After a moment of stunned silence, a flustered Zhang Liping asked, "Why won't you become my and Elder Huang's disciple?"
Huang Shijia chimed in, "That's right, why not? Are the two of us somehow not qualified to be your teachers?"
Hearing this, Chen Jiao and Yao Jie thought they were going to lose their minds.
'Not qualified? Elder Huang, you're taking this joke too far! You and Teacher Zhang are top-tier artists, renowned both at home and abroad! If you two aren't qualified, then who in the world is fit to be Zhao Yuan's teacher?'
What they didn't know, however, was that Zhao Yuan was genuinely muttering to himself, 'You really aren't qualified.'
'Was he kidding? His master was Wu Peng, the voice of the Celestial Dao, a man who had nearly achieved sainthood!'
'Zhang Liping and Huang Shijia were indeed top-tier artists, but compared to Wu Peng, their skill and status were worlds apart! Even in their respective fields of dance and the Guqin, Wu Peng could still utterly dominate them!'
'They simply weren't qualified to compete with Wu Peng for a disciple.'
Of course, Zhao Yuan couldn't possibly say any of this out loud. After all, receiving Wu Peng's inheritance was a secret he had to guard closely.
Fortunately, he kept his mouth shut. Otherwise, he would have shocked everyone into fainting.
Faced with the two artists' questions, Zhao Yuan replied, "Because I've never considered changing my major. Oh, right, I don't think I've told you—I'm not a student at your arts academy. I'm a medical student from West Hua Medical University next door. My dream is to become a doctor!"
'To be precise, a Witch Doctor,' Zhao Yuan added silently.
The Witch Doctor Dao would allow him to become Extraordinary, to set foot on the legendary path to immortality and sainthood.
This path was difficult, full of thorns and hardships, but its allure far surpassed that of becoming a dancer or a musician. The two were as different as heaven and earth; why would Zhao Yuan ever throw away a watermelon to pick up a sesame seed?
"What? A medical student?" Huang Shijia stammered, stunned.
"You have such incredible talent for music and dance. How could you just abandon it to study medicine? It's a criminal waste of God-given talent! If you become my and Elder Huang's disciple, I guarantee you, in ten years—no, it won't even take that long! In three to five years, at most, you could be internationally famous! You'd become a leader among the new generation of dancers and musicians, perhaps even number one!" Zhang Liping urged, her tone full of frustration at his wasted potential.
Zhao Yuan puffed out his chest. "I believe my talent for the Medical Dao is even greater than my talent for music and dance!"
He wasn't bragging. If his aptitude for the Medical Dao hadn't been good enough, why would Wu Peng have ever chosen him as the successor to the Witch Doctor Dao?
Zhang Liping was about to try persuading him again, but before she could speak, the man beside her, Huang Shijia, suddenly went pale. His lips turned a dark shade of blue. He clutched his chest in agony as his vision blackened and his legs gave out. With a heavy THUD, he collapsed to the floor.
The sudden turn of events shocked everyone.
"Elder Huang, what's wrong? Are you alright?"
Forgetting all about persuading Zhao Yuan, Zhang Liping rushed to Huang Shijia's side. She knelt down, anxiously asking about his condition while trying to help him up.
At the same time, she didn't forget to yell at the dumbstruck Chen Jiao and Yao Jie, "What are you two standing there gawking for? Call an ambulance, quickly! And someone help me get Elder Huang up—"
Before she could finish, she was cut off by Zhao Yuan's sharp command: "Don't move Elder Huang!"
The moment Huang Shijia collapsed, Zhao Yuan activated his Qi Observation Technique. He could clearly see a ball of Evil Qi stagnating around Huang Shijia's heart. At the same time, he noticed that within the man's Qi of the Five Elements, the azure Qi representing Wood was severely depleted. Among the Five Elements, Wood governs flow and circulation; its depletion meant that the Qi and blood in his heart were blocked!
Combining Huang Shijia's visible symptoms with what he had recently learned in his Traditional Chinese Medicine Diagnosis class, Zhao Yuan immediately made a diagnosis: Elder Huang was suffering an attack of 'true heart pain.' He had likely been triggered by a sudden surge of anger and anxiety upon hearing Zhao Yuan refuse his apprenticeship.
True heart pain is the term in Traditional Chinese Medicine. In clinical medicine, it's called an acute myocardial infarction—a massive heart attack.
During an attack, the patient must not be moved, as it could worsen their condition.
Zhao Yuan quickly gave Zhang Liping and the others a brief explanation of Huang Shijia's condition.
"An acute myocardial infarction? Wh-what do we do?"
Zhang Liping and the others flew into a panic. Aside from calling for an ambulance, they had no idea what to do.
"Let me try,"
Zhao Yuan, however, appeared perfectly calm. 'As a doctor, the more critical the situation, the calmer you must be!'
As he knelt, he rapidly searched the medical archives in his mind for a relevant treatment method.
Soon, a treatment plan for true heart pain caused by Qi stagnation and blood stasis surfaced in his mind.
He took a deep breath, slipped a hand into his pocket, and used the cover to access his Storage Ring Space. He withdrew several Acupuncture Needles from his set of Nine Needles.
These Acupuncture Needles were incredibly fine, much thinner even than the legendary 'Hairy Gold Needle' used by Chairman Cui of the Jing City Acupuncture Association. If they hadn't caught the light of the dance studio and glinted with a brilliant gold, Lin Xue and the others might not have noticed them at all.
"What are those?" Zhang Liping couldn't help but ask.
The Golden Needles Zhao Yuan produced were not only fine but also soft, curled into a clump like a knot of tangled thread. It was hard to associate them with the life-saving needles used in medicine.
"Golden Needles. For acupuncture," Zhao Yuan said without looking back.
"For acupuncture?"
This time, it wasn't just Zhang Liping; everyone's jaw dropped.
'How are you supposed to perform acupuncture when the needles are bent into a tangled mess?'
Zhang Liping was on the verge of stopping Zhao Yuan, afraid his reckless fumbling would only make things worse for Huang Shijia.
Before she could say a word to stop him, she saw Zhao Yuan roll one of the bent Golden Needles between his thumb and forefinger. With a crisp, metallic hum, it instantly sprang straight!
Zhao Yuan's hands were a blur. In a few swift motions, he inserted the Golden Needles into Huang Shijia's Neiguan, Juque, Xinping, Shanzhong, and Three Yin Intersection acupoints.
Once the Golden Needles were in place, Zhao Yuan flicked the end of each one with his fingertip. After he let go, the needles began to move on their own, vibrating within the acupoints as if they were alive.
Had an expert in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture been present, they would have been stunned to realize that the needles' movements were not random. Instead, they followed the precise 'channeling' manipulation technique!
This was the miraculous power of the Golden Nine Needles set that Zhao Yuan had forged.
They could manipulate themselves automatically. This freed the practitioner to use that time for other treatments, enhancing the overall therapeutic effect, reducing the patient's pain, and increasing the chances of a full recovery!