Ning Tao offered his hand to Fan Huaying and smiled. “You’re too modest, Mr. Fan. Nice to meet you.”

Fan Huaying gave him the impression of a well-connected man. Such a person, who even Ding Congjun had to take his words seriously, would not make overtures to him for nothing. Fan Huaying must have a motive and a purpose in approaching him. But it was common in today’s society that few people made friends without motivations or purposes. Coincidentally, Ning Tao needed a well-connected friend like Fan Huaying. Since Fan Huaying befriended him, of course Ning Tao wouldn’t refuse his invitation.

Fan Huaying shook Ning Tao’s hand and complimented, “Doctor Ning, you are a worthy miracle doctor. You master such amazing medical skills at such a young age. You’re bound to achieve unlimited achievements.”

Ning Tao laughed and said, “Mr. Fan, I’m flattered. You are so courteous that I am embarrassed to ask you to help.”

“Doctor Ning, what herbs do you want? Give me a list and I’ll get it done for you,” Fan Huaying offered warmly.

Ning Tao felt a little surprised and said, “Now?”

Fan Huaying grinned and stated, “I just want to be your friend, Doctor Ning. I overheard your conversation with Miss Jiang just now. I guess those herbs must be very important to you. My friend’s business is my business. If you believe me, leave it to me.”

Ning Tao’s face broke into an awkward look. He wanted to give the list to Fan Huaying, but he didn’t. It was not that he didn’t believe Fan Huaying, it was that he didn’t have the money to buy the herbs. Fan Huaying was so warm to him and Ning Tao couldn’t take advantage of him when they contacted for the first time. Moreover, the cost of medicine would not be a small sum of money.

Fan Huaying was a man of keen observation. Noticing Ning Tao’s embarrassed look, he immediately said, “Actually I’m going to ask you a favor, too, Doctor Ning. I wonder if you would like to help me.”

“What is it?” Ning Tao asked lightly.

“Doctor Ning, can you treat burns?”

Ning Tao’s mind raced, but he remained impassive and only replied, “Yeah, I can. Where’s the patient?”

With a smile, Fan Huaying answered, “I knew I had the right friend. The patient is one of my friends, and she isn’t in Beidu right now, but I believe she will charter a plane to fly here when I give her a phone call. You’ll see her this evening, at the soonest.”

“Well, then, please help arrange it, Huaying,” Ning Tao stated politely.

Now that he had become friends with Fan Huaying, it was too polite to call him Mr. Fan.

“I’ll make a phone call to her,” Fan Huaying said. Then he made a nod to Jiang Hao and walked out the door grabbing his phone.

Ning Tao stared at Fan Huaying’s back and found that Fan Huaying’s body was emitting colorful aura. He doubted that Fan Huaying was not an ordinary man, but Fan Huaying’s innate aura looked quite ordinary without the spiritual energy released by spiritual power, which indicated that he was not a practitioner.

Jiang Hao leaned over to Ning Tao’s ear and whispered, “Fan Huaying knows you can’t afford the medicine, so he asked you to treat a burn patient. Why didn’t you tell me you had no money? I have the money.”

Her insight was no weaker than Fan Huaying’s.

Ning Tao chuckled, “Isn’t that great? I do him a favor, and in return, he does me a favor, so I don’t have to owe him, and he doesn’t have to owe me either.”

Jiang Hao frowned, and remarked, “He wants you to treat burns, but burns are nothing like other illnesses. Even if you possess remarkable medical skills, you can do nothing. How about you give him money to buy the medicine?”

“I know you’re worried about me not being able to cure Fan Huaying’s friend, but don’t worry, I’m sure I can cure her as I promised,” Ning Tao comfort her. “Also, do you think he is short of money? As you said, he knows that I have no money. And he asked me to do him a favor because he didn’t want to embarrass me, not because he cared about the money.”

Jiang Hao took a tumble and said, “Oh, I see.”

At this moment, the group of people came out of the room at the end of the corridor. It was none other than Ding Ye who had just been chained to his bed. Before Ning Tao treated him, even the large group of famous doctors couldn’t find the cause of his illness, and now he was surefooted with a ruddy face and showing no sign of illness.

“Thank you, Doctor Ning.” This was the first sentence of Ding Ye. When he got close to Ning Tao, he even held out his hands to shake hands with him.

Ning Tao quickly reached out his hands to hold Ding Ye’s outstretched hands and said, “Old Master, you are too kind. If you want to express gratitude, thank Jiang Hao. I’m here because of her.”

Ding Ye took one look at Jiang Hao and laughed, “I don’t need to thank her. In my eyes, she is just like my daughter. Why should I thank my daughter?”

Jiang Hao also beamed. She seemed to have removed some baggage and felt an indescribable sense of relief.

She always wanted to repay the Ding family but never had a chance. Her baggage was that when she was grateful to them for the kindness they had shown her and her mother, but there had been no way of returning the favor. She didn’t let go of that baggage until now. Although she did this through Ning Tao, she obviously didn’t and didn’t want to treat him as an outsider.

Yan Song walked up to Ning Tao and without saying anything, lowered his head and tried to bow to him.

Ning Tao hurriedly put his hand on Yan Song’s arms and prevented him from bowing. “What are you doing?”

“Doctor Ning, I’m sorry. I was blind when I said something offensive to you. But I’m a man of my word. I said as long as you can cure Old Master Ding, I will take you as my teacher. I want to be your disciple now.”

Not only did Yan Song’s attitude toward Ning Tao change, but so did the other famous doctors who had previously questioned Ning Tao. Their eyes on Ning Tao were full of curiosity and respect.

Ning Tao politely replied, “Doctor Yan, you’re a senior. I know you were making angry remarks then. How could I possibly take those words seriously? I am not qualified to be your teacher, but we can be friends if you like.”

