Chapter 27: Dragon's Saliva Fruit

  When Zhou Hao woke up again, he found himself lying on a bamboo bed, and in front of him was Li Ruolan with a worried face.

  Li Ruolan saw him wake up and immediately helped him sit up, "You finally woke up, I was worried to death."

  Looking at Li Ruolan's somewhat haggard face, Zhou Hao apologized: "Sorry, I made you worry." He glanced around and saw that this was Gong Sun's hut, with various dried herbs hanging on the wall, a small wooden cabinet in the corner, filled with thread-bound books, which looked very old.

  "How long have I been unconscious?" Zhou Hao patted his own forehead, still feeling a bit dizzy.

  "It's been a whole day and night." Li Ruolan wiped Zhou Hao's face with a wet cloth, "Why did you fight with Dr. Gongsun? It's not good for anyone to get hurt." There was some scolding in her tone.

  "Who let that old man say you should marry him." Zhou Hao is still very annoyed when he thinks about it now.

  Li Ruolan's face suddenly turned red, "Even if you don't want me to marry him, you can't be so impulsive. I thought he had beaten you to death at the time and even cried a whole scene."

  When Li Ruolan cried for herself, Zhou Hao felt a little happy for some reason.

  Li Ruolan saw Zhou Hao's sneaky expression and lightly hit his head, "What are you thinking about? I was thinking that if you died, wouldn't all my efforts to agree to Gong Sun's request be in vain?"

  Zhou Hao heard this and just scratched his head, "heh heh" laughed twice, "by the way, what about that old man?"

  "He was beaten by you until he vomited blood, but he seemed to be a qigong master and recovered after meditating for a while."

  Zhou Hao knew that Gong Sun's martial arts skills were exceptionally high, and he was the kind of legendary internal martial artist who could leave a handprint on such hard rock with just one palm.

  Just then, Gong Sun Da Fu walked in. Unlike before, he wasn't using a crutch this time, but instead had two wooden sticks attached to his broken legs, making him look like a pirate captain with one leg, although it looked strange, his movements were very agile. As soon as he came in, he scolded Zhou Hao: "You ungrateful rascal, I saved your life with good intentions, but you repaid me by almost scattering my bones."

  "It's a pity I didn't kill you." Zhou Hao said with a sneer.

  "Zhou Hao, Gong Sun Dafu, both of you should say one less sentence." Li Ruolan was really helpless towards the two people who were at odds with each other.

  Gongsun Daifu grunted and came to the bedside, grabbing Zhou Hao's head for a look. Zhou Hao knew he was examining him and didn't resist. Then Gongsun Daifu said, "You little scoundrel may not have much manners, but your body is quite good, you've recovered in just one day." Just as Zhou Hao was about to retort, Gongsun Daifu added, "Do you want to learn martial arts?"

  "Learn martial arts?" Zhou Hao was stunned for a moment, then looked at Gong Sun with suspicion, "What if I want to? What if I don't?"

  Gongsun Dafu stroked his chin whiskers and said, "If you want, I can teach you."

  Hearing him say this, Zhou Hao became even more vigilant, "No one offers kindness without a reason, what's your motive?"

  "Get out, I'm kind enough to teach you, and yet you still doubt me?" He turned his head to look at Li Ruolan beside him, "Girl, say something fair, does this kid look like he's got any sense?"

  But Li Ruolan said: "However, this is indeed not like your temperament, Mr. Gong Sun."

  "What a good deed goes unrewarded!" Master Gongsun was so angry that he puffed out his mustache, then stared at Zhou Hao, "I only ask you one question, do you want to learn or not? I thought of this because your physique is quite good, no need for you to repay me anything."

  Zhou Hao nodded his head, "Learn then learn."

  First, Master Gongsun handed Zhou Hao a thread-bound book containing diagrams of the human body's meridians and acupoints. "To learn martial arts, you must first learn to cultivate your energy, that is, qigong. First, familiarize yourself with these acupoints and meridians, memorize them firmly, and then I will teach you qigong."

  Zhou Hao spent only half a night to memorize all the meridians and hundreds of acupoints in the human body, which also surprised Gong Sun. Then, he decocted two doses of medicine for Zhou Hao to take, and began to teach Zhou Hao a peculiar breathing method of exhalation and inhalation.

  Zhou Hao had also seen those so-called qigong masters teach breathing methods, but they were completely different from what Dr. Gong taught. Dr. Gong's method often required holding one's breath for a long time, which could easily lead to suffocation. However, the effect was also remarkable. After just a short while, Zhou Hao felt that the turbid air that had been suppressed in his chest had all been cleared out, and he felt refreshed and invigorated. Moreover, as he became more familiar with this method, Zhou Hao's breath-holding time grew longer and longer, until he could hold his breath for up to ten minutes at a time.

  "Focus your mind, don't you feel a surge of energy in your chest now? Try to suppress it and let it flow into the dantian." Dr. Gong Sun said to Zhou Hao who was sitting cross-legged on the ground, while stretching out his right hand to press on his spine and slowly move down to his waist to help Zhou Hao guide that energy into the dantian.

  Under the guidance of Gong Sun, Zhou Hao felt that the energy in his body slowly flowed into his dantian, making his abdomen warm and comfortable. Then, the energy flowed from the dantian to other meridians in his body, and he felt that under the movement of this energy flow, his body was suddenly filled with strength, even his fractured right arm was rapidly recovering.

