Peter had only managed to sit for five minutes on the plastic chair in Apartment 307 when a noisy commotion rose from the corridor below. His body still held the fatigue left from the clinic, and his temples felt heavy because the Qi he had used to stabilize Reyhan’s mother had not fully recovered, but his mind remained clear when he heard several people saying his name among the sounds of footsteps. The shabby apartment was usually noisy only with television sounds leaking from neighbors’ rooms, young couples arguing, and residents complaining about the water being cut off. That night, the sound rising from the stairs was different. There was hope, suspicion, people carrying money, and others who came only to see whether the rumors about Peter Davis were truly not nonsense. He opened the door. In the narrow corridor, several faces from Melody Paradise immediately turned toward him. Behind them were two neighbors from the complex

The neon lights of Mr. Wong’s traditional medicine shop were still on when Peter Davis stopped in front of the glass display window. From outside, he could see old wooden shelves filled with bottles of dried roots, herbal packets, and small boxes labeled in red ink. Thirty-five million had just entered his account, but his body still carried the fatigue from the clinic and the apartment queue, so his steps felt heavy even though his goal was clear.The small bell above the door rang when he entered. The scent of ginseng, licorice root, and dried herbs greeted him, mixed with the dusty smell of shelves that had clung to the shop for years. Behind the counter, Mr. Wong was counting loose change from the drawer, and his face immediately soured when he saw Peter.“Well, look who came this late at night,” Mr. Wong said, closing the drawer with a slightly hard sound. “I thought you were too busy selling miracle pills to remember the way to this old shop.”The young clerk near the shelves he

Apartment 307 felt even narrower when Peter placed the herbal bags on his small table. Red ginseng, snow lotus, licorice root, stabilizing bark, and other supporting ingredients piled up until they almost covered the old coffee stains on the tabletop. After days of being mocked as a debtor and a strange pill seller, the sight should have felt like a small victory. In the corner of the table, his phone still held the transfer history from buyers, proof that the modern world could turn trust into numbers very quickly. But the apartment walls were still peeling, the thin mattress in the corner was still sagging, and the old ceiling fan still spun with an unstable sound. Money could change Mr. Wong’s face with one notification, but it could not yet change Peter’s exhausted body or the fragile meridians now feeling dry inside him. Peter washed his hands, dried them with a clean cloth, then began arranging the ingredients according to

Nina did not answer immediately. In the world of screens, she was used to controlling her expression when hearing bad news, but Peter’s words made her shoulders tense in a way she could not hide. She looked at the small table full of herbal ingredients, then back at the young man living in that cramped apartment. “Explain,” she finally said. “I came here because I wanted to hear a solution, not a riddle.” Peter nodded. He liked patients who could still ask for explanations despite fear, because fear that asked questions could still be guided. Fear that only shouted usually dragged patient and doctor into the same pit. That was better than people who only brought money, panic, and demands for miracles. “There is blockage and enlargement in an internal pathway of your body,” he said calmly. “Hospital language calls it a cyst and complications in the reproductive area. The hea

Nina sat back down on the chair near the small table, her face pale and her breathing still uneven. Her hand was still pressing against her lower abdomen, but her grip was no longer as tight as it had been moments ago. Pain made her shoulders sink, while the last of her pride kept her chin trying to stay lifted.Peter placed the needle box on the side of the table, then took a clean cloth and spread it over Nina’s wrist. He did not touch any other part of her before explaining what he was going to do. Even in a cramped room with peeling paint on the walls, boundaries had to be clearer than good intentions.“Your wrist,” he said. “I’ll check your pulse first. No other treatment before you agree.”Nina stared at the cloth for several seconds before placing her hand on it. Her fingers were cold, but her pulse moved too fast, as if something inside her body was trying to force its way out. Peter placed two fingers on her wrist and waited for the most honest rhythm to appear beneath the ch