NOVEL NEXT Chapter 54: Investment [Sidestory]
Yihui sighed as she tucked away her smoking pipe once more. A pair of boys, one of whom bore the aforementioned sickle-related injury while the other clumsily supported him, came into her makeshift 'clinic' — little better than a small wooden shack the villagers loaned her, furnished with a table for her to set her tools on and a straw mattress for her patients.
At least this place gave her a table. The last village couldn't even afford her that, and she had to lay out her instruments on the fucking ground.
The sheer indignity of it!
Most places she visited started off suspicious of her presence — small wonder, given how she appeared to be a lone vulnerable mortal travelling the dangerous roads — but once she started peddling her medical services for ridiculously low rates, people started flocking for her treatment, especially after the good Doctor's skills became abundantly clear following her first few patients.
"Please set him here," she soothingly said, her tone defaulting to a professional demeanour as she helped set the injured upon the straw mattress.
The boy's left arm was marked with a vicious-looking laceration, sliced lengthwise down his forearm and with a hint of bone peaking out. It was bleeding profusely, and if what the other said about the wound coming from a farming sickle was true, the risk of infection was likely severe.
Yihui had seen the rusted hunks of metal these primitives referred to as 'tools'. Left untreated, the boy was unlikely to survive. How terrible.
Terribly boring, that was. Both the Chirurgeon and Painter within her had to resist the urge to sigh at the sight of yet another banal injury. Instead, she put on a reassuring smile as the other boy worriedly babbled on about how the incident happened. She ignored him.
"Please be at ease," she said, already pulling out a few 'bandages'. Their leathery texture brought a small comfort to her weary mind. Her fingers lovingly brushed across the pebbled firmness of it, before she caught herself. "I will have the wound tended to. His arm will be fine."
She rubbed a greenish salve upon the dressing — a simple poultice she crafted from local herbs and materials — before she wrapped it expertly around the wound. Rather than tying the 'bandage', she used her needles and formed a suture around their ends to seal the injury.
"Keep the bandage on for a full day, and visit me again tomorrow. It's important that you do not take it off, even if the pain might have faded. The injury might not recover fully if you do," she warned, even as the patient and his friend thanked her profusely. "I shall remove it myself when you visit again."
Once the clumsy pair were done thanking her, she waited for them to leave for a few minutes before she breathed a sigh of relief. Then, after she ascertained that no one else was coming, she carefully pulled back her sleeve.
Blood pooled around the edges as she dispassionately studied the vicious gash that had suddenly appeared on her left forearm: an exact replica of the wound she had just treated.
Twenty-one centimetres irregular laceration, length-wise across the underside of the left arm. Three centimetres deep. Chipped the bone. Risk of infection and loss of arm near absolute without treatment. The wound looks almost deliberate… An assault? Did someone else attack those boys in the fields? Or perhaps—
"Doctor Lu?"
Yihui nearly swore as she hurriedly closed back her robes, just in time before the same boy from before entered her clinic — the wounded one, it seemed. And he was alone.
"What do you want?" she snapped. The boy flinched, and Yihui sighed as she soothed her voice again. "I'm sorry, you merely surprise me. Was there something else you needed?"
"Ah, no, it's just… We forgot to pay you, is all," he mumbled sheepishly. "I might have lost my arm without your help, so…"
Ah, yes. Pay. She wondered what menial reward she was about to receive this time. Was it yet another batch of half-decomposed produce that they expected her to eat, or perhaps another gourd of rice wine that more resembled vinegar than alcohol?
It better not be a proposal for her to bear the boy's child. She was already this close to snapping. Although he looked far too young to be asking about such matters.
To her great relief, it was none of those things. The boy took out a small metal object and laid it on her table.
Yihui's eyebrow raised.
Money. Real, authentic money. It was but a single coin — a circular bronze-coloured piece engraved with clerical script onto its surface, complete with a square hole punched through its centre — but it was the first tael of monetary payment she received.
