“The human body holds 872 qi points. Each qi point is responsible for the flow of qi and releasing qi from within the body. These 872 qi points are about the size of the tip of these needles and most people are only able to utilize the main 436 qi points that go along one’s qi pathway.” Lei Zhi lectured as he poked an unconscious body full of qi needles.
“Why do people only use the 436 qi points and not all of them?” Runt asked, soaking in the knowledge to the best of his ability.
“Because those are the only ones, they’re aware of. On special occasions, people might use more than the main 436 points but that’s only if they practice a highly unorthodox martial arts technique. As far as I could tell, there is no distributed book talking about the qi points at all. Perhaps its knowledge hoarded by the most famous of doctors. I wouldn’t be surprised.” Lei Zhi sighed.
“Well, why wouldn’t they hoard it? If they horde knowledge on how to heal people then everyone would come to them. With more people coming to them, more money flows in.” Runt analyzed.
“That’s an astute observation, Runt. With the way you put it, it does make sense for them to hold such knowledge for themselves. However, have you thought about what if they didn’t keep it for themselves and shared it openly with everyone?” Lei Zhi asked, multiple arms of distinct origins began to slither out from the inside of his coat and help him out.
After watching him perform several surgeries, they began to take a rather strange interest in helping him out in various ways. One clawed paw pressed it affectionately on his chest during his work. A tentacled arm took upon itself to play with Xiang on his shoulder. The two went back and forth with either hugging each other or playing tag. Tag wasn’t the best game for the two to play while Lei Zhi was in the middle of helping someone because Xiang had to crawl himself over his neck and head to the other side of his shoulder to reach the tentacle.
A blue hand took out a sweet-tasting candy and popped it in his mouth. Lei has never seen or tasted anything as tasty and delicious as this. He could either suck on it until there was nothing more to suck or bite it into little pieces before swallowing them. Usually, he politely requested this candy-giving arm to hand some to the younger children he treated.
There were two rather giant-sized hands that were “fighting” with one another by arm wrestling. From what he could tell, the giant arm on the left that was hairy typically won more times than the giant on the right that was hairless. But from time to time, the hairless would pull out a surprising victory that neither he nor the hairy arm could expect. Lei wondered where she got her sudden boost in strength from.
Those were only the arms that messed with him or did their own things. Now talking about the arms that liked to help him during surgery, they weren’t all that different in how they acted. Some were helpful, some didn’t help at all, and some liked to play around and may things a little bit more difficult for Lei Zhi. Especially when he finds out from Runt that they are unlikely to hold up their side of the payment for the treatment.
One of those playful arms was doing something of the sort now as Lei Zhi was finishing up. It was an arm made entirely out of wood. This wooden arm has taken a special interest in learning how to disrupt and affect one’s body. Luckily for Lei, it was unable to use qi to achieve the same effects he could when using God’s Fingers. If it was, this poor young man would never be able to get an erection again, use martial arts, and eat solid food.
A rival to this playful arm was an arm created out of stainless silver metal. Instead of learning how to mess with the human body, this arm liked to enhance and improve bodies. While Lei Zhi loved the interest this arm had, it was sad that he hasn’t come across anyone that he felt deserved such a thing. But regardless, it wouldn’t be able to unless Lei Zhi infused his qi into the coat.
With the infusion of qi, the void world or spatial dimension where the arms reside, now allows them to use qi as well. So, the wooden arm and metal arm would be able to perform some of the medical techniques that Lei Zhi could if he allowed them. Without it, they are just harmlessly poking bodies. It still kind of gets in the way a bit, so from time to time, he has to lecture them into behaving.
“If they shared it with everyone, then they’ll lose money.” Runt thought.
“If I didn’t speak with Jing some time ago, maybe I would have agreed with you.” A weird smoking stick was placed in Lei Zhi’s mouth from an arm while another arm took out a fire-lighting device and lit it up. “But now I see that such greed and selfishness is doing nothing but hurting ourselves. With life-saving knowledge available for everyone, more people would be able to save lives. And as more and more people learn how to help people and share that knowledge with the next generation, the next generation of healers will be able to help people more efficiently and effectively. Perhaps even surpassing their masters and teachers to lead to an age where illnesses and injuries could be dealt with by a common village boy just by reading a book.” Lei blew out smoke from his mouth.
“I don’t think I'll ever get used to those arms...” Chills crawled up Runt’s body.
“It does take some getting used to. Even now I'm not entirely used to it yet, but they’re not bad arms.” Lei smiled. They were kind of like children in a way.
