[This chapter contains my worst enemies: TCM and wuxia terms…
On the bright side, if this becomes even more of a wuxia novel, I’ll sure as h.e.l.l get plenty of practice.
Thanks for liking and commenting~ Enjoy~]
I sleep at dusk and awaken to sunset illuminating my face, a luxury I haven’t had in many years. If it weren’t for the aggravating ache from the welts on my back hitting the bed sheets, this would a perfect moment of a happy life.
I want to roll over onto my stomach to keep sleeping.
Yet there’s something placed against my lower abdomen. I turn some only to hear Jinzi’s voice say, “Don’t flail around.”
I open my eyes. It’s his hand that’s been placed there, nice and warm.
What’s this guy in such a hurry for?
I glance at him. “You’re taking of advantage of me while I’m sleeping?”
His face goes red, saying unhappily, “How can you think that? I’m healing you!” Oh, so this is the mythical qi-transfer healing? My curiosity is immediately piqued.
This is fine too. Ancient pharmaceuticals have always been a bit lacking, and there’s no antibiotics, so if it gets inflamed, infected, or festers, it’ll leave bad scars. Speaking of, I should give my thanks to Yuan Qingyun here, with his fortunately evil intentions of using that method to beat me. Were my skin to be cut up, it likely wouldn’t have been easy to prevent scarring. That that one c.o.c.kroach Seiya said ‘scars are a man’s medals’, I’d rather have clear and smooth skin.
I comfortably await Jinzi’s internal force healing-slash-full body ma.s.sage, but he just kept his hand pressed motionless against my abdomen. Slowly, a current of warm qi penetrates through to the place where the dantian’s sea of qi reportedly would be.
I feel extraordinarily weird. “Jinzi…” I can’t help but call out.
“Don’t talk,” he says deeply. “Don’t move.”
Him being so serious, I obediently shut my mouth.
Gradually, I sensed that long thread of force that he pa.s.sed into me seem to be pulling at something within me, just like the rolled up strands of candyfloss you’d bite into when you were little.
The unknown substance ama.s.sed inside me slowly rotates under his spurring, turning faster, and faster, as if it’s a progressively spreading vortex, and I’m progressively unable control myself. The spinning ball of stuff emits a dense chill that spreads to my limbs and gets more and more powerful – it’s obviously the beginning of summer, yet I’m freezing, teeth chattering, whole body shuddering.
“Jinzi…” I really can’t take it, my trembling voice calling for help.
“Shh,” he says. “Bear with it some more.” I discovered that his head was drenched in sweat, his face a bit pale.
“It’s cold…” I stretch out a shivering had to hold his own, trying to absorb a bit of warmth.
He grabbed it, a stream of warm qi pa.s.sing into my body from his hand, and I promptly felt a lot better.
In this way, I relied upon the support of Jinzi’s bit of warmth in the sinister chill, that fierce cold qi lead by his strong qi into me and continuously seeping into every corner of my body. I think of the so-called true qi circulation ‘Microcosmic Orbit‘ in wuxia novels.
The cold qi itself is getting fiercer, and the warmth coming to me through his hand is getting weaker. When I can no longer maintain my shakes and slight whimpers, he’ll grit his teeth and increase it, but the help doesn’t last long.
When the cold qi was driven back into my dantian from the guidance of Jinzi’s true qi, I finally loosened up. The qi revolved slower and slower until it finally settled down completely, not even a hint of chill left.
I feel refreshed. No- specialists would say that I’m completely revitalized. Even the whip marks don’t hurt as much, which is truly startling and delightful. “Jinzi…” His body suddenly sunk, then his whole person collapsed onto me.
I turn white with fright and hold him. He looks pale and ashen, eyes shut tight, whole body sweating, and limbs entirely limp.
“Jinzi? Jinzi!” I was scared and pained, but martial arts stuff isn’t something I can help with, so I call out, “Get in here!”
