Senior Brother Li's eyelids trembled faintly, and by that trembling one could read the fierce struggle raging within. In a little while he opened his eyes once more, fixed them upon the pill in Han Li's hand, and let a look of burning greed shine from them.
Han Li said nothing. He slipped the pill between the man's lips and watched him swallow it down dry with his own spittle. Only then did he begin, one by one, to draw out the silver needles from his body.
When the last needle was removed, the drug began to take hold. An unnatural flush crept up Senior Brother Li's pallid cheeks; before long his whole face had turned blood-red. His body seized and began to twitch again, his hands and feet shook, and low moans forced themselves between his clenched teeth. He strove with all his might to muffle his own cries before Han Li—but the inhuman torment wrenched shouts from him nonetheless.
His roaring swelled and swelled, his frame jerking all the harder, and it was a long time before the cries began to die down, until at last they ceased altogether. Feeling the color come back to his face, his body stilling itself, he had plainly weathered the worst of the crisis.
Slowly, Senior Brother Li straightened, crossed his legs beneath him, and once more shut both eyes to sit in meditation, restoring his vital force. Han Li, for his part, found a clean patch of rock, seated himself at his leisure nearby, and watched the man recover his strength.
A full meal's time passed. Then, with sudden violence, Senior Brother Li's eyes flew open, his hand flashed to the long blade at his side, and he bounded to his feet. One fierce sweep of his arm, a flicker of blade-light—and in an instant the gleaming edge was pressed against Han Li's throat.
"Give me one reason not to kill you!" Senior Brother Li's eyes glinted with the cold light of murderous intent.
"I saved your life a moment ago," Han Li answered, his composure unbroken save for a faint twitch of one brow, so subtle that none but the closest observer could catch it. "Does that count as a reason?"
Senior Brother Li's stern face relaxed by a hair, yet still he glared at Han Li with undiminished menace.
"I knew, even before I saved you," Han Li said, and now at last a bitter smile crept over his face, "that you might well kill me to keep your secret safe. I merely never thought you would strike so quickly." There was in his tone no small measure of rueful self-mockery. "Hah! I knew even then that to save you would be to court trouble for myself. But since I have studied medicine, I could not stand by and watch a man die."
Senior Brother Li's face showed a flicker of embarrassment. The blade moved a little away from Han Li's throat, though he did not yet sheathe it or take it wholly away.
Han Li breathed a private sigh of relief, and his voice grew the more steady for it.
"You need not fear that I will tell another soul of your secret," he said. "One glance at me will show that I am not a gossip. If you cannot bring yourself to trust me, I will gladly swear a poison oath. You can see for yourself that I know nothing of the martial arts; should I break my word, you may cut me down without effort." He put forward this proposal in a calm, level voice.
"Then swear your oath." Senior Brother Li wasted no words.
It was only then that Han Li allowed himself to be fully at ease. For although, before ever he had begun the rescue, he had studied the man's face and judged that he was neither an ingrate nor a heartless brute, one could never be wholly certain; had he proven a villain who repaid kindness with hatred, Han Li would have been forced to fall back upon his single shield against peril—and at the thought of it his fingers slid, in secret, away from a certain iron cylinder hidden in the sleeve of his robe.
When Han Li had duly sworn a solemn poison oath, Senior Brother Li at last sheathed his long blade.
Han Li put a hand to his throat and found a shallow trail of blood where the keen edge had grazed it, sticky to the touch. He felt a chill trickle down his back, and judged that he had broken out in no small quantity of cold sweat.
"Close call, that," he thought, twinged with lingering fear. "I did not think the matter through well enough. Let this be a lesson to me—never again shall I do such thankless, unrewarding good turns. Whether a man lives or dies is his own affair, and none of mine."
And in his heart he swore a fierce resolve: "Without sufficient profit in hand and without full surety, I shall never again stir a finger to save a life."
This ill-starred outcome of Han Li's very first rescue had consequences that would follow him the rest of his days. It planted in him the habit, which he would never shake, of refusing to stir before dawn unless there was gain in it for himself, and it cast aside forever what few simple, wholesome impulses his nature had once held. He did not turn into a wicked man, true enough—but he had strayed a long, long way from honest, guileless goodwill.
"Sir," said Senior Brother Li, who had once more recovered all the bearing and spirit he had shown beneath the cliff, gathering up the odds and ends Han Li had emptied from his clothes, "you have saved my life and you have promised to keep my secret. I, Li Feiyu, owe you a great debt of gratitude. So long as I live, if ever you need aught that I can do, come to me and I will do it, come what may." He stepped before Han Li, spoke his true name, and offered his assurance with unfeigned sincerity.
"I imagine I shall have little enough cause to trouble you," Han Li said with a faint smile, "but you, I should say, have more than your fill of troubles of your own."
"How do you know?" Li Feiyu started, caught unawares.
"Why, anyone could guess it," Han Li answered, striking to the very heart of the matter. "A mere protective disciple, yet you tower over a whole host of hall masters, elders, and even the cherished disciples of the sect's leaders themselves. How could such a one as you be allowed a moment's peace or kindness?"
Li Feiyu's face darkened, and for a long while he said nothing.
"Your affairs are none of mine to manage, nor could I manage them if I would," Han Li went on. "But as for the agonies that the Marrow-Draining Pill has brought upon you—those I can lighten for you, at least in some measure."
"Can you truly?" Li Feiyu's spirits revived at once; the gloom upon his face fled before a tide of delight. The torments of the pill had plainly worn him to the bone.
"Why should I waste my breath deceiving you?" Han Li shot him a sideways glance. Indeed, he had a prescription for just such a dulling of pain, one he had worked out in his leisure hours expressly for Zhang Tie, to greatly blunt the body's perception of suffering.
"Excellent! Oh, excellent!" Li Feiyu rubbed his palms together in his excitement, eying Han Li with an eager, hungry look.
"What are staring at me like that for?" Han Li said. "I have none of the medicine on me now. I must go back to Spirit Hands Valley and compound it before there is any finished remedy to give you."
Li Feiyu felt a rush of shame at these words. Not a moment ago he had held a blade to the man's throat, and now here he stood begging that very man for medicine.
"Come to the gates of Spirit Hands Valley at noon tomorrow," Han Li told him with unhurried calm. "I will have the remedy ready to hand over to you. As for now, Doctor Mo is away from home, and I would not have just anyone wandering into the valley."
"Done! I will be there on the stroke of noon. Truly, I thank you, brother." Li Feiyu hurried to accept, as though fearful Han Li might yet take back his word.
"My name is Han Li," Han Li said, hastening to tell him, "and I am Doctor Mo's personal disciple. Your martial skill is great, so you may call me Han Junior Brother." For he had heard Li Feiyu use so warm a word as "brother," and resolved to give him his name at once, lest the fellow grow any more effusive in his speech.