The Mission Hall was understanding, once they understood that Tian wasn’t trying to get out of doing missions generally, just ones with a particular senior brother. Naturally, the Mission Hall couldn’t keep track of all the endless friendships and rivalries between the Outer Court members, but keeping track of one of a very few medics was manageable. Large scale missions, absent one unremarkable level nine? Entirely doable.

It wasn’t Senior Brother Zhang. The walking wounded had finally been worked into the rotation. The Senior Sister at the desk didn’t bat her remaining eye as she swept the spirit stones and the wine into her storage ring.

The hospital hadn’t changed. The people moved in and out, everyone hurting, everyone in a rush. Tian understood the angry people at the door a little better now, but he didn’t change his usual practice. The hospital rules were the hospital rules. Don’t like ‘em? Tell someone who can change ‘em. In the meantime, kindly let the doctors save your brothers and sisters’ lives. And kindly stay out of the orderly’s way when he’s hauling another corpse to the furnace.

Now that he was actually allowed to rest, he found the time to start reading the manuals they had shoved into his hands. One was a treatise on identifying various conditions, and how to perform first aid. He could tell it was made for people like him. The title was Common Battlefield Wounds and How to Treat Them. Given that these were wounds suffered by orthodox cultivators battling heretics, the book was four inches thick and had different sections color coded for ease of navigation.

The other book was much thinner- Common Medicinal Resources and Hazards of the Redstone Wastes. Tian was a bit curious about that one, since he had worked under Senior Brother Wong as an herb boy. Surprisingly, the Redstone Wastes did have a few medicinal plants, if you considered lichen as a plant. But what it was mostly about was insects and minerals. He was startled to see in writing what Grandpa had told him years ago in the junkyard- some things are toxic in any quantity, but for many other things, it was a question of dosage and appropriateness.

It was fascinating. Tian had always viewed books as a painful necessity forced on him by Senior Brother Fu, but these two books turned reading into a sort of puzzle. It was like the games he played with Grandpa- why does water evaporate faster in the sun? Why do some pots absorb water but not others? What foods go together with the help of Gourmet? Now he was in the wasteland, asking what insects and lichen can be crushed together to fix an ailment.

He dug out the books on herbalism he got from Brother Wong and spread them out in the break room of the hospital. He quickly assembled a nest of books, trying to solve the mysteries of “A punctured lung from a blade coated with an anti-coagulation poison.” Not to be confused with a blade coated with a hemotoxin, or a blade cursed to bleed without clotting. Those had to be treated entirely differently.

This was how Brother Wong found him hours later. Brother Wong quickly retreated from the blizzard of questions, but others, doctors made of sterner stuff and with more than six hours sleep in the previous seventy two hours, dropped by and would occasionally answer a question. After a few days of Tian camping in the break room with his books, a parlor game developed.

“Junior Tian, you are on a battlefield south of Three Fangs Peak and are retreating after a battle with demon summoners. One of your squad has a wound to his leg that appears to be rotting, but the rot is blue and smells faintly of cardamom. What is your diagnosis, and how do you treat it?”

Tian frowned, then dug into his books. After a while, he looked up again. “Martial Uncle, I don’t know what Cardamom is, or what it smells like.”

“Check your herbalism manual, it’s under Aromatic Seeds, Fire/Wood. Here, sniff this.” The doctor handed over a small black nut. Tian gave it a careful smell, bowed, and returned the nut to the doctor before diving back into his books. Apparently, it only looked like a nut. It was a seed pod. Another mystery. Tian traced the words with a finger, making sure he didn’t lose his place as he jumped from book to book.

The doctor, for his part, remained sprawled in a chair with a cold compress over his eyes. The doctors had quickly figured out what Tian’s senior brothers knew by his second day in the Temple- if you want the boy silent, give him a problem to solve. He would fixate on it until he worked it out.

Under other circumstances, the doctors would have resented having to teach a junior. They certainly would have charged a fortune for it. Completely by accident, Tian found a way around all that. The doctors knew Tian’s work ethic in the hospital. With a little guidance, he could take that work ethic to the field, thereby reducing the doctor’s workload. Besides, it was fun to set puzzles for him, if only to see his serious face as he pawed through the books. It wasn’t really teaching. It was a game for when they were taking a break.

Tian entirely failed to connect the dots between this and how Grandpa Jun taught him his characters and numbers in the junkyard. They were all just games. Did they need so much thinking over?

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It was a fairly stable life- orderly work, studying, martial arts practice, then doing the rounds and dropping in on his various seniors for tea and snacks. He found that he had to set a schedule, or he would forget people. He kept it up, despite the inconvenience and drain on his tea supply. It was yet another thing his senior brothers had been right about- knowing the right people could save your life.

Tian made it almost another month and a half before another brother from West Town was brought in to the hospital. It was Brother Meng. He was a boxer, and a joker, and if he liked to make jokes that the other senior brothers felt were inappropriate for a thirteen year old boy’s ears, Tian had never minded. He sort of liked the way Brother Meng assumed he was old enough to hear them.

