“Ehem,” the Great Physician clears his throat, interrupting the three people arguing in front of the broken Stone Prophet. And just like that, the Martial Testing Pavilion goes quiet again.
With everyone looking at the Great Physician, Lan Jin wonders what he’s about to say. However, he quickly realizes that the Great Physician has nothing to say to the three of them, and instead, he asks Lan Jin, “I’m sure you came here to do more than just stand around, correct?”
Lan Jin nods his head and then turns toward the Pavilion Master before asking, “Can I register now? I already used the mirror and the Stone Prophet, so if I use the Bloodline Testing Basin am I good? Or is there something else I need to do also?”
The Pavilion Master looks at him and then at the broken Stone Prophet and the once-again reflective surface of the bronze mirror. He is clearly upset after being pulled away from the conversation he was having with Qiang Yu and the young master of the Feng Clan, but as he looks between Lan Jin and the Great Physician, he only hesitates for a moment before nodding his head. “Yes, yes. Just— well, let’s get it done quickly. I’m sure you’ve been waiting long enough.”
Then, he adopts a pleasant smile and walks toward the Bloodline Testing Basin while waiting for Lan Jin to approach.
Not wanting this to carry on any longer, Lan Jin quickly walks up to him and asks, “So, I’m guessing I’ve got to bleed, but how much do I have to bleed?”
Clearing his throat, the Pavilion Master says, “Just a few drops will do. So long as the blood in the smaller basins doesn’t react, then everything is fine.”
“Gotcha,” Lan Jin nods and looks at the Bloodline Testing Basin again. Now that he is closer, he can see that the smaller basins attached to the larger basin all have small glass spheres inside them, and inside of the glass spheres are drops of blood.
However, the thing that bothers him is not the blood, but instead the dagger next to the basin. To his eyes, it seems clean. However, he has no clue how it was cleaned and if it is actually sanitized or if it just looks clean and is actually covered in bacteria and viruses. So, not wanting to get a magical STD from a dagger, Lan Jin lifts up his left hand to his face and bites the tip of his middle finger until his skin breaks. Then, as he receives a strange look from the Pavilion Master and who-knows-how-many other people, Lan Jin squeezes the tip of his finger until a few drops of blood fall into the large basin.
Unsurprisingly, absolutely nothing happens.
“So, am I good?” Lan Jin asks.
The Pavilion Master nods his head once and says, “Just one moment,” before pulling a rectangular slip of black metal out of his robe as well as a set of tools that look like chisels and also a small hammer.
“What is your name?” He asks Lan Jin.
“Lan Jin.”
Looking at Lan Jin’s blue eyes and blond hair, the Pavilion Master asks, “Are the characters you use the characters for the color blue and the color gold?”
“Yeah,” Lan Jin nods.
Then, the Pavilion Master uses the chisels and the hammer on the rectangular piece of metal before pulling out a bottle of red liquid, pouring it on the metal, and then pouring the excess liquid back into the bottle before fanning the piece of metal lightly. After a minute, he hands it to Lan Jin who gingerly grabs it with both hands.
“Make sure you keep that with you at all times,” the Pavilion Master warns and then hesitates as he clearly thinks about saying something else. However, when he looks at the Great Physician watching on with a smile on his face, he ultimately chooses not to. Instead, he says, “Welcome to the city, young man.”
The Pavilion Master then turns back to Qiang Yu and the young master of the Feng Clan, but before he can head over to them, Minister Qiu starts bawling. “A-aren’t you my g-good b-brother? Why are you h-helping him? He t-trapped me!”
Minister Qiu nearly sounds incoherent, and the Pavilion Master can’t help but sigh as he casts one glance toward the two arguing young people in front of the Stone Prophet. In the end, though, he turns back to Minister Qiu and, despite Minister Qiu struggling against it, escorts him away while saying, “Come on. Let’s go get you some water.”
