[T/n note on title]¹

It was seriously hurt!

This was the natural conclusion that Ji Yuan came to when he inspected the fox. Many of the wounds were so deep that bones were visible, which was shocking. The fox’s blood was still gushing out. He couldn’t tell if any of the arteries had been severed.

‘How can I heal this injury? I’m not a veterinarian! ’

Ji Yuan was so anxious that he carried the fox down the secluded alleys and rushed to the nearest medical clinic. At the same time, he transmitted spiritual energy from his body to the meridians of the red fox in the form of vital Qi in order to maintain his life.

Only the fox’s back had remained relatively intact. It seemed that it had been deliberately protecting the things on his back. Ji Yuan pushed aside the fox fur and took it out, only to find that it was a scroll about two palms long. He couldn’t tell whether it was calligraphy or a painting.

But he didn’t have time to look at this thing right now. The most important thing was saving this fox!

In the distance, from the street outside the alley, he could smell the scent of medicinal herbs. The medical clinic was there.

Ji Medical Hall² was a well-known medical clinic and pharmacy in Ning’an County. Medicine here was not divided into subgroups and specialties. The owner of the clinic was Dr. Tong.

At this moment, Dr. Tong was preparing medicine for his patients in Ji Medical Hall. He skillfully grabbed a handful of herbs in each drawer and rolled them in between his fingers to combine them into single threads. After passing them over the small scale on the counter, he placed it into a yellow paper bag. It look less than half a minute for the medicine to be ready.

“I have packed up your tonic soup. Remember to soak it in cold water for two minutes, then boil it over a strong fire, and then simmer and add four bowls of water to one bowl of tonic! Take it once in the morning and once in the evening!”

“Okay, thank you, thank you Dr. Tong!”

The man in front of the counter thanked him and took the medicinal herbs. He was about to turn his head when a breeze suddenly blew in the hall. Ji Yuan seemed to appear in Ji Medical Hall in an instant.

“Oh, damn!”

The guests and apprentices in the hall were startled at the sight of Ji Yuan holding the red fox with his sleeves stained with blood, but he didn’t have time to pay attention to them.

“Doctor Tong, can you please help me see if this fox can be saved?”

The strange news about a red fox who appeared to ask for help on the other side of the market had not yet spread to here, but the scene in front of him was bizarre enough.

Doctor Tong looked at Ji Yuan in surprise, then at the bloodied fox in his arms.

“Uh, this… I, Doctor Tong, have never healed livestock, let alone wild beasts…”

“Doctor Tong, as the saying goes, doctors are benevolent,³ and the life of a fox is also a life. Please give it a try!”

Ji Yuan was not able to properly bow to Dr. Tong in greeting, but his words were sincere enough.

“Then, I will give it a try. Gentleman, please accompany me to the inner hall. The two of you will go to the store to grab medicine. Don’t make a mistake!”

“Oh, master…”

“Master, I also want to watch…”

“Hmph, do your work!”

Dr. Tong snorted at the two apprentices and led Ji Yuan into the inner room of Ji Medical Hall. The two apprentices were itching to follow, but they didn’t dare disobey, so they could only stay in the front hall and stare after them.

The inner hall was a consultation room with simple furnishings, including a bed, chairs, and a table with the four treasures of the study.⁴

Doctor Tong took a piece of white, coarse cloth and placed it over the table.

“Come, put the fox here!”

Ji Yuan hurriedly and carefully transferred the red fox in his arms to the top the cloth. The movement made the semi-conscious red fox tremble.

Dr. Tong didn’t say much, and began to carefully check the fox’s injuries. He opened up the damaged skin and inspected at it, then looked at the fox’s eyes, and checked to see if there was still a pulse under his neck.

“This fox is less than an arm in length. It has lost a lot of energy and blood, but its pulse is strong. How strange. How can it have such a strong pulse when it lacks life blood?”

Doctor Tong muttered to himself as he gently touched the fox’s body. Once he had finished his inspection, he took out some medical equipment and pointed at Ji Yuan.

“There are many wounds on this fox’s body. It is easy to see that they were caused by sticks and blunt instruments, but the most serious injuries were caused by sharp teeth. Sir, I will use ten ash powder supplemented with gold sore medicine to stop the bleeding,⁵ and then use the five-flavored disinfectant drink. It will clear away the heat and detoxify, and after that, it needs to be supplemented with meat. Whether or not it will survive is up to fate!”

“Okay, Doctor Tong, please help!”

“Alright, help me hold it down!”

…

There were no guests outside the Ji Medical Hall. The two apprentices, who were a little distracted, suddenly heard a loud fox barking fiercely in the inner hall, and their bodies trembled with fright.

The voice was sometimes like a cry, sometimes like the roar of an unknown beast, and it sounded particularly frightening.

About half an hour later, Doctor Tong and Ji Yuan came out of the inner hall together. The fox in Ji Yuan’s arms was wrapped in white cloth, blood still oozing from its wounds.

Dr. Tong personally went to the medicine cabinet to grab the medicine. Within moments, he had grabbed the medicine and handed it to Ji Yuan.

“Boil it with the method I just mentioned. However, this medicinal soup will taste bitter. I have no control over how you drink it or what it tastes like!”

