All Chapters of Legacy of the Divine Healer: Chapter 81
- Chapter 90
102 chapters
CHAPTER 81: Fall from the Altar
"Do you want to live?" Ethan said. "Then I'll spare your life."He pressed his foot down lightly on the ground beside the old Daoist's head, not on him, but near him, a controlled pressure that communicated finality without requiring force. The old Daoist's body responded to the two silver needles in his knees by shooting upward in an involuntary motion, and then two more needles moved, precise, instant, placed with the specific accuracy that came from ten centuries of accumulated medical knowledge and three weeks of active cultivation.The Divine Power acupoint. The Dantian.The scream that came from the old Daoist was not the sound of physical injury. It was the sound of a person feeling something taken from them that they built their entire identity around.Ethan's needles had not killed him. They had done something the old Daoist would spend the remainder of his life arguing was worse. The cultivation he had built across decades, the arcane arts practice, the martial foundation, t
CHAPTER 82: Finally Waiting for You
"That works," Ethan said.He had taken the measure of Luo Wentao's character across the course of the afternoon, the casino, the auction, the stone gambling competition, the arrival and disposal of Master Xuanji, the rapid repositioning as a victim. Cunning, vicious when the opportunity presented itself, and patient in the way of someone who plays the long game and is comfortable waiting for conditions to shift in their favor.He was not going to be polite to such a person.He moved through the exhibition floor and selected raw stones.His Divine Sense read each stone as he passed it, identifying the ones that contained jade with double or more their exhibition price value, marking them and directing the staff to set them aside. He worked methodically, without hurry, covering the exhibition floor section by section.Luo Wentao watched this process with the expression of a man who has agreed to something and is now watching the consequence of that agreement unfold in real time and is f
CHAPTER 83: Spiritual Qi Pill
He set the Earth Flame Heart on the table beside the Demon Refining Bottle.Then he took up the bottle and tilted it.A single pill rolled out into his palm, small, crystalline, carrying a luminous internal quality that was not the manufactured glow of the Fortune Celestial Pearl's illumination technique but the genuine concentrated radiance of compressed Spiritual Qi. The bottle had absorbed the jade energy from Luo Wentao's two stones during Ethan's brief contact with them at the exhibition, the jade that had been there, real and present, before the Demon Refining Bottle had taken it and refined it into this.A Spiritual Qi Pill.The Order's records described them precisely. Formed entirely from absorbed Spiritual Qi, they were effective at the Qi Refinement Stage of cultivation, capable of strengthening the body's channels, clearing meridian blockages, expelling evil Qi that had accumulated in the system. For a practitioner still at that stage, they were valuable.He had reached Fo
CHAPTER 84: The Power of the Demon Refining Bottle
The Blood-colored Skull came at him without warning.It had grown in the three days since their last encounter, larger by a visible margin, the blood-red coloring across its surface more saturated, more concentrated, the kind of deepening that happens when something has been fed continuously and well. The Dan Fire had hurt it last time. The Yin Sha Qi of the formation had healed those injuries and added to what had been there before.It knew him.The recognition in the hollow eye sockets was not the blank hunger of an ordinary entity. It was the specific alertness of something that has encountered danger before and has spent the intervening time considering how to respond differently.It shrieked.The surrounding entities responded instantly, a coordinated rush, many more of them than there had been three nights ago, the accumulated population of a site that had been running a major formation for weeks. They surged toward Ethan from all directions.He sent ten Fire Talismans outward i
CHAPTER 85: Paradise on Earth
Samantha was still looking at the boundary between clear sky and rain, turning her head from one side to the other, confirming that both were real and that they were separated by approximately twenty feet.Ethan cast another working.The rain on the right stopped.In its place, a spring breeze moved through the development, not the ambient night air of the surrounding district, but something warmer and more particular, the kind of air that belongs to a different season arriving into the middle of this one.On the left, where the stars had been, snow began to fall.Goose-feather snow, large, slow, the kind that lands gently and stays where it falls, descending from a sky that had been clear thirty seconds ago.Samantha reached out her left hand.Snow landed on her palm.She reached out her right hand.The spring breeze moved across her fingers.She looked at both hands simultaneously."Are you" She stopped. Started again. "How is this possible? What are you?""In this formation," Ethan
