Xuan Xian gingerly knocked on the door and whispered, “Young master?”

She came over after hearing that Kairos is visiting Jim and his mother because the lady’s condition has turned for the better.

When the boy heard the rasp on the door, he got up and walked through the herb smelling room to the Xuan Xian.

When the door swung open, the powerful aroma of medical solution wafted out.

“Xuan Xian, how are you and little Ling’er doing?” Kairos greeted first.

Since he entered the capital, he had his hands so filled with things that he couldn’t find the time to meet up with familiar faces. But surprisingly, when he said those words, the older lady did not smile warmly as she usually would but instead paled visibly.

“Young master, I am looking for you for this very matter. Can we talk in private?”

The boy nodded, and the two made their way upstairs to his office. For a young boy, this large room on the top floor of the shop felt too big for him so he seldom used it.

But for a place that can be isolated from prying eyes and ears, he couldn’t think of a better location.

In this grand-looking office, Kairos politely invited Xuan Xian to be seated, but she refused adamantly.

Giving up, Kairos chose to stand with her.

“Y..young master… I’m sorry, I had done a terrible job while you were away.”

“What happened?” When he saw her face paled, after mentioning her daughter, Kairos had become worried.

Xuan Xian spoke trembling uncontrollably and almost in tears. “My husband came to the shop recently… and… and he threatened me with our daughter.”

An image of the pudgy man that is Xuan Xian’s husband appeared in his mind.

Instantly, the boy became fiercely angered. Usually, he would have kept his cool until he could confirm the facts, but Ling’er is merely five, yet that disgusting excuse of a man dared to hold her as a hostage to her own mother?

The anger burned like seething lava.

“What did he do?” Kairos asked with deathly silence, chewing on every word before spitting it out.

“H..he… asked me to hand over the day’s sales plus the rod that you refined for me. Said that he could sell it for a good price. I…I refused, and he hurt Ling’er. I’m sorry young master, I had no choice.”

With a face looking like a thunder cloud, Kairos sat down quietly at his table in the same way he saw how his father deals with anger. Trying to dissipate the rage that appeared like a cold bare blade, he started breathing deeply. Surprisingly, just focusing on something as simple as that was enough to cool his thoughts like a charm.

“Hmmm. That man to feed his alcohol addiction resorted to selling the rod. The questions are, how did he know it is of value, and which party did he sell it to?”

As his thoughts ran over Xuan Xian’s words, he turned his attention to the table instead. Even though he seldom used it, it is still cluttered with stuff, trinkets, seal stones, and metal ores; leftovers from his design plans with Siegfried from the past week.

And as he looked at his research materials that layered the table, his instincts gave him a name to both his questions. Devilheart.

“That rod is the first item that I engraved using the new technique. A prototype of what is sold in the shop now.

I suspect that the Devilheart was behind everything and the rod has now landed in the hands of the Hope family. Those merchants are excellent at researching and replicating new products.

Your husband might have seen copies of the runic weapons that I have created and realised that you have an item with similar inscriptions. Do not worry Lady Xuan Xian, I was the one that put your family at risk, and I will undoubtedly seek to right this.”

“HUSBAND?” Xuan Xian almost shouted in protest, unlike her quiet exterior, she has developed quite a bit of good leadership qualities the months that the boy has allowed her to handle the business. She had gained enough spirit and is no longer that woman that can only behave demurely.

She looked at Kairos with flames erupting from her eyes, “I’ve empathised with him for wallowing in self-pity after returning from the previous war, but through it all, he had never made the choice of picking himself up. Instead, he proved to me that he is willing to endanger everyone else for his own sake!

He does not deserve to be her father, nor as my husband.

I am going to EX him! So from now on, you call him my Ex-Husband, you hear? Parasites like him ought to stay on the other side of the street if they see me crossing. If not because of Ling’er, who would give in to the demand of such scum?”

Kairos was a little taken aback, but it somehow felt like there were creases smoothened out for Xuan Xian.

“It is I who should apologise to you instead. When I made the decision to refine that metal rod for you, I had not thought things could play out this way.

