There was a saying in his old world: A man's worth is his reputation.
"Thank you, thank you, Doctor Zhong!"
"Oh, my love, I never knew the herb I used was poison all along."
"My son's arm… it is healed, completely healed!"
By the hands of a traveling, miraculous, mysterious doctor, the sick and injured rose to their feet one by one.
Broken hands mended. Old poisons bled away. Scars that had ached for years fell quiet.
Healing looked like a miracle here.
Cultivators chased destructive arts and battlefield techniques, so restoration was treated as something sacred and rare.
In Zhong's old world, magic touched everything. Poisons and antidotes were common spells for any proper mage. Resurrection or limb regrowth sounded miraculous, yet with enough mastery and power they were still within reach.
An hour passed. A hundred people were cured. Someone whispered a new name, and the crowd took it up.
Divine Touch Zhong.
"I have never seen anything like it," Hui Lian breathed. "Is this the legendary healing art?"
If a person could undo pain with a touch, what value did mortar bowls, cauldrons, and treatises have?
Not much, if one truly mastered magic.
"Was that everyone?" Zhong asked.
The line had dwindled faster than it had grown. Only onlookers remained, faces lifted, waiting to see what he would do next.
"Good," he said. "Let us go, Hui Lian. The patient is waiting."
Casting so many spells had drained a great deal of qi. His runes fed his core without rest, yet fatigue pressed behind his eyes.
"Yes, let us go," Hui Lian said brightly.
Respect had become near worship.
In her eyes he had stepped out of a folk tale, a god who had descended to scatter kindness.
To speak with him at all felt like luck. She stole a glance over her shoulder and forced herself to look away.
They moved toward the heart of the city. Houses rose higher. Carvings grew finer. Street fronts gleamed.
More cultivators walked the road. Stalls that once sold roots and rice now laid out manuals, talismans, and rare metal.
For a moment it felt like the magic markets of his old world.
The Wu clan is only rich. These families are wealthy.
The engraved nameplates shone in gold leaf, each one a true power in Azure Peak Town.
At the top of the avenue stood a giant castle gate, its name carved in jade: Luo.
The gatekeepers stood at Sixth Stage Qi Condensation, rivals to the brightest talents of the Wu clan.
So, this is the gap between us and them. Zhong waited while Hui Lian spoke with the guards. She returned with permission, and one of them escorted the two inside.
If the gate impressed, the grounds beyond were something else entirely.
From the city center to the northern forests, the land belonged to the Luo.
They ran inner and outer sects, one for bloodline and one for outsiders who sought training and work. With that came facilities the Wu clan could only dream about.
A waterfall platform for body tempering.
Four tower libraries for study.
An open battlefield for team drills.
An illusion yard for simulated beast hunts.
Interesting.
To ordinary eyes these were fine amenities. To Zhong they were shards of a larger formation.
With his current strength he could not extend his sense far enough to see the whole pattern, and even if he could, probing here would be foolish. Too many powerful cultivators lived within these walls.
The reward for knowing was not worth the risk of being known.
"Please wait here a moment, Lady Hui. I will inform the lord," the gatekeeper said, bowing before slipping inside.
"Doctor Zhong," Hui Lian asked softly, worry in her eyes, "how much do you know about the Luo family?"
"Not much. Lord Luo Chen is said to be respectable and fair. I know little about his wife." In the memories he had absorbed, Luo Chen stood far above both Wu Han and Wu Yaoshi.
Even Wu Yaoshi had only glimpsed him once during talk of the engagement. As for the lady of the house, she was a mystery.
"I advise you to avoid that topic," Hui Lian warned. "Anything about Madam Luo is forbidden to ask."
"Understood," Zhong said. He had no interest in poking that nest. Not yet.
"The lord agrees to meet. Please follow me," the gatekeeper said on his return, leading them to a secluded manor.
The manor was modest in size but locked down like a treasury. Arrays sealed every approach. Trespassers would be lucky to escape with a missing limb.
I must study these. With his divine comprehension, the patterns etched themselves into memory.
"I present herbalist Hui Lian and Doctor Zhong, my lord," the guard announced, bowing low as the doors opened.
A tall man with silvering hair and a composed bearing stood within. He glanced at Hui Lian and smiled; the two knew each other, and he respected her work for the town.
