Meridian Internal Medicine

Hu Mang was not Mom Hu's biological son.

After all, a vixen could only give birth to little foxes, not an abandoned baby with seven severed meridians.

By the same token, "Dad Hu" was not Hu Mang's biological father either.

He was his stepfather.

The three of them were a blended family.

Back when Hu Mang had still been working his tail off building infrastructure on Java Island, stealing Spiritual Qi on the side whenever he had time, he had heard that his mom had found herself a companion.

At the time, he had thought that was fine.

After all, he was away from home all year round, and there was no one to keep his mom company. It was nice for her to have a companion.

He just didn't know what species his "stepfather" was: a male fox or a fresh-faced young man.

If he was a male fox, then under Heavenly Gate inheritance law, a fox demon had no right of inheritance.

If he was human, there was reproductive isolation between humans and fox demons.

So whether he was human or demon, Hu Mang, as her good son, could sit tight on the fishing platform.

As it turned out, he had still underestimated his mom. She hadn't found a human or a demon. She had found an artifact spirit!

An artifact spirit was one thing, but more amazingly, the artifact spirit was stolen.

The whole situation had jumped straight from "inheritance rights" to "property ownership."

When Hu Mang returned, he had wanted to discuss the subject with his mom.

But he had never found the time.

When he finally had time, his mom had disappeared.

Hu Mang stood by the window, arms folded, and looked "Dad Hu" up and down.

He was a refined, well-mannered middle-aged man with rimless glasses and a gentle expression.

Aside from the fact that he wasn't moving, he looked perfectly fine.

A cup of tea would have completed the picture.

"Did that legendary ancient handsome man, Xie Xianyu, look like this?"

Hu Mang strongly suspected that his mom had shaped this face in the image of her old flame.

Then Hu Mang retreated without a word.

It wasn't that he didn't want to investigate what his "stepfather" was made of, or whether he was that rumored "Daoist arts large model."

But he was worried that the other party might suddenly attack and give him a savage beating.

After all, he was only at the Qi Refining Realm now, and his body couldn't take being taken apart.

Though he wasn't his mom's biological son, he trusted her one hundred percent not to harm him.

But the same was hard to say for this "stepfather."

He wasn't very familiar with his "stepfather."

As it turned out, he had underestimated his mom yet again.

Mom Hu didn't come home all night.

Hu Mang tried to contact her several times in the meantime, but none of his calls went through.

If his mom's identity weren't a little unusual, he would have wanted to call the police.

After all, asking the Demon Suppression Bureau to find a missing thousand-year-old fox demon wasn't quite appropriate.

What if those Demon Suppression guards got the wrong idea and skinned his mom and pulled out her tendons?

"Mom, with your brains and the way you do things, you're nothing like a thousand-year-old fox demon."

Hu Mang had been back less than three days, and his head was already starting to ache.

His foundation had suffered grievous damage, making him a textbook disabled cultivator, the kind who needed looking after. Yet his mom had run away from home.

Mom, you're not an eighteen-year-old girl anymore. How can you be so unreliable?

Oh, right, his mom had another secret even more troublesome than her status as a "Heavenly Gate first-class protected demon."

His mom had "come back from the dead."

The reason was unknown.

The method was unknown.

The mastermind was unknown.

According to his mom's own account, back when she was still a young girl—no, a young vixen-

A coup had just broken out in the Liang Dynasty. A new political faction had overthrown the unreliable old emperor, and the emperor who took the throne had launched a vast northern campaign.

And then it had succeeded.

The military leader in charge of the northern campaign had been none other than Xie Xianyu, the man hailed as unmatched in his age.

That ancient handsome man had swept through the Northern Dynasty three times, purging its barbarian customs. He had even ventured beyond the frontier several times to strike the Tiele and the Wula People in the north.

And then he had worked himself to death.

His mom, after failing to extend the ancient handsome man's life with the "Demon Race Secret Art: Moon Fox Life-Bearing Instruction," had suffered a backlash and died as well.

Then, for no apparent reason, she had come back to life in modern times.

She had wandered in a daze through this modern world of cultivation, then by a chance turn of fate picked up an abandoned infant on the verge of death and used the Demon Race secret art once more.

This time, the "Moon Fox Life-Bearing Instruction" had succeeded.

And so he, Hu Mang, had survived.

To be honest, if he hadn't been saved by the "Moon Fox Life-Bearing Instruction,"

Hu Mang might even have suspected, as he once had, that his mom had watched too many historical romance dramas and imagined the whole grand tale.

Theoretically, his mom had indeed lived from the Liang Dynasty until the establishment of the New Heavenly Gate. Counting the years, she was a textbook "thousand-year-old fox demon."

But in fact, it hadn't taken his mom nearly that long to grow from an ignorant, uncivilized young fox lady who wasn't quite clearheaded into a middle-aged woman—or rather, a middle-aged vixen—with little education.

"My mom hasn't been dealing with that bunch, has she?"

Hu Mang frowned.

Even coming back to life from ancient times was already quite bizarre.

But more bizarre still, it seemed his mom wasn't the only one who had come back to life. There were other "things" too.

These "things" included all manner of "demons, monsters, ghosts, and ghouls." For example, when Hu Mang was little, he had met a tree demon granny—a tree demon in the literal sense.

But this granny was "younger" than his mom. She hadn't come from the Liang Dynasty, but from the "Yu Dynasty."

In Heavenly Gate textbooks, the "Yu Dynasty" was already the last feudal dynasty; after that came modern and contemporary history.