“Ling’er, how is she?”

When the subject was brought to her daughter, the fire seemed to die down immediately, “He… told me that his paymaster will be holding on to Ling’er until they verify the rod’s usage, but when Ling’er came back three weeks ago, my little angel became unnaturally quiet, like she had turned into another person.”

Kairos stood up so fast he almost jumped into the air.

He had thought that things merely ended with losing the rod and a day’s income. Even though judging by Xuan Xian’s expressions, it appears that no great harm had come to Ling’er, but he couldn’t help feeling anxious.

“Bring me to see her?” His simple words spoke volumes of his concern, and the two immediately made their way downstairs.

Kairos had liked the little girl from the first time he saw her. The child’s vulnerability tugged at his heartstrings and reminded him of how things were in the past.

When Kairos stepped into the staff section of the shop, he had a pleasant shock.

This is the first time that he entered this place, and when he saw how the employees furnished the place to look like a cosy home, it made the boy feel that the shop is worth every green copper that he paid for.

But his face turns grim at once when his eyes land on a little girl with a pale face sitting in a corner. Her expression was dead, reflecting her spirit.

“Ling’er. Do you remember who this older brother is?” Xuan Xian spoke with soft words, but her daughter did not even blink in response.

“Can you allow me to try to find out what’s wrong?” He asked after a short moment.

Many practitioners are well-versed with basic first-aid, after all, they had to learn ways to survive wounds. Some could roughly gauge a person’s condition by the rhythms of one’s pulse at the wrist, but usually, such an art takes years to train. Although Kairos had not hidden his ability to examine another person’s health, but just for a little extra precaution to keep the existence of his Soul Perception a secret, he had been rather low-keyed about it.

When he asked Xuan Xian, the older lady looked at him oddly. Isn’t he the shop owner who founded powerful new runes and a genius inscriptionist, does he also have medical knowledge?

But since this boy is the genius that overturned the market with a single weapon, she nodded at him and stepped back.

“Well, why not let him try?”

With a warm smile on his face, he squatted down next to the girl and looked at her for a moment, as if carefully scrutinising if anything is wrong.

“Hmmm, Aisa, is her mind damaged?” He thought with worry. The little girl is more than merely silent.

YAWN…. Unnn Kairos, what is it?

“Please help me take a look at her?”

Hmm, hmmm? Okay, I’ll try speaking to her

A few moments later, Aisa replied with a thought.

Kairos, I’ve sent her a message, but nobody seemed home~

The boy almost coughed out blood from Aisa’s reply. This is supposed to be a serious thing!

He gingerly turned Ling’er’s wrist and placed his fingers on her pulse. He is mimicking a doctor but the intricacies of what he is doing, of course, completely different.

After his Origin Energy made a cycle within Ling’er’s meridian channels, it returned with details of her condition even including if there is an anomaly in her brain.

“Lady Xuan Xian, this is extremely odd. Ling’er’s head appeared to be too cold, while her body is scorching. And additionally, her heartbeat is way too fast. What did Helena say”

This is a strange condition, and no way would their herbalist not know.

Xuan Xian sighed. The first thing she did when Ling’er came back in this condition was to bring her to their shop’s physician.

“Lady Helena also said that Ling’er’s body temperature is too strange. No matter which remedy she used, the condition wouldn’t improve.”

Kairos looked at Ling’er again with a grim expression. It clearly isn’t hypothermia, nor is it hyperthermia.

“Just as I thought, even Helena wouldn’t be able to analyse her condition using regular ways.”

“On the surface, Ling’er seems fine, but her body could no longer regulate her temperature unaided. I can confirm that there are some foreign substances in her bloodstream, and at the same time, it seemed that she was exposed to a low temperature for far too long. We need to get Helena here again.”

The physician who was taking care of Lyla came over at once. With the aid of Soul Perception together with her medical knowledge, this time Helena could identify the root problems.

Both the faces of Helena and Kairos turned grim when they faced Xuan Xian once again. Though the sweet little girl is in no immediate danger, it wasn’t as optimistic as everyone previously thought.