2: Finding a new home

My body is in such a terrible state, that I cannot cultivate. I cannot properly hold or circulate ki. Yet one thing I learned in my millennia of cultivation in my past life, is that there are ways to manipulate and control ki that don’t require cultivation at all.

Sadly, this isn’t something that can be taught to people who don’t or can’t cultivate. I tried. Without any experience controlling ki, it just isn’t possible to learn to control ki outside the body. Learning ki manipulation starts with learning cultivation, and only when one reaches higher levels of mastery in ki manipulation does one learn to use ambient and natural ki.

This means I can use lower level ki techniques without any of my own ki. Including ones for hiding my presence and that of others.

“Why did it feel like no one even saw us?”

“Because no one did.”

“How?”

“Like I said, I learned a few things in exchange for all that I lost.”

“Perhaps you’ve gained more than you lost. Those memories you gave up could not have been good ones. Sometimes I wish I could forget.” 

“We’ll just have to make new memories and a new life, good enough that you never have reason to think of our miserable past.”

“Right! Great idea, mistress. I look forward to the miracles you’ll create with your new knowledge. The king of the underworld must’ve taken a liking to you.”

“Perhaps.”

…

Doctor’s view

I had just been a lowly medicine doctor. Sure it’s a profession famed for being one full of prestige and profit, but I was no good at it. It always felt like the manuals I read and the lessons I was given were missing something. I could only make low grade, low quality medicines. If only I knew what it was the other doctors did differently when they made medicine. I tried to follow every step exactly, but it never came out as well as the medicine made by others.

“Excuse me sir, can we discuss medicine?” A little lady wanted to talk about medicine?

“What can you possibly know about medicine?” Did she think I would teach her for free? I was still feeling depressed about how my last student was able to surpass me in just a year. The pay was good enough to help me get by, but to think that a mere teen could make better medicine than I could in my 30s. Depressing.

“I learned some recipes but wanted to make sure they were correct.” She then proceeded to swiftly rattle off several low grade recipes. I recognized some of them, but others I did not. The fact that she got some clearly right was certainly strange, and made me wonder if the others were real too.

“What’s your name, little girl?”

…

MC’s view

Oh, I forgot to ask. Oops. I don’t know my name in this life!

“This is miss Mellanie Melborn.” Oh thank you Mel! … wait, If I call her Mel, and I’m Mellanie, and my family name is Melborn… isn’t that too many Mel’s to get confused by?

Back to the main topic though, I can tell that this man is only familiar with some of the recipes I gave him. His curiosity is good though, I think I’ve got him. Just needs a little push. Thankfully, there’s an easy one: For some reason, the recipe for basic healing pills doesn’t seem like the cheapest one based on the herb prices I’m seeing in the shop.

…

Doctor’s view

She thinks she knows a recipe for my top selling medicine, that’s cheaper than the one I know. I’ll try it. It won’t cost much if she’s wrong, and if she’s right… well, I guess I’ll just have to hire her, right? Though, I can’t help but wonder who she really is. She can’t be a daughter of the Melborn family. She’s dressed like a pauper. There’s no way the most powerful family in the country would have a daughter dressed like this with such poor health. 

“You’re getting the timing wrong. Don’t put that in yet, wait a bit longer.” Timing? There’s timing issues? Why has no one told me about this before? 

“See the way it looks now? This is how it should look when you add the yellow mountain flower petal.” Is this what I was missing? Did everyone else just figure this out on their own?

Following the guidance of this young lady, I created the best medicine pill I’ve ever made. 

“Please! Take me as your disciple! With your guidance I’ll surely be able to become a better medicine doctor than I am now!” How could I not ask? How could I not seize this opportunity?! Humiliation? Bah! If I can finally learn to craft pills properly, I don’t care about that! I’ll even beg for help from a child!

…

Emelia’s view

Is he crying? The doctor is crying and begging for tutelage? What is going on? How can this be? Did mistress Lanie become a medicine master?

...

Melborn Servant’s view

“What do you mean she’s missing?! How could she escape!”

“I don’t know. We have searched everywhere. The guards never saw her.”

“Damnit! If the master or mistress find out, we’re dead! We were supposed to be watching over her!”

“Let’s flee! If they investigate, they’ll notice all the money we stole too!”

“Yes, that’s right, we have to flee. Tonight, let’s leave this place. Grab whatever valuables we can and flee before anyone realizes what’s happened.”