"My family has carried the coin around for generations. It is genuine, the kind used by merchants and cultivators, or so I'm told," the boy explained. "My family's gone now. All I have left is that idiot Jun you saw helping me just now. Figured you might be moving off soon, so I might as well give this to you."
"You would part with something this valuable?" she asked as she picked up the coin and examined it. It felt unnaturally light in her hands. Despite the boy's claims that it had been with his family for several generations, there was nary a hint of rust or damage.
She did not think he was lying, either. Even with just a touch, she could sense that there was something… off about it.
"Better in your hands than mine, Doctor. And besides, you have already done so much for this village. I think this is the first time I've seen so many people smiling and healthy at once. This is the least I can do."
Well, she was hardly going to refuse the payment now if he said it that way.
"Jun and I aim to be cultivators one day," the boy said as he stood to leave, holding his injured arm close. "If such fortunes come to pass, I hope our paths may one day cross again in the future. I would love to understand the Divine Arts you wield."
The woman froze. "I don't know what you are talking about."
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The boy snorted and pointed to his 'bandage'. "For future reference, Doctor Lu, most people are not so dumb as to not recognise human skin when they see it. The fact that you are travelling alone is a dead giveaway as well. No mortal can walk the Imperial Highway and come out unscathed, at least not without a convoy."
Yihui frowned. "And yet, you are not afraid of me at all. Assuming I am what you claim to be."
"I am afraid," the boy freely admitted. The confession surprised her. "But being afraid is nothing new. If you wanted to kill all of us, you would have done so already. Our lives — mortal lives, I mean — are already fraught with danger. You being here doesn't add much, especially since you seem to enjoy taking away our pains rather than giving them."
As if to make his point, the boy waved his injured arm without a hint of discomfort.
The impudence of this brat made her laugh. "Cheeky fool. You won't live long acting like this."
If the wound on his arm was any indication, he was not one to shy away from danger. Yihui had patched enough lacerations to recognise the ones delivered with lethal intent.
And in spite of the boy's convincing display of weakness, the good Doctor knew that not all the blood splattered on his clothes was his.
If it were self-defence, I would have already heard something from the village chief. That means… A secret murder, at your age? No signs of immediate trauma either… My, oh my. I wonder how many you have already slaughtered, little killer?
The reeds in the fields were easily tall enough to hide a person. Perhaps the two boys lured someone there for some personal vendetta. Perhaps it was the other way around instead. Either way, the boy had been in a fight — against an armed opponent, no less — and though wounded, he came out as the victor.
More importantly… What Dreams stir within your heart, that someone so young could be driven to commit such acts of violence without flinching? Both to others and themselves…
"That has been made abundantly clear to me by many people, some of whom I even respect." The boy chuckled. Something dark passed through those green eyes of his. "But they are all dead while I am still here, so maybe I am doing something right."
A moment of silence passed. After it became clear the Doctor had no words for him, the black-haired youth stood and bowed deeply. "I thank you for your help and generosity, great Fairy. I will leave you to your bleeding now."
So he even noticed her fresh wounds… Sharp, for a brat his age. And possessed of a peculiar lethal quality as well…
It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Just as the boy turned to leave, Yihui called out: "Brat, wait."
The boy froze. For a moment, she saw the stiffening of muscles, the minute shifts in his posture that made him ready for action. Not to run, as was the reaction of most people.
For a single heartbeat, his fingers had twitched for the tiny shiv tucked in the waistband of his tunic. Yihui smiled.
Eventually, he forced himself to relax and turned slowly. The Doctor held up an ivory scalpel. "What's your name?"
The bone blade glistened under the candlelight, its hollowed edge shimmering with a vile liquid that possessed no natural colour — indescribable to human perception, but unmistakably malevolent all the same.
The boy turned pale, but steel remained in his eyes, and his voice was steady when he spoke.
"Dai."