While the Pavilion Master takes care of Minister Qiu, Lan Jin looks at the piece of metal he was handed. It’s fairly simple as far as identification goes, but he thinks it looks pretty nice for having been made in just a couple of minutes. Only about the size of his palm, it has the characters for ‘Qiang’ and ‘City’ written on the back side of the metal surrounded by engravings of mountains. On the opposite side, it has the characters making up his new name, one above the other. The characters are filled with the red ink the Pavilion Master poured onto the piece of metal, which has already hardened, so they stand out nicely against the otherwise plain-black background.
Though, as he looks at his new identification, Lan Jin feels as though there is little point to it as it doesn’t even have his picture. If anyone else were to grab it, they could easily pose as him.
Lan Jin figures it doesn’t matter seeing as nobody had bothered asking him for identification so far, and he decides to return to the Great Physician’s side only to be intercepted by Hu Qiuping, Hu Shentian, and Hu Gongniu. When he sees them, he lets out a brief smile before asking, “Where have you guys been?”
Glancing at the Great Physician, Hu Qiuping says, “We… were delayed a little bit, but everything is fine. Better than fine, in fact, because we got a good deal selling all of the natural treasures. In fact, we made quite a bit of money from them!”
“Really?” Lan Jin asks happily. Then, his voice low, he asks, “How much?”
Holding out his hand with five fingers extended, Hu Qiuping grins.
“Five? Like, fifty silver— no, that’s not right. We got about a third of that with one plant. Five hundred? Five hundred silver? Five gold?” Lan Jin asks, stunned.
In response, Hu Qiuping nods, his grin still present on his face.
“How did we even get that much?” Lan Jin asks.
“It was that plant you found in the water,” Hu Gongniu says, sounding a little exhausted after doing all of the hardest work over the course of the day. As for Hu Shentian, he looks like he is about to pass out.
“Mmm,” Hu Qiuping nods. “It was something called a Water Thistle. Apparently, it is worth around three gold coins by itself! And that’s just the price we sold it for. A shop would probably turn around and sell it for double that if they bought it.”
“If a shop bought it? What do you mean? Did you not sell it at a shop?”
Hu Qiuping shakes his head. “The Great Physician bought most of our natural treasures. We only sold whatever he didn’t want to a shop. But because of that, we made out with more money than we would have otherwise.”
Hu Qiuping then explains their encounter with the Great Physician and how he’d asked him to take a look at Lan Jin. Lan Jin had an idea of how the Great Physician showed up when he said he had offered his ‘little friends’ a job, but hearing exactly what happened from Hu Qiuping, he didn’t know whether he should feel grateful or upset. On the one hand, Hu Qiuping went out of his way to try and help him. But, on the other hand, Lan Jin didn’t actually need the Great Physician’s help. As a matter of fact, Lan Jin would have preferred it if the Great Physician had never noticed him.
Letting out a sigh, Lan Jin decides to thank Hu Qiuping and then turns to look toward the young master of the Feng Clan when he hears him raising his voice.
“Young Miss Yu, don’t you think it’s unbecoming of you to take away the city’s property? Even if you are the daughter of the City Lord, you should know when to leave a path for other people!” The young master of the Feng Clan glares a warning at Qiang Yu, his face far more irritated than it was earlier.
“Boy, are you sure you should be making a scene of yourself while you are dressed like that?” The Great Physician asks, an ambiguous smile on his face. Off to the side, Qiang Yu blushes again and Lulu starts snickering.
Narrowing his eyes at the Great Physician and casting a glare toward Qiang Yu and Lulu, the young master of the Feng Clan asks, “Your meaning is?”
With a chuckle, the Great Physician says, “A little girl might look cute in green, but a young man wearing green on his head is only making a fool of himself. If I were you, I would take that ribbon out of your hair before someone misunderstands you.”
The young master of the Feng Clan clearly doesn’t know what the Great Physician is talking about, but he does understand Qiang Yu’s and Lulu’s expressions, so he doesn’t hesitate to rip the ribbon out of his hair and toss it to the ground.
