Comforted by Fang Qiu and Old Yang, the first patient finally closed his eyes and soon fell into a deep sleep.
The other patients were still terrified of falling asleep.
They all kept their eyes fixed on the first patient, eager to see if he could really sleep peacefully tonight as Fang Qiu had promised.
The first patient continued to sleep and had even begun to snore at one point.
However, as the patient was snoring, his body suddenly trembled violently.
Old Yang, who’d been sitting beside the patient, stood up at once. “It’s here.”
Fang Qiu stood up as well, ready to hold the patient down before the patient went into another bout of delirium.
However, just as the other patients in the clinic were about to pull away in fear, the first patient’s body relaxed again. After that, the first patient continued to snore as though nothing had happened.
“Eh?” The other patients, especially the ones who were critically ill, stared at the first patient in surprise and confusion.
The patients with milder symptoms could sleep for a while after taking Old Yang’s medicine. Thanks to Old Yang’s medicine, they wouldn’t be trapped inside their dreams and could usually wake up when they were startled.
However, things were different for the patients with severe symptoms.
For these patients, not even Old Yang’s medicine could mitigate their inner anxiety. They were afraid of sleeping because they feared they might go crazy once they fell asleep. Only after taking medicine for a few days and calming down would they dare to take a short nap.
But now, they had all just witnessed a critically ill patient sleeping soundly after receiving Fang Qiu’s treatment, and they even didn’t see how Fang Qiu treated that patient. Moreover, the patient didn’t exhibit any symptoms of the disease after he fell asleep.
This situation gave the other patients hope. One by one, the looks on their faces turned from shock to joy.
“Can we sleep now? Can we really sleep now?”
“I think we should wait. Let’s wait and see first.”
“We’ve been waiting for so long already, so it makes no difference if we wait a while longer. Let’s see what happens when he wakes up.”
The patients whispered, but the thrill in their voices couldn’t be concealed.
“Just like what happened to you,” Old Yang said excitedly. “His current condition is exactly like yours at noon today. But you woke up very quickly, and he’s still asleep even now.”
“Seems like my treatment worked.” Fang Qiu smiled and nodded. “Unless I’m mistaken, he must be in deep sleep now. After all, time runs differently in the dream world. A brief moment inside the dream world might be equivalent to hours in reality. Let’s not wake him up. It’s about time he has a good night’s sleep.”
“Okay.” Old Yang nodded and continued to wait quietly.
They waited for a couple of hours until the patient woke up at 5 o’clock in the morning.
“Ah…” A comfortable yawn was let out.
The patient woke up.
“How did you sleep?” asked Fang Qiu with a smile.
“It’s been a long while since I slept so well,” the patient responded as he stood up.
“Finally, you’re awake.” Old Yang also approached, saying, “We’ve been watching you all night. Tell us quickly. Did you have a nightmare last night? Did you experience the usual symptoms?”
“Yes,” the patient said with a nod. “I had the nightmare which I used to have during nights. The ending is a little bit different, though.”
“Oh?” Old Yang’s eyes lit up when he heard this. “How so?”
The other patients promptly gathered around as well.
“This time, I saw those fierce monsters and evil spirits again. But oddly, a group of people appeared beside me when those monsters and evil spirits started hunting me. They looked like celestial soldiers and generals, not only warding off those monsters and evil spirits but killing them as well.” The patient rubbed his eyes. “I was so tired so I just watched them fight until I fell asleep.”
The patient’s description made Fang Qiu smile.
As expected, what the patient saw in the dream was the same as what he had seen in his own dream.
“What’s going on?” Old Yang wondered aloud.
The evil spirits were caused by the neurotropic virus. If so, what were the celestial soldiers and generals who appeared in the dream? How did they drive the virus away? How come they had the power to annihilate those monsters and evil spirits inside the dreamworld?
“It’s internal Qi,” Fang Qiu said. “I used my internal Qi to help them strengthen their body resistance and eliminate pathogenic factors. This is in line with a statement in the ‘Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor’ that goes, ‘Righteous Qi inside prevails over evil!’”
“Huh? Can this sentence be understood in this way?” Old Yang asked in surprise.
“Qi has always been the focal issue in Chinese Medicine, hasn’t it?” asked Fang Qiu.
“Yes.” Old Yang nodded, walked out of the consulting room with Fang Qiu, and asked at the same time, “Nowadays, have all the Chinese Medicine doctors outside cultivated internal Qi?”
“No.” Fang Qiu shook his head and said, “The number of people who were able to cultivate it is close to zero. No one can feel the existence of their internal Qi, either. However, its existence has been proven and recognized not only in Huaxia, but also by the medical experts worldwide.”
