16 Time to Whip Out My Techniques!

Lan Xiang promptly pulled the physician out of the room.

"Sir, would you tell me, theoretically speaking, specifically how the treatment for QDD would work?"

Although confused, the physician had no qualms about telling the procedures to Lan Xiang. He was also pleasantly surprised that Lan Xiang could follow along with the medical jargon he began using.

"That's how...? Thank you, sir." Lan Xiang was determined.

The physician followed Lan Xiang back inside, and what greeted them both was the heartwarming sight of grandfather and granddaughter talking to each other with wide smiles on their faces.

Even though he had seen this scene multiple times already, it never failed to break the physician's heart knowing that they would never get to talk like this again, and soon at that.

"Sir, can I... borrow your equipment?"

"What? Why?" The physician saw no reason for Lan Xiang to borrow his medical equipment, unless... "No, certainly not!"

"Doctor, please." Lan Xiang clicked his tongue. He figured out that I want to do the procedure myself.

"Do you have a medical license?"

Lan Xiang squirmed. Does one from the past life count? "...No, I don't. But I know plenty well what I'm doing!"

"Th, this would be medical malpractice! This is illegal! I swore an oath! I'd lose my job...! Besides, didn't I just tell you of the difficulty of this procedure? Look at you, you're just a kid! You don't even have a license! Even if you did thorough research on the internet, that's only scraping the surface of what you need to actually practice medicine!"

Xie Jian and Xie Gang were startled at the two's argument. They stopped talking.

"This kid, he wants to do the procedure?" Xie Gang was mildly amused. He didn't believe that Lan Xiang could do it, but he was at the end of the line anyway.

Meanwhile, Xie Jian didn't know what to do. On one hand, she trusted Lan Xiang. He wouldn't offer to do it if he was unsure of himself. But on the other was her grandfather's life. Even though, at this rate, he wouldn't last for an hour, Xie Jian would gladly take every last second of it. If Lan Xiang somehow messed up and took those few remaining minutes away, she wouldn't know if she would blame him for that.

The physician was adamant in his position. He had no reason to lend his equipment to a stranger who thought of himself too highly.

Biting his lip, Lan Xiang muttered two words.

Those were the last words the physician heard before he felt a strike on his nape.

"Sorry, doctor."

As Lan Xiang caught the physician's unconscious body, he lied him down on the floor gently... and started to rummage through his belongings.

"Aha, here's some needles."

"X, Xiang..." Xie Jian looked at Lan Xiang with hostility.

"Jian'er, I promise this'll work. I guarantee it."

Seeing the confidence in Lan Xiang as he wore the PPEs, Xie Jian's heart softened. He was doing everything he could to prevent her grandfather from dying. On that note, she decided that even if he did screw up, she wouldn't blame him for it. The two people she loved the most, Xie Gang and Lan Xiang, if one died and she cut ties with the other, who would she have left? Ning Luoxue? How laughable.

Xie Gang saw as Lan Xiang approached him looking like a fully-fledged doctor. "You, kid. When I'm gone, you take good care of Little Jian, okay?"

"Of course." Lan Xiang didn't spare a glance at Xie Gang as he prepared the tools. "Even if you end up alive, I'm taking her from you."

Xie Jian at the side blushed.

"Old man Xie, we're starting the operation. Can you turn your back?"

Before he received an answer, Lan Xiang already lifted Xie Gang and flipped him over like a burger.

He removed the hospital gown and threw it on the floor.

Lan Xiang widened his eyes.

Xie Gang's back looked rotten black, giving off a decomposing smell. "This is much more serious than I thought. It's a miracle you're still conscious."

Xie Gang laughed. "Old men have high vitality and endurance!"

"Shouldn't it be young men?"

"Haha, kid, you're too young to compete with me!"

"Jian'er, are you 'satisfied'?" Lan Xiang suddenly threw a question to Xie Jian as he started to swab the area.

Xie Jian quietly muttered, "Yes."

"So she says."

Xie Gang was ticked off. "You two are too young to be doing something like that! I got my first experience when I was 25!"

"Heh." Lan Xiang had a smug smile.

Xie Jian felt that something was off. Shouldn't this be a serious operation? Why was the atmosphere more akin to getting a haircut?

"...Do you want to be injected with anesthesia?" Lan Xiang asked with caution.