Hong Feng and Old Tian seemed to have been keeping watch outside, as they immediately bust the door open when they heard my call, likely thinking something had happened to me, only to be completely surprised by Jinzi lying in my arms. Hong Feng is absolutely calm, saying, “Lay Young Master Yao flat on the bed first, Sir.”
I do as she says. The interspersed movements pulled painfully at my wounds, but I couldn’t care less. Hong Feng stepped forward to feel Jinzi’s pulse, closed her eyes in concentration, then exhaled a long moment later. “It’s nothing major, Sir. Young Master Yao’s internal force is just severely depleted.”
I sigh slightly in relief. Though that’s all it is, concern makes one panic, after all.
Hong Feng turned her head and spoke to Old Tian. “Senior Tian, please lend this junior some of your strength.”
Old Tian salutes her very respectfully. “Yes, Miss Feng.”
The two of them each grabbed one of Jinzi’s hands and closed their eyes, probably transferring their internal force to him. It wasn’t long before I saw Old Tian’s sweat pouring down like rain and a white mist coming from Hong Feng’s head. Unable to help at all, I had no choice but to wait. I catch a glimpse of Hong Feng’s still-puffy eyes; it’s very likely that she kept crying for a long time after she went back. I’ve had a good opinion of this woman from the start to now, and I’m also occupying her beloved’s body, so I’ve always felt somewhat ashamed towards her, and inevitably feel bad for her.
I knew Hong Feng was a martial artist, and now it’s apparent that her skills might stand above Old Tian’s. She’d said once before that she had been the disciple of some kind of G.o.d-Nun, so according to that, she should be a doubly rare talent, a sword-wielding traveling hero within the Four Seas. Position and fame in the martial arts world is based entirely on respect, so for her to be a heroine whose might knows no bounds would be becoming. How could she lower herself to be Zhang Qinglian’s maid with benefits?
Even if she came from a humble family and can’t be a first wife, being a concubine is already doing her a complete disgrace, but actually being a sidepiece maid? What was Zhang Qinglian thinking?
She should at least have a tragic affection for Zhang Qinglian. I must be careful not to let her see the cracks in my mask, and above all, I can’t let her know that Jinzi had harmed Zhang. Even if she’s determined to be no match for Jinzi, but when a person wants to kill someone else, it isn’t necessary for their martial arts to be stronger than the other’s. Furthermore, the feeling of having someone constantly thinking about wanting to kill you is a difficult one to bear.
While my imagination went wild, Jinzi came to. He saw my anxious face and gave me a faint smile. “Don’t worry. I’m fine.” His voice is very weak.
Hong Feng and Old Tian were relieved, both releasing his hands, their expressions unbearably worn-out. Hong Feng wiped her sweat with her sleeve, saying, “It’s alright now. I’ll tell the kitchen to send over ginseng soup in a while from the wild ginseng growing in the storehouse.”
“Have them stew up a bit more. You two should also have some to regain your strength.”
They’re both startled. Hong Feng’s gaze starts to roam, pa.s.sing over me quickly and in a complicated pattern. Old Tian is thoroughly touched, his rough voice a little hoa.r.s.e as he spoke. “You are truly empathetic, Sir. When Everfragrant suddenly caught fire yesterday, I broke into it but couldn’t find you at all. This lowly one really could have died from worry. If you’d met your end, Sir, a hundred deaths wouldn’t redeem me.”
I reach out and pat Old Tian on the shoulder. “You did your best, don’t worry about it. There’s still other matters…” I instructed him to get in touch with Old Zhu and have him look into who paid for and supplied the Everfragrant House. Even if the House’s behind-the-scenes owner isn’t that “Lord”, he’d be more or less a big fish. It’s just a shame that that won’t be simple to find out now that it’s burnt. However, I suddenly remembered from that one time Lin Guiquan showed his face that he said he knew this place’s owner, and also mentioned that he would buy Yuan Qingyun and send him to me. It’s also very likely he took off to escape blame. I’ll have to think of a way to entrap him with words some other day.