Hearing that, Old Yang smiled and said, “Well, what a great era for the field of Chinese Medicine! It’s a pity that I’m old now. Otherwise, after recovering from the disease, I would go out and see the person who proved the significance of Chinese Medicine to the whole world. No matter who he is or where he is, I must go and thank him in person.”
Fang Qiu smiled.
He didn’t tell Old Yang that the person who did that was him because he hoped that Old Yang would venture into the world instead of staying in this village forever.
“What are you going to do next?” asked Old Yang.
“I’d like to cure the other villagers,” Fang Qiu said after a moment of thought. “I’ll help them strengthen body resistance and eliminate pathogenic factors along the way as well. They’ll sleep better after this.”
Old Yang nodded with satisfaction.
After that, accompanied by Old Yang, Fang Qiu cured the other villagers.
Although healing each patient was easy, Fang Qiu found himself feeling worn out since there were more than 100 patients in total.
When he was done, Fang Qiu followed Old Yang to the big tree at the village’s entrance and sat down to rest.
“Young man,” Old Yang said, glancing at Fang Qiu. “I can see that you’re a kind and selfless person. You’ve come up with a good method to cure the patients, but the treatment process is too exhausting. You’ve just saved all the villagers here, but there are still so many villages at the foot of the mountain. There are patients in other areas as well. You’ll die of exhaustion if you keep treating these patients with the same method. ”
Fang Qiu frowned at Old Yang’s words.
The old man had a point.
According to what he had found at the foot of the mountain and the information provided by Li Ji, the disease had infected the people from a lot of villages. Each village had around a hundred dwellers, and at least a few hundred dwellers in bigger ones. Fang Qiu’s body would not be able to handle it if he treated each patient on his own.
However, letting the patients die wasn’t an option either.
“What should I do?” Fang Qiu thought with a frown.
“Shall I call upon the masters in Wulin?”
Fang Qiu shook his head at the thought.
It was not easy to mobilize the masters in Wulin. Even if Fang Qiu could use his reputation in Wulin to ask some of the masters for help, there was still the risk of the Nirvana Organization infiltrating the village—the people of Wulin could have gotten mixed up with the Nirvana Organization.
It was a well-known fact that the members of the Nirvana Organization had very little regard for their own lives.
There was a strong possibility that one of them would be a suicide bomber.
Imagine a member of the Nirvana Organization infiltrating the village under the pretense of curing the villagers of the disease only to release more virus particles into the village. That would be very troublesome indeed.
More importantly, the Nirvana Organization was bound to find out about Wulin’s involvement the moment Fang Qiu asked the masters in Wulin for help. What would the Nirvana Organization do when they found out?
They would definitely search for other villages and continue infecting those villagers!
This was what Fang Qiu didn’t want and wasn’t willing to see.
Therefore, involving Wulin was a bad idea.
Having noticed Fang Qiu’s frown, Old Yang sighed and said, “Actually, the most important thing is the mental effects of the disease.
“The real world was also a nightmare for them. They’d gained everything they desired in their sweet dreams, which, however, led to a nightmare. The greater their desires were, the more horrible their nightmares became. That’s the true reason behind the many deaths of the victims. It was their own desires, not the virus or organ failure, which led to their demise.”
As he spoke, Old Yang deeply stared at Fang Qiu, then patted him on the shoulder and said, “You’re a good person, so this virus doesn’t have much effect on you, but it’s lethal to those with mental issues.”
Hearing that, Fang Qiu understood at once.
He hadn’t thought of this before, but now he found that it was true after hearing what Old Yang said.
“I just came upon that realization as well. When I saw people begging for a chance to have a good night’s sleep, I knew the cause was desire,” said Old Yang.
“Yeah.” Fang Qiu nodded in agreement.
Now, there wasn’t a single doubt in Fang Qiu’s mind that this was one of the Nirvana Organization’s plots. The organization’s goal had always been to murder those who led painful lives.
“Regardless of the viruses’ source, my job is to save as many lives as I can,” Fang Qiu said. “Their mental health can be slowly fixed after they’ve recovered.”
Old Yang sighed and nodded.
Then, Fang Qiu closed his eyes and sat cross-legged to rest. After all, he had just used up a lot of internal Qi. It was time to have a good rest.
“Internal Qi? Replenishing Qi?” However, as soon as Fang Qiu closed his eyes, it suddenly occurred to him, “Patients are in poor health and need to nurse their diseases. At the same time, internal Qi is needed to resist the nightmare. It seems that there is a medicine that can meet all these requirements.
“Yeah! Why didn’t I think of that?” Fang Qiu abruptly opened his eyes, patted himself hard on the forehead, and said, “Comprehensive Nourishing Pill!”