His patrol found him standing over five dead heretics and seven dead demons, but the demons had left long, red spines in him before the end. He had been scouting ahead; it would have been a nasty ambush if he didn’t get the jump on them. A heroic act, worthy of the man who held Cloud Rage Pass for three days and nights until the reinforcements arrived, saving many mortal villagers from the Black Mountain Bandits. The demons didn’t care about his chivalry, or his valor, or his humor, or his kindness. They just killed. It was what they were for.

The doctors worked on him for three hours, but it wasn’t enough. He fought like hell right to the very end, but it wasn’t enough. Whatever was on those spines was venomous and cursed and diseased, and too many of them had struck veins or landed in organs. Everyone did their very best, but they just weren't enough.

Tian asked to be the one to carry Brother Meng to the furnace. It was all Tian could do for him. He never took his eyes off Brother Meng as he slipped down the chute. Tian wanted to make sure he never forgot the Meng he knew in the Temple, and the Meng who died.

Brother Wong sat with him for a long while, and said some words. Maybe they were the right words, or good ones, but Tian didn’t hear them. Brother Su was on a mission. So was Brother Fu. He was sure Senior Brother Fu would know what to say. Brother Fu could explain how to deal with these things happening in his chest and wrapping around his heart and his throat. He could explain why he felt like he couldn’t speak and needed to scream and fight something and above all make it so the bad thing didn’t happen.

Grandpa Jun kept his arms wrapped around Tian and held on as best a ghost could.

The next day, Tian signed up for a long patrol mission. He double checked that Sima wasn’t on it, confirmed it had more than twenty people going, and then notified the hospital. Everyone, but everyone, clamored that this was the single stupidest thing he could possibly do. He went anyway. He was due to go on a combat patrol. He had studied hard. And he really, really, really needed to kill. Heretics, for choice, the animals of the wastes if necessary. Something to let him release the boiling kettle of emotions in him.

Two days later, he assembled with the patrol squad at the Depot gate. He was quietly surprised to see Hong Liren, as well as one of the Senior sisters from the West Town Convent.

“Bobber?”

“Not quite. This time I’m here to record contributions. Our rings pick up a lot, but they can’t capture attitude, diligence and initiative.” She sounded like she was reciting things again. Tian assumed she had been instructed on this by a senior. “My role is only to record merits, not demerits, though of course I must not forget my position as a member of the Disciplinary Squad and enforce Sect Law.”

“Which is why this senior sister is with us?”

“One of the reasons.” She nodded. “Did you get better tea?”

“Yes, but I am still figuring out how to brew it.”

“It’s tea. How hard can it be?”

“Hard.”

She gave him a look. He looked back at her. He was just looking, but something shifted in Hong’s face.

“I heard you lost a brother you were close to. I’m… sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. Brother Meng was a good brother.” Tian didn’t know what else to say.

“Is it true that you are on the verge of forming a heart demon, and that’s why they are letting you go on the mission?”

“Eh?” That caused Tian to give her an entirely different look. “What’s a heart demon?”

“When a cultivator’s mind and will become deranged. Sometimes it’s obsession, or mood swings or-”

“Kicked in the head. It’s a fancy way of saying I have been kicked in the head. I don’t think so. But then,” Tian sighed and looked out the gate. “Brother Su did say we are the crazy ones. Maybe I’m just talented, and am getting there ahead of my cultivation.”

“It’s more than just being kicked in the head, Stupid Tian.” Hong muttered, as an Inner Sect disciple flew in on a sword.

“Greetings. I am Surnamed Ku. You may refer to me as Martial Uncle Ku or Senior Ku. I will be leading this expedition into the southeast region. We have reason to believe that smugglers trading with Black Iron Gorge will be passing through the operational area. Your job will be to set an ambush, destroy the caravan, and exterminate any heretics traveling with them. I will be there to support you if a Heavenly Person Cultivator is present or some other calamity emerges. As for the rest, I leave it to you to manage. It will be a small blow, but every caravan they lose weakens the Black Iron Gorge. So come. Let us do our parts to kill these vile heretics!”

The Outer Court disciples bowed and murmured their thanks and appreciation. Everyone knew it was nonsense. The Senior was coming because there would be very little danger for him and while there wouldn’t be any interesting treasures, money was money. These smuggler caravans were loaded with easily sellable goods. As an Inner Sect disciple, he would be entitled to a third of it simply by being in attendance. If he made a move, that percentage would increase. All utterly above board. Easy money.

For him.

Tian understood the situation perfectly after his talks with Quartermaster Wu. He understood the situation when he took the mission. Maybe he was kicked in the head, but his heart felt like it did when the big necromancer raid breached the walls of the Depot. He didn’t care if the Martial Uncle took every splinter from every wagon in the convoy. He just wanted every damn heretic dead!