Then, giving a slight bow toward the Great Physician, he spits out, “Thank you for your advice,” before glaring at Qiang Yu and Lulu again. Without another word, he turns around and walks away leaving Lan Jin and his three companions, Qiang Yu, Lulu, and the Great Physician behind. There is also the small crowd that accompanied Lan Jin into the Martial Testing Pavilion in the first place, but with the drama finished, they quickly disperse from the scene as well.
Once they’re gone, the Great Physician raises an eyebrow at Qiang Yu and says, “You will likely regret your little joke this time.”
Qiang Yu frowns and Lulu scowls at the Great Physician, and watching on from a short distance away, Lan Jin wonders just what joke they played on him and how they managed to play it.
“What’s the deal with the green ribbon anyways?” Lan Jin asks, curious. “Why is it so bad for a guy to wear something green on their head?”
“Why don’t you try it and find out?” Lulu sneers at him.
“Can you stop braying, please? It’s getting kind of annoying.” Lan Jin retorts.
As soon as he says it, Lulu glares while stepping toward him, but she is stopped by Qiang Yu once again.
“Lulu!” Qiang Yu grabs her arm and shakes it softly before looking at the stone head and stone hand held against her chest.
Lulu scowls and then crosses her arms against her chest as she turns away from Lan Jin muttering, “Stupid pig head!”
“Dumb donkey,” Lan Jin says, not bothering to be quiet about it. He even feels content with himself as he sees Lulu bristle with her back turned to him.
Chuckling, the Great Physician says, “For a young man to wear green on their head, it means they’ve been made into a cuckold and are announcing their shame to the world.”
Once more, Qiang Yu’s face turns red and Lan Jin can’t help but look at her.
“Is there something wrong?” Qiang Yu asks, clearly embarrassed but not looking away.
“How’d you manage to get him to wear it? It didn’t seem like he showed up with you earlier.”
Shaking her head, Qiang Yu says, “That is my personal business.”
Lan Jin looks down at the spirit stones embedded in the pieces of the Stone Prophet in her arms before looking back up at her face.
“Are you planning on absorbing the Qi from those?” Lan Jin asks, feeling both curious and anxious.
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He knew the effects of absorbing the purple mist, and a pretty large amount of it was injected into the glowing spirit stone while the other three only had a small amount of it. It probably wouldn’t be bad for her to absorb it, especially if, as Moxian said, it is providence that guides people to a beneficial outcome, and he doesn’t really mind if she does seeing as there is no way for him to get those spirit stones in the first place, but he doesn’t feel like it would be a good thing for her to absorb it without first knowing how… potent, the purple mist can be.
However, rather than answering his question, Qiang Yu immediately begins scowling at him.
“Do you have nothing better to do than poke your nose into my affairs?” she asks angrily.
Lan Jin doesn’t know what to say. He only wants to help her, and he doesn’t get why she is so offended by a simple question.
He doesn’t get to ask her about it, either, because she immediately turns and bows to the Great Physician before saying, “Great Physician, if you’ll excuse me, I have other matters to attend to.”
The Great Physician eyes Lan Jin, but he just nods his head at Qiang Yu and she departs along with a happy-looking Lulu who sneers at him as she walks away backwards.
Confused, Lan Jin turns to Hu Qiuping and asks, “Did I say something wrong?”
“I don’t really know. It didn’t seem wrong to me, but… maybe? I’ve heard some cultivators take more offense than others when you ask them about their cultivation. They see it as a taboo.” Hu Qiuping shakes his head. “Unfortunately, I grew up in the outer regions of the city, and people there make a point of proudly declaring how powerful they are, so I’m not so used to the different taboos of the Inner City and how important they are. I just try to avoid talking to people I don’t know.”
“Oh.” Lan Jin sighs and shrugs his shoulders. “Oh well. Now I know.” He remembers the young master of the Feng Clan ‘proudly declaring’ his cultivation level as well as Qiang Yu’s, but he can’t recall if anyone else was doing that prior to fighting.
The Great Physician speaks up and says, “You looked concerned while you were looking at those spirit stones, but I believe you said that purple energy wasn’t harmful. You didn’t seem to be lying, so is there something else you were trying to tell that little girl about it?”
