Vroom...
The black car arrived back at the house near evening. In truth, the distance between this residence and the Eastern Regional Command Center wasn't that far. If a Grandmaster flew in a straight line, it would probably take only about ten minutes.
At the clinic entrance, the people who'd been waiting since morning had all gone home. Bai Fanxian's fans too. After hearing that those involved might be connected to some government ministry, they'd gone off to investigate further.
Only Zhu Jinming remained, pacing outside anxiously. Beside him was a black van whose interior had been modified to accommodate a bed and modern medical equipment.
He'd come as scheduled from Bai Fanxian's appointment yesterday. But upon arrival, besides one paper with strange writing on it, no one else was here.
Zhu Jinming returned to the van. He looked at his wife still sleeping soundly with worried eyes. The personal physician who'd traveled with them frowned slightly with displeasure. He'd warned that the patient shouldn't be moved, but this man still refused to listen.
The sound of a car driving in sparked Zhu Jinming's hope. Seeing Bai Fanxian step out, he hurried over to greet her.
"Grandmaster Bai, I thought you weren't coming back..."
The middle-aged man sighed with relief.
"...Bring her inside first."
Bai Fanxian nodded. Her gaze and Heaven Sense immediately shot toward the woman's body lying in the van. She moved her finger. The van's rear door opened. His still-young wife's body floated out, wrapped in Bai Fanxian's qi to protect her from impact.
The personal physician witnessing this scene rubbed his eyes, jaw hanging open. He watched in disbelief as his patient's body floated through the clinic door, which opened by itself.
"This spot's fine."
Bai Fanxian placed the woman's body on the examination room bed. Zhu Jinming hurried in to check on his wife worriedly.
"You try looking first..."
Wu Jia knew immediately that Bai Fanxian meant him. He walked over and touched her wrist lightly. This process wasn't just checking her pulse normally - he was also threading his qi through the patient's body to search for hidden symptoms in places equipment couldn't reach.
After receiving that supreme experience from Bai Fanxian, Wu Jia felt his understanding of spreading qi throughout the body had increased tremendously. The vision of seeing every part inside the human body still lingered in his mind.
"Everything's normal. Her body's processes are like someone who's just sleeping. It's like she could wake up anytime if we just woke her."
Even knowing what he said sounded strange, Wu Jia genuinely felt that way. He checked repeatedly several times to confirm he truly found nothing abnormal before stepping back. Because he still remembered that look saying "you're both useless" from her when examining Barbatos.
Once confident he'd found nothing wrong, he turned and nodded. Bai Fanxian then walked forward and checked herself.
"Her heart is strange..."
...Again?
Like someone playing back a tape. The words and situation were exactly like what happened at the Eastern Command Center earlier.
Wu Jia's face paled slightly. He'd checked confidently countless times. But she'd barely walked in for ten seconds before finding something strange.
If she truly turned to focus on healing people, his Divine Doctor title would have to go to her.
"Is it another magic core?"
Liu Yianfei asked curiously. Could they really encounter two rare magic users in one day?
"She's not..."
Bai Fanxian denied it. If the magic core really looked like what she'd seen in Barbatos, then this woman wasn't a witch. But what she'd discovered made her narrow her eyes.
The Dragon Queen, sleeping comfortably, woke with a start. She turned sharply to look at her master. Just now, she'd sensed some anger emanating from her body. But in just one thought's span, it vanished as she withdrew her hand.
"She's not sick."
The words made Zhu Jinming frown. If nothing was wrong with her, how could his wife not wake up like this?
But before he could argue, Bai Fanxian's next words silenced him.
"...There's a curse in her heart. A severe one at that."
The word "curse" drew everyone's attention. Because it usually appeared often in legends or tales. Especially in the Western continents, belief in curses was even fiercer than in the East.
"Like Sleeping Beauty or something?"
Liu Yianfei looked at the sleeping young woman. Fairy tales he'd read as a child rushed into his head. It wouldn't be that she needed a true love's prince to kiss her to wake up, would it?
