“Dad, Bro, don’t let him fool you. He doesn’t know a thing about medicine—he’s just some poor student from my school.” Ye Ziming suddenly burst in.
“Xiaoming, you and this gentleman are classmates?” Ye Feng was equally surprised. What a coincidence—both of his sons actually knew Lin Hai.
“Tch, what makes him qualified to be my classmate?” Ye Ziming curled his lip and turned to face Lin Hai. “You’ve got some nerve, huh? Scamming your way right into my house? You think our family is easy prey?”
“Mr. Ye, I’m sorry. I really didn’t know this was your home before,” Lin Hai said with an apologetic smile.
Ye Ziming was taken aback. Just yesterday at Tianhui International Hotel, Lin Hai had been all high and mighty. Why was he suddenly cowering today?
Could it be that his own kingly aura had finally overwhelmed him?
At that thought, Ye Ziming felt a swell of smug satisfaction.
But Lin Hai’s next words nearly made him spit blood.
“If I’d known it was your place, even if you’d sent a grand sedan chair to carry me here, I wouldn’t have come.”
“What’s with all the arrogance? Grand sedan chair? Believe me, I’ll have you thrown out on your ass!” Ye Ziming shouted, eyes wide with fury.
“Ziming, show some respect. Be polite to Xiao Hai,” Ye Ziyu said with a frown, his tone cold and stern.
“Bro, he’s really a fraud. Don’t listen to his—”
“Shut up!” Ye Ziyu knew full well that Lin Hai was no ordinary person—whether from that time at the gambling stone shop or the mysterious water he’d brought for the face mask last time, everything pointed to the fact that he was something else entirely.
“Alright, Ziming, stop making a scene. Let Mr. Lin take a look at your mother first,” Ye Feng interjected.
“Dad, Bro, why—why won’t either of you believe me?” Seeing both his father and brother side with Lin Hai, Ye Ziming was about to lose his mind.
“Fine, fine. Lin Hai, I don’t know how you’ve fooled my dad and my brother, but you’re here for money, right? Fine—our Ye family has everything in abundance except money. Name your price, take it, and get the hell out!”
Lin Hai frowned. He really wanted to turn around and walk out, but for the sake of Du Chun and Ye Ziyu, he forced himself to hold back.
“Brother Ye, if you want to save your mother’s life, then tell this idiot to shut his mouth!”
“Who are you calling an idiot? You believe I won’t—”
“Enough!” Ye Feng suddenly bellowed. Ye Ziming flinched and, seeing his father’s furious expression, immediately shrunk back.
“Mr. Lin.” Ye Feng walked up to Lin Hai. “You just said that my wife doesn’t have more than a month left. So… is there still hope for her?”
After speaking, Ye Feng stared at Lin Hai with tense anticipation, dreading that Lin Hai might utter the word “no.”
“There is hope, yes.” Lin Hai’s words made Ye Feng’s heart leap with joy.
“But…”
“But what?” Ye Feng’s heart, which had just settled, shot right back up to his throat.
“She will have to endure tremendous pain. I’m worried she might not be able to withstand it.”
“This…” Ye Feng turned to look at his bedridden wife, wasting away from illness, and let out a deep sigh of sorrow.
“Old Ye, since this young man says he can treat me, let him try. Pain is nothing new to me—it’s become part of my daily life. Why would I care about it now?” Ye Feng’s wife suddenly spoke from the bed.
“Ah Fang, I really can’t bear to—”
“Alright, Old Ye, don’t say any more.” Ah Fang turned her head toward Lin Hai. “Young man, go ahead and treat this old woman. Don’t hold back on my account.”
“Very well, then.” Lin Hai nodded, and suddenly pulled out a pack of golden needles from his pocket.
“Hey, what are you doing with those needles?” Ye Ziming shouted from the side.
“What else? Needles are for acupuncture, obviously.”
“What?! Acupuncture? You’re going to use that quack Chinese medicine mumbo-jumbo to treat my mother?”
“Excuse me?” Lin Hai didn’t like that one bit. The legacy of the King of Medicine he’d received from Iron-Crutch Li was all traditional Chinese medicine. The more he learned about it, the more he realized just how profound and vast it was—vastly superior to the Western medicine that was so popular nowadays.
“Am I wrong? Chinese medicine is nothing but a scam. It simply doesn’t—”
“Too noisy!” Lin Hai picked up a golden needle and jabbed it directly into a concealed acupoint on Ye Ziming’s head.
Ye Ziming’s voice cut off abruptly. Then his eyes slowly closed, but an expression of extreme terror crept across his face—as if he had witnessed something horrifying.
Ye Feng and Ye Ziyu were startled.
“Mr. Lin, Ziming, he—”
“It’s nothing.” Lin Hai shook his head. “I just put him to sleep and gave him a sweet dream.”
“Sleep… a sleep?” The two were completely dumbfounded. “You can fall asleep standing up?”
Lin Hai walked over to Ah Fang and pulled out a silver needle.
“Auntie, once this needle goes in, you will face pain beyond what an ordinary person can bear—for a full twelve hours. Are you sure you want to go through with it?” Lin Hai’s expression was exceptionally solemn.
Ah Fang gave a gentle smile, her face radiating optimism.
“Young man, just go ahead and do it. I’ve endured years of suffering already—what’s another twelve hours to me?”
“Alright then. Here I go.”
With that, Lin Hai’s gaze sharpened. His hand moved like lightning, and the needle plunged straight into Ah Fang’s heart.
“Hmph!” Ah Fang grunted in pain. Her brows shot up, and she clenched her teeth tightly, her hands tearing at the bedsheet. Beads of sweat, as large as soybeans, dripped steadily from her forehead—clearly, she was enduring unimaginable agony.
“Ah Fang!”
“Mom!”
Ye Feng and Ye Ziyu’s hearts ached, their faces filled with desperate anxiety.
Lin Hai suddenly activated his Heavenly Eye ability, his vision piercing straight through Ah Fang’s internal organs.
He could see that inside Ah Fang’s body, the golden needle was rapidly drawing the surrounding blood toward her failing heart, constantly revitalizing its life force.
Destroying the old to give birth to the new—this was an excruciating process, and even Lin Hai’s medical arts inherited from the King of Medicine could not alleviate it.
Everything now depended on whether Ah Fang could endure it.
“Remember, do not move the golden needle on her body. In twelve hours, I’ll come back to remove it.” Lin Hai gave his instructions, then reached out and pulled the golden needle from Ye Ziming.
“AHHH!!! Get away, you bunch of dead pigs! Oh shit, I can’t—!”
Ye Ziming’s crotch suddenly grew damp. He shuddered and jolted awake.
“Oh man, what a relief—it was just a dream! Holy crap, I dreamed I got gang-raped by a herd of sows. That was terrifying, absolutely terrifying. Uh…”
Before Ye Ziming could finish, he noticed Ye Feng and Ye Ziyu staring at him with very peculiar expressions.
Ye Ziming looked down. “Oh crap! Dad, I’m going to my room to change my pants.”
With that, Ye Ziming dashed into his bedroom, face bright red, and slammed the door shut.
Having witnessed Ye Ziming’s ordeal firsthand, Ye Feng and Ye Ziyu now looked at Lin Hai in a completely different light.
Too terrifying. Absolutely terrifying!
A single golden needle had instantly plunged someone into a dream state, and judging from the way Ye Ziming had completely lost control just now, he hadn’t been able to tell the difference between reality and illusion at all.
What kind of technique was this?
Inevitably, a deep sense of awe toward Lin Hai began to take root in both Ye Feng and Ye Ziyu’s hearts.
