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Dao of Healing - Chapter 142
🕑 Added 2025-06-05 16:39:56 +0000 UTCXiao Cui sat in a roadside inn on the way back to Twisting Ridge City
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Xiao Cui sat in a roadside inn on the way back to Twisting Ridge City. The cup of tea she was sipping on was lukewarm and the herbs harvested incorrectly. Despite that, she clutched it in her hand as if it were a Heaven grade treasure.
It had been almost an entire year since she was exiled from the Grasping Life Sect. At the time, it had felt like a grievous wound. Her master, the man she looked up to most in this world, had tossed her aside like an unwanted dog.
The first month of the journey had been the worst of her life. Well, not quite. Her parents’ death was certainly worse alongside the destruction of her village. Those memories had been brought up fresh, leading to almost a month of grief.
During that month she had travelled away from the lands surrounding the Grasping Life Sect. They were not yet… under the sect’s control, but she knew it was only a matter of time before her master claimed them. Such was his brilliance.
In the end, what had brought Xiao Cui out of her grief was her arrival in a village in the Soaring Sword Sect’s lands. It was a strange, haunting arrival.
She spotted the village at dusk, as the last light of day faded into the chilling grasp of night. At first she had just thought they went to bed early—some villages had strange customs. As she drew closer, the truth was laid bare.
It began in the paddies that surrounded the village. It was past harvest season, yet they remained flooded. The rice had shattered, half the crops lodged, bending towards the ground as though bowing at her arrival.
For a portion of the harvest to be faulty was natural. It happened most years. For the entire lot to be in such a state meant that no one had tended to it in weeks. Her heart ran cold.
Sometimes, a passing cultivator in a poor mood would vent their frustrations on mortals. To those lofty bastards, village peasants were no more than ants. She knew the truth of it well.
She was hesitant as she approached the village, but soon it became clear that caution wasn’t necessary. It was a ghost town. Bodies in the streets, decomposing and rotten. The stench struck her like a hammer.
Xiao Cui had scoured the place. She found just two of the villagers left alive. A young girl and her grandfather.
They’d been terrified and traumatised. She had used her skills in herbalism and her gradually developing knowledge of healing to treat them. It turned out to be a plague originating from a tainted well.
She had escorted them to the nearest town to begin their lives anew. She hadn’t known what to tell them. Once, Xiao Cui had been in a similar situation, but she had Master Dan to lean on. They had nothing and no one.
Leaving them with a small pouch of coin to stay afloat, she had moved on with her journey. However, the incident had given her a fresh perspective.
She saw her exile for what it was. Despite everything that had befallen her, she was beyond lucky. Yet she had behaved like a spoiled brat. Relied on her master’s influence and talents rather than her own.
In Three River City, she had begun to take her first independent steps, but the moment Zhao Dan returned she had thrown it aside. It was foolish of her.
She resolved herself to spend the rest of her exile learning about healing, exploring the world, and trying to discover who she was beyond the sect and her master. It had gone… interestingly.
After the first village, there had been a poisoning in some city. She’d offered her services to the unfortunate Young Master’s suffering. His family had paid her extremely well and she had learned more about the treatment of poisons.
It had taken a sharp turn when the youth proposed to her in his gratitude. At her refusal, things went south and he’d attempted to force himself on her. It had been terrifying.
But a herbalist is never without her tools.
She’d ended up fleeing the city, leaving Young Master Zhao bleeding from his crown jewels. An inspired retaliation. She wondered if her master would approve. He wasn’t a fan of violence, but he did not disdain self defence.
That had led her to the next adventure. A journey into a mountain range beyond the Soaring Sword Sect’s territory. So far from home, she began to realise that almost all the cities and villages she went to were similar.
She thought about the suffering she saw and how the emperor seemed not to care. Her master was right.
The mountains were wreathed in mist. A local had told her a story about a legendary herb that supposedly grew in the depths of the mountain range.
Being an intrepid herbalist, she had gone after it immediately. The journey had been dangerous. More than once a beast had almost taken her life. However, she had relied on a concoction of toxic mushrooms and spirit grass to confuse them and escape.
Cowardly, perhaps, but effective.
In the end, the legendary herb had turned out to be dead. A withered, dried stalk that had been drained of spiritual energy. The soil, however, was a marvel.
Extraordinarily fertile, all the grass around the dead herb was sprouting to the heavens with a fervent vigour. Xiao Cui had harvested it, keeping it for her garden back at Million Flowers Celestial Peak.
She left the mountains on the other side, making her way towards the capital, Celestial Jade City. She wanted to see the jewel of the empire.
They said that almost everyone who lived there was a cultivator, from the beggars all the way to the emperor himself. It was almost too good to be true, yet when she arrived at the gates and was almost pickpocketed by a two-star Body Tempering orphan, she knew all the stories were true.
In the capital, she ended up being both disappointed and having her expectations shattered. It was just another city. Beyond the mythos, it was filled with smelly, arrogant, boorish people.
It was also where she met a wondrous alchemist by the name of Sun Di. The man was a renowned master in the capital, who had come to prominence by inventing a pill which allowed one to cultivate the spiritual energy of natural treasures, at a low efficiency rate.
She had met him in an inn, shared a drink with him, and spent two months learning from him. She didn’t learn much of healing, but she slowly realised that her perspective had been limited.
The reason for this was a chilling discovery. The pill which had thrust Sun Di to prominence was actually the invention of one of his disciples. The man had stolen the idea and shared it as his own.
