Runes • Rifles • Reincarnation

211. Medical Exam: Accepting Disciples

Jin Shu made his way down Chen Ai Yun's mountain, traveling through miles of winding passes until Phoenix City finally came into view. He passed no small number of disciples along the way. They weren’t nearly as bothered by his presence as before, though most still chose to avoid him. At least they weren’t openly gossiping anymore—or were trying not to.Walking through the streets, he retraced the route he’d taken when he’d last visited with the others. He was heading to see the little alchemist girl who loved throwing poison pouches—Bin Yu. With a month-long journey through treacherous territory ahead, stocking up on pills and medical supplies was a priority. His second stop would be Nurse Xi Yue.

He found the small shop tucked into an alley just off the main road. As he reached for the door, it swung open. A medium-height woman in a black veiled hat stepped out, bumping into his chest. The veil shifted just enough for him to glimpse her empty eye sockets.

“Ying?” he asked.

“Big Brother Shu?” she replied, tilting her head. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you have left with the others?”

“I couldn’t—for various reasons.”

“I see… well, I don’t… but…”

He chuckled. “I get it.”

“So are you staying here, then?”

He shook his head. “No. I’m grabbing some necessities before I go.”

“You’re traveling alone?”

Before he could answer, an irritated voice barked from inside the shop. “Hey! Don’t block the door! You’re letting a draft in! Do you want all my pills going to ruin?!”

Jin Shu leaned sideways, spotting Bin Yu behind the counter, hopping mad. Her twin tails swayed with every stomp she made.

Ying stepped back inside, and Jin Shu followed, offering Bin Yu a small wave.

“Hello, big si—no, big brother Shu,” Bin Yu corrected herself quickly. “Here to buy? Or is this a social visit?”

“Buy,” he said. “Give me a month’s worth of everything useful.”

For a brief second, Jin Shu swore her eyes turned into dollar signs.

“Ohoho! A big spender!” she crowed, nearly vaulting over the counter as she scrambled to collect pills from every shelf. “You two keep chatting—I need to grab stuff from the second floor!”

She shot up the staircase in a blur, arms full of containers.

“That’s going to be expensive,” Ying murmured. “Do you need help paying? My sister gave me a ton of contribution points—more than I could ever spend.”

“I’m fine. I have my tournament winnings.”

“Right. You got second.”

“Mhm. So what are you here for?”

“Uh… I needed a special pill…” she mumbled, looking away, clearly embarrassed.

He wasn’t sure what kind of pill would fluster someone like her, but he didn’t pry.

“Oh! Master asked me to give you this. I almost forgot—cause I thought you’d already left with the others.”

She handed him a small satchel that clinked as he took it. It was heavy for its size.

“What is it?” he asked, weighing it in his palm.

“Spirit stones,” she said.

“Spirit stones?!” Bin Yu shrieked from the stairs. She missed a step in her excitement and tumbled down—only to spring back up an instant later as if immune to gravity. “Where are they? Are you paying with spirit stones? Huh?! Huh?! Show me!”

She lunged for the pouch, hands grasping greedily.

Jin Shu placed a single finger on Bin Yu’s forehead and pushed her back. With a small flourish of his other hand, he produced his disciple token.

“I’ll be paying with points.”

She eyed the token and clicked her tongue in disgust. “Ugh… really? You’re sure you don’t wanna pay with spirit stones? I’ll give you a five percent discount!”

“Positive. Ring me up.”

With a dramatic sigh, she slapped her own token over his. A soft glow pulsed around them as the contribution indicators shifted—his dropping sharply, hers barely budging. He’d earned a massive amount of points for placing second in the tournament… and yet almost all of it vanished in one purchase.

And apparently it was barely pocket change to Bin Yu.

He supposed it made sense—she claimed to run the best pill shop in the sect, after all.

“Nice doing business with you,” she said in a bittersweet tone, handing him a storage ring. “That’s not yours to keep, by the way. I need it back.”

“Sure.” Jin Shu tapped the ring to the storage device at his ear, transferring the contents before returning it. “What exactly was in there?”

He could sense the items, but pills all looked the same to him.

“Qi Replenishment pills—they’re green with yellow dots. Grand Healing pills—the clear, glassy red ones.” She ticked each item off on her fingers as she spoke. “Ration pills—plain brown, not tan, dark brown. Beast Repellant pills—those are the tan ones. Don’t mix them up, they’re poisonous. And lastly, I tossed in a couple of Fake Death pills—they’re white, and they smell and taste awful.”

She held up all five fingers for emphasis.

“Oh, and they’re all grade four. With a few quasi–grade fives.”

“Thanks, Bin Yu.”

“If you pay with spirit stones, I can replace all of them with quasi-grade fives,” she added, flashing a greedy grin.

“Tempting… but no, these will do fine.”

“Boo!” She stuck her tongue out. “You suck.”

With an exaggerated huff, she plopped behind the counter, making a dramatic, world-ending sigh.

Jin Shu shook his head and waved. “Bye, Bin Yu. See you next time.”

Liu Ying followed him outside. “Bye, Big Brother Shu,” she said, heading the opposite way once they reached the street.

She turned toward the Resting Phoenix Pagoda. He headed toward the medical hall.

“See you,” he called after her, watching until she disappeared around the corner.

***

“Welcome to the medical hall. Is this an emergency visit, or are you here for a regular checkup?” the receptionist asked.

“Neither,” Jin Shu replied. “Is Nurse Xi Yue in? I’d like to see her.”

“She is… but are you sure you want to see her?”