Lan Jin nods. “Yeah. As far as I know, there’s objectively nothing bad about it. It’s just… there are side effects to using it. Subjectively speaking, they aren’t bad side effects, but, since she’s a little young, I wanted to warn her about them before she tried absorbing the energy from the spirit stones.”
The Great Physician raises an eyebrow at him and asks, “What kind of side effects?”
Shrugging, Lan Jin responds, “Euphoria, mostly. It’s like swallowing liquid happiness and taking a nap on a perfect day. It’s kinda hard to explain.”
Physician Bing says nothing about Lan Jin’s explanation. Instead, he walks up to the Stone Prophet and, with his bare hand, breaks off its remaining arm and walks in front of Lan Jin before handing it over.
“Show me,” the Great Physician says as he holds out one palm.
Lan Jin blinks, and, realizing the Great Physician isn’t satisfied with his explanation, lets out a sigh.
Looking at the stone arm in his hands, Lan Jin grimaces and thinks, “I wish I hadn’t crushed my pears against the bleacher. It would have been so much easier to just eat one and purify it that way.”
However, without an alternative at hand, Lan Jin grits his teeth and forces himself through his nausea as he uses his spirit to absorb more Qi from the spirit stone. Then, following the same process as he had with the Stone Prophet, he purifies the Qi and sends the purple Qi directly into the Great Physician’s palm.
In less than a second, the Great Physician rips his palm away from Lan Jin leaving a good amount of the purple energy still inside him. Not wanting it to go to waste, and having wasted so much energy messaging Moxian today, Lan Jin allows the small stream of purple mist to flow freely through his body and into the Omega Browser’s Space instead of trying to absorb it into his Dantian.
“Ehem!” The Great Physician coughs and brings his hand up to cover his mouth.
Lan Jin smirks as he notices the Great Physician’s discomfort, but he can’t say he didn’t expect it as the purple mist had affected Moxian multiple times— and she is probably the second most powerful person he knows after Qingshui.
“See why I want to warn her?” Lan Jin asks him, feeling a little smug.
With a chuckle, the Great Physician says, “Well, it’s nothing harmful. And she can only blame herself for losing her temper.”
“Shouldn’t we give her a warning, though? She seems to respect you, couldn’t you tell her about the side effects?”
Shaking his head, the Great Physician says, “I don’t plan on getting involved, and since she chose to ignore you, you shouldn’t get involved either. She made her choice, it is up to her to face the consequences for it. And even if she feels uncomfortable later, she will forget about it soon enough.”
Lan Jin thinks about it and realizes the Great Physician is probably right, so he shrugs his shoulders and decides not to deal with Qiang Yu anymore. With how large the city is, he may not even see her again.
“So, what kind of job are we doing for you anyways?” Lan Jin asks while looking at the three men nearby.
“You’ll be collecting natural treasures and bringing them to me,” the Great Physician answers plainly. “As for when you do it, that’s up to you four— I won’t tell you how often you must bring me natural treasures, but I won’t be paying for anything I don’t have. So if you want to earn more, I suggest you work a little harder. But, I would prefer not having to go to the Inner City so often to buy them myself.”
“Oh,” Lan Jin says. “That sounds easy enough.”
Turning to look at Hu Qiuping, Lan Jin asks, “So, do you have any idea when you want to go next?”
Hu Qiuping looks embarrassed, but he says, “That… will depend mostly on Gongniu. Shentian gets paid for the items he makes, whereas I spend most of my time cultivating and studying various things. So Shentian and I can plan our schedules accordingly, but Gongniu only gets paid when he shows up to work and actually creates various dishes— which can take a long time. So he needs to schedule things in advance so he doesn’t cause problems for the restaurant he’s employed at.”
“That’s fine by me,” Lan Jin shrugs. “But… uh, do you guys know of any cheap hotels? I kinda want to go to bed. And I feel like it’s a bit late to buy a house tonight.”
