Stumbling within, Wu Ying grabbed the first attendant. “Spears!”
“You’re not going anywhere, soldier. Just sit down, we’ll get to you,” the attendant replied without even looking. With a jerk of his shoulder, he pulled his garment from Wu Ying’s weak grip.
Wu Ying stumbled, almost losing his footing.
“No! Spears are coming,” Wu Ying said but realized he was talking to the air. Forcing himself to walk deeper inside with a miserable grunt, Wu Ying dragged his body onward, feeling a hot wetness at his side as his wound once again bled freely.
“What are you doing back here?” A doctor appeared before Wu Ying, frowning.
Wu Ying stared at the face, realizing it was one that had attended to him before. “An attack. It’s coming. From the other side.” Breathing forcefully, he turned, pointing in the direction where he had seen the spears.
“What? Impossible. The scouts would have seen it.”
“I saw it!”
“You’re hallucinating,” an attendant replied, taking hold of Wu Ying’s arm.
Wu Ying snarled, calling up the dredges of his cultivation, of the last of his strength, and shoved the attendant away as he stared at the doctor. “Please! Just look. Look.”
The attendant, angry, strode back and put Wu Ying in a lock, shoving him down and eliciting a scream of pain.
But still, he muttered as the attendant shoved him around, bringing more pain. “They’re attacking. Just look…”
The last sight Wu Ying caught before he once again fainted was the frowning doctor’s face.
Chapter 4
“Is he the one?”
“Yes.”
“Wake him.”
“But…”
“Wake him.”
A pungent-smelling herbal ointment was rubbed under Wu Ying’s nose. Then a hand pushed against his shoulder, slowly pulling him upward. Wu Ying blinked as he woke, realizing he was once again in a soft canvas bed, staring at a quartet of individuals.
The first was a face he recognized—the doctor who had treated him and the one he had warned. The other three, Wu Ying had not seen before. One was a glowering, middle-aged, bearded soldier with full-body armor and headgear that Wu Ying could not recognize at a glance. Before he could puzzle it out, Wu Ying’s attention was drawn to the other two—individuals in colorful silk civilian clothing, a sharp contrast to the uniformed individuals all around. Both wore swords and had long hair and the best skin Wu Ying had ever seen. Even the male of the pair was so fair and smooth that Wu Ying would have thought he was a teenage girl if not for the masculine jut of his chin. As for the woman behind the man, she was a peerless beauty who put Qiu Ru to shame, her slender figure swelling with just the right amount of curves.
“You are awake,” the man said.
“Yes.” Wu Ying struggled to sit up further with the help of the doctor, his body refusing to listen to his orders. He frowned, feeling sweat pouring down from his brow and swiping at it with his hand. His movements were sluggish, uncoordinated, but the pain from his abdomen seemed remote at the moment.
“Is that how you speak to your betters?” the soldier growled. “Greet Elder Cheng Zhao Wan and Fairy[5] Yang Fa Yuan properly.”
“And General Chao Keli,” the doctor quickly added.
“General Chao, Elder Cheng, Fairy Yang,” Wu Ying said, looking between the group.
Elder Cheng looked bored, impatient with the formalities, while Fairy Yang continued to look on imperiously.
After Wu Ying greeted the group formally, Elder Cheng spoke up. “You are the one who gave the warning?”
“Yes. Yes, Elder,” Wu Ying replied. He bobbed his head low, doing the best he could to bow before finding himself almost falling off the bed.
“What is wrong with him?” Fa Yuan said. For the first time, Wu Ying heard the melodious tones of the fairy, her voice cultured and gentle.
“Infection of the blood from a stab in his abdomen. It missed his major organs, but he was marched here in the rain afterward,” the doctor said.
“Ah.” Elder Cheng stared at Wu Ying quietly, his eyes raking the cultivator. Whatever he saw made him frown before he fished within a pouch by his side. With a flick of his hand, he tossed a jade bottle to Wu Ying, who missed the catch and let the bottle fall on the bed cloth. “You did well. The attack was headed by three in the Energy Storage stage. If we had been caught unawares, we would have lost many of the generals.”
“Tai Kor[6]!” Fa Yuan exclaimed in surprise. She jerked her head to the bottle, eyes wide. “That…”
“Is appropriate. The Meridian Opening Pill will help him cleanse his body.” Elder Cheng nodded one last time at Wu Ying before walking away, stopping when he was a few feet away. “If you survive, come seek me again.”
Huffing, Yang Fa Yuan followed Elder Cheng with her face frozen. The general stared between the two groups before hurrying after the pair, his head bent slightly.
“If I survive…?” Wu Ying said to no one at all, staring at the pill.
“Cultivation when you are so ill is not advised. But…” The doctor looked at the pale and sweating boy. “Well. If you are not going to use it, you should make sure to inform me. I can buy the pill off you and have the fee sent to your parents.”
“My parents.” Wu Ying gulped then fumbled for the jade bottle. Within, a single pill sat, glistening white and pearlescent. Even the smell when the cork had been removed cleared up some of his mind, allowing Wu Ying to breathe and think better. With it came the pain and knowledge that he was dying, truly dying.
“Good luck,” the doctor said softly, squeezing Wu Ying’s shoulder before walking off.
Wu Ying pushed himself up further, breathing slowly as he attempted to clear his mind. As he looked around, he noticed the amount of attention he had attracted. Or more accurately, the amount of attention the Meridian Cleansing Pill had attracted. As a spiritual medicine, its quality was clear to everyone. Such a piece of medicine would have been impossible for commoners like them to acquire. Even a lord’s son like Yin Xue had to make do with herbal concoctions made from the dregs of the herbs used to make such pills. Only those within a powerful sect had any chance of acquiring such a pill.
Gripping the bottle firmly, Wu Ying resolved to make full use of this opportunity. If he did not do so, Heaven itself wouldn’t be able to help him. Tossing his head back, Wu Ying quickly downed the pill and focused his mind on his body.
Wu Ying’s chi was turbulent, unstructured, and dispersed through his body from the infection. Even the brief moment he had taken to reorganize his mind and meditate had allowed Wu Ying to gather a little in his lower dantian. But it was insufficient for his purposes. If he were to break open a meridian, he needed to harness significantly more chi.
The Meridian Opening Pill that he swallowed had, at first, a cooling effect on his body, clearing his mind. Taking the opportunity presented, Wu Ying directed more of his chi into his dantian, concentrating the gathered energy further. A change in the pill startled Wu Ying, the body of the pill growing warm now as it sat in his stomach. As it dissolved, pulses of energy were sent out through his meridians, rushing through his body. Rather than a comfortable warmth, the heat was like live coals under his skin, the energy a raging thunder compared to the gentle flow of his own chi.
Grunting, Wu Ying pulled at the energy, attempting to corral it around his dantian. He focused on channeling the energy, driving it around his meridians, where it cleansed and opened blockages, flooding back into his dantian where he focused it in a swirling ball of chaos. Of course, it was impossible for any human to have any of their meridians actually closed—but there was a difference between the fully cleansed, open meridians of a cultivator and a normal human. This process of cleansing was taxing on the body, however, and as such, it was often taken in slow increments. Typically, a Meridian Cleansing Pill was only taken when one was fully healed, for the risks otherwise were too great.