[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-even-a-gentleman-must-be-careful":3,"chapter-even-a-gentleman-must-be-careful-even-a-gentleman-must-be-careful-chapter-12":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Even a Gentleman Must Be Careful",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2268632,4429,"Chapter 12: Twelve, the Nine Mythic Dao Veins","even-a-gentleman-must-be-careful-chapter-12",12,"\u003Cp>Twelve, the Nine Mythic Dao Veins\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What is ‘jinchuang zhongchi’?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Forgotten—it’s military jargon. ‘Jinchuang’ means this wound is often caused by metal weapons; ‘zhongchi’ refers to the symptoms after injury, where the victim writhes in agony, curled up like a shrimp. My father always called it that.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“In the folk, some physicians call it… lockjaw.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ouyang Rong paused, no wonder he’d just seen Ashan wrapped in thick winter robes as if he’d caught a chill.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And at the time, the man’s expression had been vacant—not just from despair, but likely due to facial muscle spasms and rigidity.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“It’s incurable; he won’t live more than a few days. A pity, such a fine man,” Yan Wuxu shook his head.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ouyang Rong pondered, “Lockjaw… it’s probably still in the incubation period…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In an era without antibiotics, it truly was a terminal affliction… but not necessarily—this world had Qi Refiners, and the reputation of Northern and Southern Daoist external alchemy was widespread.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>During his imperial examination in Luoyang, he’d even heard of foreign alchemists seeking immortality, greatly admired by Luoyang’s elite. So among Qi Refiners, there might truly be some elixirs beyond his understanding.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But clearly, these forces wielding mythic power would never waste precious elixirs on a lowly government slave.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The only ones in this world who would care about the fate of this nameless peasant, Ashan, were Liu’s mother and the girl with the sorrowful eyes, Aqing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But now… there was half another person.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I count as half.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ouyang Rong muttered, then turned toward the Dharma Kitchen of Donglin Temple.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Wuxu hurried after him, curious: “My lord, what do you mean, half?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Bring me half a moldy yam.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“...” Yan Wuxu thought, then gently warned: “My lord, moldy things aren’t edible.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ouyang Rong: “?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Wuxu still didn’t understand why the magistrate had suddenly stopped descending the mountain and instead rushed to the Dharma Kitchen, borrowed a kitchen from the head monk, locked himself inside, and started fiddling around…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Outside, the constable holding his sword slightly opened his mouth, watching the young county magistrate—whom he’d always seen as refined, gentle, and frail—rummage through cabinets, pulling out yams, charcoal, rice broth, vegetable oil, pottery jars, cotton, then rolling up his sleeves and moving with terrifying speed. The constable also heard the magistrate muttering strange phrases like, “Oh, my dead memories are attacking me again.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ouyang Rong wiped sweat from his forehead with his arm, glanced at the crude purification equipment on the table, and frowned:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I underestimated how difficult this was… seems unworkable…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ouyang Rong wasn’t just a “knows-a-bit-of-everything” keyboard warrior—he’d taken a chemistry elective in college for credits, and because the teacher was a blonde, curvy foreign female, he’d been thoroughly engaged, especially when she bent over the lectern to check tubing…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Regardless, unlike the other LSPs in class who only stared at her chest, he’d actually learned something.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Plus, he was a level-max human with strong hands-on skills, capable of hand-crafting mechanical linkers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Initially, Ouyang Rong had been confident—he thought with patience, time, and local adaptation, producing a low-purity antibiotic wouldn’t be hard.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But after all that effort, he realized he’d still underestimated the difficulty of purification.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The main problem lay in the purification equipment—the crude antibiotic contained too many contaminating bacteria; using it would harm Liu Ashan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“This path won’t work… novels are all lies. No normal person could climb this tech tree…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ouyang Rong exhaled deeply, not discouraged, and turned decisively to fetch paper and ink.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Try another approach.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ouyang Rong lowered his head, dipped his brush in ink, and wrote several prescriptions, muttering:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Sixth Brother, can you help me buy these herbs? Advance the payment for me.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“N-no problem.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Wuxu, standing by to assist, didn’t understand what Ouyang Rong was doing, but the entire spectacle had deeply shocked him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As Ouyang Rong recalled the prescriptions, Yan Wuxu frowned and asked:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“My lord, have you… studied the Mohist Dao Vein’s mechanical arts?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What Mohist Dao Vein? What mechanical arts?” Ouyang Rong didn’t look up, curious.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“You’re not?