The air-powered impulse delivered by Frank’s right fingers didn’t look like a sacred medical treatment.
It looked like an experienced engine mechanic clearing a vapor lock in an unprimed fuel injector line with a tuned pry-bar.
Frank’s four hooked fingers drove two point eight inches upward beneath Master Qian’s right ninth rib at a precise forty-five-degree superior-medial angle. A nearby, 850-Newton blast wave rippled through the belly muscle tissue, transmitting a high-speed crushing pressure wave directly into the common bile duct!
Deep within Qian’s hepatic junction, the twenty-tiny hardened gallstone—wedged rock-tight against the swollen sphincter—was wildly dislodged by the fluid pressure wave!
POP.
The internal blockage gave way with a sound like a champagne cork popping beneath water.
And then, Master Qian’s entire body bowed upward like an uncoiling steel spring, his spine arching off the canvas stretcher!
BLARRRRRRRRRRRGH!
A violent, projectile convulsion racked the silk merchant’s chest!
Qian leaned over the side of the bamboo stretcher. His mouth opening was wide as he wildly expelled two pints of black, stale bile, fermented plum wine, and undigested pork grease directly into the copper washbasin held by Jiang Ling’er!
CLINK.
A sharp, distinct metal ring echoed off the copper basin.
Resting in the center of the foul black sludge was a jagged, black glass-black stone the size of a pigeon egg, glistening with dark crystal-clear facets.
The gallstone hit the metal. Then, Master Qian’s bloated, drum-tight belly deflated with a long, whistling hiss!
The terrifying, sickly yellowish-green jaundice that had suffused his face pulled back in seconds, replaced by a natural, healthy rosy flush. The bulging dark veins across his belly collapsed back into smooth, supple skin.
Qian gasped, his chest expanding with a massive, shuddering lungful of fresh air.
He blinked his eyes twice, wiped a streak of bile from his chin with his silk sleeve, and sat bolt upright on the stretcher.
“My... My stomach...” Qian stammered, pressing his hands flat against his belly in utter disbelief. “The fire... The demonic rotting curse... It’s gone?! My breath... I can breathe again!”
Total elapsed procedure time: eight point six seconds.
Frank’s DAO-QA console flashed bright emerald text across his vision.
A choking, dead silence blanketed the Apprentice Physician Hall.
Doctor Zhou stood frozen in mid-stride. His hands shook so wildly that the lacquered tray of eighty-one silver needles tipped sideways. It sent dozens of four-inch acupuncture needles clattering across the marble floor tiles like falling hail.
The six junior physicians stood with their mouths hanging open, their eyes bulging as though watching a corpse rise from a grave and perform an acrobatic backflip.
The four livery servants and the pearl-adorned noblewoman dropped to their knees on the floor, their jaws fully slack.
“Ten... Ten seconds...” Doctor Zhou whispered, his voice cracking into a high-pitched, frantic squeak. “No silver needles... No spirit vein chanting... No three-star spirit pills... He cured end-post Corpse-Qi Poisoning with a single poke to the ribs?!”
Master Qian swung his legs over the edge of the bamboo stretcher and planted his feet firmly onto the clinic floorboards.
He stood up, stomped his feet twice. Then he realized that the painful, soul-crushing pressure that had tortured him since midnight was fully gone! He felt as light as a feather, his vision clear and sharp.
Tears of deep, overwhelming thanks burst from Qian’s eyes.
He lunged forward, bowing deeply before Frank’s dusty leather boots, fumbling wildly through his silk robes. He pulled out a heavy, stitched velvet pouch that clinked with the rich, heavy deep ring of pure bullion.
“Immortal Physician!” Qian cried, holding the pouch up with both hands. “You saved my life! If not for Immortal Master’s divine intervention, this merchant would have perished in agony! Here are three hundred top-grade gold coins! Please, Master, accept this humble token of my family’s eternal thanks!”
Frank didn’t even look at the gold coins.
He gently pushed Qian’s trembling hands away with the tip of his wooden carpenter’s pencil.
“I don’t need gold coins,” Frank said, his tone entirely flat. “I’m not a doctor. I’m a building builder. Keep your money and spend it on a low-fat dietary regimen. Stop eating three pounds of pork belly in a single sitting, and drink two liters of clean water every day to keep your bile lines flushed.”
Frank turned around, pointing his pencil directly at the scared apprentice apothecary behind the medicine room counter.
“What I do need,” Frank said, his voice echoing across the silent clinic, “is three five-gallon heavy clay jugs of ninety-five percent grain alcohol, twenty pounds of agricultural sulfur powder. An official Apprentice Physician sign-off permit with a wholesale trade exemption stamp.”
Frank looked at Doctor Zhou, crossing his arms over his denim apron.
“And while we’re on the subject of work-yard operations: wipe down your triage tables with a five-percent bleach solution. You have dried blood on the third table and unsterilized probe tools sitting on an open tray. You have cross-contamination vectors everywhere. If a town health checker walked in here, he’d shut this clinic down before noon for gross sanitation neglect and reckless living hazard.”
