Chapter 1945 — The Cause of Amnesia, Part One

"Yes, Mr. Lin is a divine doctor! Years ago I had a stroke that crooked my mouth and eye, and rheumatism in my legs — Divine Doctor Lin cured me in a single stroke!" Remembering that her own illness had been healed by Wei Zhao, Granny Sun was suddenly filled with confidence.

"Heh... whether I can cure it, I'll have to examine you first. I'll do my best!" When Wei Zhao had treated Granny Sun's crooked face and bad legs before, he had examined nothing else about her health — time had been short, and his only aim then had been simply to cure those two ailments and pin the blame on Zhen Yingjun.

"All right — what do you need me to do?" Granny Sun asked hastily.

"Granny Sun, just sit on the sofa and hold out your hands; I'll take your pulse." Wei Zhao could probe the condition of another person's body with his qi, so he needed nothing else from her. "All you have to do is relax."

"All right!" Nodding, Granny Sun sat down on the sofa beside Wei Zhao and held out both hands.

Wei Zhao closed his fingers around Granny Sun's pulse and began using true qi to inspect the state of her body — but no sooner had his technique circulated than his qi met obstruction. He discovered that most of the meridians inside Granny Sun had been destroyed, and those that remained were clogged with stagnant blood. It was not as severe as Yang Huaijun's case, where the heart meridian was damaged and life itself hung in the balance; but at the very least, it was now utterly impossible for her to become a cultivator and practice true qi. The condition was strikingly similar to Uncle Qing's!

Uncle Qing's meridians, too, had been destroyed, leaving him unable to practice internal martial arts — and Granny Sun was plainly no different.

If so, then Granny Sun's crooked mouth, lopsided eye and lame leg could never have been caused by a stroke or rheumatism; they had been the doing of meridians blocked by stagnant blood. Both conditions involved obstructed meridians and their treatments were broadly alike, but the causes behind them were entirely different.

Wei Zhao had not looked closely at the time, so he had simply cured the two ailments — her crooked face and her bad leg — assuming they were brought on by a stroke. Now, it seemed, that was not the case.

But this was nothing beyond Wei Zhao's ability. He said to Uncle Qing, "Uncle Qing, my silver needles are in my school bag. Run out and find a pharmacy and buy me another box."

Severed meridians Wei Zhao could mend with his qi, but years of accumulated stagnation had to be drawn out with the needles — that old blood was already dead tissue, and no qi could ever dissolve it.

"Right away!" Uncle Qing sprang to his feet and ran out of the villa to buy the needles.

Wei Zhao, meanwhile, set about using his qi to repair the damaged meridians in Granny Sun's body.

Meridian repair was work Wei Zhao had done a thousand times over. Granny Sun had no idea how he was treating her, but she felt a warm, pleasant comfort suffusing her whole body, as if vitality had returned to every part of her!

Even Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu, standing nearby, noticed the change in Granny Sun, for her face was altering before their very eyes. The wrinkles and wear of age had vanished, replaced by smooth, luminous skin — in the space of a few moments Granny Sun seemed to have grown several years younger!

Wei Zhao was not especially surprised by this. With Granny Sun's meridians blocked and ruined, her metabolism had naturally suffered terribly; once they were mended, a radiant complexion was only to be expected — just as Uncle Qing, whose meridians Wei Zhao had repaired back then, had likewise seemed to grow several years younger overnight.

Restoring Granny Sun's meridians was not the same thing as boosting her strength, so Wei Zhao handled it with consummate ease and speed. Having already cultivated the second layer of the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art, the first was now child's play to him, and his circulation ran far faster than before — so within moments the injured meridians inside Granny Sun had been repaired.

Of course, Wei Zhao had not yet examined or touched Granny Sun's head. In his view, since she had lost her memory, her head must have sustained some manner of injury — and the head was one of the most complex structures in the entire human body. So he would wait until Uncle Qing returned with the silver needles, and only then examine and treat it with the needles' aid.

Soon Uncle Qing came running back. He had not driven; he had gone out entirely on foot. The pharmacy was not far from the residential compound, but it was still a two-kilometer run from the villa district, and Uncle Qing did not know the way well — to be back in so short a time, he had plainly sprinted every step of the route, so anxious was he about Granny Sun's condition.

Seeing Uncle Qing drenched in sweat, Granny Sun felt a wave of warmth well up inside her. This man, it seemed, loved her dearly — for he was a cultivator, and no matter how fast he ran he would never normally sweat like this; this sweat had plainly been wrung out by worry.

"Xiao Yi, there were no silver needles — only these ordinary silver-plated ones. Will they do?" Uncle Qing produced a set of needles and laid them on the coffee table in front of Wei Zhao. "If not, I'll drive out to the big pharmacy and buy some."

Fewer and fewer people bought acupuncture supplies these days. Genuine silver needles were prohibitively expensive, and ordinary pharmacies did not stock them; to find silver-plated steel needles at all was good enough. To Wei Zhao, though, such things were merely tools — the crux lay in how one wielded his qi, and so the material did not matter.

"They'll do — we'll use these." Wei Zhao nodded, opened the case, took out several needles, and with what looked like complete casualness inserted them into Granny Sun's body. The onlookers, however, knew this was no casualness at all; Wei Zhao's technique was simply too masterful, having reached the point where every movement flowed like clouds and running water.

As his strength had grown, Wei Zhao no longer felt the strain he had once suffered in wielding the needles and his qi. Back when he had treated Liu Zhenhu, a single course of acupuncture would leave him thoroughly exhausted; now that feeling was gone.

"Granny Sun, think of nothing now — I'm going to examine the injuries to your head," Wei Zhao said.

"All right." Granny Sun hurriedly closed her eyes, not daring to think of anything further.

Wei Zhao, meanwhile, began carefully probing the condition of Granny Sun's head with his qi. But as the probing went deeper, he let out an astonished cry: "Hm?"

At the sound, Uncle Qing's face tightened in alarm, yet he dared not speak, having no idea what had come of Wei Zhao's examination; he could only stand guard nearby, ready at a moment's notice for Wei Zhao's bidding.

What he found inside Granny Sun's head left Wei Zhao baffled. One might say, Granny Sun's head had not been injured at all — there was no clot of stagnant blood pressing on a nerve or blocking a meridian to account for her lost memory, as Wei Zhao had assumed!!!!