He had hated Yan Song before, but the fact that Yan Song actually swallowed his pride to take him as his teacher to live up to his previous bet showed that Yan Song was really a man of his word and deserved to be associated with.

Yan Song grinned and replied, “Of course I like. It’s my pleasure to make friends like you, Doctor Ning.”

At this point, a comely and elegant woman who was in her early thirties, decently dressed, entered through the door. She held a gift box in her hand, and as soon as she got to the living room, she stood beside Ding Congjun.

She was Ding Congjun’s wife, Bai Binglan. She was also a soldier.

Jiang Hao greeted her, “Hello, Binglan.”

Bai Binglan smiled at her as a greeting. Then she turned her eyes to Ning Tao and asked, “Are you Doctor Ning?”

Ning Tao nodded and uttered, “Nice to meet you.”

Bai Binglan held the gift box and handed it to Ning Tao, saying, “This is a little something as a token of our appreciation. Please take it.”

“No, no, no, I’m here because of Jiang Hao, and I can’t take your money,” Ning Tao immediately refused without reaching for it. In fact, when Bai Binglan came in with the gift box, he assumed it was the fee for the treatment. Later, he woke up his nose to enter the state of smelling, finding that there was really a thick smell of money inside the gift box.

Bai Binglan gave Ding Congjun a slightly embarrassed look.

“Please take it, Doctor Ning,” Ding Congjun said. “This is what I asked Binglan to prepare for you. There is only 1,000,000. Or do you think it’s too little?”

“No, I don’t mean that,” Ning Tao explained. “I won’t take 10, let alone 1,000,000.”

If he took their money, Jiang Hao’s intention to return the favor wasn’t realized.

As Ding Congjun was about to say something more, Bai Binglan suddenly took the box back, nudged her husband and said, “Stop. Why didn’t you get this straight before you asked me to prepare the money? How can we talk about money to family? If we talk about money, it will spoil our feelings with Doctor Ning.”

Ding Congjun was stunned for a moment before he suddenly understood his wife’s meaning. He laughed, “Haha, looks like it’s really my fault that I didn’t get it right. You’re to blame as well, Jiang Hao. Why don’t you bring back your excellent boyfriend and introduce him to us?”

“I…” Jiang Hao blushed, but didn’t finish her explanation.

Ning Tao got embarrassed as well, but when he was about to explain, Fan Huaying walked in the door and directly said, “Doctor Ning, my friend is on her way to the airport. We can just have dinner together.”

Before Ning Tao could say anything, Ding Ye cried, “Huaying, where are you taking my distinguished guest? Don’t leave, both of you. Call your friends over and have dinner at our house today. Jiang Hao, Binglan, you two go cook.”

Jiang Hao and Bai Binglan agreed immediately.

Fan Huaying smiled and said, “Obedience is better than politeness. Then thank you for your hospitality.”

Then Jiang Hao and Bai Binglan went to the kitchen. Before long, the group of famous doctors, led by Yan Song, left. Ding Ye asked Ding Congjun to see off the guests, and he accompanied Ning Tao and Fan Huaying to have tea in the living room. After a short chat, he paused. Fan Huaying understood immediately and made a random excuse to leave the room.

After Fan Huaying left, Ding Ye said, “Ning Tao, it’s not that I didn’t want to answer the question you asked me in the room before, it’s that…”

Ning Tao didn’t push him, just looking at him quietly.

It took a few seconds for Ding Ye to continue, “It happened over 30 years ago. That year when we were at war with Yue Country, I was a scout, ordered to infiltrate into enemy territory to spy on them. One day, I lost my way in the forest and somehow found a cave. I remember it rained heavily and I was cold and hungry…”

Ning Tao was absorbed in the story and listened intently.

“I looked around the cave, expecting to find wild fruit or something. Finally, I saw a snake. It was wounded and covered in blood. I was so hungry that I wanted to eat it. I stabbed it with a dagger. As I thought it was dead and was about to grab it, it suddenly ran away, and my dagger was still in its body…” When Ding Ye said this, he went silent in a trance with vaguely confusion and fear in his eyes.

“What happened next?” Ning Tao asked eagerly.

Ding Ye didn’t answer directly, but got up and went to a solid wood partition in the living room. Then he took a cloth bag out of a drawer in the partition base, then went back to his seat and handed it to Ning Tao.

Ning Tao opened the cloth bag and a rusty dagger was immediately exposed. “This dagger… can’t be the one you stabbed the snake with?” he cried in surprise.

Ding Ye gave the nod and said, “Yes, that’s the dagger. It has my name on its hilt.”

Then Ning Tao picked up the dagger, looked at its wooden hilt, and really found that it was indeed engraved with Ding Ye. At once, he felt confused and curious. “And how did the dagger get back into your hands?”

After a moment’s silence, Ding Ye recalled, “I saw this cloth bag half a month ago when I came home from a walk. I opened it and found it was the dagger I had lost. I checked all the surveillance in the neighborhood but didn’t find the person who left his bag at my door. I have been ill since then. I can’t figure out what happened. I did not connect my illness with this dagger before until you asked me who I offended, or whether I have enemies, I just thought of it as if awakened from a dream… Do you think the snake has come to avenge me?”

Ning Tao was still immersed in Ding Ye’s bizarre story. A snake that was stabbed with a dagger decades ago came back for revenge. Should he believe it?

“Ning Tao?”

Ning Tao pulled himself together, wrapped up the dagger, and said, “Old Master, can you just leave this dagger with me? I want to take it back and study it. If that’s what made you sick, you’ll be safe after I take the dagger.”

“You can take it,” agreed Ding Ye. “I’m scared to see it now. Let me know if you find anything.”

Ning Tao nodded and put the dagger wrapped in cloth into his small medicine chest.