Doctor Zhou stood trembling in the center of the hall, his eyes wide with deep, soul-shaking enlightenment.
Cross-contamination vectors...
Clockwork subcostal flush...
Bile line backing-up pressure...
To Zhou’s ears, these blunt, strange terms didn’t sound like peasant slang.
They sounded like the lost, ancient medical sutras of the Ancient Sovereign Healers. The mythical founders of medicine from the First Epoch who viewed the human body not as a collection of mystical superstitions. But as a divine, interconnected living machine!
A true Grandmaster of Medicine doesn’t rely on fortune-costing pills or flashy eighty-one-needle arrays!
A true Grandmaster cures the incurable in eight seconds with the simplest, most elegant application of physical law!
He refused three hundred gold coins! Doctor Zhou realized, tears of respectful shame welling in his eyes. He treats royal gold like dirt, asking only for common alcohol and sulfur for his building project! This is the transcendent calm distance of an ancient Saint walking in mortal dust!
Doctor Zhou bowed deeply before Frank, his voice trembling with respectful awe:
“Master Lu! This blind, arrogant fool was blinded by pride! Master Lu’s medical Dao has reached the realm of Total Simplicity! To diagnose the clockwork occlusion of the bile lines and flush the stone with a single impulse... You have opened this old doctor’s eyes to the True Dao!”
Doctor Zhou scrambled to his feet, sprinted behind the medicine room counter. Then he shoved the scared apprentice apothecary aside.
In less than two minutes, Doctor Zhou personally hauled three heavy, wax-sealed heavy clay jugs of ninety-five percent grain alcohol and two heavy burlap sacks of pure yellow sulfur powder to the entrance.
Then, Doctor Zhou took out the hall’s highest-tier office seal. A solid jade stamp reserved for the Master Physician Board.
With a heavy, trembling CLACK, Doctor Zhou stamped Frank’s trade voucher with the Grandmaster Physician Wholesale Exemption Seal, granting total wholesale purchasing privileges across all royal medical depots in the principality!
“Master Lu!” Doctor Zhou presented the jade-stamped permit with two hands, bowing at a ninety-degree angle: “Your wholesale permit is permanently ratified! All medical supplies and chemical reagents across Tianxuan are yours at cost, forever!”
Frank took the stamped parchment, inspected the seal, and nodded approvingly.
“Good stamp,” Frank said, tucking the permit into his apron. “Nice and level. The margins are clean, and the red stone ink is evenly distributed.”
Frank turned to his students waiting by the door.
“Shitou, Niu Mang. Load the alcohol jugs into wheelbarrow one. Put the sulfur sacks in wheelbarrow three with the Black-Gold metal bar. Watch the weight spreading. Keep the balance point over the wheel axle so we don’t tip in the muddy ruts.”
“Students obey!”
Shitou and Niu Mang hoisted the heavy clay jugs and burlap sacks with easy ease, loading the cargo into their wooden wheelbarrows.
Ten minutes later, Frank led his crew back to the East City Wholesale Supply Storehouse.
The fat, balding warehouse merchant was still sitting behind the dispatch counter, smirking smugly, expecting the penniless teacher to return with his tail between his legs.
SLAP. SLAP.
Frank laid two gold-and-jade-stamped documents flat on the counter directly in front of the merchant’s nose.
The first was the Honorary Two-Star Elder Appraiser Token stamped by Master Guan.
The second was the Grandmaster Physician Wholesale Exemption Permit stamped by Doctor Zhou.
The merchant looked at the two seals.
His fat cheeks wobbled wildly. His jaw dropped so far his lower lip touched his double chin. His face turned the color of curdled milk.
Two-Star Appraiser Elder...
Grandmaster Physician Exemption...
In the entire Tianxuan Principality, not even the Prime Minister held dual master-level certifications in both the Appraiser Guild and the Physician Hall!
Yet this plain-robed teacher had walked out thirty minutes ago and returned with both master tokens in hand!
“Three rolls of twelve-gauge copper wire,” Frank said, his voice flat as an iron beam. “Ten sacks of high-pressure lime, and twelve ten-foot seasoned pine two-by-fours. And apply the fifteen-percent wholesale guild discount. Cash is ready.”
The merchant nearly tumbled off his stool in sheer terror, scrambling upright behind the desk, bowing repeatedly:
“Y-YES, GRANDMASTER! Right away! DISPATCH THE DOCK GANG! LOAD THE WAGONS AT ONCE! ALL WHOLESALE DISCOUNTS APPLIED!”
Within twenty minutes, four heavy wooden wagons—laden to the brim with seasoned pine timbers, coils of bright red copper wire, barrels of high-pressure lime mortar, jugs of high-purity alcohol. The eighty-four-pound Black-Gold metal bar—were rolling smoothly out of the East City gates.
Frank walked at the head of the convoy, chewing on a dried apricot, checking his pocket watch.
“Eleven-fifty,” Frank noted with deep skilled satisfaction. “Fifteen-minute licensing speedrun complete. Materials secured under budget. Now, let’s go back up the mountain and build an actual classroom.”