“See that you do, lad. See that you do.”
Without another word, Liu Jian headed back inside the shop, and Alex spent a very long, hot morning darting about the city, getting a feel for the layout of the myriad buildings as he made his deliveries. For all that he was a foreigner, his bright blue eyes and blond hair only earned him stares until he announced who he was delivering for. Then it was all smiles and gratitude before they politely but quickly closed the doors in his face.
Tincture of Laudanum, 10% poppy extract. Equal to standard market potency.
Alex grimaced before turning it into a head roll and shrug.
Though he had delivered a fair number of tinctures designed to cleanse germs from the blood, primitive antibacterials as well as medicine for the heart, most of the packages he had delivered had been what amounted to pain relievers or cough suppressants. Most of those older people he had delivered the latter to were barely able to make it to their doors or the entrances of their hovels, in some rare cases, and Alex noted the packets of food he was also dropping off in a few such cases. He suspected they were terminally ill, and Liu Jian was the closest thing to mercy or hospice care that most of these poor souls had access to.
His only concern was the lack of money. No one had offered to pay anything, and he saw no evidence of any system of receipts. He could only hope he wasn’t going to get chewed out, or far, far worse, when he returned.
It was only when he finally made his way back that he encountered his first bit of trouble, just outside the apothecary shop.
“Outsider! Your kind aren’t welcome here,” snarled a powerfully built, pockmarked man with broken teeth, cold eyes glaring into Alex’s own after shoving him back.
Alex swallowed his glare. The man was cracking his knuckles and smiling, clearly hoping for a fight.
“This one apologizes for troubling you,” Alex said, stepping back as he bowed, knowing the last thing he wanted before he had established himself was trouble. He could give the man face by walking back the way he had come, then wait a few minutes before heading back, or just circle around to the other side of the block.
Before being pulled back with a hard squeeze to his shoulder.
“I didn’t give you permission to leave, Ruidian!”
At which point Alex relied on hyper-ingrained instinct imparted by instructors teaching Alex the basics of survival and self-defense, back when it had actually mattered.
Immediately stepping back as he grabbed the offending hand by the thumb, twisting and extending the offending arm as he pivoted and hip-tossed the larger man in a heap upon the cobblestone ground before spinning around on top of his opponent, one knee jammed into the bully’s back. The man roared in surprised fury, shoulder now hyper-extended as Alex kept up the pressure, just short of breaking it.
He glared coldly into the man’s furious eyes. “Are we done here?”
“You’ll pay for that, you stupid piece of foreigner filth!”
Alex heightened the pressure as the man groaned, Alex knowing just one yank and the man's shoulder would pop. No matter how strong he was, Alex had caught him utterly off guard, and he wasn't able to generate any power with his limb so badly extended.
“I said, are we done here?”
The man snarled and spat. “Yeah, worm. We’re done.”
Alex immediately jumped back, gazing coldly at the man wincing and rubbing his shoulder before heading back the building.
You have been struck by a surprise attack. Qi Burst suspected. You have lost 40 Health and suffered 1 Heavy Wound. (3 Broken ribs.)
The world exploded in pain, Alex finding himself flying through the air, only recalling the roar after he was airborne, groaning as he smashed to the ground before being yanked to his feet by his hair, forced to gaze into the hot, psychotic gaze as Broken-tooth spat in his face. “I should kill you for that, Ruidian! Honorless vermin! Daring to grapple a member of the Jianghu Sect!”
The man jerked Alex completely off his feet by the power of his arm alone, no matter that Alex had damn near dislocated the shoulder and popped the elbow just moments ago.
He growled, and Alex's eyes widened, sensing the odd distortion of energy around the man's rigid right hand, fingers leading, and it didn't take a genius to know that the knife hand strike was intended to crush or perhaps tear right through Alex's windpipe.
“How does it feel, worm, knowing death is just heartbeats away?”
Before Alex could answer, the apothecary door slammed open.
“You will put him down right now, Broken Fang, or you will answer to me.”