“Thank you for letting me trouble, you Dr. Tong! I, Ji Yuan, would like to thank you! How much does the consultation fee and medicine cost?”

Doctor Tong went back to the counter and waved his hand a little tiredly.

“The consultation fee is free, the medicine fee is thirty coins. Hand it to my disciple!”

Ji Yuan awkwardly picked up the red fox to hold in his arms, nodded to Doctor Tong, and took out the copper coins from his money bag.

“Sir, I will go put it away.”

“Doctor Tong, farewell, I will take my leave!”

After speaking, Ji Yuan covered the red fox in his arms with the wide sleeve of his right arm, stepped out of Ji Medical Hall, and rushed back through the alleyways towards Ju’an Pavilion.

Inside Ji Medical Hall, Doctor Tong let out the breath he had been holding until then, and a lot of sweat dripped down his cheeks.

“Master, what’s wrong?”

“Yes, master, was all that sound before from the fox? It was so scary!”

Tong Xian breathed slowly and sat on the chair behind the counter.

“Do you think I’m not afraid? That’s no ordinary fox, it has become a spirit! Hiss… haah…”

. . .

On his way back, Ji Yuan tried his best to walk in places where there weren’t too many people around, and began using the Qinggong and light kung fu techniques to walk speedily and reduce the number of collisions.

He continuously input his spiritual energy into the red fox.

Just now, Doctor Tong had some doubts about the fox’s tenacity. The quality of the fox’s own physical state was good, and and the spiritual energy input accounted for half of the fox’s progress.

Even before they arrived home, the scent of the jujube flowers drifted from far away. The red fox in Ji Yuan’s arms also smelled the scent and opened his eyes, feeling very relieved.

Ji Yuan pushed open the courtyard door and entered the small pavilion. With a flick of his sleeves, he swept the surface of the stone table to remove the dust, took out a quilt from his room, folded it, and laid it out on the table.

Ji Yuan gently placed the red fox atop it and said in a calm tone:

“Perhaps you will like it here better than you might in doors. It’s more suitable for you to stay here!”

After finishing his words, despite the red fox’s hesitation, Ji Yuan’s right hand had already reached out to put him down.

From the sky above Ju’an Pavilion, a gentle breeze gradually gathered, blowing down to the courtyard and giving the red fox an incomparable sense of comfort.

The red fox reacted instinctively and suddenly realized that the wind contained the converging spiritual energy of heaven and earth. Every breath he took here was more than a hundred times stronger than his ignorant stumbling practice in the mountains.

The jujube branches swayed gently in the courtyard, and the green and yellow jujube flowers drifted down from time to time.

Ji Yuan breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the fox wrapped in cloth bandages beginning to breathe evenly.

‘You shouldn’t be dying now, right? ’

Recalling what he had inadvertently glimpsed in the medical hall just now, he smiled again.

‘What a vixen, this fox spirit, I didn’t think he was male! ’

The fox’s medical treatment came to an end for the time being. Now that he had free time, Ji Yuan took out the scroll from his pocket. He wanted to see what Lu Shan Jun had asked the fox to bring.

The paper scroll was stained with some fox blood. As it was slowly unfolded, the powerful calligraphy of the powerful brushstrokes and silver hooks was revealed.

‘What good words! …No! This is…’

Although the copybook was not large, the hundreds of characters on it showed a variety of expressions. Just like a dragon swimming gracefully or a startling, the characters contained murderous intent and the illusion of high mountains and flowing water…

To Ji Yuan, who was now a practitioner of both Taoism and martial arts, these were not words at all, but rather dazzling sword skills!

T/n: sorry about the continued slowdown in update speed, I’ve been crazy busy… I’ll keep uploading whenever I can. Cheers!

1. “Dragon” is not an actual dragon – as we’ll see later in the chapter it’s another way of describing handwriting, specifically that in the Sword Intent Inscription ↩︎
2. This is the name of the medical clinic, but there seems to be some fun play-on-words here. The characters are Ji Ren Tang 济仁堂 (Jì rén táng), and the name of one of the largest modern-day pharmaceutical companies is Tong Ren Tang (同仁堂 Tóng rén táng), so it’s kind of a spoof/easter egg with only 1 character off. Plus, the doctor that runs this place in the story is named Dr. Tong — (童 tóng) different tong character, but same pronunciation and tone. 😀 The alternate translation is Ji Medical Hall. NOTE that this is a different Ji (济 jì) than in “Ji Yuan” (计 jì), and it means to aid or relieve / to be of help. ↩︎
3. Refers to the principle of benevolence (仁 rén), one of the five cardinal virtues traditional Chinese ethics, especially with respect to TCM. The five are benevolence (仁 rén), justice (义 yì), propriety (礼 lǐ), wisdom (智 zhì), and honor/fidelity/trust (信 xìn). If you take a look at the characters for Ren Tang in the name of the medical hall and the real-world company, the Ren is the same character. ↩︎
4. We’ve seen this used in a shop name before (where JY got his brush stand) but the Four Treasures of the Study refers to a poem (4-word couplet) enumerating the brush, ink, paper, and inkstone that are staples in a scholar’s study. ↩︎
5. Once again, if anyone knows TCM please let me know if this is real or fictional, for now I’m going with fictional. ↩︎

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay Read