The Sect Leader System

Chapter 358: Procedural Resolution

Pan Xiaolian had Yang Ru remove his robe and undershirt and lie face down on a padded table.

“This shouldn’t hurt,” she said. “In fact, you shouldn’t feel a thing. If you do, please tell me at once.”

She and the two other Healing Pavilion members who learned the techniques had practiced applying needles to each other, and it had be completely bloodless and painless. Yang Ru was her first actual patient for the procedure, though, and it was important to ensure that everything was proceeding correctly at each stage.

One hundred needles had been sterilized by one of her assistants and placed in a container in the room for her use. Pan Xiaolian didn’t expect to need more than forty at most in his body, but not every placement was perfect on the first try. The quantity should be plenty for his treatment with some to spare.

The ultra-thin needles themselves were quite extraordinary. Crafted by the sect leader out of a fancy cultivator material, each one was the work of a Master Blacksmith. Though single use and only about the width of a human hair, she imagined that each one would cost more than anything she had ever owned before joining the sect, maybe more than everything put together. When it came to necessary tools, the man didn’t hold back on quality.

Her assistant had also prepared a disinfecting solution, which Pan Xiaolian used to clean the planned insertion points on Yang Ru’s body, including those in the ears, back, neck, and his arms and legs from the elbows and knees down. After she was done, she used a sanitized cloth to dry the areas she’d washed.

“The prep work is complete, young man,” she said. “How are you doing?”

Yang Ru grunted, which she took to mean that he was fine, so she continued her work, tapping in the first of the needles. He didn’t react, not even to flinch.

“No pain?” she said.

He grunted again.

Generally speaking, she was of the belief that it was best to let patients explain themselves in whatever way made them the most comfortable, but that leeway sometimes had to be overruled when she required complete clarity.

“I’m afraid I need an actual verbal response this time.”

“No pain.”

She tapped in another needle and saw no reaction from him, so she applied ten more needles, ending up with one in each of his twelve primary meridians. And that was where she would have only been able to proceed blindly without the functionality added by the sect leader’s formation. With the tap of what he called a screen, an image appeared on her tablet showing Yang Ru’s body.

When she selected qi, the image showed that energy flowed exactly as she would have expected, starting in his dantian and moving through channels as prescribed by his cultivation method. There was nothing wrong there, and if there had been, the sect leader would have detected it long before the boy was brought to the Healing Pavilion.

Another touch switched the view to the new amalgamated energy. Instead of flowing smoothly through Yang Ru’s body, it concentrated in his head and in his dantian with only faint wisps flowing throughout his body, broadly following his bloodstream where it moved at all.

There were three problems with what she saw. One, there was too much of it, easily a multiple of five compared to what showed up in her body or any of the other Healing Pavilion members who had volunteered to be scanned. According to the sect leader, a Foundation Establishment realm cultivator should definitely have more than anyone in the Qi Gathering realm, but not that much more. Two to three times would be a more appropriate amount.

The second issue was that the energy wasn’t flowing nearly as well as it should. Instead of the slight wisps she saw, there should have been small but solid channels. And the final issue was that, while the large build up in the dantian was natural, the one in his brain wasn’t.

The image made the solution obvious. She had to drain energy from his body, entice it to flow throughout, and reduce the buildup in his brain. Luckily, all three of those objectives were obstacles acupuncture was designed to overcome.

Hours of tedious work followed. She’d insert a needle here or there, each one either opening or closing a path to encourage the energy to flow where and how she wanted. Then she’d check the tablet after each insertion to see if it had worked how she’d intended, often having to remove the needle and try again.

Finally, though, she got even flow established.

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“It is very important that you remain absolutely still for this next part,” she told him.

Luckily, cultivators were quite used to keeping their bodies entirely motionless because the next needles she used were the truly tricky ones. The plan was to stick them into Yang Ru’s head, some even penetrating his brain—a dangerous activity to be sure.

Six months prior, she was sure her sixty plus year old hands couldn’t have remained steady enough for the delicate procedure, but her cultivation—especially her Body Cultivation—had changed that.

She barely breathed as she made the insertions, and soon, ten needles stuck out of the back and sides of his head, these serving as conduits for the energy instead of blockages. And they worked, letting out minute amounts of the foreign power from his system.