The thug’s eyes widened. He dropped Alex, stepping back, gazing at Liu Jian in surprise. “This fool belongs to you, honored master?”
Liu Jian snorted, but Alex was awed by the intensity he saw in the deceptively slender man’s gaze. Alex could sense a tidal wave of power held in check by iron will and decades of discipline, for all that he flashed the thug a bemused smile. “A fool he is, but he works for me.” His smirk turned ice cold. “I don’t want him bothered again.”
Broken Fang swallowed. “No, Master Liu Jian. I will make sure it’s known that the blond-haired fool is off-limits.” He glared at Alex one final time before bowing towards Liu Jian and leaving.
“Master Liu Jian, I just wanted to say thank you for—”
“—are you a complete idiot? Grappling with a cultivator, even one as lowly as Broken Fang? Never mind. Don't answer that. Did you deliver the packages? Good. At least you did some good today. Goodness knows you won't be running around with a pair of cracked ribs."
The man gave a hearty sigh as Alex gasped, only at that moment feeling the pain of the explosive slam that had sent him skittering across the ground. “Damn. And I suppose I will have to take care of you until your ribs are properly healed. Come inside, then. Let’s get a poultice on you. Soonest mended soonest up again and able to pay off your mounting debt. No, don’t give me that cornered animal look. Come inside. If you end up getting killed the very day after we took you in like a stray puppy, I’ll never hear the end of it from my girl.”
Alex swallowed, saying nothing, just bowing his head and following the apothecary back inside his shop, doing his best not to cry out too much when the poultice was eventually made, gasping as a flood of cooling heat poured through him.
Botanical Formulae Learned: Basic Healing Compress. Uses the latent healing Qi within a select group of steeped mushrooms and flowers to speed up healing 5-fold until potency declines. Healing Compress potency estimated to be above market norms. Insufficient data for more detailed analysis.
Healing Compress may be further heightened with the appropriate infusion of external Qi. You do not yet have this skill. Your compress has been infused to allow for a 20-fold standard healing rate. You are unable to replicate this Modified version of Healing Compress.
Alex hissed as Liu Jian tied the compress tightly around him.
“You managed to get in a fight with Broken Fang your very first morning? How dumb can you be?” teased Liu Li, gazing down at him with a bemused smile on her face, hair artfully arranged under her hat once more.
Alex chuckled softly, though that made his ribs hurt something fierce. “Pretty dumb, I guess, but it’s not like he gave me much of a choice.”
Liu Li gave a shrug. "You should have just kowtowed to him the moment he snarled your way. You're not carrying any money, and the minute he saw the packages you had on you… but I see you managed to deliver them before coming back."
Alex frowned. “You mean prostrated myself before him and begged for mercy?”
She nodded solemnly. “You’re not a cultivator, and in this world, strength is everything. Strength, or having resources that other people can’t take by force, only by enticement.”
Alex winced. “But that would have been humiliating. Not that you’re wrong, but, at that moment, I was just acting on instinct.”
Liu Li’s gaze hardened. “Your ‘instinct’ almost got you killed. It
would have been one thing if you had challenged him to a proper fight or allowed him to do the same to you, but what you did was a massive insult.”
Alex blinked. “I’m utterly confused. What did I do that was wrong except get the initiative?”
Her brows furrowed. “You mean you don’t know?”
“Know what?”
She rolled her expressive eyes. "You didn't use your fists and feet; you flipped him and trapped his arm! He couldn't move, he couldn't hit you, there was no way for him to generate and focus his Qi!"
Alex blinked. “So, what you’re saying is...”
"All cultivators fight using Qi attacks. How do you think he was able to send you flying so quickly? Broken Fang is a weak cultivator. He only has two meridian gateways open, not even enough to use the High Road and enlist in the Royal Army, but he’s still a hell of a lot more powerful than everyone who can’t cultivate at all, which is the great majority of people. Even his pathetic cultivation rank puts him head and shoulders above mundanes.
