Chapter 17
“Ahem. Don’t get your hopes up. I’m no physician.”
“Heh heh. If a physician could have cured me, I wouldn’t still be clinging to hope.”
The resignation peculiar to someone facing death weighed even more heavily on my heart.
Yet I could feel it, too.
The ember that hadn’t gone out—the desire to hold a sword again—was still burning brightly within Yan Nan-cheon.
Maybe I was acting on a whim because getting revenge on the cultivator who called people insects was a wish of my own, too.
I slowly shut out the light entering my pupils and opened my mind’s eye in the darkness. A new vista unfolded.
A map of Yan Nan-cheon’s meridians appeared in my mind, vivid as an ultrasound or MRI scan.
For now, I decided to call this new ability ‘Radar.’
What I saw through Radar was terrible.
‘This is… much worse than I thought.’
What must once have been a wide channel, flowing like a great river, was now clogged and cracked in places, like a waterway long left untended.
The main meridian connecting Yan Nan-cheon’s right shoulder to the chest was especially twisted and malformed.
This was way worse than a blood clot.
It was full of the remnants of a lethal energy that someone had maliciously clumped together.
Masses like cholesterol plaque had calcified until they were as hard as stone, blocking the channel.
‘Damn, someone’s really done a number on this body.’
It was amazing Yan Nan-cheon was even alive.
Thank goodness the paths for inner power and the domain of true qi were different.
I boiled my treatment plan down to a single line.
‘Let’s see. Open the blockages, cut away the hardened masses, burn the trash, repair the shoddy construction, then secure everything in place.’
“I’m going to let a little of my qi flow into you now. I warn you: under no circumstances should you circulate your inner power.”
“I’ll remember. Heh heh…”
First, I decided to use Water Qi, the most familiar of the Five Elements.
As if injecting contrast dye into a narrow vessel, I fed an extremely thin stream of Water Qi into Yan Nan-cheon’s wrist and up toward the shoulder.
I chose Water Qi because it was the first kind of spiritual qi I’d ever sensed, and water’s properties were useful in all sorts of ways.
Water is usually a gentle-flowing liquid.
But according to fluid dynamics, if you concentrate water pressure—that is, the force exerted per unit area—on a single point, it becomes a waterjet cutter capable of slicing through steel like tofu.
I compressed the Water Qi to its limit, aimed it at the surface of the blocked meridian, and sent it shooting forward.
It sounded easy and simple when put that way, but it was precision work that required intense concentration.
Hissssss—!
Like a dental scaler, the high-pressure Water Qi began shaving away the surface of the calcified residue.
“Ghh…!”
Yan Nan-cheon groaned.
“Bear with it, even if it hurts.”
‘I’ve shaved off the surface. But Water Qi alone won’t be enough to deal with the center of that unidentified mass. It’s too hard.’
Without hesitation, I drew up Metal Qi at the same time.
Metal Qi was the blade of a sword.
It was keen and sharp.
If it had inherited those properties, it should be useful for cutting away hardened clumps of energy or energy matted together like scar tissue.
Put simply, it would serve as a scalpel.
‘A diamond drill?’
Grrrrrk!
I pushed Metal Qi in to bore through the center and scrape away the deposits along their grain, like removing barnacles. A hole opened up as if I’d mined ore.
I washed away the small bits of residue left in the holes, now riddled through like Emmental cheese, with Water Qi, gradually widening the tunnel.
‘Good, it’s open! But what’s this?’
Something unexpected happened.
Pitch-black, poisonous miasma began seeping out of the broken mass, like rotten pus.
The turbid energy that had been suppressed and left to rot for twenty-seven years was now free, and it was trying to contaminate the meridians.
If that poison flowed straight to the heart, it might take the old man’s life in an instant, like septic shock.
I immediately kindled Fire Qi.
Fire Qi was extremely dangerous because it was fire.
Fire was useful, but once it spread, it was difficult to control.
‘Children shouldn’t play with fire… Heh, stay calm.’
Only the poison should burn. The meridians must not.
If I used Fire Qi carefully, I should be able to cleanse the contamination and turn the trash to ash, too.
The key was to use Water Qi properly so I burned only what I wanted to burn.
How? As everyone knew, Water and Fire were opposing elements, so wrapping the meridian in water should protect it from the flames.
And my prediction was right.
Fwoooosh!
Sizzle—
When the black energy touched the burning Fire Qi, it combusted and scattered.
But the poison showed no sign of dying down.
‘This is an old wound.’
Even though the surface had healed, the rot left by time remained, softened and decayed.
The pus in the old man’s heart must have festered to the point of bursting.
Sizzle, sizzle!
I adjusted the flow on a microscopic scale, carefully burning only the poison as it spread in every direction.
Careful not to damage the meridians…
As I burned the poison that kept appearing, I maintained a delicate balance, encircling the area with cold Water Qi to keep the heat from spreading.
At the slightest mistake,
“Hngh, cough…! Aaaaargh!”
Even Yan Nan-cheon, who’d said he’d endure it like Guan Yu, couldn’t bear the bone-deep pain and let out a scream worthy of Guan Yu.
“Bear with it! We’re almost done!”
In truth, I was in worse agony than Yan Nan-cheon.
‘Hah… hah… Why am I so exhausted?’
Using three kinds of elemental qi on the meridians while controlling them with such minute precision demanded an unimaginable amount of computing power and an absurd degree of mental fortitude.
