Chapter 42: Rescue the Red Fox, Present the Soaring Dragon

Severely injured!

Ji Yuan came to this conclusion the moment he touched the fox. Many of its wounds were deep, exposing bone, and shocking to behold. Fox blood was still gushing out; he didn't know if an artery had been severed. How on earth could these injuries be saved? He was no veterinarian!

Ji Yuan was consumed by anxiety. Cradling the fox, he hurried through obscure alleys towards the nearest medical clinic, simultaneously channeling spiritual energy through several of the fox's meridians using a qi manipulation technique to sustain its life force.

The fox's back was relatively unharmed; it seemed to have intentionally protected something there. Ji Yuan parted the fur and retrieved it, discovering a scroll about two palms long. He couldn't tell if it contained text or a drawing.

However, there was no time to examine it now; saving the fox was paramount!

Beyond the alley in the distance lay a street, and he could smell the faint scent of medicinal herbs, indicating the clinic was nearby.

Jirentang was a renowned medical clinic and pharmacy in Ning'an County, where medicine and pharmacy were integrated. Doctor Tong was the proprietor.

At that moment, Doctor Tong inside Jirentang was expertly preparing medicine for a customer. With skilled hands, he took pinches and strands from various drawers, weighed them on the small counter scale, and placed them into a yellow paper packet. A single dose of medicine was prepared in less than half a minute.

"Here you go, your potent tonic. Remember to soak it in cold water for half an hour first, then bring it to a boil over high heat, and finally simmer it gently until four bowls of water reduce to one! Take it once in the morning and once in the evening!"

"Yes, yes, thank you, Doctor Tong, thank you!"

The man at the counter profusely thanked the doctor as he accepted the medicine. Just as he was about to turn, a gust of wind suddenly swept through the hall, and Ji Yuan seemed to appear inside Jirentang in an instant.

"Oh my goodness!"

Ji Yuan, holding the red fox with his sleeves stained with blood, startled the customers and apprentices in the hall, but he had no time to pay attention to them.

"Doctor Tong, please quickly tell me if this fox can still be saved?"

The strange tale of a red fox kneeling to a human for help, which had occurred at the other end of the market, hadn't reached here yet, but the scene before them was peculiar enough.

Doctor Tong stared at Ji Yuan in surprise, then looked at the bleeding fox in his arms.

"Uh, this... I have never treated livestock, let alone a wild beast..."

"Doctor Tong, as the saying goes, a physician has a benevolent heart. A fox's life is also a life. Please, you must try to save it!"

Ji Yuan found it inconvenient to cup his hands in a formal bow to Doctor Tong at this moment, but his words were earnest enough.

"Well then, this old man will give it a try. Please, sir, follow me to the inner hall. The two of you stay outside, mind the shop and prepare medicines; don't make any mistakes!"

"Oh, Master..." "Master, I want to see too..."

"Hmph, get to work!"

Doctor Tong snorted at the two apprentices and led Ji Yuan into the inner hall of Jirentang. The two apprentices were itching with curiosity but dared not disobey, so they could only stay in the front hall, watching enviously.

The inner hall was the consultation room, simply furnished with a bed, chairs, and a desk equipped with the four treasures of the study.

Doctor Tong took a piece of white coarse cloth and placed it on the desk as a pad.

"Come, place the fox here!"

Ji Yuan quickly and carefully placed the red fox from his arms onto the cloth. This movement caused the semi-conscious fox to tremble slightly.

Without further ado, Doctor Tong began carefully examining the fox's injuries, turning over torn skin and flesh for a closer look, checking its eyes, and feeling for a pulse beneath its neck.

"This fox is less than an arm's length, yet despite severe blood loss, its pulse is strong. Strange, how can such a pulse exist with insufficient blood?" Doctor Tong murmured to himself.

As Doctor Tong murmured, he gently massaged and felt the fox's body. After the examination, he retrieved his medical tools and spoke to Ji Yuan.

"The fox has many injuries. Those from blunt objects are manageable, but the severe ones are mostly from sharp teeth and bites. Sir, I will use Ten Ashes Powder supplemented with a wound-healing paste to stop the bleeding, and then the Five Flavors Detoxifying Decoction to clear heat and toxins. Afterward, it will need to be nourished with meat. As for whether it survives, that will be up to fate!"

"Very well, Doctor Tong, please proceed with the treatment!"

"Alright, help me hold it down!"

