Chapter - 127 Acupuncture And Medicines Unable to Remedy (9) (1/2)

Zhang Wuji had seen only six or seven of the fourteen men, but they were enough to bring a frown to his brow: Their injuries are so strange that I cannot even cure a single one of them. Why did the perpetrator rack his brains and come up with such terrible forms of torture? Suddenly, a thought hit him: The wounds on Auntie Ji's shoulder and arm are too common, so she must have suffered some strange internal injuries as well, for how could her case be different? He ran into the room and took Ji Xiaofu's pulse. Erratic and irregular, her pulse indicated that something had gone horribly wrong with her internal organs. Yet, he had no idea as to why and how it happened.

Zhang Wuji was not particularly concerned about the conditions of the fourteen men. After all, they included the people from the Kongdong School who had a hand in forcing his parents to their deaths, so they deserved every bit of their strange sentences. But Ji Xiaofu's injuries had to be treated at all costs, so he walked over to Hu Qingniu's room and said, ”Sir, are you asleep?”

”What is it?” asked the physician. ”I do not care who it is outside, for I will not treat a single one of them.”

”Yes,” said Zhang Wuji. ”But their injuries are very very strange.” Then, he proceeded to describe everything that he had seen.

Hu Qingniu listened attentively from bed, sending the boy outside every now and then to clarify certain conditions that sounded vague. The process took almost an hour before the injuries of all fifteen people were completely described in gory detail. The physician punctuated the reports with numerous ”Mmm, Mmm”, as if he was thinking hard about them. Finally, he said, ”Hmmph! These strange injuries are nothing to me … ”

Suddenly, a voice behind Zhang Wuji said, ”Mr Hu, the owner of the golden flower wants us to tell you this: 'You have called yourself the Sage of Healing in vain, for I do not think that you will be able to cure even one of these fifteen ailments.' Ha ha, sure enough, you are now holed up in your room, pretending to be ill.”

Turning around, Zhang Wuji saw that the voice belonged to the bald old man from the Kongdong School, Jian Jie. Initially, the boy had thought that the old fellow was naturally bald, but he later discovered that his hair had fallen out after a corrosive poison was applied on his head. Furthermore, the poison had begun seeping through the scalp and the skull towards the brain. It would be just a matter of days before the man went completely mad. Meanwhile, his companions had secured his hands with iron chains, so that he could not scratch his terribly itchy scalp down to the bone.

Hu Qingniu was unfazed. ”It does not matter to me whether I can cure you or not,” he said calmly. ”The point is that I will never treat your ailments. You have seven or eight days of life left, so if you hurry home now, you will still be able to see your family members, sons and daughters for the last time. After all, what benefit is there in nagging me?

Tortured by the persistent itch on his scalp, Jian Jie knocked his head against the wall and rattled the chains on his hands. ”Mr Hu,” he growled in a breathless voice, ”the owner of the golden flower will come for you sooner or later, and you will probably suffer a terrible death. If we join hands and fight together against this enemy, would it not be better than hiding in this room and waiting for your doom?”

”If you can defeat him, you would have had him killed a long time ago!” answered Hu Qingniu. ”What is the use of having fifteen useless helpers?”

Jian Jie pleaded for a while, but Hu Qingniu did not pay him further attention. Finally, the frustrated man shouted: ”All right, since either way leads to death, I will burn this dog's den down! We will enter with white sabres, and exit with red ones. After we dispatch this crooked physician, we will meet our ends!”

Just then, another man appeared. He was the swarthy fellow who had been throwing up blood. Pulling out a steel Moth-Antennae Spike (e2 mei2 gang1 ci4) and pressing it against Jian Jie's chest, he said coldly, ”If you offend Elder Hu, I will be the first to take you to task. You want to enter with white sabres and exit with red ones? All right, I will let you experience it first.”

Jian Jie was the better-skilled pugilist between the two, but he could not fight back because of the chains around his hands. So he just opened his eyes wide and glared at his opponent.