Fury

Jack sighed with relief when he heard his father agreed to trust him and, by extension, his abilities.

In truth, he had a plan b which would allow him to examine his mother even without expressly being permitted to do so, but that involved making his father fall faint by attacking his acupoints and he didn't want to have to resort to violence, especially not against his own kin. As such, he flashed Ichabod a smile full of appreciation and respect.

He then turned to look at his mother.

Even though she was in an induced sleep - from some sort of drug that had been given to her by one of the other two doctors, no doubt - her expression still looked troubled and in pain. Her cough never once abated and she was drenched in sweat. Just from touching her forehead, Jack felt the blistering heat of her fever.

"I will begin now. Do not disturb me." He said as his expression grew incredibly serious and he lowered his voice to a whisper.

Ichabod, Erik, and Jadelere all looked to each other and took a few steps back, giving Jack all of the space he could possibly need to perform whatever it was that he was about to do. At the same time, they all glanced at each other's eyes and saw a similar mix between expectation and worry; particularly Ichabod, who felt that his heart as heavy as a mountain from the prospect of Adras dying. He didn't want to doubt his son, but the stakes were extremely high.

Jack took in a few deep breaths to calm himself and make sure he could perform as perfectly as possible and, once he was sure that he was in the most optimum frame of mind, he opened the leather box full of silver needles with ritualistic care; placing it right beside Adras in a manner wherein he could easily access the needles as quickly as possible if needed.

He then revolved his qi within his meridians and grabbed three needles between his fingers, imbuing them with his qi and then gently inserting them one by one into Adras' ruzhong, rugen, and qimen acupoints. He could have done this by putting in all three needles at the same time, but he refused to risk even the slightest possibility of an error occurring and so he deliberately took things much slower than he needed to.

The results of the three silver needles being placed in these three points were visible instantly because Adras stopped coughing and her expression suddenly became peaceful, as if she had just been liberated from an unimaginable burden.

Ichabod gasped when he saw this and he almost sprinted forward to kneel and take his wife within his arms but he stopped himself when he saw Jack reaching out and grabbing two more needles.

Jack placed these two in the juque and zhongji acupoints respectively, which effectively blocked the flow of qi from the dantian to most of the meridians. Typically, this would result in a person feeling like their cultivation was crippled. Adras, however, seemed to be even more at peace and she even regained some of her natural colour.

Jack frowned imperceptibly.

From his mother's reaction he felt that there was something very wrong with the entire situation and if his suspicions turned out to be correct, then the implications and ramifications of it would be far-reaching in their immensity. That, however, would have to wait until he confirmed them. Right now, the most pressing matter was to cure his mother.

Without revealing anything to the three adults behind him, Jack began putting one needle after another into his mother's acupoints, taking as much care as possible to be both gentle and thorough. It took him close to two hours before he finished inserting twenty-four of the twenty-five needles and, by that time, there were droplets of sweat beginning to form on his forehead from the qi expenditure.

What he was performing right now was an extremely high-tiered acupuncture healing technique derived from the Eight Trigrams which required a very large quantity of qi. Any other person at the sixth level of the Martial realm would have already been sucked dry twice-over after reaching this point. The only reason Jack had been able to do it was thanks to the overly abundant and pure qi he was accumulating thanks to the Harmony of Everything cultivation method.

That being said, he was still beginning to feel exhausted.

And yet he refused to give up and abandon his mother. As such, he pulled out the final needle and inserted it into his mother's yintang acupoint. At the same time as he did so, he sent a stream of qi which probed his mother's body and completed one entire cycle before returning to him, using the other needles like antennas to give him even more detailed information of the state of her body.

When the qi returned him, Jack's expression suddenly became heavy and the air around him dropped in temperature. Refusing to lose control, Jack took in a few deep breaths, calmed himself, and readied his mind for the task he imperatively needed to carry out successfully. Now was not the time for questions.

Jack drew out every ounce of qi from his dantian and poured it onto each and every one of the acupuncture needles in a specific order which allowed for his qi to combine in Adras' body in a special formation which forced any foreign substances into a path that the formation caster determined; in this instance, Jack himself. The reason Jack did this was because with his probing he'd determined that the illness afflicting his mother was no disease. It was poison.

A very subtle poison which could hardly be detected unless a supreme medical expert examined the body very closely and observed even the smallest minutiae of the patient's condition. Jack had done exactly that because he was treating his mother, but it would have been impossible for any other doctor to make this same discovery. Furthermore, the poison was spread extremely thin over the patient's lungs, stopping them from functioning properly. Whoever had created this poison was a vile creature, indeed.

The qi formation wrapped around each and every small particle of the poison with the highest degree of gentleness at Jack's behest. Then, Jack commanded the qi to slowly draw it all out and direct it towards the needle on the qimen point.

