The Submerged Soul Silk
The Heavenly Fragrance Fairy spoke. "The victory at Bamboo Forest Manor is certainly worth congratulating, but I am far more interested in the miraculous elixir Young Master Ouyang is said to have created — the Dragon-Nurturing Pill."
...!
Ouyang Qiangang barely managed to keep his expression from stiffening.
How...? No one in the world knew I had made the Dragon-Nurturing Pill except the Heo father and daughter, myself, and Hwang Nodae!
Suppressing his shock, he forced his voice into calm. "How did you know that I made it?"
A mysterious smile played at the corners of the Heavenly Fragrance Fairy's eyes. "There is scarcely anything that happens in and around Nanchang that escapes my notice. What matters is this — anyone capable of producing a miraculous elixir like that must possess medical skill that reaches the very heavens."
The playfulness drained from her voice, and something desperate bled through beneath it. "I need the help of your medical arts, Young Master."
"It sounds as though there is a story behind this. Please, tell me the details."
The Heavenly Fragrance Fairy opened her mouth with a thin sigh. "I have a martial sister who is as precious to me as my own life. Her name is Nok-ju."
She told him her sister's story. Months ago, the girl — once healthier and brighter than anyone — had collapsed without warning and without cause, sinking into a deep sleep from which she had never once woken.
"I scoured the land and summoned every physician renowned under heaven. Even a retired imperial physician who had once served the palace came and went. Yet not one of them could so much as name Nok-ju's illness."
Deep sorrow and helplessness pooled in her beautiful eyes.
Having heard the whole story, Ouyang Qiangang had no reason left to delay. He rose from his seat and spoke with formal courtesy. "I would like to see her at once. Would you guide me to her?"
His voice carried more than simple curiosity; it held the fierce intellectual hunger of a scientist confronting an unknown disease. Not that the Heavenly Fragrance Fairy could have guessed any of it.
The Heavenly Fragrance Fairy led him to a room tucked into the deepest corner of the hall. When she slid the door open without a sound, a serene and tranquil space revealed itself. The furnishings were simple yet dignified, and moonlight filtered softly through the paper-covered windows, suffusing the room with a gentle glow.
And bathed in that moonlight, a woman lay asleep upon the bed. Dressed in a pale jade-green nightgown, she seemed lost in the deepest of slumbers. Sickness was plain upon her, yet there was no sign of suffering.
She was beautiful enough to widen even Ouyang Qiangang's eyes, and her pallid skin seemed only to accentuate her doll-like loveliness. This was Nok-ju, the Heavenly Fragrance Fairy's martial sister.
"As you can see, there is no external injury, no internal damage, not even a trace of poison. Every famed physician under heaven gave up her treatment and went home."
Without a word, Ouyang Qiangang approached the bed and laid his fingers on Nok-ju's wrist to take her pulse.
The pulse is even and calm. Her internal energy flows normally too, without the slightest obstruction. Then what on earth is wrong? Akasha, run a precision scan of this woman's body.
From the tip of his finger, a single invisible nanobot slipped out without a sound and seeped into Nok-ju's bloodstream, where it began its meticulous scan.
Pretending to continue taking her pulse, Ouyang Qiangang waited for Akasha's analysis. In the breathless silence, one minute flew past like an arrow.
Doctor, analysis complete. All of the subject's other vital signs are normal, but I am measuring an extremely faint foreign-energy interference wavelength at the synaptic junctions between the cerebral cortex and the spinal nerves.
Is that why this woman cannot wake?
Yes. This is... the residue of a wicked sorcery recorded in the Life and Death Medical Canon — a technique known as the Submerged Soul Silk. The Submerged Soul Silk slowly severs the neural connection between the soul and the body, ultimately reducing its victim to a living corpse — a soulless husk. It is a viciously, thoroughly evil method.
Ouyang Qiangang's gaze turned to ice. He had realized that this illness was no affliction ordinary medicine or martial arts could ever resolve — it was a highly calculated, bioengineered attack.
The Submerged Soul Silk... the dark art recorded in the Life and Death Medical Canon that severs soul from body. Then... all I need to do is forge that connection anew...
Inside his head, the contents of the Life and Death Medical Canon inherited from the Divine Hand Hua Tuo wove together with the Transcendent Formless Divine Art, ceaselessly sketching out a new method of treatment.
Stimulate the paralyzed neural network with the Canon's Life-Death Soul-Restoring Needle Art, absorb and purge the Submerged Soul Silk's evil qi with the Transcendent Formless Divine Art, then reconnect the severed synapses with nanobots... There may well be a chance of curing her...
He turned to the Heavenly Fragrance Fairy, who was watching him. "I believe I can treat her."
...!
The Heavenly Fragrance Fairy's beautiful eyes shook wide with disbelief.
"...Are you serious?"
"Would I speak falsely to you, Pavilion Master, when I have a request of my own to make?"
"Every famed physician under heaven shook their head... How can you be so certain of a cure, Young Master?" Hope and anxiety lay tangled together like a single thread in her voice.
"I am afraid it is a secret art of my school — one I cannot disclose."
"Ah... I see."
Interrogating a sect about its secret techniques was a taboo of the murim. Ouyang Qiangang sensed the Fairy's anxiety, but he did not explain his method. In truth, there was no way he could have explained Akasha and the nanobots.