If that were true, if her husband kissed her and she didn't wake, he'd probably regret it even more than now.
"No."
Good thing it wasn't. Zhu Jinming, who must have been thinking the same, sighed with relief.
"This curse will gradually consume her life force. It links her to the caster. As long as she doesn't wake, it transfers her life force to the other party."
Hearing this explanation, both Wu Jia and Liu Yianfei became serious. They understood well how terrifying this curse was.
But Zhu Jinming, being an ordinary person, didn't quite understand. So Liu Yianfei helped explain.
"Simply put, someone's draining your wife's life force and using it for themselves." He turned to Bai Fanxian, who nodded.
"Yes. This curse's purpose is mostly to prolong the caster's life regardless of the victim's life, or to heal severe injuries. Having two people's life force is better than one anyway..."
Bai Fanxian continued. The reason she knew this curse well had its own story.
Because ten thousand years ago, something like this had happened too!
A number of people fell asleep without warning and never woke up again, just like this woman. What made Bai Fanxian remember well was that one of her people had also been hit by this curse.
But if she remembered correctly, the curse's source had been completely eradicated through cooperation between several Transcendent-level cultivators of that era. Even they had considered it a forbidden technique that must never be used.
She hadn't expected to see it again in this era. Just thinking that these disgusting curses still had people practicing and using them made her feel angry.
"...Th-then can Grandmaster Bai cure it?"
Zhu Jinming stammered out. Just from what he'd heard, he felt like his wife was being exploited by someone else. And it had been over fifteen full years!
He didn't want her to remain in this state even one more second.
"...Yes. But it might take quite a while."
Bai Fanxian pondered and sighed. If it were her in the previous era, she'd probably think harder. But the current her had the power of "Eternal Myriad Heavens" within. She believed she could remove this curse while keeping the patient safe.
"Yes! As long as you can cure my wife and bring her back, even if it costs billions, I'm ready to pay you every last yuan."
Zhu Jinming still remembered his own words and had no intention of going back on them. The past fifteen years had proven that even though he'd become wealthy as a real estate tycoon, without the wife who'd struggled through hardships beside him, these riches meant nothing.
"...I understand."
Bai Fanxian accepted the middle-aged man's offer. Because breaking this curse might take weeks or possibly more than a month. Just the cost of ingredients and medicines to be used would already be enormous.
She could only hope it wouldn't reach the point where she'd actually have to refine grade seven or eight elixirs for this.
But while they talked, the personal physician who'd come along showed a distrustful expression. He'd cared for that female patient for years with no sign of her waking. Bai Fanxian saying she could wake her seemed impossible to him.
Moreover, hearing about treatment costs in the billions made him think this place was a scam even more.
"This is going too far... Mr. Zhu, I think you're being conned."
He walked over to warn Zhu Jinming with good intentions. It could be called his bad luck that he hadn't checked the news these past few days.
"..."
"...Then you can see for yourselves."
Bai Fanxian was too lazy to explain. She sighed and waved her hand once. The physician's consciousness was drawn in to merge as one with her qi. Bai Fanxian did the same with Zhu Jinming to assure him what she said was true. Both men could see the young woman's heart condition with their own eyes.
It was still a normal heart beating rhythmically. Bai Fanxian controlled the qi to focus on one point. Zhu Jinming felt like he was looking through a lens magnified many times. Finally, he could see the black spot. Bai Fanxian magnified again. This time the physician's face turned completely pale.
Because what he saw was a black mass resembling a living thing moving around there. He could see some unknown energy current - they were gathering from within the body and transferring to a center where characters in a language he couldn't read were engraved.
When it received life force, it would glow faint black briefly then disappear. Confirming that the life force had been sent to its destination successfully.
Just thinking about these invisible living things moving inside one's body constantly made both men's skin crawl. Their faces turned pallid, filled with disgust as if they could vomit any moment.
Bai Fanxian pulled their consciousness back. Zhu Jinming collapsed to sit beside his wife. The physician gasped continuously while cold sweat drenched him.
"...You believe what I said now, right?"