The next day, following his routine, he wakes at dawn but doesn't leave his bed to train outside. Instead, he sits up slowly, leans back against the headrest and closes his eyes. He looks around the room and notices some sunlight coming from the ventilators.
He gets out of his bed enough to open the window at the side of his bed and returns, back to his position after he feels the sunlight with the autumn cold breeze hit his face.
He draws a slow breath, steadying his mind. Inside his body, the inner energy stirs. And a single thread of energy emerges, thin and steady and then quickly weaves to form a glove on his right hand.
It takes him a minute, like 63 seconds, to form the energy glove. It is much faster than before, like twice as fast. But it is still slow if he is going to fight with them. His goal is to form the glove in a few seconds.
Like a second, but he knows this would be impossible at the start. At first, his goal is to reduce the time to 30 seconds and then 15 seconds. He will do it in stages.
He finishes his training as he can see the sun above the city's wall. The energy glove fades back to his palm, and he exhales slowly, satisfied with progress. Swinging his leg, he rises and moves through the upper floor of his house.
He does his morning duties and relieves his body. He takes a bath and as he dries himself. He thanks the inventor of the plumbing of this country as the plumbing in this country has developed, and he can get running three times the whole day.
As he finishes drying himself, and is going to put on his clothes. He hears the sound of a bell. He quickly steps back inside the bathroom and opens the tab to fill the large bucket where he stores his water.
The large bucket full of water, once filled, would be able to last him two days. But he fills it to the full every morning, and as the bucket fills. He goes to his kitchen, and brings another half-filled small bucket and fills it directly from the tap. This bucket is for cooking food, and he will boil the water before drinking.
After this small bucket fills, he closes the tap and puts the bucket down in his kitchen. Then he starts to wear his clothes. He then goes back to his kitchen and cooks a simple breakfast—the smell of warm rice, stir-fried vegetables, and omelettes of one leg chicken.
With his morning duties complete, he descends the stairs. The wooden steps creak softly beneath his feet, each sound swallowed by the quiet of early day. At the base, he crouches to unlock the latch at the bottom wooden part of the front door.
The door is made of flat wooden columns stacked side by side. He lifts each one out carefully, stacking them neatly against the wall beside the entrance. Morning light spills in, chasing away the shadows.
He picks up a broom and sweeps the floor again, even though he cleaned it yesterday. Dust always finds a way in. Once satisfied, he returns to his desk and sits down, back straight, hands resting on the wooden surface.
He waits.
This is the third day of his opening the clinic. On the first day, three people, and on the second day, seven people, came to him alone, or with a family member, for treatment. And all of them were previous people who resided at Yellowwind Town.
So, he does not worry that no one will come for his treatment. But he wants native people from this city, as they would be able to spread his name more effectively. While waiting for his first patient of the day, he trains his control over his inner energy.
While he trains his control over his inner energy, sitting in the front room, people carrying a person walk by his clinic hurriedly. They then spot his clinic's signboard, stop and turn to walk inside his clinic.
Seeing them coming inside his clinic, Merin stands and walks out from behind the desk. He says," Follow me." Leads them to the inner room, with a single bed in it, and helps them lay the man on the bed. The patient's breathing is shallow, his skin is pale with sweat, and his right arm is swollen, darkened with a purple hue, and unconsciousness.
Merin then says," Wait outside the room, and what happened to him?" Merin can guess what has happened to the patient by seeing his right arm. But still he asked the question for the who caused this situation.
While checking the patient, he hears from behind him," Toku was bitten by a snake while he was taking out a fishing net from Oouchi River."
The wide river from the Kagami Lake travels diagonally, crossing three provinces of the Owani Kingdom, and this is the last province, Miki province, and disappears inside the Shira forest. It passes through the north-west side of Susu as it was built at the bank of the Oouchi river.
" What kind of Snake?" Merin frowns after checking the man's pulse. The poison is slowly moving, but it is spreading.
" We don't know?" comes the answer.
This doesn't satisfy Merin as he senses the man's pulse is slowing, and if he does not administer the man the correct antidote, then he has to cut the man's right arm to save the man.
He decides to contain the poison first before he can come up with a solution. He places his palm over the man's right arm and sends his inner energy inside the man's right arm and blocks the blood flow, the means for the poison to spread.
Then he takes out the acupuncture needle case beside the bed and opens the case with one hand. With his left hand, he inserted the needles at specific points to contain the poison inside the right arm.
He hears from behind," Healer, how is he?"
Merin turns around to face the men, standing outside the room, waiting anxiously at the doorway. Before Merin can reply, one of the men asks," Healer, can you save him without cutting his arm? Without his right arm, he is as good as dead."
