
Overview
Catalog
Chapter 1
Chapter 1A: The Healer of Salt Lake
Alarms ripped through the quiet of Salt Lake General at 11:47 p.m.
“Code blue, pediatric ward!”
Rick Franklin sprinted down the corridor, white coat flaring behind him. The smell of antiseptic clung to the air, mingling with panic.
Through the glass of Room 9 he saw the child, six-year-old Lila, her skin waxen, monitors screaming irregular rhythms. “Pulse forty and dropping!” a nurse shouted.
“Adrenaline, now!” Dr. Harris, the attending, barked. “We’ve lost hepatic response. Renal failure cascading, someone page ICU!”
Rick forced his breath steady. He was only twenty-four, still the youngest apprentice under Master Yuren Sun.
But in that moment the noise faded; he heard only the faint, stuttering beat from the monitor, Lila’s heart fighting to exist. “She’s not stabilizing,” Harris snapped. “Prep time of death in, ”
“Wait.” Rick stepped forward. “Let me try something.”
Harris shot him a glare. “This is no time for experiments, Franklin.”
“It’s not an experiment. It’s a pulse-stabilization sequence.”
“You’re an apprentice, not a miracle worker. Step back.”
Rick’s jaw tightened. The little girl’s mother sobbed in the corner, hands clasped until her knuckles turned white. “Please, someone.”
The door hissed open. Silence rippled. Master Yuren Sun entered. His gray hair was tied neatly, eyes calm and unreadable behind his glasses.
He said nothing, only observed, the way a hawk measures distance before striking. Rick felt his throat dry.
“He’s watching. Testing.” Harris muttered, “Master Sun, the organs are failing. We’re calling it.”
Yuren’s gaze shifted to the child, then to Rick. “Are you calling it, or surrendering?”
Harris stiffened. “Sir?”
Yuren gave a faint, knowing smile. “Continue, Doctor.”
Rick met the old man’s eyes and saw it, not permission, but challenge. He moved before he could think. “Scalpel and sterile needles, now.”
“Franklin!” Harris barked. “You’re off this case.”
Rick ignored him, rolling up his sleeves. “Monitor vitals. I’ll take responsibility.”
“Responsibility?” Harris scoffed. “For killing her?”
Rick didn’t answer. His hands shook as he arranged the silver acupuncture needles across the tray.
Something in his memory stirred, an image, half-dreamed: a circle of light, seven points forming an infinity loop. The Sevenfold Meridian.
He shouldn’t even know those diagrams; they were sealed in Yuren’s private scrolls. But his fingers moved as if remembering a forgotten melody. “Franklin, stop!” a nurse cried.
Rick’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Trust me… please.”
He pressed the first needle beneath the child’s collarbone. The monitor flatlined.
Gasps filled the room. “Idiot!” Harris lunged forward, but Yuren’s voice cut through, sharp as steel. “Let him continue.”
Everyone froze. Rick heard his own heartbeat echoing in his ears as he set the second, third, fourth points, down the sternum, along the solar plexus, tracing a forbidden path.
Each insertion sent a faint vibration up his fingertips, like the body answering. “Those aren’t standard points,” someone whispered. “That’s the Sevenfold.”
The final needle hovered above Lila’s wrist. His mind flashed, a shadowed hall, ancient hands guiding his. Eight points complete the circle.
He pressed the last needle in. The room fell utterly silent. Then, Beep. Beep. Beep.
The monitor spiked; color flushed back into Lila’s cheeks. A faint shimmer, gold under her skin, pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat. Rick staggered backward, breath ragged. “She’s… stable.”
Harris stared, speechless. “That’s impossible.”
Yuren stepped forward, eyes narrowing, awe and dread mixed. “Those points were sealed for a reason,” he murmured.
Rick looked up, confused. “Master?”
But Yuren had already turned away, whispering something under his breath that Rick couldn’t hear. The miracle spread through the ward like wildfire.
The observation lights burned white against sterile steel. Rick scrubbed his hands in the sink until the water ran cold, trying to wash off the tremor.
Behind him, whispers gathered, nurses replaying the footage, interns craning to see. “Did you see her skin? It glowed.”
“Golden resonance, like old legends.”
“Or like radiation,” another muttered.
He stared at his reflection, eyes hollow, hair damp, a faint shimmer still coiling beneath the skin of his wrist.
The door slid open. Yuren Sun stepped in, closing it softly. “Master,” Rick began, voice hoarse. “She lived. I.”
“I saw.” Yuren’s tone was even. “And I saw what you did.”
Rick swallowed. “I followed instinct. The points came to me.”
“Instinct?” Yuren’s gaze sharpened. “You pierced the Eighth Meridian Flow, a path sealed since the Imperial Pulse Wars. You could have stopped her heart permanently.”
Rick’s hands tightened on the edge of the sink. “But I didn’t. She’s alive.”
“Alive, yes. But at what cost?”
Rick met his eyes. “You taught me that a healer listens to life, not protocol.”
“And I also taught you that arrogance kills faster than disease.”
Silence stretched between them, thick as gauze. Yuren finally sighed, rubbing his temples. “There are forces, Rick, older than medicine. You touched one tonight. The Golden Meridian was forbidden because those who awakened it heard… too much.”
“Heard?”
“The pulse of heaven,” Yuren whispered. “And it drove them mad.”
Rick laughed, shaky. “I’m not hearing voices, Master.”
“Not yet.” Yuren’s eyes softened, weary. “Promise me, you will never use those points again.”
Rick hesitated. “If another child were dying, ”
“Promise.”
The weight in his tone silenced him. “...I promise.”
Yuren nodded once and left, robes whispering across the tiles. Rick stood alone, the fluorescent hum drilling into his ears.
Then he saw it, on his wrist, faint lines glowing gold, forming a rune he had never seen before.
He pressed his hand over it, heart pounding. The light faded, but not the sensation. Something alive had answered him.
The rooftop was silent except for the buzz of the city below. Dawn was a thin smear of gray over the horizon.
Rick leaned against the railing, coat open to the cold. He hadn’t slept. The adrenaline of the night still roared through his veins.
The door creaked. Yuren stepped out, carrying two paper cups of coffee. “You should be resting,” he said.
“So should you.”
Yuren handed him a cup. They stood in silence for a long moment, steam rising into the chill. “You disobeyed direct orders,” Yuren said finally.
“I saved her.”
Yuren nodded. “And you awakened something you do not understand.”
Rick exhaled. “You keep saying that like it’s a curse.”
“Because it is.”
He turned to face him fully. The wind tugged at his sleeves, revealing the faint scar of an old burn on his wrist.
“I once touched the Golden Meridian,” Yuren said quietly. “Only once. I heard every heartbeat in the city at once. It nearly killed me. I locked those scrolls away so no one else would hear that noise.”
Rick’s breath caught. “Then why test me? Why let me do it?”
Yuren’s eyes softened. “Because sometimes a student must break a law to understand its weight.”
Rick looked out over the city lights. “If compassion is a crime, then maybe I’ll keep breaking it.”
Yuren’s jaw tightened. “Be careful, Rick. Every miracle you steal from heaven takes something from you in return. Every life saved pulls another thread loose.”
The words sank like stones. Rick murmured, “And if that’s the price?”
“Then pray you can afford it.”
They stood until the first rays of sunlight touched the Salt Lake’s glass surface far below.
Rick lifted his wrist; for an instant, the golden sigil flickered beneath the skin, silent, pulsing in time with the dawn. He hid it quickly, afraid even of the light.
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