Chapter 130

[ 1,072 words ]

Ivy’s Point of View

“Please… I am begging you, Physician Lin!” the woman wept, her hands clawing desperately at the wood of my counter. “My name is Nadia. My brother Kairo is gravely injured in the cart outside. The other doctors turned us away. You are our last hope!”

I stood behind the pharmacy counter, my body completely concealed beneath physician robes, while a specialized shamanic vocal restraint deepened my voice into a masculine tone. To the frontier, I was strictly a brilliant male doctor named Lin.

I arched a brow, my gaze drifting past her shoulder toward the wooden trailer cart parked in the courtyard. But as the woman leaned forward, begging for her brother to be saved, my shamanic vision locked onto the cloth bag clutched tightly against her torso.

Beneath the cheap canvas wrapping, my tracking senses instantly mapped a silhouette that vaguely but unmistakably resembled the iron box I’d lost for many grueling days.

A sudden, sharp rush of adrenaline hit my core, but instead of panicking or flaring my energy in front of the lower handmaids, I immediately remained perfectly calm, forcing my voice to stay flat.

“Bring your brother inside the theater immediately, Nadia,” I commanded smoothly, gesturing toward the curtains. “My clinic does not leave dying wolves to rot in the winter freeze.”

“Thank you, Physician Lin! Thank you!” she gasped out.

With the assistance of Nell and my guards disguised as doctors, the woman hurriedly hauled her brother through the threshold.

Her brother was big, his chest caked in dried blood and black mountain mud, but the physical stress of traveling under the weeds had completely overwhelmed his wolf; he had already passed out cold from the agonizing stress before his back even touched our mattress.

The woman threw herself onto her knees by the mattress, her fingers locking around his limp hand. “Please, Physician Lin… you must save him! I beg of you!”

I stepped up to the table, gently pull back the ragged, blood-soaked linen wraps from his torso. The moment my eyes mapped the trauma, my brow furrowed with an intense gravity.

“The gouge across his ribs is deep, but that is not what is killing his core. These jagged lacerations on his body were clearly caused by the brutal bites of wolves. The necrotic muscle tissue has become severely inflamed and infected, poisoning his blood meridians.”

“Will my brother be saved?!” she shrieked hysterically, looking up at my masked face with fear. “Can your medicine flush the venom?!”

“I will try my best, Nadia,” I responded in my masculine disguise, washing my hands in a

basin of lily extract. “However, a master-grade shamanic restoration requires rare, premium ingredients to stabilize a poisoned core. It all depends entirely on you, Nadia, and whether you possess the capability to pay my consultation fee.”

Nadia’s eyes widening as she clutched her cloak. “How… how much do you require, Physician Lin?”

“I need exactly ten thousand gold coins as the diagnostic and consultation fee,” I stated, keeping my voice utterly devoid of sympathy.

“Ten thousand gold?!” she whispered hoarsely, her face turning pale. “We are simple traders fleeing the border raids! I do not have that kind of wealth for the time being! Please, Physician Lin, I am begging you to let us keep an open account on your ledgers! I swear we will pay every copper once our caravan arrives!”

“The Azure Leafs does not keep open accounts for unidentified strangers, Nadia,” I immediately refused, turning my back to her.

I had my own calculating, brilliant reasons for pushing Nadia into a corner—the suspicious weight of that cloth bag proved otherwise, and I needed to verify their alignment.

“If you have no money to settle the account right now, your brother will die on this mattress within the hour. The choice is yours.”

Nadia stared at her shivering, unconscious brother, his breathing growing shallower by the second. Tears of pure, agonizing desperation spilled down her cheeks. Seeing that her brother was truly on the verge of death, the woman took the initiative to forcefully lift the heavy cloth bag from her waist and slam it onto the table.

“Take it!” she wailed hoarsely, tearing back the canvas to reveal the brilliant, ten-number silver patina lock of our ancestral iron box. “This is a royal artifact worth an entire nation! I am mortgaging this iron box right now as collateral for his medical treatment! Just save my brother’s life!”

“Nell, lock the inner gallery latches and let no one inside,” I commanded, as the ancestral box finally rested beneath my fingers.

I immediately arranged for my manpower to secure the perimeter, while I personally took charge of the operating table. Utilizing my hidden shamanic fire, I infused my fingertips with a low-frequency golden light, channeling the energy directly through my forceps to cleanly slice away the necrotic, black muscle tissue from Kairo’s chest.

I worked with a terrifying, fluid precision, cleaning the infection and meticulously suturing the torn flesh using specialized moon-lily thread.

The whole grueling process took an hour of intense concentration. Even though he was completely unconscious, the intensity of the shamanic meridian alignment caused his inner wolf to thrash, and he was rescued from pain several times by my cooling energy before I finally stabilized his pulse and locked his internal injury into a steady recovery cycle.

I wiped the sweat from my brow, as I turned back to the weeping girl. “His core is saved. The fever will break before dusk.”

As the adrenaline drained from the room, my healer senses mapped a new wave of heat lines radiating from Nadia’s body. I noticed that her steps were uneven, her shoulder dragging lower than her mantle.

“Nadia,” I spoke up, as I stepped around the table. “You have been working hard for days to drag his body through the blizzard, but your own body is weak. You are carrying severe, untreated shoulder and leg injuries, and you have a high fever that does not go away.”

She stumbled backward, defensively clutching her arm. “I am fine, Physician Lin. I only care about my brother’s safety.”

“You are a fool,” I countered. “Seeing that you are so fiercely eager to protect your brother’s life, I cannot let his protector fade. Sit on the stool, Nadia. I am offering to treat your wounds next, free of any debts.”

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