This process took another hour and almost completely drained Jack of his mental strength because he had to remain in constant concentration to not allow any single particle of poison to escape his grasp whilst ensuring that no damage was done to Adras' lungs. Just this effort alone was enough to cause most medical masters to faint at the mere thought of it; yet Jack was succeeding. If Lau had been there to witness this, he would have fallen to his knees and begged Jack to take him in as a student.

Notwithstanding the exquisiteness of Jack's technique, he was able to successfully push all of the poison within Adras' lungs onto the needle and then, with one final burst of qi, he pulled the needle out.

He observed it for a second before turning around and showing it to the three adults behind him. They all gasped in shock when they laid their eyes upon the once silver needle which had now turned blackish-green. Ichabod, Erik, and Jadelere were extremely well-read and highly educated individuals so there was no need for Jack to explain the significance of the change to the needle's colour.

"I've expelled it all from her body, but she's still weak." Explained Jack as he carefully placed the contaminated needle into a glass of water which he emptied first. "She needs to rest and recover, but there's no danger to her life any more."

"Bastards!" Ichabod clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles cracked and they turned completely white. "Whoever did this must die. LEAH!" He shouted out with qi imbuing his voice which made his command reverberate throughout the entire Hare manor.

Never before had Ichabod acted in such a manner, such was the level of his fury. Truth be told, Jack felt the same. "Father, please allow me to pursue this matter." He said after a short moment of thought.

"I appreciate what you've done here, my son, but you shall leave this matter to me."

"Sir, he literally just did something that no other doctor has been able to accomplish." Interjected Jadelere in Jack's favour. "Maybe it would be a good idea for him to be involved."

"I concur." Nodded Erik.

"There is truth to your words." Sighed Ichabod. How could he not see the sense in what they had to say? He was more aware of it than either of them. But he simply couldn't burden his son with such a responsibility in good conscience. "But I will deal with this. Jack, my son, trust me like I trusted you and let me deal with this."

Jack sighed but didn't add anything. He grabbed all of the needles, bowed, and excused himself saying that he was tired and needed to recuperate for a while. Ichabod nodded, bowed to his son to show how thankful he was, and proceeded to sit besides Adras and caress her face while he waited for Leah to come; his mind working out a plan to find the culprit or culprits of this terrible event.

--

"What's going on in that head of yours?" Asked Jadelere.

Both he and Erik had decided to follow Jack when he left his parent's bedroom and the three of them eventually made it all the way to the kitchen. While this particular room was usually brimming with activity from the servants and cooks alike, given the situation with the plague it was bereft of human activity. The only person left to use it was Iris and she was currently tending to another task some where else. As such only the three of them were in there.

"The poison." Jack looked through one of the cupboards in search of something. "It just doesn't make sense."

"Aye, a veritable work of nefariousness. Only cowards use poison; and to aim Ichabod's wife, now that's the lowest of the low." Nodded Jadelere. "I myself would like to find the bastards responsible for this, too."

"Now is not the time for such remarks." Chastised Erik. "Young master Jack, you can rest assured that good master Ichabod will solve this riddle and bring the culprits to justice. Trust in your father." He smiled warmly at the end.

"That's just it, Erik, I don't think anyone deliberately tried to poison my mother." Sighed Jack, exposing where his thoughts were.

"Prithee, what do you mean?" Said Erik with a look of befuddlement on his face. "You don't think she was poisoned?"

"I know she was poisoned. That's entirely certain and anyone who claims otherwise has lard instead of a brain." Jack didn't turn around and continued with his searching. "No, my point is that it simply doesn't make sense. My mother was clearly afflicted by the plague, meaning that the plague is the result of a poison and not an illness as we'd previously believed."

"What?!" Exclaimed both Erik and Jadelere simultaneously.

"Aye; think about it for a moment. The doctors diagnosed her with the plague a few days ago. Considering how much they've been dealing with it in recent times, it's foolish to assume the diagnosis was mistaken. In fact, it's irresponsible. Therefore, the only assumption that remains is that someone, somewhere, has poisoned the city."

"That's... That's... I have no words to describe this..." Said Jadelere as he placed his hands on the sides of his face. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't find an obvious flaw in Jack's reasoning,

"That's a first." Chuckled Jack humourlessly before quickly continuing with his explanation. "Considering what we know about the plague, we believe it's transmitted by air or close contact and that it takes a long time to manifest itself in the form of symptoms when someone has it."

"That is correct."

"Therefore, if this is an assassination, calling it stupid would be to insult stupidity. In a city like this one, the perpetrator would have next to know assurance that their target would become infected. It would be much, much easier to simply administer the poison directly to the target. However, given the amount of work that's gone into developing this poison, I strongly disagree with calling the mastermind stupid."

"Consequently, what you're suggesting is..." Erik's eyes lit up in understanding.

"Aye, I'm suggesting that the true target of this poison was the first person to contract this disease and if we find them, there's a good chance they'll lead us to the ones responsible."

When he finished speaking, Jack turned around and placed a bottle of spirit on the table beside him. His eyes were cold and calculating. Evidently, Jack had no intention of letting the culprit walk away from this without paying the price for hurting his mother.