As he walked along, the road became busier, the way it had the first time he’d been to Cauldron Peak. It seemed as if the trio of thugs outside hadn’t been able to stop many disciples on their way up, as plenty of cultivators from other peaks mingled with the Cauldron Peak disciples. As ever, Cauldron Peak disciples are easy to pick out, with their wild-colored hair and fingernails! Hui thought to himself, as one with seven-colored streaks in their hair sauntered by.

He made a beeline for Xixing’s shop. As ever, it stood mostly empty, cluttered with dust and knickknacks. Hui knocked on the doorpost, peering inside. “Elder Sister Xixing?”

“Ah, he finally remembers me. When were you going to come by and dispel the curse, huh?” Xixing asked, voice still echoing from the back of the shop. A second later, smoke belched from the rear, and she stumbled out, waving her hand and coughing. “Another failure…”

“What are you making?” Hui asked, curious.

“Hmm? A pill to advance my cultivation to the fourth realm, obviously,” Xixing said.

“Such a thing exists?” Hui asked.

“Not yet, it doesn’t. And unfortunately, it looks like I won’t be able to sell them. I think the pill I make will have to be specially dialed to a specific cultivator’s cultivation base.”

“Interesting,” Hui said.

“After all, there’s myriad pills that allow one to approach the fourth realm, or make it easier to break through to the fourth realm, but I want a pill that places me directly in the fourth realm! If I can make it, I’ll advance not only my cultivation base, but also my comprehension of pills as a whole,” Xixing declared, putting her hands on her hips. After a second, she frowned at him. “But first I need you to dispel that curse.”

“Of course. Right away, Elder Sister,” Hui said, bowing. He glanced around, then gestured toward a bench.

She paused and squinted at him. “Hui, you… you look… different?”

Hui laughed lightly. “Ah, it’s just a small disguise technique. I ran into some troublesome people, so I’m trying to avoid them right now.”

Xixing frowned at him for one more second, then shrugged and plopped down on the bench. She cast him a glance, then shrugged. “Do whatever you need to do to get that curse out of me. I don’t care if it takes putting your qi in me, I’ll take it.”

Phrasing, dammit! Hui smiled. He knelt beside her. “It probably will, Elder Sister.”

Xixing grunted and closed her eyes, crossing her arms resolutely.

Hovering his hand over her dantian, Hui closed his eyes and sent a small stream of qi inside her. In an instant, the curse appeared: a black seal-mark seared into her dantian. He prodded at it with his qi, and it lashed out at him, breaking the stream into bits. At the same time, it pulsed, sending Xixng’s dantian trembling.

Hmm. It has a counterattack feature. Not only will it attack me, it will attack Xixing at the same time. If it only attacked me, that would be no big deal. But since it attacks Xixing as well, I can’t allow that.

He reached out to his second dantian and drew out a stream of death qi. At the same time, he summoned a songbird from his dantian. He approached the seal with the death qi, and it shuddered, ready to counterattack.

This seal views death qi as an attack. I can’t simply destroy it with death qi. Instead… I need to approach it with something that it won’t recognize as an attack. He drew the life qi bird into a single strand of qi, then slowly approached the seal. The seal trembled, but didn’t attack. Slowly, Hui fed the life qi into the seal. One songbird, then another, fed into the seal. As it devoured the qi, the seal began to lighten. From black to gray, from gray to white. Hui reached out, hovering over the seal, then gestured. The seal lifted off Xixing’s dantian and flew out of her body to hover over his hand. Hui extracted his qi from her and sat back, gazing at the seal in her hand. Already branded with his energy, it no longer possessed any ability to harm, unless Hui willed it.

Xixing breathed out. “Feels so much better.”

“Elder Sister, do you have a bottle, maybe?” Hui asked.

“Huh? Sure.” Xixing climbed upright and knocked around in her stuff until she came up with a glass bottle. She held it out to Hui. He gestured, sending the whitened seal into it, then closed it with a stopper. With the seal contained, he put it into his storage ring.

