“-And if you wish for a speedy recovery, cultivate for at least three hours a day, don’t perform any strenuous physical activity, and sleep at least 8 hours a night,” Doctor Ye explained as he handed him a note with each key point on it. It was a small parchment of paper the size of his palm.

Xing Yi took the small piece of paper with an expression of thanks and a small head bow.

Standing up from the bed, he took care to take his first movements with care, lest he damage a muscle or bone that Doctor Ye had just fixed. For the last hour, Doctor Ye had gone around his entire body, stabbing needles in the weirdest of places.

Although each one was extremely painful and had him gripping the bed, holding his breath in anticipation every time, bit by bit, his muscles loosened up and the constant throbbing pain in his muscles would disappear.

Once all his muscles were fixed up, he reconnected his bones.

According to Doctor Ye, over forty of his bones had been broken. He was lucky that Elder Hui had Xiu Li fly him here. Walking here all by himself would have been torture. Using his tiny hands, he pressed into Xing Yi’s skin, releasing a cold energy into his bones that caused them to put themselves together again.

Xing Yi liked this far better than the needles.

“This humble disciple thanks Martial Uncle Ye,” Xing Yi bowed, wincing at the sharp pain emerging in his lower back as he did so. He hoped that he didn’t have to do too much bowing before he made a fully recovery.

“Receiving thanks from a mortal. The heavens sure are strange,” Doctor Ye muttered to himself as he reached into his storage pouch and grabbed a wine gourd.

Without a care, Doctor Ye took a few sips from the gourd. Xing Yi could smell the wine from where he was, standing several meters away as he slowly acclimated his body to moving.

Doctor Ye didn’t stop drinking. In just about twenty seconds, he had drunk the whole thing. He elicited a big gasp as he finished, wiping his mouth with his hand. It was just as he did that he noticed Xing Yi staring at him out of the corner of his eye.

“What? Is there something on my face?” Doctor Ye asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No, no. I was just curious about Martial Uncle’s Needle techniques,” Xing Yi replied truthfully.

“What about it—and come follow me outside,” Doctor Ye threw the gourd back into his pouch before waving Xing Yi to follow him.

Xing Yi was surprised. But he went with it. It was rare to find someone willing to talk to him.

Maybe he’s lonely, Xing Yi thought.

Xing Yi caught up to Doctor Ye as he came off of the Infirmary’s front steps, asking, “Do you know Dianmai[1]?”

“Why ask such an obvious question? Of course! I’m a master. No one in the sect except for the patriarch is more knowledgeable in it than me. If I got close enough to any of the elders, I could paralyse them with just a few taps. They wouldn’t ever let me get that close though.”

“Wow! Martial Uncle is very strong.” It was normal for disciples to flatter their seniors to curry favour, but Xing Yi meant it. The elders were the same as God to him. They could do anything they wanted and could kill him with just the wave of their hand.

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However, this comment caused Doctor Ye to deflate. He didn’t respond.

Right as Xing Yi was going to ask another question, Doctor Ye turned away from him.

“You should go on now. I am a very busy man, so I don’t have much time for these types of conversations. Make sure to listen to what I said, ok? I even wrote it down for you so that you wouldn’t forget. I will make my leave now,” Martial Uncle said as he abruptly ended the conversation.

The old man turned around and made his way back to the infirmary.

For a moment, he wondered what caused Doctor Ye to react that way when he praised him. Xing Yi silently bowed before making his leave too.

He walked at a brisk pace, making sure not to overexert his body. Apart from the odd pain in a muscle or bone here or there every so often, he felt fine.

After an hour, he reached a teleportation pavilion. But as the disciple there asked him where he wanted to teleport too, he had a change of heart. Something that he had forgotten long ago had come to mind. With a flash, he appeared on a large platform sticking out the side of a mountain.

The library.

He greeted the librarian with a forced smile.

“It’s you,” The librarian squinted his eyes with scrutiny, as if he was trying to find any excuse to kick him out.

The man had been quite kind to him when they first met. But as he spent more and more time in the library, he had slowly turned on him and grown to despise him.

If he hadn’t already made sure to return the books he had copied, he would have had something to worry about. He could only grimace when he thought about doing that. He had been walking on thin ice back then. Fortunately-

“I know that you copied those books,” The librarian revealed, staring daggers into Xing Yi.

Xing Yi stopped in his steps, his breath stalling. For a second, he thought about running at first but calmed that thought. He couldn’t act carelessly here. It was life or death.

He slowly met the librarian’s gaze. He was a skinny, short-bearded man with oversized robes.

“Senior Bai, I-“ Xing Yi was cut off.

“There is no need to worry about it,” Senior Bai raised his hand with an assuring smile.

Xing Yi’s shoulders slumped back down in relief.

“I have known about it for a while now and was going to kill you right as you made another visit. But, it just so happened that I learned from a disciple that just came in here, that you challenged Wu Jia to a duel in three years,” Senior Bai explained.

Xing Yi’s heart dropped. Just when he thought he wasn’t that bad.

“Little mortal, I will make sure to watch you squirm. Try you may, but your death is inevitable. Wu Jia will slaughter you like a pig,” Senior Bai smiled.

Xing Yi had no words. He wanted to get out of here immediately, but he had to borrow a book.

Wiping the sweat off his hands and onto his robes, Xing Yi replied cordially, “This disciple is humbled that he deserves this much attention from Senior. This one would now like to excuse himself. “

Surprisingly, Senior Bai decided to lend a helping hand.

“Don’t waste your time searching for the book. What’s It called? I’ll get it for you in seconds. After all, you’ve only got three years?”

Xing Yi could only grimace and accept his help. He told him the title of the book and the librarian smiled.

“Interesting!” He exclaimed as he waved his hand to the right, a book to fly over from a shelf at the edge of the library.

It flew into his hand with a loud smack of the leather.

“Here,” Senior Bai smiled.

Pursing his lips, Xing Yi reached out to take the book. As he did, the man’s hand seemingly by accident, brushed against his. It was ice cold and caused Xing Yi to look up. Senior Bai was staring straight at him, smiling.

A chill ran down his spine, his eyes widening in fear.

Wasting no time, he made a hasty bow before almost running out of the library.

Even after going through the teleportation pavilion, he ran all the way home. He disregarded the paved dirt paths and went the most direct way home, through the thick green foliage and past wild animals that scrambled away in his presence.

He only felt safe when he came inside his room and shut the door behind him. He slumped down the door, completely exhausted and gasping for air.

Terror took hold of his heart as the possibility of death became a reality.

Cold tears ran down his cheeks as he covered his face contorted into an ugly, terrified expression.

Shining through the window, warm rays of sunlight offered him comfort.