He said, "Pavilion Master, the procedure is extraordinarily delicate. I will need roughly two days to complete the treatment."
"However long it takes, I do not care."
Ouyang Qiangang continued. "I heard it through Uncle Heo. The condition for obtaining the information on the Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Jade that I seek — that was this woman's treatment, was it not?"
"...It was."
"Good. Then once I have treated her, I will take that information as my payment."
"Then it is agreed."
There was no hesitation in the Heavenly Fragrance Fairy's answer.
Ouyang Qiangang went on. "I will require one hundred and eight needles — piercing needles and dispersing needles, fire needles and round needles. And while I perform the procedure, I will need one person at my side to assist and attend me."
At his words, the maid in attendance started forward, but the Heavenly Fragrance Fairy raised a hand to stop her. "No — I will do it myself. You go and fetch the needles Young Master Ouyang has described, this instant." Her voice carried a deep devotion: she could not entrust her martial sister to another's hands.
A short while later, the maid returned with the needles the treatment required. Ouyang Qiangang received them, examined each one, nodded, and gave his next instruction. His voice had sunk lower and graver than before.
"Then first — please remove all of her clothing."
"...I beg your pardon?"
The Heavenly Fragrance Fairy's beautiful eyes went wide with a flash of astonishment.
Ouyang Qiangang explained calmly. "The procedure I am about to perform is not simple acupuncture that merely stimulates the acupoints. It is an extraordinarily precise process in which I must directly sense and correct the minute flows of energy running through every meridian and nerve in her body."
"Ah..."
"Even the faint friction of fabric, or the negligible aura of an ornament, could disturb those delicate flows and provoke a fatal complication in the middle of the procedure."
At his explanation, the Heavenly Fragrance Fairy nodded. "Understood. I will do as you say."
With the soft whisper of parting silk — srrk, srrk — the Heavenly Fragrance Fairy's gentle hands carefully undressed the sleeping Nok-ju until she lay bare. Bathed in moonlight, her body was as beautiful as a statue carved from flawless white jade.
Ouyang Qiangang's gaze wavered, ever so slightly, despite himself. It was the dissonance of a thirty-eight-year-old mind housed within a seventeen-year-old body.
At that very moment, Akasha's voice echoed through his mind.
Doctor, I am detecting slight instability in your heart rate and hormone levels. To preserve the precision of the procedure, shall I block unnecessary visual input and augment only your vital-sign and meridian-flow data? It will help you maintain focus.
But Ouyang Qiangang shook his head inwardly. No, I'm fine. I am a doctor right now. The woman lying before me is nothing more than a patient I have to save.
He sat down on the chair beside Nok-ju's bed and drew a long, deep breath. Once he had mastered his heart, every worldly distraction vanished from his eyes.
Akasha, if it looks like I'm about to make a mistake, seize control of my hand muscles at once.
Understood, Doctor. I am now synchronizing nanobots with every muscle fiber and neural pathway in your hands and arms. Should an error of one micrometer or more be detected during the procedure, I will intervene immediately and correct your movement. Do not worry — focus only on the treatment.
Akasha's words eased his mind considerably. The moment he drew a slender golden needle from his needle case, the aura flowing from his entire body changed. The Heavenly Fragrance Fairy, who had been watching beside him with bated breath, swallowed involuntarily.
Ouyang Qiangang's aura was not something that could be dismissed as mere strength. It was an intense presence that inspired awe itself — the sublime concentration of one who handled life and death, fused with a glacial intellect.
His hands began to move. From the tips of the golden needles he left embedded in Nok-ju's acupoints, a minute current of energy flowed out and coursed along her meridians. From the Baihui point at the crown of her head down to the Yongquan point on the soles of her feet, one hundred and eight needles in all pierced her vital points. His hands were as precise as a machine, without the slightest tremor.
When he set down the final needle, he stepped back a single pace. A bead of sweat that had been clinging to his jaw dropped to the floor with a soft tap. His face was already soaked through with sweat.
The Life-Death Soul-Restoring Needle Art was an esoteric technique that devoured enormous mental focus and internal energy even from a martial artist in perfect health. And though he now possessed fifteen years of cultivated power, he remained — technically — an incurable patient(?) still suffering from the Nine Yin Severed Meridians. Crushing exhaustion pressed down upon his entire body.
For a moment, Ouyang Qiangang closed his eyes and circulated the Transcendent Formless Divine Art.
While he did, an astonishing change unfolded inside Nok-ju's body. The golden needles linked the energies scattered across her frame into a single whole, like stars in the night sky finding their places and kindling their light. The needles then formed a subtle yet powerful field of energy within her, spreading out an immense, invisible net.
The black, faint qi that had lain scattered like a spider's web through her brain, her spinal cord, and every nerve in her body — the evil energy of the Submerged Soul Silk — began to writhe and drift toward a single point. It thrashed like a living creature, but it could not escape the intricate, colossal prison of energy that the golden needles had wrought.
How much time had passed? All of the evil qi that had been scattered through her body, severing soul from flesh, condensed into a single point near the Mingmen acupoint at the center of her back. From it — a small bead no larger than a fingernail — an ominous black light seeped forth.
The root of the disease had now gathered in one place. All that remained was the question of how to deal with this wicked mass.