Then his eyes shifted to Zhong.
"Why do I sense no herbs or pills on you, doctor?" The air pressed down, a test that would crush most cultivators.
This was the weight of mid Foundation Establishment.
"Greetings, Lord Chen," Zhong said, unbothered. "I am trained more in massage, acupuncture, and bone setting than in herbs and pills."
"I see. A rare path." The pressure eased, replaced by interest and a thread of hope. "Forgive my rudeness. We have suffered many frauds of late." He waved to the guard. "Return to your post. I will see to them."
The gatekeeper withdrew. Zhong and Hui Lian followed Luo Chen deeper into the residence.
"As you know, my daughter bears an Extreme Yin physique," Luo Chen said as they descended toward an underground wing.
"It has worsened since she passed her eighteenth year. Now she can only endure inside a chamber perfumed with fire-element incense. Without it, the pain is unbearable."
Even above the stairs, the warmth of flame and spice drifted on the air.
"She is in permanent seclusion and comes out only for brief spars. I hope you understand the severity." The farther they descended, warmth turned blistering. Sweat ran down Hui Lian's brow, soaked her robes, and shortened her breath.
"Lady Hui should remain above," Zhong said. A thin current of wind wrapped her like a cooling veil, blunting the heat rolling up the stair.
"I suppose so." A flicker of realization crossed Luo Chen's face, either that Hui Lian was too frail for the depths or that a mortal's comfort had slipped his mind.
"Thank you, both. I will wait behind." Hui Lian bowed. "Good fortune, Doctor Zhong. I believe you can do it." She retreated up the steps, leaving Zhong and Luo Chen alone.
They continued downward. Bronze lamps burned with fire incense.
"Doctor Zhong," Luo Chen said, "where did you study?"
"Across many places," Zhong replied. "I learned bone setting from desert caravans, pulse reading from a northern temple, and a little of everything while wandering."
"And how do you planned to treat extreme constitutions?" Luo Chen's tone was polite, the weight beneath it probing. He still did not fully trust this stranger.
"Balance first, then containment. Clear the pathways that aggravate the Yin. Strengthen what can endure it. Once the vessel is stabilized, the excess can be guided rather than fought."
Luo Chen's gaze did not waver. "Many doctors have said the same, and they failed here all the same." A beat passed, the pressure of his qi tightening, as if to test whether Zhong would flinch.
Then his tone softened by a fraction. "Yet a few did make small progress before they faltered. I have high hopes for you, Doctor Zhong. Do not disappoint me."
"We will see," Zhong said.
They reached a heavy door inlaid with fire jade and threaded with seals.
"Prepare yourself, Doctor," Luo Chen warned. "From here on, even a normal cultivator would feel... discomfort."
"I have met worse discomforts," Zhong said with a small smile.
Luo Chen pushed qi into the fittings. The steel shuddered. Seals unwound with a soft chime, and a wall of heat punched through the gap.
For an instant Zhong's vision warped, air wavering like liquid glass. His protective layers crisped at the edges. A sting raced across his skin.
He rebuilt the barrier in a breath, three concentric films, a soft-fire ward to blunt the burn, a wind sheath to vent the shock, and a thin water veil to wick heat.
They stepped inside.
Amid braziers of fire jade and arrays humming like a furnace choir, an icy lotus bloomed.
She sat at its heart.
Memory held Luo Lan as a black-haired, distant-eyed girl. Reality had hardened the image.
Her hair had blanched to winter white, each strand rimed with frost. Her eyes were deep blue, clear as a sky after a storm.
Yin mist unspooled from her skin in pale veils, colliding with the chamber's heat in a constant snarl, steam blooming and ice reforming in a rhythm like breath.
The body had finished its argument with childhood. She was snow shaped for sin and discipline both, skin pale where the Yin mist kissed it, gleaming faintly in the furnace glow.
The line from throat to navel drew the eye, a smooth valley between proud peaks. Her waist was tight as a palm's grip.
Her hips held a slow, perilous curve that made the lotus seat look too small. Long legs folded in lotus with a swordswoman's poise.
Luo Chen stopped at the edge of a boundary circle.
"Luo Lan," he said calmly, "this is Doctor Zhong."