“So… what do you want?” Xixing asked.

“Huh?” Hui asked.

She crossed her arms. “You never just pass by. If you came to see me, you came for something.”

“What if I… came to dispel the curse?” Hui asked.

“Sure. You didn’t forget about that,” Xixing said flatly.

Hui glanced at his feet sheepishly. “Er, Xixing… would you mind taking a look at Zhubi?”

“Again? I’m not a veterinarian, you know,” Xixing sighed.

Hui lifted Zhubi off his neck. “Please, Elder Sister?”

Xixing looked at him, then sighed and accepted Zhubi. Zhubi stirred to life the second he left Hui’s hands and hissed ferociously at her, which she ignored, instead tipping him back and forth to get a better look at him.

Hui smiled, concerned for Zhubi and yet suffused by the warmth of doing the right thing. Ah, the pets never like the vet, it really is true.

At last, Xixing handed Zhubi back to Hui. She shrugged. “He seems fine. I don’t sense any qi blockages or anything wrong with his cultivation. There is a bundle of foreign qi here,” she pointed at the snake, “but that’s the region of his stomach, so it should be fine. He seems to be… again, I’m not a vet, I don’t really know spirit beasts, but he seems to be digesting the foreign qi and slowly assimilating it into his own. If I had to guess, the next time he wakes up, he'll be much more powerful… or, I don’t know, have a new attack technique at his disposal. Again, I’m not a vet.”

Hui beamed and bowed to Xixing, settling Zhubi around his neck again. The snake hissed and coiled in close, turning distrustful eyes toward Xixing. “Thank you, Elder Sister. Now I can rest at ease.”

Xixing shook her head at him. “Aren’t you skilled with internal qi medicine? You’re practically a spiritual doctor yourself. Can’t you investigate your pet yourself?”

“Er, I’ve never… been formally trained. I don’t want to hurt Zhubi,” Hui said, glancing at his feet.

Xixing clicked her tongue. “You don’t want to do anything with the snake in case you hurt it, but you’re okay with removing a curse from me? I see I rate lower than your pet.”

“Elder Sister, no! Removing a curse and internal medicine are completely different things,” Hui argued, shaking his head.

“Not really,” Xixing said, frowning at him.

“They… aren’t?” Hui asked. He put a hand to his chin. I guess I’ve been too narrow-minded! In my original world, curses and medicine were as far apart as they could be. But in this world, where you could have a qi deviation or some kind of snarl in your energy, curses and medicine are hand in hand.

“Well, I suppose there’s two types of medicine, really. Pill medicine, that is, alchemical medicine, and internal medicine… so I guess there are cases where you’ll have to come to your Elder Sister, after all,” Xixing declared.

Hui nodded. “Of course, Elder Sister!”

“Speaking of, who are you hiding from? Anyone I know?” Xixing asked.

Hui shook his head. “Tang Fei’er. A cultivator from All-Heavens Sect.”

“Fei’er? Are you close?”

Hui cleared his throat. “Er, she referred to herself as that.”

Xixing frowned, then shrugged. “Huh.”

“Those assholes, coming in and stomping all over our sect. What does she want from you?” Xixing asked.

“To, er, to spar,” Hui said shyly.

Xixing stared at him, then laughed. “That’s probably the most reasonable thing she could want. And you ran away?”

Hui gave her a look. Who do you think I am?

Xixing slapped her thigh. “Damn, that’s hilarious. I wish I’d been there. Maybe I should leave the peak more often… but then, last time, I got kidnapped, so…” She sighed heavily, shaking her head.

“Ah… yeah,” Hui said, glancing downward.

Standing, Xixing gave him a slap on the back. “I’ll see you later, alright? I’ve got to make that pill.”

“Of course, Elder Sister!” Hui said, bowing. He turned and left the stall, turning back to look at the stall just once. He shook his head and walked away, striding back down Cauldron Peak.

Now for the true test of my disguise… Starbound Peak!