Hu Gongniu opens his mouth to say something, but the Great Physician interrupts him. “There’s no need for that. I would like to talk to you about various things. And it wouldn’t be wise for you to purchase a home in the city just yet as the two largest parties responsible for overseeing the city’s land are the Qiang family and the Feng Clan. Until they forget about you, I would recommend you stay at my home. You will be safe there, and your little friends can easily retrieve you when it’s time for you to go out and work.”
However, inside Lan Jin’s mind, the Great Physician says, “Your spiritual flame has unusual properties, and the purple energy it creates when Qi flows through it is interesting. The purple energy on its own means little to me, but I’m curious what its effects are when applied to pill refining. If you agree to help me run a few tests, you might learn some things that can help you out in the future. You will even have a temporary refuge from those brats when they decide to search for you.”
Lan Jin feels a little unsure of the idea of being accepted into a stranger’s home on such short notice, but the Great Physician seems extremely powerful, and many people also seem to respect him. And though Lan Jin isn’t sure just how powerful he is, he knows he’s definitely more powerful than anything he can deal with right now. But, unlike Moxian and Qingshui, the Great Physician actually gave him a real option rather than relying on ultimatums, so Lan Jin decides to accept his offer.
Plus, not having to deal with people searching for him seems like a plus, even if Lan Jin doesn’t know why they’d be searching for him in the first place.
“Thanks, I appreciate that.”
Hu Qiuping looks confused by the sudden turn, but he takes it in stride whereas Hu Gongniu just nods his head, a tired expression on his face, and Hu Shentian stares blearily off into space.
“Oh, right.” Fishing a small pouch out from behind his armor, Hu Qiuping hands it over to Lan Jin. “We— well, I decided to give you three of the five gold as well as a few silver. To be fair, you should get more, but…”
Lan Jin shrugs. “We had a deal. I’m not about to complain about you giving me more money when all you promised was to give me a portion of what I found. To me, this is basically free money, so thanks.”
Hu Qiuping nods his head, still clearly feeling a little awkward, but he also looks gratified and a little relieved.
***
After that, they follow the Great Physician and head out of the Inner City where they separate.
At first, Lan Jin had thought that they’d still be stuck in the Inner City until the gatehouse opened in the morning, but that wasn’t the case at all. Instead, the gatehouse became one-way and only allowed traffic heading out of the Inner City. Apparently, they expect people to leave the Inner City when their business is done, but due to the size of the city, with the Inner City being nearly eighty miles long and forty miles wide, they realize that any business someone has to take care of would likely take all day. To prevent people from staying too late and loitering around all night, they close access to the Inner City at night but people are allowed to leave at any time. In fact, unless they live there or they have some sort of special exception, they are expected to leave.
Lan Jin doesn’t care about that, though. Instead, he is upset that he had to spend a silver coin of his newly earned money to hire a carriage to take him and the Great Physician to his new, temporary place of residence.
The Great Physician, from the looks of things, was more than content to walk the twenty-or-so miles between the Inner City Gatehouse and his home just East of the central region of the city. Lan Jin, on the other hand, was not willing to spend another four hours walking just to finally get some sleep. Consequently, Lan Jin spent a third of a year’s rent for a small home just to get cut down from four hours of walking to just under half an hour of carriage travel.
In the end, he likes to think the price is worth it as the one silver coin he spends can be easily reclaimed by picking up a few natural treasures. But the fact that people could, literally, live for months off of that one coin makes him feel baffled with the cost of travel around here.
When they arrive at the Great Physician’s home, Lan Jin cannot help but be impressed. Like most of the places closer to the central region of the city, the Great Physician has a large compound. In fact, the Great Physician’s compound easily covers five acres, and it is all enclosed within a white stone wall ten feet high and three feet thick and separated from the outside world by a wood-and-iron gate housed in an arched gateway.
The gate is incredibly well-balanced though, as the Great Physician only needs a single touch to make it swing open to reveal a stone walkway leading directly down the middle of the property and to a large, wooden building in the distance. On both sides of the walkway, there are various buildings with two smaller, fenced-in homes at the front right and front left of the property, and two rectangular buildings closer to the middle and hugging the stone walls.
