Xu Shenghua slowly awoke, only to find himself lying on a sickbed with a warm, damp towel draped over his forehead. His head felt like it was about to split open, and it seemed as if hundreds of millions of voices were howling and shrieking in his mind, while a golden ringing chimed endlessly in his ears.
His skull felt ready to burst. The tearing pain made him want to chop off his own head and kick it away—kick it as far as it would go!
He couldn't help letting out a groan, and from the outer room came Jing Yan's voice: "The young master is awake?"
Jing Yan hurried in, the smell of medicinal herbs clinging to her clothes, and gazed at him with a mixture of alarm and joy.
"I lost," Xu Shenghua said blankly.
"You slept for a very long time, young master," Jing Yan said hastily. "I was brewing your medicine..."
"How long was I asleep? Where is this?" Thunderous pulses were booming through Xu Shenghua's skull as he mumbled in a daze.
"We're still in the imperial capital. You've been asleep for over two days."
Jing Yan helped him up so that he sat half-propped against the headboard. "Sister Yuliu heard that there was a miraculous doctor in Yongkang's capital whose skills were remarkable, so she rushed out to fetch him."
Xu Shenghua tried to raise a hand, then suddenly grunted through clenched teeth, as if an axe had come down on his skull.
"Young master, it's best not to move—and best not to stir a single thought!"
Jing Yan said quickly, "You and that scoundrel Qin let him set the pace, following him along without realizing it. He attacked while you defended, so you were at a disadvantage from the very start. On top of that, your cultivation art required you to keep unraveling his offense with divine abilities, and the strain on your mind was enormous. Every thought you think taxes your brain. Right now your brain is injured, so it's best you rest and wait quietly for the miraculous doctor to arrive."
Xu Shenghua closed his eyes and neither spoke nor stirred.
He remembered how it had all happened. Qin Mu had first used the Sun-Shooting Divine Cannon to drain a portion of his mental strength; once Xu Shenghua saw through that, Qin Mu had piled psychological pressure on him, then taken control of the rhythm and led him along by the nose.
Even as the two of them walked, a contest of momentum had already begun, with Qin Mu holding the offensive. The instant Qin Mu's killing intent stirred, Xu Shenghua would sense the attacks he might face, so he would immediately shift his footwork and alter the flow of his vital qi to adopt a matching defense.
His cultivation art was marvelously ingenious, capable of creating divine abilities that countered an opponent's attacks as they came—but Qin Mu never actually struck, so the divine abilities Xu Shenghua created were merely formed, never unleashed.
And so, the whole way, Qin Mu kept up his assault of momentum while Xu Shenghua kept defending. In a mere two hundred li, the man had burned through every last scrap of his mental strength. His brain could no longer hold on, his body could no longer hold on, and he vomited blood again and again as his consciousness collapsed and he fell unconscious.
Qin Mu had stopped there and then. If he had kept walking, Xu Shenghua would have been dragged along in his wake—until every drop of blood had been coughed up, until his mind was spent and his brain died, and he collapsed into a corpse. Only then would it have stopped!
A defeat total and utter.
This was the first time Xu Shenghua had ever tasted failure like this, and to his surprise, there was a bitter taste in his heart. It was the first time he had ever tasted bitterness.
Yuliu's voice came from outside. "Yan'er, come out here a moment!"
Jing Yan hurried out. "The young master is awake, but he still can't move. Did you manage to fetch the miraculous doctor?"
"I did. It's just that..."
Jing Yan stepped outside, and a startled cry rang out. "Why is it you again?"
Yuliu's wry voice drifted in. "I'm even more surprised than you are, but I begged and begged before he'd agree to come..."
Xu Shenghua opened his eyes and said weakly, "Show the miraculous doctor in."
The door curtain lifted and Qin Mu walked in, smiling. "Brother Xu."