This granny had actually seen the last emperor.

Besides this group of people who had "come back from the dead," Hu Mang had realized something else a long time ago.

There was another group secretly helping these people who had "come back from the dead" integrate into society.

The most direct evidence, for instance, was that after his mom had "come back to life," she had been able to draw a retirement pension, and a fairly substantial one at that.

His tuition from childhood onward had been paid almost entirely with his mom's pension. After all, he had attended quite a few cram schools as a child.

Hu Mang had once suspected that this "force behind the scenes" was actually the Heavenly Gate authorities.

But he had never seen any information about it through official channels, and his mom was also extremely tight-lipped about this force.

Whether she was contacting those other "reincarnators" or meeting the "manipulators behind the scenes," he had plenty of reason to worry.

He hoped his mom had just gone out to clear her head and would come back afterward.

Just as Hu Mang was sighing and fretting, he saw "Dad Hu" stroll out of the room and sit down opposite him with a smile.

"Dad?" Hu Mang ventured.

"Hello," "Dad Hu" said with a smile.

"Do you eat?"

"I don't need to eat."

"Do you know where my mom went?"

"I don't know exactly where she went, but if she's in danger, I suggest you contact the Demon-Suppressing Bureau."

"..."

A missing mom, a senile dad, and a badly injured son.

Life was looking more and more promising.

Hu Mang looked outside at the brightening sky and let out a long breath.

"All right, stay home, then. I'm going to the hospital to see a doctor. If my mom comes back, tell her to call me."

"Okay," the other party said with a smile.

Hu Mang looked him over a few more times, still uneasy, but finally decided to head out.

He had no choice. He should have gone straight to the hospital on his first day back.

Instead, he had put it off until today.

And perhaps because he had forcibly activated his "red fox bloodline," he felt he could barely keep the turbid Qi suppressed. His hands and feet were showing clear signs of refusing to obey him.

So today he didn't even take a shared flying sword. He called a flying boat and went straight to the best local hospital.

Hundred Herbs Spirit Hall.

A spirit hall?

For some reason, Hu Mang felt the urge to make a sarcastic remark.

What followed was the usual registration procedure. The only thing worth mentioning was that Hu Mang registered with meridian internal medicine.

Before long, a Golden Core doctor received him.

The doctor was a balding middle-aged man who looked older than his years. One glance told Hu Mang he was highly competent.

Facing a cultivator of this level, Hu Mang naturally didn't use the Blood-Piercing Essence-Reversal Art to conceal his condition, and a great deal of grayish blue surfaced on his skin.

"Turbid Qi has invaded your body. Why is it so severe?" The doctor immediately frowned.

"Yeah, I had the terrible luck to run into a 'turbid eye.'"

"What do you do for work?"

"Haul bricks and mix concrete."

"Did you break into some thousand-year-old tomb while laying a foundation?" the doctor asked, puzzled.

Hu Mang smiled but didn't answer.

You're a good judge of character.

Fortunately, the doctor had no intention of probing further.

He took Hu Mang by the wrist and sent a stream of pure plant Spiritual Qi into his body.

"Your meridians actually haven't been burst apart by the turbid Qi. Did you use some Secret Method to drive it into your acupoints?" the doctor asked.

"Yes."

"What Secret Method?"

"Dragon-Suppressing Stake."

The doctor gave Hu Mang a few more looks in surprise.

"Did you graduate from the Southern Capital Academy?"

"Doctor, how did you know?"

"Only the Southern Capital Academy has the inheritance of the Dragon-Suppressing Stake, and the earth and wood essence Qi in your body is so active. It wasn't hard to guess."

"You practiced Nine Revolutions Foundation Establishment, right? If your foundation weren't so strong, I'm afraid you'd be worse off than merely falling to the fifth or sixth layer of Qi Refining. All your cultivation would have been dissolved. What a pity. It was rare for the earth and Wood Element to produce a genius."

The Golden Core doctor's expression turned serious, and he frowned.

"This is a little troublesome. If it were just one stream of turbid Qi entering your body, we could simply cleanse and refine your meridians."

"Even with this much turbid Qi, as long as your meridians haven't burst, it's not as if there's no way to treat it. It would merely take a few years of recuperation."

"But you used the Dragon-Suppressing Stake to drive the turbid Qi into your acupoints. That makes it almost impossible to resolve."

The doctor pointed, and his Divine Sense directly outlined Hu Mang's "lower Dantian." Rings of "acupoints" lit up one after another.

There were more than a dozen acupoints in each ring, and eight rings lit up in all. Nearly a hundred acupoints shone like stars across the "lower Dantian."

But at this moment, more than half the acupoints had turned gray-black.

"The human body is a miniature world. The lower Dantian is where the meridians converge, and the 365 acupoints are reflected within the Dantian. Nearly a third of yours are blocked."

"Even if the turbid Qi were expelled from your meridians, you wouldn't be able to switch Cultivation Methods and start over, because these acupoints are used by almost every cultivation method currently in existence."

The doctor waved his hand, dispersing the image made with his Divine Sense, and stood up.

"Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"I can't handle this. I'll take you to see my grandmaster. He's already semiretired, but since this involves Calamity Ash, it's enough to trouble him."

"Your grandmaster? Who is he?"

"The hospital's vice director, a Nascent Soul Realm doctor. He's currently in charge of the Golden Core department." The doctor glanced back at Hu Mang and asked in puzzlement,

"With a serious case like yours, why didn't you go straight to him?"

"I tried, but I couldn't get a specialist appointment," Hu Mang answered honestly.