I once again have Hong Feng fetch a brush and paper to write a short letter to Shao Qing informing him of the matter with Yuan Qingyun, and then had her tie it to a pigeon’s leg and let it go.
They quickly finish up and leave. Though my external injuries are quite serious, I actually can’t feel them very strongly. Looking back at Jinzi, he’s in the process of self-regulating his breathing. I dare not disturb him, patiently waiting until he opens his eyes.
“Awake, Jinzi?” I’m ecstatic.
His complexion looks a lot better.
“How do you feel?” He asks me sternly.
Even a know-nothing like the current me knows that he was using his internal force to open up my eight extraordinary vessels for me, like those conception and governing vessels and so on. However, aren’t those that can put forth this effort also those quickly-immortalizing, out-of-this-world-cla.s.s people in wuxia novels? Seems my Jinzi is really uncommonly fearsome.
I unconsciously said this as I thought it. He can’t keep himself from laughing. “How could I have that level of cultivation? I haven’t even fully opened my own first two vessels yet. There’s someone talented enough in this world to do that for people? Where’d you hear that, Qiaochu? I want to meet them. So there really are people above people, and mountains outside mountains.”
I obviously can’t say that it was in the wuxia novels I read when I had nothing to do in school, so I had to give a vague response, but he luckily didn’t pry, instead informing me, “What I did was a transference exercise to unblock your muscle meridians. Now you can use your internal force again. It’s just that the Jade Spider Arts… for one, it uses bites with yin poison [1], and for two, the exercises it used to function were destroyed, and I don’t have a clear understanding of them. In the secret record my master left behind is a set of mental cultivation methods [2] – it’s an effeminate route to go, but it’s still from a genuine Daoist school. I spent these past few days mulling it over and altering it slightly until I was sure it wouldn’t conflict with your Arts, and now I can pa.s.s the incantation to you.”
He teaches me the method for internal exercises via the methods. There’s so many new special nouns for me. I don’t know the names of the acupoints. What’s the ‘Purple Mansion’? [3] What’s the ‘Flock’s Middle?’ [4] He has to explain them one by one, and as a result the lesson isn’t finished until the Jade Rabbit [5] is jumping on the branches of willows.
He said, “Having you recover your inner strength can’t wait. Things are getting more dangerous recently, and a bit more strength to protect yourself is always useful. I’ve been too c.o.c.ky all my life. I always thought that protecting you would be some small thing for me, but now I realize that one person’s power just isn’t enough sometimes. Furthermore, that depressed internal force within you from that qi deviation is always a risk, so it’s better to settle your qi right now.”
This is my first taste of being a martial arts expert! I’m super excited, bothering Jinzi about teaching me how to hit acupoints and do qinggong. My nagging dizzied him, and he had to convince me to wait until my body was better, and then he’d teach me what I wanted to learn.
I like wuxia/xuanhuan stuff, but whenever they start talking about a million different types of qi and veins and vessels and meridians and qi/yun/wugong and whatever, I swear my brain just flat out breaks.
[1] Tentative, literal translation (阴毒反噬). The main problem is I can’t tell if it refers to an actual bite with actual poison, or if it’s just saying that it’s a really shady and underhanded sort of moveset. It is called Jade Spider, so it involving bites wouldn’t really be weird… I guess… but I’ll edit this once I’m sure.
[2] TL;DR, these involve reading and reciting chants, often . The only reason I can think of for it being ‘effeminate’ is that it’s a bit intimate and doesn’t involve being violent? Jinzi’s pretty preoccupied on how girly things are, huh.
[3] Either refers to a Daoist immortal’s literal residence, or the name for the acupoint above the chest cavity… I think.
[4] It’s the acupoint for the center of the chest.
[5] The moon’s lunar mare is often interpreted to be rabbit-shaped, so when the moon is framed behind the branches of a tree, it’s thought of to be hopping.