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Uh, no, I’m not. Now it’s your turn to answer me.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Wuxu leaned against the door, holding his sword, as if thinking, then said:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I heard this while drinking—Mohist Dao Vein is one of the Nine Mythic Dao Veins passed down since the Warring States period. Before Emperor Qin sought the elixir of immortality, it stood alongside the Scholar Dao Vein and Daoist Dao Vein. But after the Red Emperor slew the White Emperor and seized the Han throne as a commoner, the Mohist Dao Vein fractured and gradually declined, until even the Grand Master’s lineage vanished into history.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Yet the Mohist Qi Refining techniques and mechanical arts scattered across the land, eventually giving rise to the Ten Dao Schools and countless minor sects of the Northern and Southern Jianghu. It was like one tree falling and ten thousand saplings sprouting—ensuring mythic Qi Refining didn’t become as monopolized as the path for humble scholars, controlled solely by the imperial court and a few powerful clans.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The county lieutenant’s son, sword in hand but not yet entered the Jianghu, gazed dreamily: “So some say the Mohists never died—we all Jianghu people are, in truth, white-robed Mohist heroes, disciples of the Grand Master.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ouyang Rong lifted his head—he’d never heard this before—and asked: “Nine Mythic Dao Veins? What are the other eight?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Wuxu scratched his head. “I only know the Great Zhou court holds the Military Dao Vein and the Yin-Yang Qi-Observing Dao Vein, and the Three Great Schools of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism each control one. The rest are unknown—likely hidden aristocratic lineages.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ouyang Rong thought a moment, then struck straight to the core: “Sixth Brother, which Dao Vein do you follow? Is it the Mohist Dao Vein?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Wuxu’s face flushed crimson. After a pause, he muttered softly: “If only I’d entered the Qi Refiner ranks, I wouldn’t have had my sword knocked from my hand by my lord’s aunt that day…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ouyang Rong comforted him: “It’s fine—I’ve never met anyone in my life who could beat my aunt, of course, in that rural corner of Nanlong.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan the Sixth cleared his throat. “By the way, before meeting you, I thought you were a Scholar Dao Vein Qi Refiner.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Me?” Ouyang Rong was speechless. “Why…?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Simple. Bai Lu Dong Academy belongs to the Confucian sect, and you’re a renowned scholar from there. It’s natural for Jianghu people familiar with your origins to assume you’re from that lineage.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ouyang Rong recalled his time there and shook his head, returning to his work: “But during my studies at Bai Lu Dong, I only followed my master—I never encountered such things.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Wuxu nodded. “Then you must’ve been overlooked. I heard the Three Schools all have formal mechanisms to select promising disciples for Qi Refining training. You were a well-known scholarly seed in Jiangnan long before—Bai Lu Dong couldn’t have missed you.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just hand me a useless talent card, right? Ouyang Rong laughed: “Whatever.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Wuxu added: “But it’s normal. Such gifted individuals are as rare as phoenix feathers. Like the Jianghu, most are small, scattered sects. Only a few truly inherit their masters’ Qi Refining arts. Hmm.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ouyang Rong nodded. “But if they’re all like immortals, I’d like to see how these Qi Refiners fight. Are they really that miraculous? Yet during my examination in Luoyang, I never saw any high-level masters leaping across rooftops. If they existed, wouldn’t they show off?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After the dreamlike collapse of the Pure Land Palace, he held deep skepticism about the power level of this world.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Wuxu replied seriously: “My lord, never underestimate a ranked Qi Refiner. They’re hard to see because there are so few—and because the Jianghu isn’t about fighting, it’s about human relationships.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ouyang Rong: “…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Holy shit, you haven’t even entered the Jianghu yet, and you’ve already nailed the final exam question—slipping in such a big point, is that fair?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Ahem, my lord, I actually read this in a martial novel—written by an elder of the Jianghu.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Wuxu pulled out a worn, dog-eared book from his sleeve and sighed: “It even records how he met a tsundere elder, a devoted fox spirit, a noble heiress, and a female scholar from the academy—and delved into their stories.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ouyang Rong waved his hand: “Sorry, I read the Spring and Autumn Annals.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With the prescriptions finished, he folded them twice and handed them to Yan Wuxu: “Go down the mountain and get these herbs—hurry.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Wuxu glanced at the prescriptions, about to ask—when hurried footsteps suddenly approached. He tucked the prescriptions away, spun around, hand on his sword hilt, blocking the door:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Who?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xiu Fa and half-burnt Huo Liao arrived. The former, from afar, cried out urgently:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Master, Master! Madam says you must return quickly—your master has come to see you!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“...?”\u003C\u002Fp>",1472,"2026-06-19T21:28:25.445Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","73716073e77ad367805c05be111e6b7b6c57f4ee6bddab12052b168107098003","even-a-gentleman-must-be-careful-chapter-13","even-a-gentleman-must-be-careful-chapter-11",864,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Feven-a-gentleman-must-be-careful-cover.jpg"]