“I will allow you to use that building to live in for the time being,” the Great Physician says while pointing to the small wooden house at the front left of the property. “I will not overburden you with rules, but I do not want you disturbing my peace, bothering the servants, or wandering around the property. You can use the pond, well, and facilities within the grounds of that building, but you are not to enter any other building without permission. And as for the building opposite yours, I suggest you do not approach it or even look at it too closely. Between my younger sister and a companion of mine, there are two women who occasionally stay there. Though neither of them is here now, if they arrive and find you looking at their things…”
The Great Physician chuckles and shakes his head. “Well, I can assure you one thing, you won’t have the opportunity to regret it. Understand?”
Even as the Great Physician says that, Lan Jin starts turning his head to look at the property, but the warning he receives causes his head to turn fast enough to nearly give him whiplash as he quickly nods his head.
“Good. I will not keep you from exploring that house, but I suggest you clean the clothes you are wearing and hang them up to dry while you sleep. Then, tomorrow, you should go and buy real clothes. And about that arm,” he says while looking at the arm of the Stone Prophet still in Lan Jin’s hand, “that little girl never bothered paying you for the opportunity you gave her, so you can just assume that thing belongs to you now. But even still, you didn’t have permission to take it, so I would suggest not letting anyone know that you brought it out of the Inner City.”
With that, the Great Physician leaves Lan Jin alone and heads toward the large building in the center of the lot while Lan Jin stands around in silence.
Looking down at the wrapped bundle in his hand, Lan Jin lets out an awkward smile. He actually hadn’t meant to steal it, it was just that the arm is light and he didn’t think to put it down before he left the Martial Testing Pavilion. Then, when he tried to return so he could leave it there, he was pulled away by the Great Physician who laughed at him. Consequently, he had no choice but to wrap it in his hoodie and hide it as they traveled to the Great Physician’s home.
Sighing, Lan Jin turns and heads toward the building on the left side of the stone path. Compared to the main building, it is pretty small. But, even still, it should be about fifteen hundred square feet plus whatever else existed within the small enclosure surrounding it.
Walking through a tall wooden gate, Lan Jin begins looking around. Everything about the building seems simple, and from the outside, it looks more like a small, squarish temple. But within the enclosure, Lan Jin realizes that the building seems more like a traditional Japanese home than a temple with an outdoor, wooden walkway surrounding the entire house with doors leading into the various rooms.
He doesn’t really feel like exploring, but Lan Jin does open a few doors until he is able to find a larger bedroom. He doesn’t enter it right away, though. Instead, he continues walking along the walkway until he finds a pond and a well at the back of the house.
Stripping himself, Lan Jin fills a bucket he finds with cold water from the well and then uses it to clean his clothes as best he can with just his hands. Then he uses several more buckets of water to thoroughly clean himself before hanging his clothes on a low-hanging branch of a tree nearby and heading back to the room he found.
The room is small and relatively unfurnished with only a wooden bed and an empty wooden dresser as well as a lamp sitting on the dresser, but other than tossing his small pouch of coins onto the dresser, Lan Jin can’t bring himself to care about anything other than the wooden bed. It doesn’t even bother him that it has no blankets or even a mattress and he immediately lays down on it and stretches out his body.
After the last few days, Lan Jin’s body has a whole assortment of aches and pains, with the two most noticeable being the big bruise he received from Lulu and the nasty blister he has on his right shoulder. But, considering he just survived being isekaied, he thinks he’s in pretty good shape.
Closing his eyes, Lan Jin decides to spend a few minutes before sleeping to fuse the majority of the purple mist with his small purple star. Being more receptive to his surroundings while lying naked on a wooden bed is… strange, to say the least, but he ignores the air crawling across his skin as he makes sure to absorb all but eleven strands of purple mist.
After experiencing how unreliable Moxian can be, Lan Jin considers not leaving any purple mist for her, but whether he likes it or not, he thinks she, or at least her master, is a valuable source of information. So he grumbles about it, but he still ends up saving some for her in the end.
And after two days of little to no rest, Lan Jin finally gets some sleep.