Chapter 1: Awakening of the Crippled Meridian

Azure Cloud Sect, Martial Arts Arena.

A biting wind whipped up dead leaves, lashing against the thin fabric of Shen Mo’s robes. He knelt on the gravel ground, his forehead pressed against the freezing stone. His spine was held straight—not a hint of wretchedness in his posture, only a coldness that felt almost mechanical. Around him, waves of mocking laughter and spit rained down; his fellow disciples made no effort to hide their contempt.

"Shen Mo, you’re nothing but a bastard with broken meridians. How dare you call yourself a disciple of our Azure Cloud Sect?" Zhang Lao’s voice drifted down from above, dripping with arrogant disdain. Dressed in fine silk and clutching a folding fan, he curled his lip in a sneer. "The Sect doesn't feed idlers, and it certainly doesn't harbor trash. Get out. Don't dirty our mountain gates."

Shen Mo didn't look up. He simply replied in a low voice, "Thank you for your mercy, Martial Uncle."

His voice was as flat as water from an ancient well—no trace of grievance, no hint of resentment. This calm, pushed to the absolute limit, only served to stir an inexplicable irritation in Zhang Lao. He flicked his fan, signaling the crowd to back off. "Cast him out. From this moment on, he has no connection to the Azure Cloud Sect. If he ever dares to return, break his legs."

The crowd dispersed, leaving Shen Mo alone in the vast, empty arena. He stood up slowly, brushed the dust from his knees, and pulled a shattered token from his robes, tossing it casually into a nearby brazier. The flames swallowed the jade piece that had borne witness to his ten years of innocence. He didn't look back. His silhouette was solitary and desolate, like a blade of wild grass snapped by a blizzard, yet refusing to collapse.

The path down the mountain was rugged and difficult. Dusk was closing in, and mist hung heavy between the trees. Shen Mo walked quickly, his destination the Bluestone Village at the foot of the mountain. There sat "Ji Shi Tang," a clinic on the verge of bankruptcy, where the proprietress, Su Ya, was struggling to keep things afloat. Even though he had been expelled, a lingering attachment remained in his heart. More importantly, he needed that quiet to find a path forward for himself.

As he reached a small path outside the village, a shrill, piercing cry cut through the mist.

Shen Mo paused, looking toward the sound. Under an old locust tree by the side of the road lay a gaunt, elderly farmer. He was covered in a tattered cotton coat, his face a sickly blue-gray, his body convulsing. Several villagers were huddled around him in a panic; someone was trying to force water down his throat, only to make the old man choke violently.

"Quick, get Doctor Li!" a woman shrieked, her voice raw. "The old man was fine when he went to harvest radishes just now! How did he lose his breath in the blink of an eye?"

Shen Mo stood silent for a moment before stepping forward. He didn't reach for the man’s pulse; instead, his gaze sharpened. In that instant, two tiny, golden flames seemed to flicker deep within his pupils. His vision underwent a radical transformation—the gray, dull world faded, replaced by flowing light and shadow. He saw it clearly: a dense, icy-blue current of energy swirling beneath the farmer’s waist. It was cold poison, laced with wisps of black malevolence, relentlessly eroding the kidneys.

Blue for cold, black for poison. Cold poison invading the kidneys—the kidneys govern water, and when water turns cold, the fire of life is extinguished. The end was near.

Shen Mo withdrew his gaze, the golden flames vanishing as his eyes returned to their seemingly dull, clouded state. He crouched to check the tongue coating and pulse, his mind already made up.

"Is there any hope for him?" the farmer’s wife knelt nearby, trembling so hard she could barely speak. "Doctor, please, save him! If he’s gone, I don't know how I’ll go on."

Shen Mo didn't answer immediately; he calmly straightened his cuffs. That mass of blue cold poison had sealed the kidney meridian’s gate. Unless he had a century-old Pure Yang Dragon Saliva Herb tempered by heavenly fire, there was no way to break the ice. But there were no herbs here, no source of fire, and no way to suppress the yin-cold with yang energy.

"No hope," Shen Mo said. His voice was soft, but every word was clear.

"What did you say?" The woman’s eyes widened, as if she’d heard a sick joke. "How old are you? Who are you? How dare you make such a joke about my old man?"

The surrounding villagers looked at him with strange expressions. Someone muttered, "The lad looks refined, but his eyes are too unfocused. He doesn't look like a doctor; he looks like some good-for-nothing scholar."

Shen Mo didn't argue, nor did he show anger. He stood up, brushed the dirt from his hands, and a faint, cold smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. It wasn't mockery, but the detachment of someone who had seen through life and death. He didn't want to waste his breath convincing people whose reason had been devoured by fear, because they wouldn't understand, and they didn't want the truth.

"No hope means no hope," Shen Mo repeated, his tone icy. "The cold poison has sealed his kidneys; his life force is severed. Cursing me won't help. My life isn't worth less than yours."

With that, he turned to leave.

"Stop right there!" The woman jumped up and pointed a finger at Shen Mo’s nose, screaming, "You little brat, how dare you curse my old man! You wait—when Doctor Li gets here, I’ll make sure you regret this!"

Shen Mo didn't look back. He simply pulled a neatly folded piece of paper from his robes and tossed it onto the mud beside the old farmer. His movement was casual and graceful, as if he were discarding a scrap of waste.

"Take it. It’s a prescription I wrote on the fly. Since he can't be saved, you might as well let him go without too much pain."