At the sight of him, Xu Shenghua froze, and a jolt of agony shot through his head. Qin Mu hurried over, took out several Spirit Buddha Pills, and got them into his mouth, saying with a smile, "You'd best keep your mind from any violent ups and downs. I've been through what you're going through myself—back then I drained my own body dry cultivating an art and nearly died. Your trouble is that you overtaxed your spirit and your mind, pushing them past what your body could bear. Your injuries aren't actually serious. Rest and recuperate slowly, and in a month or two you'll be fully healed. But since I'm treating you, you'll be well again in half a day."
Once the Spirit Buddha Pills went down, Xu Shenghua felt much more comfortable. His head still ached, but not as fiercely as before, and little by little he could control his own hands and feet again. His body had become his own once more.
"You're the miraculous doctor too?" he rasped.
"'Miraculous doctor' is overselling it. I rank second in the way of medicine. Search all of Yongkang and you won't find anyone who out-practices me."
Qin Mu examined him for a while, wrote out a prescription, and had Yuliu take it to the pharmacy to be filled. He said with a smile, "With my spirit medicines nursing you along, it will only take two or three days to mend what your body has lost. Victory and defeat are common matters for soldiers—and just as common for cultivators like us. Don't take it to heart."
Xu Shenghua stared straight at him, then suddenly sighed. "There are places where I truly am not your match. You beat me with strategy, yet I can't summon up any resentment toward you. I came down to this world on my master's orders to kill you, thinking only of returning to the Celestial Heavens once you were dead. Never did I imagine that somewhere along the way, my heart had come to regard you as a friend."
Qin Mu sighed. "A Tyrant Body is hard to find. But you and I are enemies in the end, and enemies cannot be friends."
The two of them fell silent.
Before long Yuliu returned with the medicine, and Qin Mu refined it directly into spirit pills and fed them to Xu Shenghua.
Xu Shenghua swayed as he climbed off the bed, his body still trembling. He frowned. "I can clearly feel the injuries to my body on the mend, so why can't I stand steady? And my hands still shake..."
Qin Mu pondered a moment, and then his eyes lit up. "I know this ailment of yours. Come with me." With that, he rose and walked out.
Xu Shenghua tried to follow, but he wobbled unsteadily, his legs shaking back and forth, and Yuliu and Jing Yan hurried forward to support him out of the room.
As a disciple of the Celestial Heavens, Xu Shenghua could hardly lodge anywhere shabby. An inn was too noisy, so they had leased a quiet, elegant residence instead.
Qin Mu led him out onto the street, glanced around, and his eyes brightened. "Here's the very medicine you need."
Xu Shenghua was taken aback, and so were the two women beside him—but Qin Mu had already sat down at the table of a noodle stall and called to the stall owner: "Ten bowls of noodles, in the biggest bowls you have. The first bowl—no chili, no oil, just a pinch of salt. Oh, and add an egg to the dough. What are you standing there for? Sit down!"
Yuliu and Jing Yan frowned as they surveyed the shabby noodle stall. It was set out right against the street, and there was no keeping the road dust off it with all the coming and going. The men eating there were all rough, brawny laborers—country folk doing hard work in the capital, plainly at a glance.
When had the two of them ever eaten at a noodle stall like this? Normally even a single glance at such a place felt filthy to them.
Remember: the Celestial Heavens stood high above the mortal world, a sacred land of immortals. Everything they ate and drank there was a rare delicacy scarcely seen on earth, kept clean beyond imagining—not a speck of dust ever touched it.
The owner of this stall was every bit as brawny and coarse. He hand-pulled the noodles, slapping them down with loud cracks—this was clearly no clean operation.
Xu Shenghua, however, sat down, panting for breath.
Yuliu and Jing Yan had no choice but to sit as well, carefully wiping the grease from the table with their towels. They frowned—the grease would not come off no matter how they rubbed. They squirmed where they sat and could not shake the feeling that even the stools beneath them were slick with oil.
Xu Shenghua alone sat at ease, waiting for his bowl of noodles.