Yihui nodded. "Alright, Dai. How would you like a boost to your chances of ascending to the ranks of cultivators?"
~~~
Yihui walked with an uncharacteristic lightness to her steps as she left the village. Her hands played with the coin as she walked, deftly flicking the metal into a spinning arc again and again as she whistled a cheery tune.
The sum of her earnings after three months of travel and doctoral aid: one bronze tael. Oh, if only her Master could see her now. The shrivelled old hag would probably laugh herself to death, then reanimate herself so that she could laugh some more.
At least the metal of the coinage was interesting. Yihui didn't know what it was made of, but she was certain it was no ordinary alloy. Any attempt she made to deface it failed, no matter how she tried. Blades, acids, and even heat were all unable to smear even the slightest imperfection upon the coin.
If Yihui were the superstitious sort, she might even suspect a form of dimensional permanence ingrained within the coin's spatial properties, but such a thought was ludicrous. To deploy such an energy-intensive operation within a coinage system distributed across a population the size of the Flesh-Grafted Empire…
Utter madness. Even the mysteries of Star Gods should have practical limits… right?
Her thoughts returned to the villages she had visited thus far. The mortals were dull; their suffering mundane.
A broken leg. An infected cut. Simple burns. The other day, someone even came to her for a mere splinter!
How was she to expand her repertoire of Agony under such meagre conditions?
She travelled as much as she could, but it was all the same. In most villages, Yihui could only force herself to linger merely a week or two before sheer boredom demanded she set off again.
Her patience in the last one held for only eight days. Yet even as she left, the same question plagued her thoughts: where was she even to go? She was sick of the 'adventure' already. The treks were miserable, and the gains thus far even more so.
Well, perhaps not all of it was bad. The boy in that last village might prove an interesting investment, should he survive the next painful weeks. She would have to track him down in a decade or two to see how the modifications have affected his physiology, assuming he makes the spiritual breakthrough.
In any case, Yihui knew she could not advance her understanding of Agony if she kept this menial journey up. So where was she to go?
The coin fell back into her hand. The Doctor eyed the exotic construct of it once more, and was reminded of what the boy said about his ambition.
Cultivation, huh?
Perhaps it's time she visited one of those famous Sects within the Province. She heard the Split-headed Carnivores were opening their gates for disciples once again this spring. There was that little problem that she was not actually a cultivator, but Yihui was sure she could find a way in regardless.
Anything was surely better than this frustrating tedium, and a monastery full of man-eating beauties sounded like a good time for her.
"Oh, what fun shall I have… Reaping pain from tainted flesh…"
Imperial Currency, Part 1
One of the most important and radical changes brought about at the turn of the new era was the implementation of a standardised, Imperial-minted coinage system for use throughout the Empire. Most scholars today agree that short of His Perverse Majesty's Domain, the realisation of a widely accepted monetary medium across the lands of Qiangyu was the next single most important achievement for Humanity as a whole.
It is perhaps difficult for those born today to understand, but the widespread adoption of a viable currency system across the human continent was a relatively new concept. Though the use of a universal medium to facilitate the exchange of goods and services had been in place during the Age of the Gods, such practices typically only took place near the lands of the Celestial Court.
Thus, in many ways, the first minted coin of His Perverse Majesty made a thousand years ago was yet another symbol of the shackle of the Divines being shattered. Money was, and still is, one of the primary keys that ensured the Empire's prosperity today.
– Excerpt from A Citizen's Guide to the Flesh-Grafted Empire
(Within this particular copy, neatly handwritten notes can be seen alongside the printed text: "... seemly impermeable to change of all sorts. This goes beyond advanced metallurgy; there might be an invariant component fixed to its spatial property, but that's impossible. Need to find a few other coins to confirm, but if every single piece of monetary token is imbued with such immutability… UEC predictions were way off! The cosmic energy levels of this place are—")
(The rest of the notes are missing; pages torn from the books)