Hearing this, Merin understands these men are aware of what happens when someone is bitten by a snake." If I can know what snake bit him? I would able to prepare a medicine that could heal him."
All of the men frown, and one of them says," Healer, how can we find that snake which bit him in the river?"
Merin waves his hand and says," I am not asking for the snake that bit him, but the name of the species of snake that bit him."
All of the men this time understand, but still frown and say," We still do not know."
Merin turns around and decides to try if, with his inner energy, he can identify the poison's type. He places his palm over the patient's right arm and sends his inner energy inside.
His inner energy warps around one of the venom particles. Through the touch of his energy, he began to feel the venom, its texture. He tries to understand the poison particle as he used to understand the moon element and the wood element.
He stops, his gaze sharpening as the venom's nature becomes clear to him — cytotoxin. A slow, destructive type. It doesn't act quickly enough to kill outright, but it breaks down the surrounding cells methodically. Given enough time, it would destroy the arm's tissue beyond recovery.
Merin stands and returns to his desk, picking up a brush and ink. With practised focus, he writes a list of ingredients — herbs, minerals, and a binding solution he knows can be used to neutralise cellular poison like this. After he finishes, he blows lightly on the paper to dry the ink, then hands it to one of the men waiting at the door.
"Bring me the ingredients listed here," he says.
Two of the men nod without hesitation, taking the paper, they rush.
Even before their footsteps fade, Merin too walks out of the room behind them. He climbs the stairs and returns in a few seconds with a large bowl half-filled with water.
He says," Can one of you help start the fire pit at the back?" pointing to another fireplace in the back of his house where he can cook.
Without hesitation, one of the men steps forward and walks up to the fire pit. Pick some logs of firewood wood place them inside the fire pit from beside the fire pit. And set them on fire with flint and kindling.
As the man steps back, Merin goes ahead and places the bowl on the iron frame above the fire. The water shivers, but Merin does not stay there for the water to boil, but promptly returns to his patient.
He places his palm over the patient's right arm and sends out his inner energy to suppress the poison. With the acupuncture needles containing the poison, the patient's life is not in danger. But the poison being cytotoxin, it is still damaging the muscle tissues of the patient's right arm.
Before the antidote is administered, the poison may do enough damage, even after the antidote is administered. The patient's right arm may become useless even if no amputation is required, so to stop this outcome from becoming reality, he suppresses the poison with his inner energy.
And waits for the two men, while suppressing the poison, he starts thinking whether he would employ some people in his clinic. He alone cannot support the running of the clinic. He needs at least two people, one taking care of the front room and the other supporting him.
For sitting at the front desk, anyone could do and it is not urgently needed as he doesn't receive hordes of patients. But he needs someone to help, as he looks after the patient, his helper can refine the medicine needed, like now. For that, the helper should have some knowledge of healers.
This makes it harder to find the helper as no connection to this city, where he can find such a helper. At that moment, he thinks of his home, which is only two days' distance from here. He also prepared to send a letter back home, and then he should write in the letter to his father about the rest of the family visiting him.
His family at Yellowwind controls the entire medical industry from the healers to the herbs. And now to grow, the only way is to open clinics in surrounding towns and cities. And, he being here opening a clinic is an opportunity for his family to extend their buisness here.
With his present connection with the healers, the other clinics wouldn't attack them right away before they could make a place in the city. And they already have loyal patients in the city, the people from Yellowwind town inhabiting here. And these fishermen also opportunity. If he can treat this patient and the patient's right arm heals back to the same before getting the snake bite, or he can still use it.
Then the fishermen present here—if ever again they or anyone else are bitten by snakes or other critters in the Oouchi River, they will come here, to this clinic on Summer Street.
Soon, the two men return, slightly out of breath, holding the wrapped bundles of ingredients. Merin takes them from their hands with a short nod and walks straight to the boiling water, the flames now steady and hot beneath the iron bowl.
One by one, with steady hands, he begins dropping the ingredients into the water. Some roots he crushes first with a stone, others he grinds into powder using a small mortar and pestle he brought from upstairs. He follows a specific order, careful to stir after each addition, adjusting the heat by shifting the logs and checking the water's reaction.
Soon, the steam carries a bitter and earthy scent of the antidote through the room. While Merin refines the antidote, the fishermen who brought the patient stand behind him, their gazes fixed on his back. They do not speak, afraid of disturbing him.
At that moment, Ryota steps inside the clinic, and he sniffs the scent inside the clinic, and the names of some of the ingredients come to mind. His eyes narrow. He follows the scent until his gaze lands on the man ahead, standing calmly in front of the fire, stirring the liquid medicine.
Without saying a word, Ryota steps forward, the wooden floor creaking faintly under his boots, and stops just behind the fishermen, watching Merin from the edge of the room.