Banished to Another World
Chapter 42.2: Treating Yuan Zhan… and the surprising result of treatment 2/2

Yan Mo turned around and saw Yuan Zhan, who was just talking with him, was falling backwards.

Meng darted over and caught the falling Yuan Zhan. He shouted anxiously, “Zhan!”

Yuan Zhan had fallen into a coma.

Yan Mo was quick to calm down. He knelt down to feel Yuan Zhan’s pulse and instructed Meng to make a temporary fire pit in the house. He moved the fire inside and divided them to four fire pits on four sides of the room.

“He’s okay, he collapsed from exhaustion.” Yan Mo said with an authoritative expression.

Meng’s anxiousness inexplicably disappeared when he saw the boy’s calm expression. “Scared me to death! I just knew Zhan can’t use his ability that much.”

So it did have something to do with his use of ability? Yan Mo carefully examined Yuan Zhan’s entire body. Yuan Zhan’s condition was not as light as he described, he had downplayed it a lot. His condition can even be labelled as quite critical.

From the pulse, not only is his body and spirit injured from overexertion, he is simultaneously hurting from qi and blood stagnation causing blood deficiency and there’s a knot at the stomach, nourishing zhen qi can’t flow through the body.[2]

In simple words, it was overexertion of essence, qi and spirit. His excessive use of ability was far beyond what his body could handle.

His previous leg injury hadn’t been properly treated. While it was still healing, he let Yin Qi penetrate into his body. Not only did he use power beyond his body’s capability and endured his leg injury, during these 15 days he stayed outdoors—where cold wind blew and snow covered him, working and sweating in the cold. Hot then cold, cold then hot, forcing himself to keep on, until the moment the Yin qi that had seeped inside his body finally burst out with the other complications.

And how fortunate was it that Yuan Zhan’s body’s foundation was so good? If it was any worse, he wouldn’t be lying in a coma, he’d be on his way to be buried by now.

If there was no Yan Mo present, it was not certain whether Yuan Zhan could recover from this coma by relying on his own body. Without a doctor to treat all of his illnesses and get him back to health, even if he managed to recover from this, he wouldn’t be so lucky the next time it relapsed.

When the fire had warmed the ground, Yan Mo had Meng move away one of the fire pits and moved Yuan Zhan over to a spread of hay and animal skin.

“I will give him acupuncture treatment. Whatever you see, don’t ask me… Better if you don’t look at all.”

“I understand. You’re going to use the priest’s ability.” Meng saw the fire sparks and ashes scattered by the wind, and went to stand by the door to block the cold wind from blowing in.

Jiu Feng had wanted to break in from the window opening, but when Meng lit fire pits in the room he turned around and flew away fuming.

“Hang those untanned skins up at the door and window… can’t hang it? Can you bore holes there? Make two holes on two sides above the door and window……”

Feeling ashamed, Meng yelled, “You don’t need to say more, I know how to do it already!”

“Don’t be ashamed, Meng. You’re smarter than you think.” Yan Mo soothed him without much thought. “After you’ve finished hanging those up, please help me boil a pot of water.”

Yan Mo didn’t do any tricks on Yuan Zhan’s body while he’s unconscious.

Yan Mo might not respect lives but he thought highly of his medical skills.

Moreover, the problem with Yuan Zhan’s body can’t be cleared with just acupuncture, he would need to be nurtured back to health with medicines.

“Thank your good luck. Got brought here alive by Jiu Feng. If we’re in the Yuanji tribe now, can’t ask for anything, don’t have anything, I won’t be able to completely heal you even if I want to.”

That day, he gave Yuan Zhan acupuncture treatment at two different times. Yuan Zhan woke up in the middle and got pricked back to sleep by Yan Mo. “Right now you need sleep and to be relaxed. Brat, don’t ruin my reputation.”

At night, Yan Mo reminded Meng to keep Yuan Zhan warm and left with Jiu Feng who had come up to the door to pick him up.

The next day Meng accompanied Yan Mo back to the woods, Yan Mo picked various kinds of herbs to bring back.