  "Alright, that's all for today. Your qi sensation is very good." Gong Sun said: "I must say, you have a natural talent for internal qigong."

  Zhou Hao also smiled with joy, especially since this was the first time Gong Sun had ever praised someone.

  "Generally, the best time to start practicing internal Qigong is before the age of five. After that, the turbid Qi from outside will slowly invade the body, blocking the eight extraordinary meridians, making it very difficult to practice later on. That's why many accomplished internal Qigong masters started their training when they were young." Dr. Gong Sun said to Zhou Hao, "The medicine I gave you earlier and the breathing method I taught you are meant to slowly expel the turbid Qi from your body."

  "Alright, alright, let's eat." Li Ruolan said with a smile.

  Three people set up a wooden table on the empty ground outside the thatched hut and sat down to eat together. Li Ruolan prepared two dishes and one soup, with rabbit meat and mountain chicken meat, as well as a pot of dried mushroom soup. Li Ruolan's cooking skills were not bad, and Zhou Hao ate with relish, "I didn't know before, it turns out that Teacher Li's culinary skills are so good."

  "When I was in college, I could only take care of myself, and this skill was also practiced at that time." Li Ruolan said.

  Gongsun sighed and said, "Women's craftsmanship is indeed different." He had lived alone for decades, a typical case of one person eating well while the whole family goes hungry.

  "Gongsun Dafu, have you been living here for decades?" Li Ruolan asked him.

  "What's wrong with this place? It's warm in winter and cool in summer, much better than those resorts. And on the mountain of Autumn Peace, there are all sorts of herbs, easy for me to collect."

  Zhou Hao looked at him and said, "You must have done a lot of research on traditional Chinese medicine."

  Gongsun Dafu raised an eyebrow, "I don't dare say anything else, but those people in the Chinese Academy of Sciences, their understanding of traditional Chinese medicine is not even one or two percent."

  Zhou Hao and Li Ruolan had the same thought, what a big tone. However, in the past few days, they have also seen Gong Sun's medical skills, like Zhou Hao's serious injury, he can move freely in just a few days, Gong Sun indeed has extraordinary abilities.

  After dinner, Gong Sun ordered Zhou Hao to practice the breathing method well, and he walked into one of the forks in the cave. Li Ruolan cleaned up the bowls and chopsticks, while Zhou Hao sat cross-legged, practicing that magical breathing method.

  Later, idle Li Ruolan flipped through the thread-bound ancient books on the wooden cabinet, and found that they were all ancient books related to traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, and moxibustion. The classical Chinese in them was abstruse and difficult to understand, and Li Ruolan, a university student majoring in English, looked at it for a long time but couldn't understand it, so she had to put the book back in its original place.

  In the cave, it was impossible to distinguish between day and night, so Li Ruolan slept when she was tired, and for the past few days, she had been sleeping in the thatched hut. Zhou Hao slept on a grass mat outside the thatched hut, while Gong Sun Da Fu often disappeared and no one knew where he slept.

  Zhou Hao, who was immersed in the mysterious art of Tu Na, came back to his senses after an unknown period of time. He walked into the thatched hut and saw Li Ruolan sleeping on the bamboo bed, so he went over to tuck her quilt in for her.

  Right before her eyes, Li Ruolan looked serene, lying on the bed like a delicate begonia.

  Unable to help himself, Zhou Hao slowly leaned in close to her face, his nose inches from Li Ruolan's lips that carried a faint sweet scent, causing Zhou Hao to become infatuated. As he got closer and closer to Li Ruolan's cherry lips, Zhou Hao's heart beat faster and faster.

  Just as the two people's lips were about to touch, Zhou Hao suddenly stopped.

  "I mustn't profane her." he said to himself.

  He shook his head and walked out of the thatched hut, lying down on the grass mat, but he couldn't calm down in his heart, with Li Ruolan's gentle and beautiful face lingering in his mind.

  Zhou Hao didn't know that when he walked out of the thatched hut, Li Ruolan opened her eyes on the bamboo bed, with a flush on her face.

  On the other hand, Gong Sun Da Fu walked through the winding and tortuous passage and finally arrived at another karst cave.

  The area of this cave is very small, less than one tenth of where Zhou Hao and others are. However, it is much brighter here than in the large cave. In the center of the cave, there is a crack more than a foot wide on the ground, from which a yellow light shines through, and a thread of hot air rises.

  From above, this fissure is feared to be over a hundred meters deep, and the slow-moving, scorching hot lava below can be faintly seen.

  Next to the crevice, there is a special plant that can be seen with its long roots grasping the crevice and extending downwards, absorbing the heat emitted by the lava at close range. In contrast to its surprisingly long roots, its stem is less than half a meter, with a bright red flower blooming on top, about the size of a palm, and in the center of the flower, there is a scarlet fruit the size of a bullet.

  Above this plant, there is an inverted conical stalactite on the dome of the cave. Sparkling water droplets also drip down along the stalactite and fall right onto the flowers of this plant, providing it with moisture.

  Gongsun Daifu knelt down in front of the plant, his eyes burning with excitement. "Dragon's Saliva Fruit, heh heh, a Dragon's Saliva Fruit that only bears fruit once every sixty years."