Burt stumbled out of the alleyway and onto the main street.
His mind was racing, a chaotic storm of memories that weren't his own.
Ancient medical texts, martial arts stances, and recipes for elixirs swirled in his head, clashing with the reality of the wet pavement under his feet.
Nine Divine Needles. The Breath of the Dragon. The Meridian Cleansing Technique.
It was too much. He needed to go home.
He took a step, intending to hail a cab, before stopping.
Home?
He didn't have a home. For four years, he had lived in the servant's quarters of the Gold estate.
His clothes were there. His toothbrush. His mother's old photo albums.
Elizabeth had kicked him out with nothing but the clothes on his back and he didn't even have any money to board a taxi with.
"Right," Burt muttered, his voice sounding deeper, steadier than before. "No home. Just me."
He started walking. He didn't know where he was going—maybe to the park bench he used to sleep on before he met Elizabeth, or maybe just away. Anywhere away from the smell of that hospital.
As he walked, he noticed the changes.
The streetlights weren't just bright; they were blinding.
He could hear the heartbeat of a stray cat hiding three blocks away. He could smell the ozone of the approaching storm before the first cloud appeared.
He looked at his reflection in a shop window.
The man staring back wasn't the hunched, defeated 'ambulance driver' anymore. He stood taller.
His shoulders were broad. His eyes, once dull and submissive, now burned with a faint, golden luminescence in the dark.
This was him?
He quickly shook the question out of his mind and straightened up properly.
Yes, that is me. I am not trash.
I am the heir to the Supreme Medical Saint.
After tha affirmation, he turned a corner, heading toward the quieter district where the old money lived—the only route that led to the bridge where he could think.
SCREECH!
The sound of tires tearing against asphalt shattered the night.
Burt looked up. A convoy of three black SUVs had swerved violently to the curb a hundred yards ahead.
The middle vehicle, a sleek Rolls Royce Phantom, had its back door flung open before the wheels even stopped rolling.
"Master! Master!"
Panicking screams filled the air.
Burt frowned. His new instincts screamed at him to keep walking, to ignore the troubles of the rich. They were all the same—arrogant, selfish, like the Golds.
But then, the Medical Gaze activated on its own.
His vision zoomed in, piercing through the rain and the gathering crowd. He saw an old man collapsed on the sidewalk, clutching his chest.
To the bodyguards surrounding him, it looked like a heart attack.
But Burt saw the truth. A dark, swirling miasma of black energy was constricting the old man's heart valves. It wasn't a blockage; it was a curse.
A specific type of Qi Deviation known in his ancestor's memories as the "Silent Frost Lock."
If they use a defibrillator, he dies instantly, Burt realized. The shock will detonate the cold energy.
He hesitated. Why should he care?
Then he remembered his mother. She had died because the Golds refused to treat her properly.
This old man… he was someone's father.
Maybe someone's grandfather.
Burt sighed and ran toward the commotion.
"Get the AED! Now!" a massive bodyguard in a suit screamed, ripping open the old man's expensive silk shirt.
The old man's face was turning purple. His lips were blue. Foam was gathering at the corners of his mouth.
"Stand back!" another guard yelled, pushing back the few pedestrians who had stopped to watch.
Burt pushed through the crowd.
"Don't use the defibrillator!" he shouted, his voice cutting through the panic. "It's not a heart attack! If you shock him, you'll kill him!"
The head bodyguard, a man with a scar running down his cheek, whipped around.
He saw Burt—wet, dirty clothes, bloodstains on his collar, looking like a homeless junkie.
He had been trained by the Vance family for situations like this where a doctor was out of reach. He didn't need a homeless junkie who didn't know how left from his right trying to slow him down.
So he simply looked away from Burt.
Seeing the head guard didn't take Burt seriously, another guard sneered, pushing him off, "Get lost, trash! We have a serious situation here!"
"He has a blockage in his meridian channels," Burt said, stepping closer, ignoring the insult. "The cold energy has seized his heart. You need to vent it, not shock it."
The guard's face twisted in rage. "Meridian? Cold energy? He's high. Get him out of here!"
Two other guards rushed Burt. They reached for his arms, intending to throw him into the street.
In the past, Burt would have cowered. He would have apologized and run away.
But today?
As the first guard's hand reached for his shoulder, Burt moved.
He didn't think; his body just reacted. He sidestepped and tapped the guard's wrist, just a light tap, but he hit a specific nerve cluster.
"Argh!" The guard's arm went numb, dropping uselessly to his side.
The second guard threw a punch. Burt caught it with one hand and squeezed slightly.
Crack.
The guard howled, falling to his knees as the bones in his hand ground together.
The head bodyguard froze, his hand hovering over his gun. "You..."
"I can save him," Burt said calmly, releasing the guard and stepping over him. "Or you can keep playing tough guy and explain to his family why you let him die."
The head bodyguard looked at the old man, who had stopped convulsing and gone deathly still.
The defibrillator was charging, beeping rhythmically.
"You have ten seconds," he hissed, sweating. "If he dies, I put a bullet in your head."
"How generous," Burt muttered and knelt beside the old man.
He didn't have his needles yet as he was yet to craft them. He would have to use the One Finger Zen technique.
He took a deep breath, channeling the warm energy from his his lower abdomen into his index finger.
His fingertip glowed with a faint, imperceptible white light.
He struck.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
Three rapid strikes. One to the sternum. One to the throat. One directly over the heart.
The crowd gasped. It looked like he was poking a dying man.
"What are you doing?!" the head guard yelled, stepping forward to pistol-whip him.
"Clear!" Burt commanded.
He pressed his palm flat against the old man's chest and shoved.
WHOOSH.
A cloud of icy white mist erupted from the old man's mouth, freezing the moisture in the air instantly.
The temperature on the sidewalk dropped ten degrees.
The old man's body arched. He gasped, a huge, desperate intake of air.
"Haaa...!"