Section I – The Quiet Valley Was Never That Quiet
The valley had been silent for weeks.
Gu Qingxuan liked it that way.
Silence meant no desperate villagers pounding on his bamboo door at dawn, no teary-eyed mothers dragging along feverish children, and—most importantly—no endless parade of "Master Gu, please save my neighbor's neighbor's cow; it refuses to moo."
For once, the healer could enjoy the peace he had worked so hard to carve out.
He sat cross-legged at his wooden table, a tiny oil lamp flickering beside him. In front of him lay his most prized possessions: a stack of silver coins, freshly cleaned and lined up like soldiers; and a row of golden needles, polished until they gleamed even in the dim light.
"Perfect," he murmured, flipping a coin with his thumb. "Silence, order, and silver. All the things a man could ever want. The world could collapse outside this valley, and I wouldn't care."
He leaned back, smugly satisfied. "Who needs family? Friends? Companionship? Bah. As long as I have money, medicine, and nobody bothering me, life is—"
CRASH.
Qingxuan froze. The sound had come from the forest slope above his hut—branches snapping, leaves tearing, the unmistakable thud of something heavy tumbling downhill.
"…life is apparently a joke," he muttered.
He considered ignoring it. Whatever poor fool was crashing through the underbrush wasn't his problem. Probably a drunk hunter who thought he could wrestle a bear.
Then came another sound: a low, guttural groan, carried on the night wind. The hairs on the back of Qingxuan's neck prickled.
A second later—BANG!—something slammed into his door so hard the hinges rattled.
Qingxuan pinched the bridge of his nose. "Marvelous. The valley takes in strays again. I should start charging an entry fee."
With deliberate slowness, he set his silver aside, tucked his needles into his sleeve, and slid the door open.
And immediately regretted it.
A man stood there. Or rather, what looked like a man.
He was tall—taller than any villager Qingxuan had ever met—with a frame built less for farming and more for commanding armies. His silk robe, once elegant, now hung in shreds, soaked through with blood. Pale skin glistened under the moonlight, sharp features cut with unnatural perfection, and eyes…
Qingxuan's gaze snagged on the eyes.
They were red. Not the dull red of exhaustion, not the glassy red of a drunkard—but glowing, ember-red, like coals buried under ash.
The stranger staggered forward. Qingxuan automatically stepped back, heart thudding. Not from fear—he told himself—but from sheer annoyance at the mess dripping onto his threshold.
Blood. Thick, black blood. It pooled at the man's feet, staining Qingxuan's doorstep.
"Oh, for heaven's sake," Qingxuan snapped. "Not on my floorboards! Do you have any idea how hard it is to clean blood out of bamboo?"
The man ignored him. Without so much as asking permission, he shoved past Qingxuan, crossed the small hut in two long strides, and collapsed onto the healer's bed.
"You…" His voice was deep, low, commanding, even though it rasped with pain. "…will heal me."
Qingxuan blinked. "Excuse me?"
The stranger's crimson eyes flared faintly as they locked onto him. "Heal me. Now."
Qingxuan folded his arms, glaring down at the intruder. "Do I look like a charity clinic to you? Bleeding on someone's mattress is hardly the way to ask for medical treatment."
The man's lips curled into something between a snarl and a smile. "Gold. Silver. Land. Whatever you want, it's yours. Just… keep me alive."
Now that was more like it. Qingxuan tilted his head, considering. The man's voice carried authority, the kind that came from being obeyed his entire life. But the desperation in his tone was real.
Still, Qingxuan wasn't about to let the moment pass without a little fun. "Whatever I want, hm? Alright then. A quiet life. No more patients. A vault full of silver ingots. And maybe—oh, I don't know—someone to scrub bloodstains off my floor. Do you happen to carry all that in your pocket?"
The man coughed violently. Dark blood splattered across Qingxuan's blanket.
The healer winced. "Great. That's never coming out. Handsome or not, stranger, you're going to pay through the nose for that."
Still, habit overrode irritation. Qingxuan fetched his medical chest, fingers brushing over the polished needles. When he drew out a set of golden ones, the stranger's eyes sharpened immediately.
"Those…" His voice dropped to a reverent whisper. "…are pure yang."
Qingxuan froze.
Only a handful of people in the world could recognize his golden needles, forged with a rare blend of metals and imbued with the essence of sunlight. He had created them himself, in memory of the family he had lost to plague years ago. Ordinary villagers had no idea what they were.
So how did this stranger—this bloody, arrogant lunatic—know?
But the man was already slipping into unconsciousness, eyes fluttering shut, breath ragged.
Qingxuan muttered under his breath, "Fantastic. Another stray, and this one might actually die on my floor. My life is clearly a comedy written by a drunk immortal."
Nevertheless, he went to work.
The first needle slid into place with the precision of a calligrapher's brushstroke. The man's pulse fluttered wildly under Qingxuan's touch. Not weak. Not fading. Just… wrong. Like a drum beating out of rhythm with the rest of the world.
Frowning, Qingxuan added a second, then a third needle. Slowly, the man's breathing evened. The color—if you could call it that—returned faintly to his too-pale cheeks.
But the wrongness didn't fade. If anything, it deepened.
This wasn't a wound Qingxuan recognized. Nor an illness. The body beneath his hands was not like any human body he had ever studied.
"Wonderful," he muttered. "Not only am I fixing strays, I'm fixing mystical strays now. Next time, maybe a ghost will knock on my door and ask for a lung transplant."
The stranger gave no reply. He had already slipped into unconsciousness, his face as still and cold as a statue.
Qingxuan leaned back, wiping sweat from his brow. Against his better judgment, he'd saved the man—for now.
But the wrongness of that pulse echoed in his ears like a warning drumbeat.
Whoever this man was, he wasn't human.
And Qingxuan, frost-hearted healer of the valley, had just let him bleed all over his bed.