“It will be at least a couple of hours before the energy is balanced the way I’d like to see it, but all signs are that things are proceeding perfectly,” she told him. “I’ll give you a pill that will put you into a mild coma while I’m working on your sister.”

He gave a soft grunt, clearly trying not to move.

“There’s some transference between you and her. If we would have had two healers who had reached Mastery in acupuncture, we would have ideally performed both procedures at once. Since we didn’t, the sect leader believes that putting you in a medically induced coma will be beneficial.”

Yang Ru grunted again.

“One of my assistants will remain with you, monitoring you via the tablet. You’ll be in good hands.”

Pan Xiaolian considered the first procedure to be a resounding success. All three issues she’d identified had either been rectified perfectly or were well on their way, and she didn’t anticipate any complications with her second patient. Even better, her cultivation enhanced body felt like it could keep going for days.

As she left the room, she found herself humming. It felt so good to be useful.

Sun Hua wasn’t comfortable talking about her desire to conceive a baby, even with the man who might partner with her for that endeavor. She and Wu You had only had one additional meeting since he’d stated his objections to her becoming pregnant, and though she had been fresh off a meeting with the sect leader who had promised to resolve all their problems, she’d not brought up the subject again.

Since, she’d been too nervous to talk to Wu You, politely refusing several requests to meet for tea, and after that, the invitations had stopped coming. The tournament was ending soon, and the possibility of her leaving the city and never seeing him again was quite real.

She needed to make a daring move, which in the past had required Senior Sister providing her unique type of encouragement. Considering that she was suddenly busy with her own issues and currently back at the sect for some reason, help from that quarter seemed unlikely.

The only other person that Sun Hua really ever interacted with much was Wan Ai, and if there were one person less likely to be able to help when it came to being bold, it was that quiet girl.

Sun Hua sat to think about her situation logically. The process of actually inviting Wu You to tea wasn’t all that problematic. Sending written invitations was, obviously, a part of her training. She could write a polite request with no problems whatsoever.

The problem lay in the actual meeting, specifically in the conversation they needed to have. She believed that the facts were on her side. Between the different way the Rising Tide operated compared to other sects, superior resources, her own relatively high position in the sect’s hierarchy, and the sect leader’s promise, the situation in her sect versus what Wu You had experienced were completely different.

That being the case, she understood the deep emotional scar that losing his wife in such a way must have produced. She needed to approach the subject delicately and with tact, not something that was one of her strengths.

Using facts and logic and reason was her forte, especially in the form of a written report. Talking was so much more difficult.

Wait. That might just be the solution…

She dashed off a message to him, receiving a positive response a short time later, and spent the rest of the day until late into the night making her preparations. Even though she was as ready as she could be going into the meeting, her heart still pounded as she walked into the tea house.

After seating herself, she cupped her hands. “Gratitude for agreeing to see this Assistant, Esteemed Cultivator Wu You. Apologies for refusing your previous invitations.”

“I was honestly quite surprised to get your message. To be honest, I assumed the no children thing was something you decided you couldn’t accept.”

That was the problem. It was something she couldn’t accept. But saying that seemed imprudent.

“This Assistant has a proposal,” she said instead.

His eyebrows rose. “A proposal?”

Oops. A poor word choice given the circumstances. Mistakes like that were a big reason that she’d been reluctant to meet with him again.

“A proposition,” she said, hastily correcting herself.

The sect leader had crafted a leather satchel for her to carry her paperwork and miscellaneous writing utensils in. It was larger on the inside than on the outside but didn’t require qi to use. That latter trait made it even rarer than storage rings and, therefore, more valuable.

Not that she’d even consider selling it, not even once she reached Foundation Establishment and got her own ring. The satchel was her most prized possession, clearly showing the high regard in which her employer held her.

Mother had never been prouder.

Sun Hua pulled out a bound document and handed it to him. “My proposition is laid out in these pages.”

He looked somewhat bemused as he took the stack and thumbed through it. “There have to be several dozen pages here.”

She nodded. Fifty-one actually, counting the cover page and table of contents.

“I’ll leave you to review it. Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.” Sun Hua paused, remembering the token so that the sect leader wouldn’t accidentally kill her possible intended. She removed it from her pocket and placed it on the table. “Please also take this token and keep it on your person at all times.”

With both the token and the document laying out her position of why conception and childbearing would be inexpensive and safe in the Rising Tide Sect safely in Wu You’s hands, she felt a great relief as she practically ran from the tea house.