Chapter 89 - To Be A Holy Healer

Setting her tools aside, Ao Wen paused a moment before giving an answer. "I cannot say whether or not these standards are universal. I," Ao Wen paused again, not wanting to explain too much but feeling trapped by the City Lord's piercing gaze and the even more intense one from Lady Ju. With a glance at Wan Yue, she took a deep breath and decided that she had to be at least a little more forthcoming. "In the mortal realm where I learned Alchemy, while I was an Alchemy Novice, that wasn't the rank that people used to address me," she began to explain. "Much like no one addressed my teacher as 'Alchemy Lord' or 'Grand Elder', as a direct disciple of the Medical Saintess Cong Houzi with the ability to treat Yin Fiend Transformation sickness, my rank of 'Holy Healer' supersedes any other alchemy rank," as she spoke, Ao Wen drew herself up to stand with the pride she'd carried as Cong Daiyu, Holy Healer and Core Disciple of the Sacred Flame Celestial Temple. 

"To obtain that title I spent six months following the Medical Saintess from destroyed city to destroyed city, working in plague tents filled with hundreds of victims every day," Ao Wen began to explain, her eyes misting slightly at the memories before she blinked away the forming tears and hardened her gaze. "At first, I treated mortals while serving as an herb girl for my Senior Brother Huang Yuze. Because there were so many people to treat every day, I began to concoct mortal medicines for him so he could save his energy to refine elixirs for cultivators and more extreme cases. It was during this time that I took my Initiate exam. The exam I was given required me to identify one thousand of two thousand herbs within three hours and concoct one hundred medicines using those herbs in the following five hours. Only after passing that level could I call myself Cong Houzi's disciple," she said. 

Both Mao Ailum and Wu Lin stared at her in disbelief. Even now, could either of them concoct one hundred mortal medicines in five hours? That required a concoction rate of one completed medicine every three minutes! Wu Lin felt like he could concoct some mortal medicines in as little as five minutes if he practiced for speed but he could think of less than twenty recipes that could be concocted that quickly. Ao Wen claimed to have done so for one hundred medicines?

"This is preposterous," Mao Ailum said. "It's not possible to concoct so many medicines in such a brief amount of time. No one could do that! You expect us to believe that an Initiate was held to such a ridiculous standard?"

"In a battlefield medical tent," Ao Wen said coldly, "death is the only enemy and time is his most ruthless weapon. If you cannot concoct medicine in minutes, your patients will die in the tents waiting for you to arrive. Do you think a Medical Saintess would accept disciples who would let patients die because we couldn't make medicine fast enough? Each one of us represents her to the world. If I couldn't manage at least that much, she would have been too embarrassed to bring me back to the sect."

"No wonder you sounded like you knew the Medical Saintess when you told me about her last night," Wan Yue said in wonder. She'd already come to deeply admire the legendary True Dragon healer with the little bit she'd heard from Ao Wen the previous evening and she still hoped to learn more about this amazing woman. "Then, the battles she fought that you described to me, were you present for those?"

"Of everything I told you last night," Ao Wen said with some hesitation. "I was only present for the Battle at Azure Lake. It was after my Senior Brother Huang passed his Master Alchemist's exam and transferred to the Western Army leaving only Senior Sister Qi Yue and me to treat the milder cases of Yin Fiend Transformation that didn't require the Medical Saintess herself," Ao Wen paused as she tried to clear away the feelings that came with the memories of that battle and it's aftermath. "I earned the title of Holy Healer when seventeen of my fifty patients managed to recover from the illness," she said with a trace of bitterness. It had been hard to feel pride in the accomplishment at the time, even knowing that Cong Houzi herself only managed to save five in ten of the patients she treated. It was only in the many months that followed that she learned to be proud that she had snatched seventeen lives back from certain doom rather than thinking about the thirty-three who had succumbed to the illness. 

"Seventeen of fifty patients survived?" Mao Ailum mocked, either not noticing the ghosts in Ao Wen's eyes or choosing to ignore her pained expression. This was the wedge he needed! The City Lord would never entrust his beloved concubine to someone who produced such abysmal results! "Some 'Holy Healer' you are. City Lord should consider carefully giving Lady Wan such odds," he said with a toothy sneer. 