CHAPTER 86: Unable to Complain
After a while longer, they separated.Ethan looked at her."Are you trying to avoid paying the consultation fee?"Samantha kept her arms around his neck with the composure of someone who has made several decisions this evening and is not backing away from any of them."No money," she said. "But you can have me. Take me if you like.""If you default on my bill," Ethan said, "I'll kidnap you and make you my Bandit Queen."He hoisted her onto his shoulder as he said it, the specific over-the-shoulder carry of someone who has made a statement and is illustrating it and walked toward the Eden Heights entrance.Samantha, inverted over his shoulder, said nothing about this because it would have required admitting it was happening.They got into her car and drove back into the city.It was past midnight. The city at this hour had the particular quality of a place that hasn't fully stopped but has thinned out, the urgency of the day replaced by something more ambient.Samantha showed no inclin
CHAPTER 87: Brainless Feminism
After Lauren had gone, Ethan said, "Women often call men scumbags for far less than what Jason did. That woman was something else entirely."Samantha looked at him."Why are you looking at me like I'm responsible for her?""I'm not," he said. "I'm just observing that the category of scumbag has apparently expanded to accommodate genders previously not represented.""Feminism, originally," Samantha said, in the tone of someone who has thought about this before, "was about genuine equality, equal treatment, equal opportunity, equal standing under the law. Real and necessary work." She picked up a clam and opened it. "But somewhere in the process, some people took the vocabulary and the energy of that movement and applied it to positions that have nothing to do with equality. That woman tonight didn't want equality. She wanted specific benefits without specific responsibilities, and she called the framework that objected to that arrangement feudal.""The courage required to stand in publ
CHAPTER 88: Get Your Head Checked
"Last night," Ethan said, "when you were ending things with your boyfriend at the seafood stall, I happened to be eating nearby."He said it with the mild, flat delivery of someone making an observation rather than an accusation.Lauren's expression did not change in the direction of embarrassment."A narrow-minded man like that isn't worth lingering over," she said. "I want to show him that I can find someone better without him.""I see," Ethan said. "And you've moved directly to blind dates.""Efficiency," she said, as though this were a virtue being demonstrated.She set her bag on the table and looked at him with the evaluating expression of someone assessing a potential acquisition."Since you already know the situation, I'll skip the small talk and tell you my requirements. If you can meet them, we continue. If not, there's no point in wasting each other's time.""Go ahead," Ethan said. He was, at this point, genuinely curious about the full scope."Whatever property, savings, o
CHAPTER 89: Meeting an Old Classmate on a Blind Date
The third location was the Grand Manhattan Hotel, one of the few genuine five-star establishments in the district, with the kind of lobby that communicates its category immediately and without apology.Clara walked him to the entrance and stopped."Son, talk to this one properly. If she's suitable, don't let her slip away. And our family's situation is better now, be generous, don't let her think we're struggling."She repeated variations of this for another thirty seconds, then released him.Ethan went inside and found the room number she had given him.He pushed the door open and stopped.The private dining room was set for more than twelve people. The table was large, the chairs were numerous, and the entire arrangement communicated a function other than a one-on-one introduction.He checked the room number against what Clara had written. It matched.Perhaps other rooms had been unavailable. He pulled out a chair and sat.---Thirty minutes passed.He had been on two blind dates th
CHAPTER 90: Fifteen-Year Aged Whiskey
"I'm still a student at NYU Medical," Ethan said. "Haven't graduated yet."Sun Xiaomei's father set down the menu he had been using to continue ordering and looked at Ethan with the expression of someone who has been presented with a balance sheet that does not add up."No house. No car. No savings worth mentioning. And still in school." He shook his head with the slow deliberateness of a man expressing disappointment he wants the room to observe. "Do you have any idea what our Xiaomei is now? She's a sales supervisor at Quinn Industries. The largest jewelry operation in this city. Her annual salary is over thirty thousand a month."The relatives around the table responded to this with the nodding consensus of people who have heard this number before and continue to find it impressive."Young man has some catching up to do""The gap is quite significant""Can't blame the girl for having standards"Sun Xiaomei's mother put on the particular expression of someone preparing to do somethi