Chapter 102: Miss Xia, What Do You Think of These Muscles of Mine?

The others entered the great pavilion. A military physician was already there examining him, and from their furrowed brows alone it was clear he was finding nothing conclusive.

If Ji Huo had not arrived, his father’s name might well have gone into the healer’s records as yet another difficult, unresolved case.

Ji Huo first studied his father’s face. His eyes were tightly shut, his brows knotted as though he were holding back some unbearable pain. His breathing was not weak; it was simply that he had fallen into an unbroken stupor and would not wake.

Ji Huo placed his hand on his father’s wrist and activated the Xuan Art of the Elemental Codex, probing through his body. His expression changed at once.

His father had always carried a hidden wound within him, a dark force that obstructed the movement of inner energy. In ordinary times the obstruction had been mild enough that, for years, he had carried on like any ordinary man. But now, when Ji Huo examined him, that force had nearly blocked every meridian. It raced through the channels as though maddened, completely disrupting his father’s inner circulation. After years of nesting inside him, the demonic force had become intimate with his inner power, and now it pressed down upon it in full suppression.

It had even invaded his mind; that was why his reasoning had gone clouded and he had fallen into unconsciousness.

That hidden corruption had been caused years ago, when his father and his men had slain a Great Demon. Could the monster now haunting the Capital somehow be linked to that original beast? Could that be why this demonic force had been triggered so precisely inside his father?

Ji Huo tried to dispel the demonic energy with inner force through the Elemental Codex. The effect was obvious: the energy went out easily. Yet as soon as he finished, fresh demonic qi formed again, as if it could never be exhausted.

“This…” Ji Huo tried twice more and found it useless. Each time, just as soon as it was purged, new demon energy surged back.

“Master Ji, may I take a look?” Xia Ningshang had watched him probe again and again, and a kind of anxious urgency made her face knot, like someone scrubbing at a stain that would not come clean. She could not stop herself from asking.

Only then did Ji Huo remember her medical skill was said to be good, and he stepped aside for her.

She entered his father’s body as well, and within moments understood why his face had gone so pale.

“Miss Xia,” Ji Huo asked quietly, “what do you see?”

She drew in her brows and pressed at Ji Xiaoxiong’s organs and internal tissues before answering hesitantly, “Your honored father appears to have been struck by a seed.”

“A seed?”

Ji Huo understood at once. “You mean there is a source inside him, and no matter how I remove the demonic force, as long as the seed remains, fresh demon qi will keep forming?”

“That should be precisely it.”

Xia Ningshang pressed again and added, “I suspect the seed has lain dormant a long time, completely fused with his flesh and blood. This latest agitation only caused it to erupt at once. Because it is fused so deeply, even your father could not locate it, thinking only of an incurable hidden wound.”

The other commanders stood there in confusion, scratching at ears and heads, each with that strange look of startled incomprehension. Only Lu Shui listened with unmistakable concentration.

Ji Huo fell silent for a moment. “Then how can we resolve this?”

Xia Ningshang looked at him and replied, “Open the abdomen and remove the seed.”

At once everyone started. One commander burst out, “If you open his belly, won’t he die?”

“It is not certain. With the marshal’s constitution, an abdominal incision should not be fatal.”

“Yet no one has ever recorded such surgery before,” another protested.

“It is only surgery,” Ji Huo said. “I have heard of this method, but I have no practical experience.”

If by experience one means the cruelty of breaking open a man to kill him, he had rather a lot. Or the lads of the Disha Squad, who by nature daily pressure confessions out of suspects—perhaps they should be trained as surgeons next.

Xia Ningshang hesitated. “I have done it before.”

At that instant Ji Huo understood why she had hesitated. Their relationship had always hovered somewhere between friend and enemy; now only a thin veil remained to tear. Would she truly cut into her patient before him? If her hand slipped, if it struck his heart by accident, what then?

Ji Huo’s gaze flickered. He could feel his father’s life-force weakening rapidly under demonic erosion; he feared they had no more time.

“In that case, please, Miss Xia, do what is needed.”

She studied him a moment longer, her eyes flashing, then nodded with grave resolve. “I will do my best. Please support the Flying Bear General’s life-force with your inner strength.”

“Very well.”

Ji Huo now had no obstacles at all. As long as he stood upon the earth, power would pour into him, and he could pass it into his father’s body. Keeping him alive would be easy enough.

After all, his father was a true master. This was no ordinary fungal infection. If the seed were removed, his body could recover.

So Xia Ningshang made little preparation, drew a sharp small blade, and cut toward her father’s lower abdomen.

The knife screeched like metal against thick leather, yet left no trace.

She pressed harder; this time a pale line appeared.

She forced once more, and this time the blade rang with a brittle crack, like a damaged object announcing its own failure.

Xia Ningshang merely gasped.

In the tent, everyone exchanged looks—each one wanting to laugh, each one unwilling to be the one.

Xia Ningshang’s small face flushed red; even behind her veil, her ears stood out scarlet.

Lu Shui coughed and said, “Well… The marshal is a master, his body is like rock. Perhaps we should use a sharper weapon.”

That remark made the other commanders strangely lively.

One of them drew out a broad knife from his waist. “Miss Xia, why not try this one? It is wrought from fine steel, keen beyond compare. One stroke and it will pierce the marshal clean through.”

“No, no, no!” another snapped. “That blade of yours is rust-blotched, and aged for years. Its edge has curled up. Every time I see you hack, it looks like you strike with an iron bar. Bring my sword!”

“I think Miss Xia’s strength is just not enough,” another commander said, flexing his arm with excitement. “Miss Xia, would you let me hold the knife? I’ve got the power for it!”

When he said it, the others’ eyes all lit up and they pressed forward.

“Miss Xia, Miss Xia—allow me to handle the incision!”

“Miss Xia, I normally eat eight bowls at a meal. Look at these muscles. This strength. One cut and I can open the General’s belly myself!”

“Back off, all of you! Such a matter should be left to the most seasoned and steady among us! In rank and experience, who among you can match me?”

Old Lu, buoyed by his position among the second-rank officers, pushed the others behind him and planted himself in front.

“Old Lu, your excited eyes are giving you away.”

“Old Lu, could your shaking hands stop trembling so wildly?”

The other commanders simmered with irritation.

Lu Shui, as strategist of the army, was no smaller in height or build than any of them. But as a sorcerer, he had long ago been pushed to the end by those warrior-commanders.

One hard-boned backside after another blocked the front so completely that not even a common mosquito could squeeze in. He could only watch, half in envy, as each colleague crowded forward and felt, yet again, the contempt of the Flying Bear Legion toward a strategist.

Ji Huo’s mouth twitched. Merely the chance of cutting into his father made these men so wildly thrilled.