In the house, he told Meng to boil the water and pour them into the water vat. He then lit up fire around the water vat.

“What are you doing?” Meng was extremely curious.

“Cooking Yuan Zhan.” A certain someone pressed down his excitement but his lips still curved up.

Two days later.

Yuan Zhan, who had to be boiled at least once a day, leaned forward to the water vat’s mouth. His eyes had a strange complicated expression. “Everyone knows that if someone with purer blood of god was born in your tribe, they could become the most powerful warrior and might inherit part of their god’s ability.”

Yan Mo had moved a stone over here to sit in front of the vat and was in the middle of rubbing salt on a raw meat. He looked up and mocked, “Why hello, very-pure-blooded son of god.”

Yuan Zhan’s mouth curled. “Every one of us is a child of God. As the priest chosen by the mountain god, aren’t you closer to god than any of us?”

“No need to be jealous. If you want to accompany the god to sleep and feed his fleas, I can recommend you to him.”

Meng was using tenon-mortise structure to assemble a door together. He laughed out loud and interjected, “My big brother said that when the Xirang clan first joined, there were people who can manipulate earth and rocks. That’s why our tribe chose that rock mountain to settle down. But when the last warrior with this ability, the Xirang clan leader, returned to the Earth God’s embrace… no more people with this ability appeared in our tribe. Not even Zheng had this ability, and he was the strongest warrior in the tribe after the chieftain. Zheng is from the Xirang clan too. Lord Priest said that it’s because our clans have merged, but Lord Chief said that as long as the warrior keeps working hard, they will be able to wake up their clan’s god blood.”

“What about you? How did you wake up this ability? Are you a descendant of that Xirang chieftain?” Yan Mo was rather surprised. So only Yuan Zhan awakened this ability in all of the Xirang clan? Then why was he hiding it?

Yuan Zhan scoffed at Yan Mo’s guess, “Who told you that the chieftain will have purer god’s blood?[3] Our chiefs are always chosen between the most powerful warriors in the tribe. Anyone in our clan has the possibility of awakening. Some people awaken early but others can only awaken it after third, or even level four. Zheng will definitely wake up his ability in the future, it’s just a matter of time.”

“But you woke up yours earlier than everyone.” Yan Mo grasped the key point. “What does that say? Are you more gifted than everyone else? Or did atavism occur in your body?”

Yan Mo was thoroughly curious about this world that actually had abilities.

According to some myths and legends in his original country, ancient humans of earth also possessed various powers comparable to gods. If these legends were not mere legends but real, then won’t the reason their descendants lost these abilities be the same as the people here? Having merged with other clans, their god’s blood gradually thinned out, leading to their special powers disappearing over time?

But this is a paradoxical fallacy. If there were no intermarriage between the ethnicities and they keep reproducing with people with same blood and race, so what if they gave birth to one more god? The whole ethnic group won’t last, there’s no meaning to have produced a god.

And if the legends about gods were true, where did those gods come from?

Yuan Zhan very honestly answered Yan Mo’s inquiries, “I also don’t know. It came out of nowhere, there were no signs.”

Yan Mo was not satisfied with this answer, he asked again, “Since awakening this ability is very common in your clan, why do you have to hide it? You were hiding this from the whole tribe, weren’t you? Only few people know, like your good friends. And they are the ones who came out with you, am I right?”

Meng cut in, “Yes. In the whole tribe, only me, my brother, our good brothers Diao and Shan know about this.”

In Yan Mo’s opinion, Yuan Zhan is unlikely to take the initiative to tell others his secret. He pointedly asked, “Had no other choice?”

Yuan Zhan stroked the blade scar on his face with a dark expression, “That was a very dangerous situation. We had thrown out all of our spears. There was nothing to use as a weapon except for a giant rock. But it was too heavy, we couldn’t pick it up. A Ground Snake(TuLong) was about to catch up to us, I thought, if I could just break that rock… and when my hand touched it, half of it crumbled.”