In a flash of flames, Ao Wen strode through the air, a fist wreathed in bronze earthen energy slamming into the jaw of Mao Ailum, knocking him to the ground and sending two of his teeth sliding across the floor. Both soldiers guarding him placed hands on the hilts of their swords but realizing that the 'enemy' before them was the very alchemist the City Lord invited to treat his favored concubine they suppressed their reflexes to draw weapons at the apparent threat. Others in the room stood stunned, no one expecting an esteemed alchemist to strike out so violently and so suddenly! 

"Don't you say a word," Ao Wen spat at the fallen alchemist. "You don't know the horror of Yin Fiend Transformation" she continued coldly. "The disease is fatal to one hundred of one hundred mortals that contract it. Medical Saintess Cong Houzi is called Medical Saintess for discovering a method to reverse it in cultivators who aren't deeply infected," Ao Wen explained in a voice like ice. "Before her, it was worse than fatal to one hundred in one hundred cultivators who became infected by it." Flames burned around Ao Wen, scorching the tiles of the floor and creating a palpable wave of heat around her that intimidated even the pair of Soldiers who had been guarding Mao Ailum. "Walk through a city afflicted with an outbreak. Kill every mortal you see so they don't spread the disease. Hold every child not old enough to awaken as you pour medicine down their throat to send them to a final sleep because the alternative is watching them become a twisted monster that feeds on the flesh of those not yet afflicted. Incinerate an entire island academy full of young cultivators who had become twisted monsters so the nearby city never experiences the horror that almost reached their shore," visions of flames filled her eyes as she stared down at the cowering alchemist. 

"Then, after you've done all that, go back to the tents," she continued, taking half a step closer to Mao Ailum, looming over the cowering alchemist. "Treat the children who managed to escape infection but succumbed to sickness from eating out of garbage heaps when their parents died and there was no one left alive to care for them. Tend the broken bones and torn flesh of ordinary people who fought off gangs of fellow survivors, competing for the scraps they could dig out of ruins. When you're done, when you've saved everyone you can and killed everyone else, pack your bags and march to the next outbreak to do it again. Follow the Warriors and Champions onto the battlefield against the fully transformed Yin Fiends so more of those brave cultivators survive to make it to the next battlefield. Watch brave Champions die protecting you because there are only ten of you who can fight the horrifying disease and the world can't afford to lose even one of you and then find a way to make their deaths somehow worth their sacrifice. Do all of those things," she raged, no longer fully aware of the people in the room with her or the horrified expressions on many of their faces. "Do all of that and more and I'd call you a Holy Healer too." 

"Wen," Feng Xi's calming voice finally penetrated the flames wreathing Ao Wen as Feng Xi embraced her from behind. Of all the people present, if anyone never needed to fear being burned by Ao Wen's soul flames it was Feng Xi. "You don't have to say anything else," she soothed. She'd known that things had been traumatic for Ao Wen this time but she'd had no idea just how bad it had been. "It's okay," she whispered, holding Ao Wen close and waiting for the surge of emotion to pass.

Slowly, memories faded and Ao Wen's vision cleared. For a few moments, Ao Wen felt like she could almost see the wreckage and ruin of battlefields that she didn't remember walking in her time as Cong Daiyu… like she had glimpsed the smallest corner of the years that followed her departure. The conflict with the Yin Fiends might have gotten better for a brief time after the defeat of Song Yufeng but it hadn't been an end to the horrors the Yin Fiends brought to that mortal realm. 

"I apologize," Ao Wen said, turning to look at Lady Ju Tse and the City Lord. "Please allow me a few minutes to recollect myself and I'll return to the concoction," she managed to say, her voice ragged and thick with emotion. 

"I'm the one who should apologize," Ju Tse said gently, withdrawing the fierceness of her Warrior's aura, resembling the nurturing and protective hawk that she had been while raising Zhang Bai and her other children. "I forced the question. I can see now why your standards are so very different from the young Alchemy Novices here. You aren't just an alchemist," she praised. "You truly are a warrior who fights death itself."