Leaving those words behind, he walked straight into the depths of the mist.

The woman picked up the paper, squinting in the dim torchlight to read the characters: Dried Ginger, Aconite, Asarum.

"This... this is a death sentence!" The woman’s face turned pale. "Doctor Li just said the day before yesterday that the old man had cold in his body and needed slow, warming medicine. How could anyone dare use such harsh ingredients?"

Someone nearby urged her, "Sister-in-law, this kid is definitely talking nonsense. Don't you dare try it. The old man’s face is already blue; drinking that spicy water will surely kill him."

The woman bit her lip, hesitating, but looking at her husband’s pained, twisted expression, her heart softened. Ignoring the warnings, she crushed the herbs into a powder, mixed it with warm water, and forced it down the old man’s throat.

At first, the old man’s convulsions eased. The woman had just let out a breath of relief when, the next second, the old man’s head snapped back. A rattling sound erupted from his throat, his body arched violently, and his eyes rolled back as he went deathly still.

"Old man!" The woman screamed, shaking her husband. "Where is Doctor Li? This medicine is wrong!"

Panic rippled through the crowd. Some blamed the woman, others collapsed to the ground; the scene descended into chaos. That mass of blue cold poison in the old man’s body hadn't been dispelled; instead, the harsh medicine had forced it into a frenzy. The black malevolence exploded, surging along the meridians toward his heart.

Shen Mo stood in the shadows of the trees in the distance, leaning against the trunk, watching the scene quietly. He felt no guilt, his eyes deep and sharp. The prescription he’d left wasn't random; it was a heavy-handed attempt to break the "false death" state the old man was in. He had judged that the old man wasn't beyond saving, but the cold poison was too deep for conventional medicine to break the barrier. Using ginger and aconite to force the gate—if it succeeded, the cold poison would be driven out and the old man would live. If it failed, the old man would die quickly in pain, which was better than lingering in agony.

But he had miscalculated the rhythm. The woman’s panicked handling had disrupted the medicine’s penetration, preventing it from reaching the source and instead triggering a toxic backlash.

"Looks like it needed a bit more external force," Shen Mo muttered to himself, his voice carried away by the wind.

He didn't leave. Instead, he quietly pulled out a jade vial the size of a fingernail. Inside was a "Ju Yuan Pill" he had spent three years refining, originally intended to help Su Ya’s clinic get back on its feet. He didn't use it. He knew that once the blue cold poison was fully dispersed, the old man’s self-repair mechanism would kick in; even without the pill, he would slowly recover his vitality.

The current deterioration was caused by the woman’s stupidity, but it had also severed the old man’s last shred of false hope, forcing the family to face reality and clearing the path for the real treatment to follow.

"What are you doing there?"

A crisp, cold voice suddenly rang out from behind him.

Shen Mo paused, not turning around, just tilting his head slightly.

From the mist, a woman in simple, elegant cloth robes walked out. Her face was delicate, her brows and eyes carrying a sense of capability and coldness—it was Su Ya. She had been drawn by the commotion and rushed over. Now, her gaze bypassed the crowd and locked onto Shen Mo’s profile. She saw the jade vial in his hand, and she saw the arc of his mouth—seemingly indifferent, yet complex.

"Shen Mo," Su Ya called out. Her voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the noise with startling clarity. "You didn't come back just to see if I was still keeping the clinic open, did you?"

Shen Mo turned around, his eyes calm, showing neither surprise nor shame. "Boss Su," he said flatly, "if you don't want your clinic to go under, you’d better find a way to get this old man moved over there. If you wait another half-hour, even the gods won't be able to save him."

Su Ya narrowed her eyes, sizing up the youth who had been expelled from the Sect. She remembered Shen Mo—the "mediocre talent" she’d met three years ago when he helped out at the clinic. Back then, everyone said Shen Mo had no aptitude, but she’d had a vague feeling that those seemingly clouded eyes hid a depth most people couldn't comprehend.

"Why?" Su Ya asked.

"Because in his cold poison, there’s a wisp of black malevolence that doesn't belong in this world," Shen Mo pointed toward the unconscious farmer. "Ordinary doctors only know how to treat cold; they can't treat malice. Only your 'Spring Return Needle' can seal that wisp of malevolence and preserve his last bit of life force."

Su Ya froze. Then, she pulled a silver needle from her sleeve. The doubt in her eyes faded, replaced by resolve.

"I’ll make the arrangements. But you’re coming with me. There are some things we need to talk about."

Shen Mo nodded, tucked the jade vial back into his robes, and followed Su Ya. The two walked out of the mist side-by-side. The crying behind them grew faint, leaving only the biting wind.

However, deep in the shadows of the trees on the other side, a pair of cold, sinister eyes were fixed on Shen Mo’s back. It was a middle-aged man in black robes, wearing a half-mask, idly rolling a pitch-black jade bead between his fingers.

"Trash..." the man chuckled lowly, his mouth curling into a cruel arc. "To think you’d dare snatch my 'sustenance' on my own turf."

He raised his hand and gently crushed the jade bead. Black powder drifted into the wind, as if signaling that a conspiracy was quietly enshrouding this quiet little village. Shen Mo didn't notice; he was focused entirely on dealing with Su Ya’s questioning and the shift in events to come.

In the distance, the old farmer’s breathing was weak, but the rhythm of his chest rising and falling was slowly increasing. That spark of life, nearly extinguished, was, at this very moment, stubbornly flickering back to light.