Meng excitedly added in, “We used all of our strengths to throw those rocks at the ground snake and finally scared it off. Really, we were so scared at that time. After the ground snake left, Zhan collapsed to the ground. At first, we didn’t know what was wrong with him, it was my brother who realised why.”

“Then why do you want to hide it?” Isn’t it good for the tribe if the warriors have such ability?”

Yuan Zhan and Meng both fell into silence.

Yan Mo seemed to understand, “Is it because of that old priest?”

Yuan Zhan didn’t talk. Meng nodded bitterly, “Lord Qiu Shi is the priest of the Heiyuan clan. He was always afraid that someone from the other two clans would take the chief position. In the past, only the Chief had awakened his blood ability in the whole tribe, so he felt at ease. This time, the Heiyuan chief candidate he chose can’t compare to Xirang clan’s Zheng. His other choice is far behind the Xirang clan’s Zhan in many ways. He never liked Zhan because of that, if he finds out that Zhan actually awakened his ability so early……”

“I don’t want to suddenly collapse after drinking water some day, or lose my mind when returning from a hunt, so I decided to hide everything.” Yuan Zhan frankly said.

Hearing this, Yan Mo raised an eyebrow. The old priest should be rather good at using poison. He followed up with another question, “When you were sent out to look for salt, were you already planning to never return to Yuanji tribe?”

Yuan Zhan was quiet for a bit. “……Yes. Unless I become level four warrior, I won’t go back. I don’t want the tribe to be split because of me.”

Tch. Really loyal to that tribe. Yan Mo shook his head, “Level four…… you’re still level two right now, what monkey year will it be when you get to level four?”

Yuan Zhan looked up and said out of the blue, “I’m already level three now.”

“What?” Yan Mo and Meng yelled at the same time.

Yuan Zhan looked at Yan Mo and judged that his surprise was not faked. He doubted his own guess again. “Isn’t it those things you did to me that made me upgrade?”

“Hah?!” Yan Mo’s mouth hanged open.

Padam : is thinking Yan Mo’s pouch can technically store him. He can sleep inside his pouch.

1) In the raw, Yan Mo’s bag is literally (Traditional Chinese )Medicinal Herb Bag. In TCM, practically everything is medicinal herb; mushroom, nuts, roots, seeds, can be called herbs so it’s very broad. Yan Mo thought it only accepts things like roots, flowers, fruits, things that are boiled into concoctions. When the bag accepted the translucent stone, calling it a medicinal herb bag was really weird, so I changed it into healer bag. Also. Disclaimer, don’t experiment with the novel’s medicines at home.

2) Yuan Zhan had symptoms of …

Chen Mai (deep) = his qi is blocked, healthy flow of qi and blood is obstructed by something;

Lao Mai (confined) = overexertion of body, inside is cold and less Yang energy;

Xu Mai (faint) = blood deficiency, connected to the chen mai, where his qi and blood are blocked somewhere and can’t nourish his body;

Fu Mai (hidden) = Yang Qi is faint, severe pain, last stage means coma.

I don’t really know if you can have all these pulses at the same time, but altogether they mean what YM had summarised, YZ didn’t keep himself warm and forced himself to keep working in the cold, his qi and blood got stagnated and the shock burst out with the cold energy making him fall into coma. In TCM, your inner Qi transport the blood and nourishments around the body. So just by clearing up the blockage, YZ’s ability can improve. Even if YZ can rely on his body to overcome this coma, the blocked qi and blood will not readjust by themselves, that’s the hidden danger. Heat/yang/warm encourages blood flow, TCM likes it. TCM hates Yin/cold, and regards it as the cause of illnesses.

That thing about the stomach knot is because the stomach has the source of the qi circulation, that’s why in cultivation novels they punch that and you’re ruined for life. the agony of this paragraph. I hope I never have to learn about pulses again.

3) They actually used the word ‘dense’ so more ‘concentration’ meaning. it’s different from blood purity where the solution would be inbreeding. Each newborn baby can somehow have a denser concentration of god’s blood, according to them. idk, is dense a good word, or is pure a better english word for it? thick?

Edited by Silversun