over and get the ginseng, only to find that his legs had lost all feeling at some point, frozen in place!
Dark Cloud stared at the frosty breath leaving Chen Ji's mouth, stunned. "What... what's wrong?"
Chen Ji tried to ask Dark Cloud to help him find the ginseng, but found that his lips had already stuck together. He could only watch his life slip away bit by bit...
No, there was still a chance!
Seeing Chen Ji's dreadful condition, Dark Cloud had lost composure in a panic and was circling around him.
Dark Cloud wanted to save Chen Ji, but had no idea how. "Say something! What should I do?"
The next moment, Dark Cloud noticed that Chen Ji was staring fixedly in one direction... Following his gaze, the cat saw that it led straight to the clinic's medicine cabinet.
Dark Cloud leaped onto the medicine cabinet and pulled open drawer after drawer with a paw. The cat didn't know what was in them, but there had to be a reason Chen Ji was staring so hard at the cabinet!
The medicine cabinet was packed with drawers, and Dark Cloud didn't know which to take from. The cat simply pulled them all open as fast as possible, then carried the medicinal ingredients over one by one to try them!
Angelica root. No.
Aged tangerine peel. No.
Desert cistanche. No, not that either.
Dark Cloud failed again and again, frantic enough to go mad.
When Dark Cloud looked back again, the light had already gone out of Chen Ji's eyes.
Chen Ji seemed to have returned to that long night.
There was the sound of wind, the sound of rain, and the sound of oars cutting through water. Someone was carrying him through a black sea of clouds in a little boat.
In that darkness, he heard a sound: the battle cries he had often heard in his dreams as a child!
The sound seemed to thunder across an ancient battlefield. Seawater hung upside down, mountains collapsed, and even the heavens split open with dozens of cracks.
In the boundless void, a mighty voice rang out like a great bell, demanding:
"Who stole my Divine Dao?"
"Who stole my Sword Seed?"
"Who stole my Green Mountain!"
Chen Ji didn't answer, nor did he know how to answer.
Who was the other party? What did Divine Dao, Sword Seed, and Green Mountain refer to? He had no idea.
After a long silence, the mighty voice finally spoke again. "So be it. I can use your body to return to the world!"
Chen Ji had a premonition that when he was completely frozen, the other party would use his body to come back to life!
Could it be that Li Qingniao had sent him to this world to help this unknown being awaken?
Was he going to die? But he had only just gotten a cat.
Chen Ji's thoughts wandered. He was already at death's door.
But just then, Dark Cloud came racing back with a ginseng root missing its rootlets in the cat's mouth and brought it to Chen Ji's lips!
The instant the old ginseng touched Chen Ji, it sucked away more than half the icy current as though a whale were drawing in water. It turned into six crystal-clear beads that fell onto the counter and rolled toward its edge.
He was saved!
Before he could be completely frozen, Chen Ji used the last of his strength to shift his gaze, hoping Dark Cloud would understand what he meant.
And amid that despair, Dark Cloud truly did seize that thread of life for him.
The next moment, Dark Cloud chased after the beads rolling across the counter, swallowing them one by one.
A vast molten current flowed back from Dark Cloud, entering the point between Chen Ji's brows. It drove all the remaining icy current back into his dantian, washed through his body, and pulled him out of the darkness!
Once he regained consciousness and the ability to move, he immediately shut his eyes tight, lowered his legs, and bent his knees, using the Stone-Bearing Stance to resist the icy current.
Once he assumed the Stone-Bearing Stance, the molten current suddenly surged and rose!
It was like an army that had once had no commander but now had a general. The general rode an armored warhorse and carried the royal standard!
Chen Ji wondered why the Stone-Bearing Stance Old Yao had casually taught him suited him so well.
Wait!
After the molten current suppressed the icy current and drove it back into his dantian, it was drawn to the Tianshu acupoint on the left side of his dantian, which swallowed nearly all of the molten current like a whirlpool!
In an instant, a vigorous furnace fire ignited within the Tianshu acupoint. The icy current in his dantian shrank farther into its depths, as though somewhat afraid of the furnace fire.
With this furnace fire guarding the Tianshu acupoint, will I be able to suppress the icy current completely? No, one acupoint isn't enough.
Among the twelve primary meridians, there were four "gates of the dantian": the left and right Tianshu acupoints and the left and right Daju acupoints. Lighting only one Tianshu acupoint was not enough to seal away the icy current.
Unfortunately, after igniting the left Tianshu acupoint, there was little molten current left...
As he pondered, Dark Cloud gently raised a paw and touched the furry paw to the tip of Chen Ji's index finger.
Boom!
All the molten current in Dark Cloud's body also poured into Chen Ji, rushing straight to the right Tianshu acupoint and igniting a second furnace fire!
The two furnace fires continually suffused Chen Ji's body. Surging, abundant strength coursed through him, sweeping away his fatigue and making him a little stronger!
He suddenly recalled what Old Yao had said: "Heaven has three treasures: the sun, the moon, and the stars. Man has three treasures: essence! Qi! Spirit!"
When essence was abundant, one felt no lust; when Qi was abundant, one felt no hunger; when spirit was abundant, one felt no need for sleep. So this was what it felt like to be full of Qi and spirit!
Chen Ji opened his eyes. They shone with vigor, as though flames were burning in their depths.
So this was cultivation!
He smiled at Dark Cloud, reached out to stroke the cat's head, and said softly, "Thank you."
"It really wasn't much trouble," Dark Cloud said, head held high, as though the cat had casually done a small thing.
"Mm, thank you all the same. Without you, I'd already be dead... Dark Cloud, you're the most amazing kitty in the world!"
"Not bad, I suppose. This is nothing!" Dark Cloud raised the cat's head even higher.
The oil-dreg lamp on the counter had been burning for a long time, and its flame was gradually dimming. Chen Ji stood in the main hall, his gaze like fire as he looked over the new world before him.
But that fire was soon doused by a bucket of cold water: the ginseng was gone!
Chen Ji said, "I'm done for!"
Dark Cloud was puzzled. "What's done for?"
"I'm done for."
Chen Ji sprang up and took out the clinic's accounts, searching through them. "Let me see how much that ginseng was worth... What the hell? Thirty taels of silver?!"
"A bun costs two copper coins, and hauling a vat of water earns two copper coins. Right now, about nine hundred copper coins can be exchanged for one tael of silver, and this one fifty-year-old ginseng root costs thirty taels of silver. Is it made of gold?!"
Even selling Chen Ji wouldn't cover it!
He was already burdened with debts of two hundred and forty copper coins in apprenticeship fees and three hundred and twenty copper coins for the Zhou household's medicine. Now another thirty taels of gleaming silver had been added, piling frost upon snow for a household that was already far from well-off!
"I'm so poor. How am I this poor? If I can't replace that ginseng, will Old Yao kill me?"
Dark Cloud listened to Chen Ji mutter for a while, then remained silent for a while.
At last, after a long struggle, the cat seemed to make a heartrending decision. "How about you take me to the heavenly street to perform for money? I can do backflips!"
Chen Ji was filled with respect. "...That really is a great sacrifice."
As they spoke, there came a knock from outside the clinic.
Knock, knock, knock.
Knock, knock, knock.
The visitor knocked twice in succession, unhurriedly. The dull sound was especially jarring at midnight, as though it were knocking directly on his heart.
Chen Ji signaled with his eyes for Dark Cloud to climb back into Prince Jing's Estate through the rear courtyard, then slowly approached the door. "Who is it?" he asked warily.
The visitor answered with a light laugh. "Cloud Goat."
This time, Chen Ji didn't have his master by his side.