438 Diagnosis

Alex logged into the game and slowly woke up from his sleep. He felt well-rested even after just 6 hours of sleep.

'I probably could've just cultivated… but then I wouldn't get to choose when I wake up,' he thought.

He opened the door and walked out. It was evening time and the hallway was lit up with normal lanterns.

'Are normal lanterns expensive?' he wondered. He didn't know a lot about formations yet so he assumed there was a reason for all of these.

He walked into the main hall of the manor and found a servant.

"Excuse me, miss. Do you know where sister Luo Mei is?" he asked.

"Please come with me, young lord," the servant said and took him over to a room.

"Young Lady Mei, you have a visitor," she said from outside the door. The door soon opened and Luo Mei looked out.

"Oh, you're awake. Are you fully rested?" she asked. Alex saw the blue-colored room inside that was bigger than his guest room.

"Ah, yeah, I'm fine. I was thinking of going to check Uncle Keng," Alex said.

"You're ready to check father?" Luo Mei asked with surprise. "I thought you still needed to read some more?"

"I can read later," Alex said. "The learning part after reading takes time, so I wanted to see what I can get from Uncle's illness as fast as I could."

"I can always read afterward and try again if I can't," Alex said.

"Oh, okay," Luo Mei said and walked out.

"I was actually hoping you would go find some medical books for me while I check up on Uncle," Alex said.

"No, need. I will just have some servant do that. I can't go out and look for medical books anyway. That's like telling the Tians that my father is ill and I'm looking into whatever I can to heal him," Luo Mei said.

"Those vultures will come to eat us alive before we can even heal father."

Alex was surprised at the tension between the two families. "Aren't the two families supposed to have a good relationship?" Alex asked.

"On the surface, yeah. Even most servants in the house would think so. But underneath, there is a lot of envy and jealousy between the two houses."

"You can imagine what money does to people. The old man Tian came to ask our hands in marriage because he knows father doesn't have sons, so our entire fortune is in the hands of me and my sister."

"He wants to intervene in fast enough to get that fortune. Fuck that guy! He should see how ugly his sons are first," Luo Mei said angrily.

"Anyway, let's go."

Alex followed Luo Mei along the inner hall and walked to the backyard.

"Oh, Young lord Ming seems to have rested already," old man Jin walked from the side.

"Oh, hello again, senior Jin," Alex said.

"Grandpa Jin, I have a job for you," Luo Mei said.

"Anything, young lady," old man Jin said.

Luo Mei quickly tasked him with finding every medical book in the city as well as getting the ones in the library.

"I will do it as quickly as I can," old man Jin said and left.

"Come," Luo Mei then walked up next to a big pond where Luo Keng and Shi Nangong were spending their time together.

Right next to them were Xiao Huang and Luo Xing talking with them as well.

"Oh, you guys are here," Luo Keng said. "Are you rested, nephew Ming?"

"Yes, uncle," Alex said.

"Father, Yu Ming wants to examine you," Luo Mei said.

"Oh… right now?" Luo Keng was surprised. "Very well. What do I do?"

"Well, you can start by answering some questions," Alex said. "For starters, when did you notice you were ill?"

"Hmm… when was it, honey? About a month and a half ago?" Luo Keng asked.

"Yes, about that time," Shi Nangong said.

"What are the symptoms?" Alex asked.

"I… feel generally weaker. I vomit blood from time to time. Nothing I eat stays in my stomach for long either. There are times when I feel piercing pain in my stomach."

"I send in my Qi to use Qi sense and see what is wrong, but it doesn't work as it should," Luo Keng said.

"Other than that… I'm fine. Ah right, cultivating no longer works. I can cultivate, but I only get weaker instead of growing stronger."

Alex mused on the information he was given. The symptoms seemed to match with a few of the things that were in his mind, but he needed to learn a bit more.

"Can I check your pulse?" Alex asked.

"Sure," Luo Keng said. "Do whatever you have to."

Alex walked up and pulled up Luo Keng's sleeves to show his not so muscular arms.

Luo Mei's eyes started tearing up when she saw her father's weak body. She knew he was dying but didn't expect the situation to be so bad.

Alex placed his two fingers in Luo Keng's wrist and took a deep breath. He felt the generally slower pulse that Luo Keng had but knew that it was the result of whatever was happening, not what started it.