Cold sweat poured down my back, and my vision blurred.
The fatigue was a hundred times worse than pulling an all-nighter in the Princeton lab for twenty-four hours straight.
But I’d already come too far to turn back.
I couldn’t retreat now.
If the poison spread like this, there was probably a 99% chance Yan Nan-cheon would die. He’d die before reaching the end of his natural lifespan, and it would be my fault.
Since it had already happened, I had to take responsibility.
Besides, wasn’t saving a life noble in and of itself?
Pity the suffering and benefit all humankind.
Wasn’t that the attitude toward the ‘Dao’ that a cultivator called an immortal ought to have?
My own Dao, different from those bastards who saw humans as insects.
This was my attitude toward the Dao.
The heart with which I cultivated the Dao.
In other words,
the Dao-heart (道心)!
‘This is my Dao-heart.’
Suddenly, something astonishing happened.
The tightness in my chest vanished, and the strength I’d been drained of began to return.
I didn’t know what was happening, but I pressed on with the work.
‘I’ve succeeded in clearing it with water pressure, cutting it with a scalpel, and cauterizing it with a laser. But the damaged meridians are in danger.’
After being blocked for so long and then forcibly opened, the tattered inner walls of the meridian were on the verge of collapsing.
It was like clearing dirt from an old, abandoned tunnel, only for the ceiling to start caving in.
I needed supports right away. A stent to hold up the blood vessel.
I drew up Wood Qi, one of the Five Elements.
Wood Qi was the power to stretch, hold, and grow.
Using Wood Qi’s properties, I spread true qi like thin vines and wove it tightly to brace the inner walls of the newly opened passage.
Just as a plant’s roots grip the soil, allowing its stem to grow strong and straight, I wrapped the loosened inner walls of the meridian in a finely woven mesh of Wood Qi.
The elastic Wood Qi stretched the meridian outward in every direction, holding it firm as it threatened to collapse.
‘This is the last step. I just need to secure it in place.’
I needed a sturdy foundation to keep the wooden supports, which served as the framework, from giving way.
Then I drew up the final piece that made up the Five Elements: Earth Qi.
Like pouring cement and letting it set, or applying paste to bricks, I coated the outside of the meridian with the heavy, cohesive Earth Qi.
With that, I’d used all five elements.
Open it with Water Qi, cut it with Metal Qi, burn it with Fire Qi, brace it with Wood Qi, and secure it with Earth Qi.
‘It fits together so perfectly it almost feels contrived. It’s as if someone—god or otherwise—designed it this way.’
It was so precise that I almost wondered if the ‘Five Elements’ in this world were a custom-made tool designed to govern the body’s meridians and protect the dantian.
‘I think I’m starting to understand the Five Elements. If I match them to atoms… this was obvious all along, wasn’t it? Why didn’t I notice sooner?’
The universe is made up of the Five Elements.
If so,
the universe is the Five Elements,
and the Five Elements are humanity.
Humanity is the same as the universe.
Whoooosh!
Once again, an inexplicable surge of elation welled up inside me.
Sure enough, Yan Nan-cheon’s meridians came into even sharper focus, as if I’d leveled up.
Thanks to that, I was able to treat not only Yan Nan-cheon’s right shoulder, but also the places where the young monk had injured him.
‘The young monk really wrecked the place all over, didn’t he?’
Now that I’d picked up speed, the major operation using the Five-Element Return-Flow Method was nearly complete.
After several shichen of precision work in hyperfocus mode, my stamina and mental strength had been drained again.
‘Forget the bucket list. I want to go home and lie beneath a cozy blanket.’
“Hoo… hoo…”
‘That’s it. Nothing should be blocked anymore.’
I wiped the sweat from my forehead with my sleeve and looked at Yan Nan-cheon.
“Your treatment is finished for now. How do you feel? Would you like to try circulating your qi, just to test it?”
Without realizing it, I’d slipped into the tone of a nurse I’d once heard.
I’d been wondering what kind of procedure it reminded me of…
It’s just like treating kidney stones, isn’t it?
I hate kidney stones! They’re horrible!
Yan Nan-cheon laughed heartily, looking refreshed.
“Wahahaha! Something’s changed. It’s as if a thirty-year-old grudge has been washed away in an instant.”
“How’s your right arm?”
Yan Nan-cheon’s shoulder rolled, and the right arm began to move freely.
“It moves! Can you see? Wahahaha! My right arm! It’s moving! This is a miracle! A miracle… Thank you! Truly, thank you! I don’t know how I could ever repay you…”
Yan Nan-cheon was overcome with emotion.
‘His reaction is more lukewarm than I expected. How underwhelming.’
“More importantly, would you like to try circulating your true qi?”
“Nghhh.”
“Can’t you?”
Yan Nan-cheon nodded, looking disappointed.
‘Even this is like kidney stones.’
By the way, something was strange.
Why couldn’t true qi flow through the meridians?
“Heh heh. Maybe it’s because I haven’t used it in so long. This Yan Nan-cheon must be getting senile.”
‘No, I don’t think that’s it.’
“You said it was about thirty years, right?”
“That’s right. Twenty-seven years and three months…”
‘Thirty years… Maybe that’s the problem.’
Once I racked my brains, I immediately guessed the reason.
‘This is exactly like an animal experiment on a creature trapped in a laboratory!’
If that was the case, the solution was simple.
This is science—and the dignity of a modern person!