“And the biggest insult you can do to a cultivator is to force a noble exchange of parries and blows into a grapple! It’s the ugliest of tactics, rendering both wrestlers’ Qi Strikes inert, and thus it becomes a sheer contest of strength, vitality, and grit.”
Alex nodded, finding it made a weird sort of sense. In almost every kung fu movie he enjoyed as a kid, with notable exceptions, and almost every manga or cultivation novel he had read, the fights involved weapons or fists, elbows, knees, and feet. Even when a pair of combatants were right next to each other, they would almost never try to pin each other, just use elbow gouges or spinning backfists to stun their opponent and send them reeling away.
“So, it’s a cultural thing.”
Liu Li nodded. “Sure, city guards use it all the time. But only against criminals! And they wouldn’t dare use it against a Jianghu Cultivator! There are special Bronze ranked cultivators who are on city retainer for a generous stipend. They assist the city guard when things get really hot, which is rare. The Jianghu sect is prudent, knows better than to upset the local power structure, and that life is best for everyone when the daylight world is calm and orderly.”
Alex blinked. “Oh. So, like, organized crime that becomes so orderly and constrained it’s almost like a legit business enterprise.”
Liu Li flashed a tight smile. “And they even pay their taxes by smoothing the way forward for the administrators in power, our city’s revered overlord having far better things to do with his time than worry about the gritty day to day operation of his city. The dreamer actually thinks he’ll achieve Gold Dragon cultivation in this lifetime.”
“Ware your words, daughter,” said Liu Jian, his icy tone putting a chill down Alex’s spine, but his daughter just rolled her eyes.
“I closed the shop, and I don’t see or smell anyone nearby. Do you?”
“If only I had your mother’s sense of smell,” he sighed. “But still, far better to exercise caution when it’s not needed than to be foolhardy when it might cost you your head!”
Liu Li paled. “Of course you are right, Father,” she said, glaring intently at Alex.
Alex sighed. “Don’t worry, my lips are sealed. About pretty much everything. I’m not such an ass I’d betray the trust of the only people to care enough to give me shelter and, well, put on a kickass enchanted compress healing me at twenty times the standard rate.”
Both of them stilled, gazing at Alex oddly.
“What?” he said at last, as they exchanged a meaningful look.
“Maybe he would be useful in back? We could try him out...”
“We’ve known him for less than a day!”
"And now he has a pair of broken ribs. I'm surprised he's not howling with pain..."
“Enduring cancer is a very good way to develop pain tolerance. I don’t recommend it,” Alex quipped.
He felt a soothing touch upon his forehead, as if he were being filled with the gentlest green energy, Qi tasting like mint and strawberry tingling against his tongue.
“Nonsense. You are in perfect health! Well, save for the bruises, contusions, and broken ribs,” said Liu Jian.
Alex nodded. “I know. That was all before I woke up on that ship.”
Liu Li frowned. “And you’re not lying. At least, you don’t think you are. Do me one favor?”
Alex nodded.
“Don’t ever discuss that ship story with anyone, save maybe your future wife, assuming anyone would ever consent to marrying a silly creature like yourself. Some tales are better not shared.”
Alex winced. “That bad, huh?”
She grinned. “People will think you’re either crazy, a liar, or a storyteller having fun with them. Because the alternative is far worse.”
Alex blinked. “Really.”
She nodded. “Who, after all, would want to live in interesting times? What the fox thinks is fun, the rest of us find terrifying.”
Alex winced. “So you get it, then.”
“Don’t know, don’t care. What I do care about is seeing if you can actually be of some use in back.”
Alex grinned, not having to be offered twice to finally get a chance to show off his unique skills. Skills he would love to level up further, and see just how far they could take him.
8
Botanical Formulae Learned: Basic Recuperation Pill.
Botanical Formulae Learned: Basic Rejuvenation Pill.
Botanical Formulae Learned: Basic Potion of Bliss.
Botanical Formulae Learned: Basic Potion of Calm.