When Xiao Cui learned this, she realised that her blind devotion and defence of her master had been foolish. Master Zhao was not a thieving bastard like Sun Di, but he was not perfect.
Her childish behaviour had driven her apart from her master, Feng Mei—who was quite talented, despite their initial less than favourable meeting—and almost caused the murder of one of her sect’s disciples. She felt great shame at her actions now.
After learning from Sun Di’s disciples and the treacherous bastard’s meagre knowledge, she decided to make her way back to the sect. That brought her to the present, sipping on lukewarm tea.
A bedraggled young man suddenly threw open the door of the inn, rushing in with a wild expression. He raced into the centre of the room and jumped onto a table, where he waved his arms to gather the attention of the ten or so people in there—including the proprietor. “It’s unbelievable!” he yelled.
“Shut up brat!” the proprietor yelled, rushing over to drag the boy down. “Get off my damn tables, how many times do I have to tell you?”
“But there’s no time, old man! The divine doctor’s sect invited everyone to witness the competition between the disciples. It will be the greatest event of our lives,” the boy yelled as the old man dragged him to the ground.
However, the seed had been sowed. Cheers and yelps erupted around the room as the few people present understood the youth’s declaration.
“What?!”
“Competition, what kind?”
“Watch the immortals? Am I dreaming?”
Of those present, there was only one person who hadn’t been shocked by the news. Well, Xiao Cui was surprised to hear of a competition—it hadn’t been mentioned before her exile. Yet, it was exactly the sort of thing her master would do.
It was another thing to look forward to upon her return. As the cheers were dying down, a girlish shriek cut through the noise. “Wait! I haven’t prepared. How will I win!?” Xiao Cui exclaimed.
****
Feng Mei stood in front of the sect’s new noticeboard. It was an idea that Miss Yu had proposed a while ago, but had never come to fruition until now.
It was supposed to display missions for the disciples to undertake in exchange for points. Right now, it lacked any mission notices. All it displayed was the competitions that they would undertake in two days’ time.
She hadn’t read them when they were first displayed, five days ago. The news had spread like wildfire through the sect, but her duties came first.
During the past year, she had barely had time to practice healing herself. She had been teaching the other disciples and working as an assistant in the treatment pavilions.
It was intended as a punishment and at first it had been. Feng Mei had desired freedom to pursue her blossoming talents as a healer. Her blood essence manipulation was gradually improving.
Yet, she had to pause it all to lead the foolish disciples down the path of healing. Most of them did not even possess qi or have the ability to manipulate their blood essence as she did. They could not use the two techniques their Sect Leader had created through his genius.
She knew he manipulated a strange qi that was unlike anything she had ever seen before, yet somehow he had still developed techniques that allowed anyone to replicate his healing prowess.
What had begun as a punishment turned into a different kind of learning experience for her. By teaching the other disciples, Feng Mei had been able to discover the errors in her own methods and knowledge.
That was why despite the fact that she hadn’t really prepared for the competition whatsoever, she still felt confident in her ability to win. The reason for that was simple: the competitions favoured her talents.
As the Sect Leader had announced on that fateful day almost a year ago, the competition would be split into three groups. One for the healers, one for the combatants, and the final one would be for any who did not fit into the first two groups.
The combatants’ competition was simple. A tournament, with open entry. It would begin with small battle royale rounds, the winners of which would go on to a knockout tournament to see who would become the first martial inner disciple of the Grasping Life Sect.
As for the ‘free’ competition, the disciples simply had to display their greatest talents, to be judged by a panel including the Sect Leader, Elder Wang, and Guest Elder Li, who had returned eight months ago from the Blossoming Heavens with wild tales and grave news.
Apparently there was some chaos with a strange battle breaking out among the various world powers after the secret realm closed. It was too far above Feng Mei’s notice for her to be truly worried. The Sect Leader and Elder Wang also said it would be fine, so she followed their lead.
That left the most important section of the competition. The healing competition. The one that she would win, becoming the first healing inner disciple of the Grasping Life Sect.
Xiao Cui had beaten her to the punch in becoming the Sect Leader’s first personal disciple, but she would find her path to success in other ways. Surely after a year of exile, her Senior Sister would struggle to win the competition?
Regardless, it was a rather simple task set before them, yet it had the potential to be extremely challenging. Every disciple who entered would be given a single patient, suffering from some sort of disease or wound.
The task would be to diagnose and then treat the patient. They would be judged on multiple areas, including the time it took from diagnosis to treatment, how successful their treatment actually was, and the level of suffering the patient endured during the treatment.
It was quite terrifying to consider.
Even though she and the other disciples had treated an endless stream of mortals and even cultivators over the past year, she was sure the Sect Leader would put a complex and puzzling trial in front of them.
After all, there was everything to gain and even more to lose in this competition. Whatever it took, Feng Mei vowed she would win.
To continue advancing the reputation of their sect and her own knowledge of healing. There was no other acceptable outcome.
****
Two days passed. The Grasping Life Sect truly lived up to its name. After the news that anyone from the surrounding territories would be allowed to come and witness the competition, thousands had poured in from the nearby villages, towns, and even Twisting Ridge City.
Under the direction of the Sect Leader, the Yu twins and the other builders of the sect had constructed a grand arena at the base of Million Flowers Celestial Peak. It towered over every other building in the area, grander than even the City Lord’s palace in Twisting Ridge City.
Everyone had gathered within the arena, under the guidance and direction of the sect’s disciples. All were waiting for the arrival of the most important person of the day.
Grasping Life Sect’s Sect Leader Zhao Dan.
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