"No. I'll lose consciousness, and I don't know if I'll wake up again. Might as well inject me with euthanasia instead."

"Okay."

After swabbing, Lan Xiang turned serious.

He closed his eyes and exhaled. When he opened his eyes once more, Xie Jian noticed that his eyes were glowing.

Lan Xiang saw the internal network of nerves and veins of Xie Gang in his eyes. He drove his eyes to pry further, deeper into it...

He caught a glimpse of a meridian pathway. But only a single one.

More, look more...!

Lan Xiang coughed up blood, but he drunk it back.

His eyes were strained, but he could see the meridian pathway network... It was confusing as hell! There were millions, nay, even billions of pathways in his sight.

No one had seen this network before; he was the very first person to see even a single pathway, let alone the whole network! As such, he had no past examples of how to navigate it. He only had the physician's theories to guide him.

He noticed that most of the pathways were purplish, looking like they were rotten. Only a few dozen were a golden yellow, but those too were starting to turn purple.

Taking out a sterilized needle, Lan Xiang pierced it into Xie Gang's skin. He wasn't met with much resistance, the black skin was too soft.

Until the needle reached one of the purple pathways, Lan Xiang sunk it deeper into Xie Gang.

Even though Xie Gang stayed silent, Xie Jian at the side could see that his face wretched with pain.

Suddenly, the needle that Lan Xiang was pushing turned violet in the blink of an eye. It began corroding at a rapid pace.

Lan Xiang felt that his own qi was being sucked in, and he had no way of stopping it.

The pathway that it pierced lost some of its purple aura, and some of its former luster returned.

Lan Xiang sighed in relief. "Okay, it worked!"

As he took out the unusable needle, Lan Xiang noticed that no blood leaked out from where he pierced it. "Is this the result of needle techniques?"

He repeated this process multiple times, each taking a second or two. With the millions of rotting pathways, he didn't know if an hour would cut it.

"In that case... I'll use a hundred needles every second!"

As he said that, needles flew out of the box they were in, controlled by a golden aura. Lan Xiang exerted himself and pierced all of those needles with pinpoint accuracy!

Xie Jian was stunned. How much stronger did Xiang get with that manual...?

With every needle pierced into Xie Gang, he gained a millisecond of his life back. With a hundred needles per second, he was gaining vitality rapidly.

On the other hand, Lan Xiang was losing his. His qi was only so much - it couldn't possibly support an operation of this degree.

Xie Jian noticed that Lan Xiang's once overbearing aura faded away. His face grew pale, and his breath grew heavier by the second.

She stood up and took off her disguise ring, and released the full brunt of her cultivation - Level 10, Elemental Mastery realm!

All the aura that she emitted, she poured into Lan Xiang...!

Lan Xiang felt a sudden boost in the amount of his qi, just when he was getting worried if he would hold up. He glanced at Xie Jian behind him.

"Thanks."

Lan Xiang opened the system.

Do you want to advance Needlework is Hard to Purple level for 250 tech points?

Yes/No

"Yes."

Now that he could support it, he would rather inject a thousand needles at once instead of only a hundred!

The physician on the floor woke up slowly. A cold breeze swept through his skin.

He was naked!

As he regained his vision, what he saw was a preposterous sight.

Thousands of needles up in the air, all of them striking a patient with pinpoint accuracy.

The physician stood up to get a closer look.

"...! He's avoiding all the vital points, and the patient isn't losing any blood?!" He couldn't comprehend what was going on.

He was certain that the man behind it all must be some kind of hidden expert, not like the inexperienced kid from earlier. He looked at the towering figure.

With the man wearing a surgical mask, the physician couldn't quite discern his facial features.

As such, he stood by and watched carefully, so that he could learn something.

Twenty minutes had passed since the operation started.

Lan Xiang now thought that it was pretty pointless to have swabbed the area.

As he finished the operation, the black, rotting skin peeled itself off, and a glowing white appeared before him.

It was... a sign of youth! Wait, a sign of youth??

Xie Gang felt refreshed, as if he had been reborn anew! All of his insides, which had been fighting for decades against his disease, breathed a new breath.

Lan Xiang felt an enormous amount of fatigue right after he took out the last needle. As he crashed onto the floor, he saw Xie Jian crashing with him, her face equally as pale as his.