The Qi in Nina’s body began to flow more strongly. Peter felt it through the needles, through the pulse point, and through the small changes in the breathing of the patient before him. The energy was dense, far cleaner than the energy of most people he had met since returning to Earth, but its flow was tangled by old pressure, medicine that only suppressed symptoms, and pain that had repeated itself for far too long. To Peter, whose meridians were almost dry, that flow was like a spring before someone who had just walked out of a desert. With one deeper pull, most of the strength he needed to make several batches of pills could recover. The ingredients on the table would become money, Goro’s debt could be pressed down, and the disappointed queue in front of his apartment would not have to wait too long. On another table, the herbal ingredients he had just bought waited like promises he could not yet fulfill. Every root, petal, an

Nina was stable enough to sit without constantly pressing her abdomen. Her face was still pale, but her breathing was more orderly, and the hand that had been trembling earlier could now hold her bag more steadily. After the pain no longer gripped her throat, the first thing to return was not relief, but her old awareness of reputation. Peter realized it before Nina spoke. In Nina’s world, illness was not only a problem of the body. Illness could become gossip material, a contract loophole, a reason for a producer to replace an actress, or a dirty story cut in half by others. Ordinary patients feared dying. Public figures sometimes feared their lives being turned into a spectacle before they even had the chance to die. Nina’s phone lit up again. This time, it was not only her manager calling, but a row of messages from an assistant, a driver, and someone from the production team. There were questions about her location, tomorrow

The small table in Apartment 307 was already full before Peter Davis could even sit down properly. The herbal bags from Mr. Wong lay on the left side, the silver needle box sat near a cracked porcelain bowl, and Peter’s body felt as if it had just been dragged out of cold water after holding back Nina Yap’s illness all night.Peter closed his eyes and checked his dantian first. At the center of his body, a thin warmth turned slowly. It was not a great force, only the remaining Qi from the damaged stagnation inside Nina’s body, which he had managed to clear without touching the patient’s vital energy.That small warmth was not enough to restore his body, but it was enough to give him one brief chance. Peter knew such a chance could not be used to feel safe, because once that Qi ran out, this body would return to being a fragile vessel unfit to carry Zicari’s knowledge.He opened the herbal bags one by one. The red ginseng was separated from the fibers that were too old, the snow lotus

Peter had just finished checking the pulse of the next patient when the atmosphere in the treatment room changed. It was not a loud voice that came first, but the way the staff’s whispers stopped, the nurse’s movements became suddenly careful, and Doctor Wong closed the patient folder faster than usual. The patient in front of Peter was an old man who complained of stiff shoulders and difficulty sleeping because the pain spread all the way to his neck. Peter still held the patient’s wrist, but his eyes had already caught the shadow of a white coat stopping at the doorway. “This room is quite crowded,” the young man said in a tone so polite it felt overly polished. He entered without hurry, displaying the identification card on his chest as if that small object were enough to remind everyone who had more right to stand inside the clinic. Doctor Wong let out a short breath. “Endi, don&rs

The last patient of the day walked out of the treatment room with slow steps. Peter did not seek applause or words of thanks, because what he felt instead was a heaviness behind his eyes and an emptiness beginning to widen inside his dantian. The queue outside had not completely ended. Several people still held examination results, two wanted to ask about Forging Qi Pills, and a man in a blue shirt kept trying to find an opening to enter first. Peter washed his hands at the small sink. The cold water touched his skin, but it was not enough to soothe the heat left at his fingertips after he had used thin traces of Qi several times to help patients breathe more easily or reduce pain. “That’s enough for today,” Peter said to the nurse waiting near the door. “Critical patients still go to the clinic doctors. Patients looking for me should have their main complaint recorded and be given a number for to