The first bowl arrived: egg noodles in clear broth, served in a washbasin-sized bowl. The noodles had been pulled to perfectly even strands, like threads of white jade resting in the center of the broth, with a scatter of chopped scallions on top.
Xu Shenghua stared at the noodles, at a loss for how to eat them.
Qin Mu handed him the chopsticks. Xu Shenghua fumbled helplessly, clutching the sticks and stabbing them into the bowl, unable to pick up a single strand. He had never used chopsticks in the Celestial Heavens—he fed on spirit pills and drank the dew and rain, tasting nothing of the hearth of the mortal world.
He watched the others at the stall slurping their noodles, gradually worked out how the chopsticks were used, and began to try.
"Eat slowly."
Qin Mu said with a smile, "You've gone hungry for days now. Eating too fast will upset your stomach. What you've got is hunger-sickness—your mind was so overtaxed that your brain pulled away every last bit of the energy stored in your body. You'd already reached the very limit of hunger when you fainted, and then you went two more days without food. It'd be strange if you *weren't* dizzy, bleary-eyed, and weak in the limbs. Sip some of the broth first—it helps the digestion."
Xu Shenghua slurped down the broth, gulp after gulp, remarkably obedient.
The bowls for Qin Mu, Yuliu, and Jing Yan arrived as well. The two women ate with stiff propriety, but Qin Mu paid no mind to any of it—he splashed in some chili oil and ate with hearty relish.
Xu Shenghua had already finished his first bowl and was gazing at them expectantly.
"Let it settle first," Qin Mu said quickly. "You'll have your second bowl in a little while."
Xu Shenghua sat there obediently. By the time Qin Mu had eaten his fill, three empty bowls already stood on the table. Qin Mu nodded and smiled. "All right, Brother Xu. Go ahead."
Xu Shenghua dug in at once, copying Qin Mu by pouring a layer of chili oil over his noodles, and in no time he was eating until steam rose off his whole body.
By the time Yuliu and Jing Yan had finished the bowls in front of them, Xu Shenghua had polished off seven, and he slumped into his seat, utterly content.
Yuliu and Jing Yan exchanged glances. Young Master Xu had never once been so unseemly—and now he was slumping in his chair!
"This Human Emperor really does carry a devil's influence. If the young master spends much more time around him, I half expect he'll be picking his toes and sniffing his fingers next!" The two women looked at each other, uneasy at heart.
Qin Mu rose and asked, "Brother Xu, do you have any Dafeng coins on you?"
Xu Shenghua blinked blankly and shook his head. "In the past, Yuliu always settled the bills."
Yuliu looked embarrassed and said in a low voice, "Young master, our money ran out just now buying the medicine. I had to leave my own hairpin at the apothecary as security to gather the full prescription..."
Qin Mu took out a Dafeng coin, went up to pay, and shook his head. "I truly don't know how you three have managed to stay alive. This meal is my treat. Come on, Brother Xu, up you get—you've eaten a lot, and a walk will do you good."
Xu Shenghua rose, and Yuliu and Jing Yan hurried forward to support him. He shook his head. "No need to hold me up. What I had really was hunger-sickness, and it's cured now. I can walk on my own."
The four of them strolled along at an unhurried, leisurely pace.
Yuliu could not help worrying: "Could it be that this Human Emperor means to stroll the young master to death this time?"
They passed out through the capital's gates, and Qin Mu led him once more toward the Construction Bureau works. Xu Shenghua's eyes flickered. "Brother Qin, why have you brought me here again?"
Qin Mu chuckled. "Don't misunderstand. While you were unconscious these two days, the base of the Sun-Shooting Divine Cannon was finished casting and has begun to be assembled. I need to install the base and test it, so nothing goes wrong with the gun platform. Oh, and by the way—when are you going to pay me for the house call? I charge a very steep fee for one visit."
Xu Shenghua grunted. "No money!"
"In that case, Brother Xu..."
Qin Mu's eyes lit up. He leaned in close and said, mysterious and sly, "Have you ever heard of the Heavenly Saint Cult?"