There were few customers outside Jirentang. The two somewhat distracted apprentices suddenly heard intense fox cries—"Woo-woo-woo… Oww..."—from the inner hall, startling them so much that they trembled.

The sounds sometimes resembled weeping, sometimes an unknown beast's roar, and were extraordinarily eerie to hear.

About an hour later, Doctor Tong and Ji Yuan emerged from the inner hall together. The fox in Ji Yuan's arms was wrapped entirely in white cloth, with blood faintly seeping through.

Doctor Tong personally went to the medicine cabinet and prepared the herbs. In moments, he had gathered all the medicine and handed it to Ji Yuan.

"Boil it using the method I just explained. However, the medicine will be bitter, and how to get it to drink it is something I cannot manage!"

"Thank you for your trouble, Doctor Tong! I, Ji Yuan, am immensely grateful! May I ask what the consultation and medicine fees are?"

Doctor Tong returned to the counter, waving his hand with a hint of fatigue.

"The consultation fee is waived. The medicine fee is thirty copper coins; give it to my apprentice!"

Ji Yuan, holding the red fox, found it inconvenient to cup his hands in a formal bow, so he simply nodded to Doctor Tong and took copper coins from his money pouch.

"Here you go, young master."

"Doctor Tong, I shall take my leave!"

Having said this, Ji Yuan covered the red fox in his arms with his wide right sleeve, strode out of Jirentang, and then swiftly darted into an alley, heading back towards the Tranquil Abode.

Inside Jirentang, Doctor Tong finally let out a long breath, sweat trickling down his cheeks.

"Master, what's wrong?" "Yes, Master, were those sounds from the fox just now? They were so scary!"

Doctor Tong slowly regained his breath, sitting on the chair behind the counter.

"Do you think I wasn't scared? That was no ordinary fox; it was practically a spirit fox!" he sighed.

On the way back, Ji Yuan tried to choose less crowded paths, employing his light-footed movement technique. This allowed him to move swiftly while minimizing jostling.

Meanwhile, spiritual energy was continuously channeled into the red fox's body in small, steady amounts.

Doctor Tong's earlier perplexity about the fox's tenacious life force stemmed partly from the fox's inherent physical constitution, but Ji Yuan's continuous infusion of spiritual energy accounted for the other half.

Even before they reached home, the scent of jujube blossoms already wafted from afar. The red fox in Ji Yuan's arms, smelling the fragrance, opened its eyes and felt a profound sense of peace.

Pushing open the courtyard gate and entering the pavilion, Ji Yuan swept his sleeve, clearing the already dust-free stone table. He then retrieved a bedsheet from inside the room, folded it, and spread it over the table.

Ji Yuan gently placed the red fox on top of it, saying in a calm voice:

"You might prefer it here over being indoors, and it's more suitable for you here!"

As he finished speaking, and while the red fox was still slightly bewildered, Ji Yuan's right hand, hidden within his wide sleeve, formed a gesture for manipulating energy.

From above the Tranquil Abode down into the courtyard, a gentle breeze gradually gathered, bringing an immense sense of comfort to the red fox.

The red fox then instinctively realized that this wind contained concentrated spiritual energy from heaven and earth. Every breath taken here was hundreds of times more potent than its fumbling, instinctive cultivation efforts in the mountains.

The branches of the jujube tree in the courtyard swayed gently, and green-yellow jujube blossoms occasionally fell.

Watching the bandaged fox begin to absorb spiritual energy with steady breaths, Ji Yuan finally breathed a sigh of relief. Surely it wouldn't die now?

Recalling the unintentional glance he had in the clinic's inner hall earlier, a smile played on his lips. A fox spirit, a fox spirit—who would have thought it was a male!

With the fox's treatment temporarily concluded, Ji Yuan, now having a moment of leisure, took a small scroll from inside his clothes. He wanted to see what Lu Shanjun had sent via the fox.

The paper scroll was stained with some fox blood. As he slowly unrolled it, powerful calligraphy, vibrant as iron strokes and silver hooks, was revealed.

Beautiful characters! No, wait! This was...

Although the calligraphy was on a small scroll, the hundred-plus characters on it displayed myriad forms, like a swimming dragon or a startled swan; some radiated sharp killing intent, others flowed like high mountains and rivers.

In Ji Yuan's eyes, now that he cultivated both Daoist arts and martial arts, these were not characters at all; they were, in a daze, a flowing sword technique!