He hesitated a little. He knew what he had to do now; the process was etched onto his mind. However, he had never done it, so he was a little nervous.

'No, I can do it,' he said to himself and slowly released Qi into his blood system.

Luo Keng felt something hot enter his veins through his wrist. It felt like a small section of his blood was boiling, but he endured it.

'What the hell is this kid's Qi? Why is it so hot?' he wondered. But he didn't let it show on his face.

Alex closed his eyes and tried to feel where the Qi was moving. The Qi was connected to his fingers through a fine line of Qi, so he could monitor where it went.

Alex knew the human body's veins and arteries inside out after learning it from the book so he carefully navigated to see what he could find.

When he reached the stomach area, he found that his Qi didn't go ahead as he had expected. Instead, he tried to move through the side.

'What? There shouldn't be any path there. Is he injured in that spot?' Alex wondered.

Suddenly, his Qi disappeared and the connection broke.

"What?" Alex said in surprise.

"What's wrong?" Shi Nangong asked in fear.

"I… have a general idea of what is wrong, but nothing absolute. The Qi I was using to check inside disappeared before I could see what the problem was for real. Although the problem is right around his stomach," Alex said.

"You say you have an idea of what it is," Luo Xing said. "Can you tell us what you think?"

"Um, before I say this, you have to understand that I am not 100 percent sure about this. But I am at least 80% sure," Alex said.

Everyone there nodded and waited for him to speak.

"Uncle… did you eat a beast's meat anytime before you were ill?" Alex asked.

"Beast's meat? Of course, I did. After we fought off the beasts in the first beast invasion, we feasted on the corpses of the dead beasts," Luo Keng said.

"And… who cooked the meat? Or rather, how was it cooked?" Alex asked.

"We all cooked it. We're not cooks, so we just put it on a stick and lit a fire beneath it," Luo Keng said as if he was remembering some glorious moment.

"Is that what is causing him so much problem? Uncooked meat?" Shi Nangong asked.

Alex shook his head. "It's not the meat, but rather what was inside of it. One that he ate along with the meat."

"So, I think there is a type of worm or parasite inside Uncle's stomach. One that feeds off of Qi. I think that is what ate my Qi just now, and what eats Uncle's Qi every time he cultivates," Alex said.

"If… if that is true then… how dangerous is it?" Luo Mei asked.

"Well, you see how Uncle can't cultivate right? And if what he says is true and the food won't remain in his stomach, then at some point… he will stop having enough energy for his organs to function… after that…" Alex spoke no longer.

"Is there a cure?" Luo Mei asked hastily.

"I… don't know. I don't even know if what I think is correct. I will first have to verify the existence of whatever is inside, but if my Qi disappears, I can never know," Alex said.

Suddenly, Luo Mei's voice drifted onto his mind. "If Qi disappears, then… why not try spiritual sense?" she asked.

"Of course," Alex said as he face palmed himself. He had been so tunnel-visioned on his medical knowledge, that he forgot about the other tools in his arsenal.

"Uncle, let me try one more time," Alex said.

"Sure, go ahead," Luo Keng said. Alex once again held his wrist and sent in Qi, but along with that, he also sent his Spiritual sense.

The spiritual sense couldn't look inside a human or beast's body so easily. There was a sort of veil on a human body that wasn't easy to navigate using spiritual sense unless that body was one's own.

Alex had tried it multiple times, and it hadn't worked. However, now that he had his Qi to help him navigate, along with the medical knowledge, he looked through the inside of Luo Keng's body.

He saw the blood in the veins and the red walls. He saw the Qi flow through the blood until it reached the stomach. There he saw what the problem with his stomach was.

'Damn, that's a giant hole,' he thought. Suddenly, the yellow blob of Qi he had was devoured by something, and he clearly saw what it was.

'A parasite. I was right,' he thought. But then came another problem.

"Um… I have located the parasite; there is in fact one," he said.

"Oh, that's… good news, right?" Luo Keng asked.

"Depends on the next bit of information I will give to you," Alex said.

Luo Keng and the rest got silent and listened carefully.

"So the first minor thing is that the parasite is something that I do not recognize. But that most likely has something to do with my lack of medical knowledge rather than the parasite itself being rare," Alex said.

"I also have both the recipe and the ingredients to the pill that should cure you," Alex said.

The others smiled a little but still waited for Alex to finish speaking.

Alex sighed a little and said, "but… here comes the main problem."