“I am. She’s still on the second floor, right?”

The receptionist nodded.

“Thank you.” Jin Shu headed up the stairs.

He approached Xi Yue’s door and pushed it open without hesitation—she never had patients. But the sight inside made him freeze mid-step.

Two identical girls stood atop a massive corpse, each holding a bloodied blade, performing what looked disturbingly like a dissection under the calm, clinical direction of a stone-faced woman in spotless white robes. A black phoenix insignia was printed boldly on her back.

The corpse beneath the twins looked like a hairless bear overgrown with stone plates along its head and spine. He vaguely recognized it as an Earth Bear—a peak Spirit Realm demonic beast on par with a Demonic Wood Spider Broodqueen.

“Big Brother Jin Shu!” the two girls chimed in unison.

One of them—probably Yi, though it could just as easily have been Er—nearly slipped off the Earth Bear in her excitement. Her sister snatched her arm before she face-planted into the corpse.

He blinked, surprised to see them here at all. He had planned on recommending the twins to Xi Yue, but apparently she’d already discovered them.

The girls tossed aside their tools, bounded off the corpse, and flung themselves at him, hugging him tightly from both sides. It would’ve been adorable if they weren’t absolutely coated in blood—which was now soaking into his robes.

He swallowed the curse rising to his tongue and forced a warm smile, patting their heads.

“How have you two been?”

“Great!” the one he thought was Yi said.

“Even better now that we’ve seen you again!” the other added.

“Did you come to see us?” Yi asked, eyes shining with hope.

“No—”

Their faces fell instantly, lower lips jutting out in perfect synchronized pouts.

“—but,” he continued gently, “I did come to talk to Nurse Xi Yue about taking you two as her disciples.”

They lit up like sparks catching dry grass.

“Oh!”

“Well, if we knew that, we would have waited!”

“Waited?” Jin Shu echoed.

“This is their entrance examination,” Xi Yue said without turning. “If they score a perfect one hundred, I will take them as my disciples.”

“What’s the highest score?”

“One hundred.”

“And… my recommendation won’t change the requirements?” he asked hopefully.

“I can make it more difficult,” she replied flatly.

“…I see. Forget I said anything.”

Xi Yue marked something down on the scroll in her hand. “They will fail if they do not determine the cause of the Earth Bear’s death within one hundred and eighty seconds.”

“Then you two should get back to it,” Jin Shu said, peeling them off his sides and gently shooing them back toward the corpse.

Snatching up their discarded tools, the twins scrambled back onto the massive carcass. They sawed, cut, and peeled through the Earth Bear’s hide with unsettling enthusiasm, extracting organs one by one. Each piece was examined carefully before being set aside, only for another to be removed in its place.

It was bloody—frankly nauseating—but the twins never once stopped smiling.

Three minutes passed in a blink.

“Time,” Xi Yue announced. “State the Earth Bear’s cause of death.”

The twins exchanged a glance.

“Overstimulation,” they answered in unison.

Jin Shu raised an eyebrow, unsure whether he wanted to know what that meant.

The twins began to explain, alternating seamlessly.

“Its male organs were completely desiccated,” Yi said.

“This is caused by the Earth Bear mating ritual,” Er continued.

“Earth Bears mate continuously until the female becomes pregnant.”

“However, in rare cases the female fails to conceive no matter how many times they mate.”

“In such cases, the male continues until it dies from overstimulation.”

Xi Yue marked her scroll again. “Why overstimulation instead of exhaustion?”

“A peak Spirit Realm demonic beast cannot die from exhaustion,” Er replied.

“Their qi sustains and regulates bodily functions to a degree even Master Realm human cultivators cannot achieve,” Yi added.

“However, there is one thing qi cannot regulate.” Er paused. “Sexual organs.”

Xi Yue made several more notations while the twins waited, hands clasped tightly, barely daring to breathe.

“I will now test your medical knowledge,” she said at last. “What is the medical name for the Earth Bear’s sexual organs?”

The twins glanced toward Jin Shu, both of them flushing bright red.

“Um… p-p-pen—” Yi stammered.

“That was a joke,” Xi Yue said flatly, raising a hand. “Also, for future reference, you may simply refer to them as male or female genitalia if you are uncomfortable with specific terminology.”

The twins exchanged awkward looks, likely deciding it was a terrible joke but lacking the courage to say so. At least, that was Jin Shu’s impression.

No wonder she doesn’t have friends, he thought. Though… how did someone with a sense of humor like that end up as Mother’s lover? Maybe that’s her type?

He quickly shook the thought away. That was none of his business.

“So… did we pass?” Er asked. Both twins clenched each other’s hands nervously.

“Not quite,” Xi Yue replied. “If that were all, the exam would be far too simple, don’t you think?”

The twins nodded obediently.

“We are not veterinarians,” Xi Yue continued evenly. “Above all, you must possess flawless knowledge of human physiology. However, as cultivators who will regularly battle demonic beasts, a thorough understanding of beast physiology is also necessary.”

She paused.

“You have passed the beast portion with a perfect score. Now we move on to the human portion.”

She turned to Jin Shu. “Please leave the room.”

“Huh?”

“Would you prefer to stay and observe them examining a naked woman’s body—my body?” she asked without the slightest hesitation.

“Uh…”

He very nearly said, You’ve seen my body before—why can’t I see yours?

The mental image of Xi Yue as his second stepmother strangled that thought instantly.

“Right. I’ll… wait outside. Just call me back when you’re finished.”

He waved goodbye to the visibly panicking twins and quietly slipped out of the room.