Botanical Formulae Learned: Basic Sterilization Pads.
Alex grinned as he mimicked Liu Li’s preparation’s perfectly. Her bemused smile and snarky quips as he spent the first hour carefully determining where all the compounding ingredients were, carefully sniffing all the dried roots, flowers, and mushrooms, paying particular attention to the dried lichens, even, with Liu’s permission, placing several slivers on the tip of his tongue, only once hissing as his skin burned on contact, earning a wry snort of laughter and warnings about the fox sticking his nose a bit too far where it didn’t belong.
Her brows started to furrow when he asked for specific weighted quantities of each ingredient put into each tincture or wanted the specific quantity of the binding agent being used before putting the ingredients in the pill press, where she made it quite clear that it was by intuitive feel alone, and years of practice working by her father’s side since she could first count, that gave her the skills she needed.
“Honestly, Father, he sniffs and tastes every ingredient! And he wants weights and measurements and clear directions for everything I compound! He even had the gall to ask for paper, ink, and quill before I gave him a good lecture about cost. Then he said not to worry, he had stored it perfectly, but thought it would be nice to pen a basic apothecary tome! Honestly, I don’t know what that boy is thinking, as if we were doing this out of anything more than pity,” she sighed.
Alex’s heart sank, hearing those words while pretending to be asleep out back on his bedding, wincing with every exasperated declaration making it painfully clear what she really thought of him, how low a rung he really occupied here in this strange world.
“Is he honest? Did you scent the slightest trace of malice, deception, ill-will?”
"No. I didn't, Father, but maybe I was wrong. He hides neither ears nor tail nor any other mark of the fox. I think, well, I think he's just a boy WiFu played a trick on. Or perhaps Grandmother Yi Wang forgot to give her potion to him when it was time for him to start his next life.” She sighed sympathetically. “He’s earnest, diligent, and can repeat the ingredients and procedures of whatever formulae I allow him to watch me prepare. I’m not saying he’s a terrible assistant. Far from it. If he weren’t a foreigner, I’d be glad to let him try his hand at preparation.
Much to Alex’s surprise, it was her father who recommended she let him do just that.
“But Father, as much as I feel for him, he’s a fore
igner. He’s not connected to the land like we are. He can’t feel the energies of Heaven and Earth. He has no hope of becoming an alchemist.”
Quiet laughter. “Are you so sure about that, my child? Neither of us bothered to check if he has any potential for cultivation.”
“Father! We all read the accounts of Physician Xu Cheng. Those invaders who crossed the Sea of Mists weren't even properly human! They had no meridian channels at all, let alone the stunted mess that are most people's birthrights. Their most powerful soldiers had elemental crystals fused to their foreheads. Whether it was something implanted or they were born with, it was as if their powers were fueled by beast cores alone. Which is why they were declared no more significant than beasts, centuries ago!”
"An old declaration long since overturned, my daughter. And you, of all people..."
“Have meridian gates like everyone else, Father. Something Xu Cheng also verified when animosity towards my kind had reached its peak. After his experiments, however, none could say that those who counted WiFu among their ancestors were any less human than anyone else. Even if we bear burdens most people don’t. Honestly, Father, if enough people didn’t fear WiFu’s curse, they would have hunted us down to extinction, centuries ago.”
A poignant pause. “I am sorry, my daughter, for a great many things.”
Bitter laughter. “It’s not your fault Mother is gone. I just play the hand fate dealt me, as best I can.”
“And you play it well. Perhaps this boy, for all his eccentricities, is worth giving a chance.”
Other things were said then, but Alex had already fallen asleep.
Only to be awoken the next day by an intent toe prodding him once more, silver-jade eyes frowning into his own. “You awake, Alex? Good. Come on. I think you’ll like what we do today.”
Curious, Alex followed, and was surprised to come into the compounding room and find dozens of ingredients and preparational tools laid out on the marble countertop that she used for her preparations.
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Reborn: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 1 Page 13
