"Hello, brother. Who am I attending today?" Ning asked the man at the registration hall.
"Hmm… let me check," the man said and started looking for something. Ning knew that this man was under the orders of Neal to give him some random physicians that would trouble him.
Neal couldn't do anything directly or that would go against the rules of the guild, so he could only do such underhanded things.
"Ah, here it is. It's the physician in room 42," the man said.
"Room 42? No name?" Ning was surprised. The man simply shook his head. Ning just left.
'Sigh, whatever. I've been here for 2 weeks already. It's not like I haven't seen every bad physician there is in the guild,' Ning thought. Most of the physicians he worked under weren't even that bad in their work, only their professionalism.
'Throw me what you want you old fart, nothing will surprise me,' Ning thought as he opened to door to room 42.
… And he was surprised.
He had expected a lot of different physicians under who he could've been put, but he never expected this person to be here.
"Oh, it's good to see you here, Elder Neal. I'm surprised you wanted me as an attendant," Ning said.
"Haha, brat. How is life? Hellish yet?" Elder Neal asked.
"Hell? I don't know what you are talking about. It's been as smooth as ever. Only the first day was a little bumpy, but other than that it's been amazing. I think I have you to thank for that, right?" Ning said.
"You little…" Elder Neal said in anger.
"Oh, wait for a second Elder Neal, a patient is here," Ning said and left Elder Neal behind seething in anger.
He walked to the registration hall and brought back the patient.
The patient had a deep cut on their thigh, and Ning watched Elder Neal heal the wound.
'Damn, I can think of 5 ways to heal that wound, and all of those would cost not even half of what he is doing,' Ning thought. Ever since he acquired the information, he had found the ways of healing in the Physician's guild to be very inefficient.
Ning just shook his head and kept on looking. Elder Neal couldn't swindle the patient with Ning here, so he had to give appropriate prices to the patients.
Ning kept on bringing patients in and out throughout the day. Around late Noon, Ning walked to the registration hall to get his next patient.
When he reached, he saw a young woman with a bloated belly. 'A pregnant woman?' Ning wondered.
"What is wrong miss? Are you not feeling well?" he asked.
"No. My stomach got this big suddenly and I don't know what to do," she said.
Ning was a little confused. 'What are we supposed to do then? This is not an abortion clinic. Something could've been done if it was early, but at that stage…. Isn't that just murder?' he wondered.
"Psst."
Ning turned around and looked at the man at the registration. "What?" he went close and asked.
The man whispered in his ears something that shocked him. "She's not pregnant."
"Huh? What?" Ning was surprised.
He looked back at the lady and saw that her entire body was fine, except for the bloated belly. 'If she's not pregnant then… it's not just a fart or a sh*t, right?' he wondered.
"Miss, you aren't pregnant?" he asked.
The girl blushed a little and said, "No."
Ning was curious now, but he couldn't check her yet. "Come with me please," he said and made her follow him. On the way to the room, he checked her cultivation and realized that she was at the 5th Qi Condensation realm.
'That's quite high,' he thought. "Are you a rogue cultivator, Or are you in any sect?" Ning asked.
"I used to be part of the Eagle sect, but I left it a few months ago," she said.
"That rundown sect? It still has disciples?" Ning asked.
"Haha, yes. The elders refuse to do any repairs at all and keep the sect as is. You should see the inside of the sect. There are giant pillars everywhere that look like they will fall with a single push, yet the elders vehemently tell us not to bother with them."
"At some point, the quality of life in there got so bad that I just had to leave," the woman said.
Soon they reached the room and entered. Elder Neal saw the 'pregnant' woman and got curious. Before he could even say something, Ning just went ahead and told him.
"She's got a big belly but is not pregnant," he said.
"Not pregnant?" Neal looked at the woman curiously. "Have you not done the deed?" he asked.
"No, doctor," she said.
"Hmm… come here, let me check you," he said and called the woman over. Ning also curiously looked at the woman. Ning saw that she really wasn't pregnant.
He kept looking at her trying to make sense of the situation. No answer immediately popped out, so he started to dig deeper into his knowledge.
Elder Neal made her lift up her robes to show her stomach, and when she did, both Elder Neal and Ning were shocked.
Her entire stomach… had turned dark blue. Almost like someone had beat her up and left the bruises. However, from the uniformness of the color, they were both sure that this was not a case of physical abuse.
Elder Neal was shocked because this was the first time in his life that he had seen a patient with such a case. He had no idea what was going on and didn't even know where to begin the treatment.
So, he started asking random questions to figure out more of the situation.
On the other hand, Ning was shocked too, but for a different reason entirely. He was shocked because he knew what the problem was with the woman's belly, and even better, he knew the treatment to the problem.