A master of both medicine and martial arts, he picked up a beautiful CEO as his wife.

Those three needles were inserted for two and a half hours.

When the first needle was inserted, Ji Yunzhou's body jerked violently—it had been three years since he had moved on his own. When the second needle was inserted, a hoarse, inhuman whimper escaped his throat.

Not a single one of the two thousand people in the audience spoke from beginning to end.

Ye Feng's forehead was dripping with sweat. He pressed three fingers of his left hand on Ji Yunzhou's Baihui acupoint, while his right hand moved the needle. The wisp of Yin energy that Lin Yuqing had transferred was like an extremely thin thread, drilling into the severed pulse along the needle tip.

He guided it, not rejected it. He didn't force the broken thread back. He simply paved a path with the yin energy, allowing the remaining third of the connection to grow back on its own.

By the time the third needle was removed, the sun had already dipped below the western ridge. Ye Feng straightened up and swayed slightly.

Shen Yu rushed forward and helped him up.

"Watch this." Ye Feng said, panting, as he raised his chin and pointed to the bed.

Everyone was watching. The young man who had been lying on the couch for three years let his chest rise and fall a few times, and made a gurgling sound in his throat.

Then, his right index finger moved. Very slightly. It bent less than half an inch before falling back onto the blanket. But it was that half an inch—

A huge uproar erupted from the audience. Some people stood up, some overturned their chairs, and the elderly pharmacists with white hair in the first three seats rushed down from the stands, their eyes red with tears.

Ji Qingyao knelt by the bed, grasping her junior brother's hand that had just touched her. She was trembling uncontrollably and couldn't utter a single word.

Ye Feng wiped his sweat and put the needles back into the cloth roll one by one.

"It's not cured," he said. "The thread is about 30% back in place. From now on, I'll have to get it treated every seven days. After forty-nine days, I'll be able to sit up. A year later, I'll be able to walk with crutches. I won't be able to run away anymore, for the rest of my life."

Ji Qingyao looked up at him, tears streaming down her face.

"It's been three years," she said, her voice choked with emotion. "Ninety-eight renowned doctors, and not a single one of them asked him a single question. You're the first to ask him if he was willing."

Ye Feng tied the needle up, stuffed it into his pocket, and waved his hand.

"I'm not the one who should be thanking him," he said. "He's the one. Three years have passed, and that thread is still 30% intact—he's holding it up with his life, refusing to let it break. I'm just helping him by speaking out."

On the couch, Ji Yunzhou's eyes turned. For the first time in three years, those eyes, which had been empty, fell on someone's face.

Tears welled in her eyes, flowing down her temples and into her sideburns.

That night, the lights on Baicaoshan Mountain stayed on until dawn.

Ye Feng was invited into the inner courtyard of Medicine King Valley. Along the way, everyone he met stopped to bow to him. The old gentlemen who sat in the first three seats during the day without even raising their eyelids now respectfully cupped their hands and called him "Mr. Ye".

Zeng Yin stood outside the crowd, his face flushed red. He tried to step forward several times, but retreated each time. Deep inside the inner courtyard was a small medicine shed. The door frame was old, worn smooth and lustrous from decades of use.

Pushing open the door, a strong smell of mugwort hit me. There was only one person in the room.

He was incredibly old. His hair was completely white, with only a few sparse strands, and the wrinkles on his face were so deep they could almost trap the light. One of his eyes was covered by a cataract. He sat on a low couch by the window, head down, whittling a bamboo skewer with a small knife.

He didn't look up when he heard the door open.

"sit."

Ye Feng sat down opposite him. The old man finished the last cut, twirled the bamboo skewer between his fingers, and suddenly looked up.

That unclouded eye was frighteningly bright.

"Your master," the old man said, his voice hoarse, "sat just like this back then."

"You recognize him?"

"My name is Han Jiuhe." The old man put the bamboo skewers on the table. "Thirty-four years ago, during a plague in the south, we brewed medicine together for forty days. He burned six pots of it."

Ye Feng laughed: "He never learned to judge the timing, even in his old age."

"It's not that he can't see," Han Jiuhe shook his head. "It's that his mind isn't on the medicine. He's a person whose mind is always preoccupied with other things his whole life."

The old man's hand suddenly reached out. That withered hand, like a twig, pressed down on Ye Feng's wrist. Three fingers firmly placed on his pulse.

Ye Feng didn't dodge. One breath. Two breaths. Han Jiuhe's hand trembled violently. His frighteningly bright eyes widened instantly, staring intently at Ye Feng's face.

"On you..." His voice suddenly cut off, "How did you get this on you?"

"What?"

The old man recoiled as if burned, abruptly pulling his hand back and stumbling half a foot before crashing into the window frame.

"The mark of the Abyss," he hissed. "You bear the mark of the 'Abyss'!"

The smell of mugwort in the room became extremely strong. Ye Feng remained seated.

"You recognize this," he said, not as a question.

Han Jiuhe did not answer. He leaned against the edge of the bed, panting for a long time, his hand trembling. After a long while, he slowly sat up straight.

"That plague thirty-four years ago," he said hoarsely, "ultimately killed 21,000 people. We investigated thoroughly and found it wasn't a plague. It was a leak."

Ye Feng's breathing became heavy.

"That stuff from underground, just a tiny bit leaked out." Han Jiuhe raised his eyes. "Just a tiny bit, yet it saved 21,000 lives. Your master spent forty days brewing medicine in the south that year, saving over 3,000 people. He burned six batches because he had to add his own blood to each batch."

"He didn't touch the medicine furnace for many years after that."

"He returned to that mountain in the north and stayed there for twenty years."

The old man's gaze returned to the "mark" on Ye Feng's wrist.

"Child," he said, "this mark on you is the same one that was on those people back then. Your master guarded this place for half his life, and now it's on you."

Ye Feng remained silent for a long time.

"I've come this time," he finally spoke, taking out the half of the jade slip from his robes and placing it on the table, "to find the other half."

Han Jiuhe looked down at the neat cut. The single eye closed.

"I know why you came," he said.

"I waited for him for three years after receiving that invitation. He didn't come."

He sent me a message through someone.

Ye Feng's heart was pounding.

"What did you say?"

Han Jiuhe opened his eyes. Ye Feng couldn't understand what was in his gaze—was it pity, guilt, or something else?

He said—

“If my disciple ever comes looking for me, tell him for me: I dared not keep the other half in anyone’s hands.”

"I returned it."

Ye Feng's pupils suddenly contracted.

"Where did you go back to?"

The old man opened his mouth. Just then, a series of hurried footsteps came from outside the medicine hut, and a disciple burst open the door, his face deathly pale.

"Young Master! Outside the mountain gate—"

"Someone has arrived!"

He said his surname was Zhao.