Chapter 270 — A Duel of Healing Hands

"Junior Brother seems rather guarded against me!

" Little Poison King laughed.

"Though you and I are fellow disciples, we have never once met. We ought to be close.

" Shen Mu lowered his arm. He had long heard tell of this Little Poison King; the Empress Dowager had spoken of him, and the Alchemist's cutting of his own face and retirement into the Wilderness Ruins had to do with this very man.

Little Poison King had been the Alchemist's most prized disciple, yet he had betrayed him and let slip the secret that the Jade-Faced Gentleman was none other than the Poison King. In the martial world the Jade-Faced Gentleman and the Poison King were two separate men: one a peerlessly handsome gallant, tall, comely, divinely martial, gentle as a spring breeze with all, scattering love wherever he went; he need not chase the flowers, for the flowers came to him. All adored him and admired him; even men, though they might envy him, found it hard to hate him. The Poison King, by contrast, was blue-faced with jutting fangs, ruthless in his strikes, a name loathed by all.

He had poisoned more masters to death than any could count, and had once wiped out a renowned great sect of the righteous path, slaying every soul within it by poison, sparing not even the dogs and chickens. Even among the Daoist orders and the Great Tingming Temple, many an enlightened Daoist and eminent monk had died by his poison. The Poison King's cultivation was not high, but his skill was supreme; in both poisons and gu he had reached the highest pinnacle.

The righteous and the demonic paths had laid siege to him again and again, several Sect Master-level figures among them, yet none had taken him, while many had fallen dead or wounded by poison.

The Poison King wore a mask of blue face and jutting fangs; none knew his true face, until his own disciple, Little Poison King, exposed him, and only then did the world learn that the Poison King was the Jade-Faced Gentleman renowned across the land. The consequences of that exposure were tangled indeed: some wished to kill him, some women struggled over him, and women of power like the Empress Dowager joined the struggle as well, until the Alchemist had no choice but to cut off his own face, cast aside all feeling, and take refuge in the Wilderness Ruins, not daring to step half a pace beyond it for the rest of his life. Yet Little Poison King's own days were far from easy; the Empress Dowager and other women poured their fury on his head and hunted him far and wide, until he was nearly driven into the Wilderness Ruins himself; happily, the Imperial Preceptor Jingping took him in.

Of the Alchemist's history Shen Mu had only heard tell, and knew not the truth of it, but he did know that Little Poison King had inherited the Alchemist's poisons, and had already drawn level with him in the art of poison. Emperor Yanfeng laughed.

"Sect Master, I summoned you and Little Poison King this time because both of you are disciples of the Jade-Faced Poison King. One of you excels in poison, the other in healing; with both hands at once, perhaps you can heal me and the Imperial Preceptor both. " Shen Mu wore a smile. "As you command.

I would also like to see my Senior Brother's craft. " Little Poison King examined the Emperor's wounds, inspecting what Shen Mu's treatment had accomplished over this time, the lumps on his face growing ever more frightful to look upon.

Smiling, he said: "Your craft is not bad at all, to have unraveled the Thousand Mechanisms Poison in a single night. " Shen Mu, for his part, examined the Imperial Preceptor; since his return to the capital it had been Little Poison King who tended the Imperial Preceptor's wounds.

Calmly he said: "You are not bad yourself. The Thousand Mechanisms Poison was used most ingeniously. " The lumps at Little Poison King's wrists burst open with popping sounds, and from them crawled little transparent spiders.

The spiders spurted silk, which snapped fast to Emperor Yanfeng's brow, and along the silk they crawled into his brow and into his Primal Embryo Repository.

"I did not mean to poison her to death. By my methods, poisoning a Sect Master to death is no trouble at all. " Little Poison King said with leisure: "Whichever sect's Sect Master it may be, poisoning them is no trouble to me.

" Shen Mu did not so much as lift a brow; two layers of heaven appeared in his eyes, and with his Azure Empyrean Heaven Eye he examined the Imperial Preceptor's hurts. "Even if you poison her body to death, I can hold her soul fast and, once the poison is cured, revive her.

And a Sect Master is not one you can poison merely because you say so; being a Sect Master, to do you to death, one need not even come face to face with you. The demonic sects especially have a thousand ways to make your death seem strange and unaccountable and yet entirely as it should be. One day, Senior Brother, when you lie dead in some foul ditch, you will understand.

" "Is that so?

" Little Poison King's face was hideous; his smile was uglier than weeping.

"Indeed. " Shen Mu smiled like a flower. The two met each other's eyes, and both Emperor Yanfeng and the Imperial Preceptor felt their hearts quail. From the moment these two met, their words had crossed swords, their killing intent rising ever higher. Ling Yuxiu blinked, her gaze darting from one to the other, and feeling the scene on the verge of slipping beyond control, she smiled. "Little Poison King, Sect Master Shen, healing the wounds is what matters most.

" The Imperial Preceptor cleared his throat, and Emperor Yanfeng cleared his throat as well.

"Yuxiu, withdraw for now.

" Ling Yuxiu assented and withdrew from the great hall. The lumps on Little Poison King's face burst open, and fish-like insects flew out, boring into Emperor Yanfeng's other repositories to inspect the wounds there.

"You are not bad," he said. "You removed the hidden ailments in His Majesty's repositories, and the wounds to His Majesty's body and soul are wholly healed.

A pity your medical art is limited; you cannot heal the repositories themselves.

" Shen Mu took in the remnants of the gods' arts within the Imperial Preceptor's body.

He saw Little Poison King binding those remnants with power-dissolving spirit silk, trying to wear them away, the threads having the property of dissolving cultivation, melting away the divine powers and even the vital essence of others; yet against a god's arts they achieved very little. "Your poison arts have reached the realm of transformation, attaining both form and spirit; this power-dissolving spirit silk is used most ingeniously. But you could climb one story higher still," Shen Mu said with a smile. Again their eyes met.

Emperor Yanfeng and the Imperial Preceptor felt their scalps go numb. If these two came to blows over their arts, they would surely use poison and medicine upon their bodies. The Imperial Preceptor said: "You are both divine physicians, from the same sect. Is there no way to resolve this?

" Little Poison King said hastily: "As for His Majesty's wounds, I have some measure of confidence. His Majesty's repository is shattered; this subject can take the repository of a living man and graft it onto His Majesty.

" Emperor Yanfeng frowned.

"How much confidence? " "This.

.

. " Little Poison King hesitated, darted a glance at Shen Mu, and said: "This subject excels in poison; how much confidence, it is hard to say.

" Shen Mu said: "The Imperial Preceptor's wounds cannot be resolved by power-dissolving spirit silk alone.

The chief cause is that the remnants of the god's arts are too strong.

I hold that we should summon several dozen experts of Sect Master level to join strength and suppress these remnants, so that the Imperial Preceptor may mobilize his own cultivation and refine them away.