“Can you even control them?” Runt asked.
“Somewhat.” Lei chuckled.
The realization that the arms living inside his coat weren’t completely obedient hasn’t flown over his head. Unlike the water beasts that he could fish, these arms could decide at any time to help him, ignore him, or even harm him. One such arm that tried to hurt him on a regular basis was the knife arm. It was just a knife attached to the stump of an arm. At random intervals, the knife arm would shoot out to stab at Lei Zhi.
When it first happened, he was shocked out of his mind and couldn’t react. A plant-like arm took the knife blow for him and saved his face from receiving a knife through it. A rocky arm then punched the knife arm and back into the arm void world it went. After that situation, Lei Zhi prepared himself on every occasion to either dodge or handle the knife arm but most of the time, the other arms would come to his rescue.
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Lei Zhi tried communicating with the arm but regardless of how he tried, the knife arm just didn’t like him. Perhaps it shared a difference of ideals with him and thought it would be better used by a different wearer. In time, Lei Zhi hoped to become friends with the knife arm. Out of all the arms that have come out of his coat so far, it was the only one that actively tried killing him. If trying to be friends was asking too much, then he was fine if they were at least civil with one another.
“Alright, I'm finished.” Lei Zhi stood up with several different arms coming out of his coat.
“Okay...” Runt took a picture of the patient before shaking his head.
“Understood.” Lei Zhi thinned the man’s qi pathways before attaching a talisman on him that created a small barrier around him. “Follow me. There’s a lot of patients ahead. Some healthy and some on the verge of death.”
“Are we running?” Runt asked as he saw Lei Zhi run off ahead. “I guess so...” Runt’s body shivered uncontrollably as some of the arms coming out of Zhi’s coat waved at him from the back.
“It's even freakier than my camera...” Runt muttered to himself as he took a picture of Lei.
Lei Zhi heard the snap of the camera but didn’t say anything about it. If anything, he was rather interested in what would show up on the photo as well. He’d have to remember to ask the boy later on how the picture looked. Most of the pictures he took were melted by that black liquid he kept hidden while the pictures he thought were interesting were kept in his storage ring, a gift from Hu Tao.
“Up ahead! Try not to separate from me! There’s a lot of people inside this place!” Lei Zhi warned.
The two soon saw a large staircase that led to an ancient palace. At the top, the door was wide open, and with his special sight, Lei Zhi could see countless dead bodies inside and many more ghosts wandering around as well. From what he could see, the ghosts were using the deaths of the disciples to take over their corpses and return to the world of the living with a physical body.
“Take out your instrument. There are many ghosts inside as well.” Runt’s black liquid didn’t work on ghosts but his ocarina was very effective. It would be very useful with these many ghosts around.
“Okay!” Runt grabbed the Silent God’s Ocarina from his waist and started playing it.
“If you’re low on qi, just tell me.” Lei Zhi told the boy as they burst through the entrance of the palace.
Several ghosts saw them enter through the entrance and charged without hesitation. Why waste their time trying to feed or takeover these corpses when they could be doing the same with live humans!? By now, a majority of the ghosts inside the Endless Plains of Yin have learned that they needed to somehow destroy the amulets that the disciples had to successfully take their bodies. Getting their hands around those amulets was their first goal.
Lei Zhi had his amulet wrapped around his neck. Runt wrapped it around his wrist inside his robes, making it hard for anyone to see it. Since Lei Zhi’s amulet was visible, all the ghosts in the entrance of the ancient palace targeted him first. The blind man wasn’t afraid of the dozens of ghosts charging after him and neither was the orange blob on his shoulder. Xiang was rather very happy to see so many friends coming to him at once.
Unfortunately for him, Runt music seemed to stop all the ghosts in their tracks. So, no ghostly hugs for him anytime soon. Lei Zhi used the opportunity given to him by Runt to rush to someone seconds away from dying. Runt was more than glad to sweep up all the ghosts by using sound qi to pummel the ghosts into submission and capturing them with his amulet. He actually felt that he’s captured a lot of ghosts within these last three days. Maybe even within the top ten.
“I’m done here, Zhi!” Runt jogged over to Lei Zhi helping someone who’s lying in a large puddle of blood.
“Okay, keep watch for any other ghosts nearby. And don’t forget to tell me when you’re low on qi.”
“Got it.” Runt blew into his ocarina. A peaceful serene music began to flow throughout the ancient palace.