The Card Apprentice

The next day, Chen Mu got a call from Sue Lochiro. She wanted him to come to the Medical Card Artisan Association. Could there have been some result? Chen Mu immediately rushed over.

Unexpectedly, Sue Lochiro wasn’t the only one waiting for him. To Chen Mu’s astonishment, the old man he’d seen at the banquet was there.

Sue Lochiro introduced him. “Mr. Cao, this is my teacher, Kong Youde. You may call him Elder Kong.”

“How are you, Elder Kong?” Chen Mu asked earnestly.

Elder Kong laughed. “Well, how about I call you Little Cao? For a young person to be neither anxious nor hot-tempered is quite good.” The old man had a look of praise in his eyes.

Chen Mu said modestly, “You flatter me.”

“Mmmm, your situation is quite special. It’s my first time to encounter such a situation. Sue and I did some research, and the problem is quite a bit more troublesome than I’d imagined.” The old man’s brow creased in a look of consternation.

Chen Mu turned his gaze toward Sue Lochiro.

She explained, “It’s been a while since Teacher has paid any medical calls himself. However, I’m stumped myself this time, so I begged Teacher to rescue me. It now looks like the issue is pretty tricky. But, don’t worry; the association will find a way.” Afraid Chen Mu had taken a blow, she rushed to comfort him.

Chen Mu’s heart dropped. Although he’d mentally prepared ahead of time, to hear Sue Lochiro with his own ears say there was nothing they could do disappointed him. He didn’t know what to do after even Sue Lochiro’s teacher said there was nothing he could do.

Noticing the look of disappointment in Chen Mu’s eyes, Elder Kong smiled. “Don’t be discouraged. I’ve run across quite a few difficult odd diseases in my life, some of which I’d never heard of, and it was common to feel helpless at the outset. But, in the end, most of them were conquered. If you have confidence and work along with us, that would make a good result more likely!”

“Mmmm.” Chen Mu nodded heavily.

Seeing that, Elder Kong was rather satisfied and continued. “I’ve already looked at the data from when Sue examined you last time, but it’s still insufficient. I need more detailed information regarding your body. You’ll need to do a few more detailed exams in hopes of a breakthrough.”

Elder Kong’s expression was serious, and Sue Lochiro couldn’t help but flash a look of concern either. It was obvious she wasn’t optimistic.

Of course, Chen Mu wasn’t going to refuse Elder Kong’s request. When he saw that more than ten medical card artisans had been in the examination room for a while, he was stunned. But, he diligently did each exam. There were so many different exams they tired him out, even given his physical strength.

After a full three hours, the exams were all finished.

Elder Kong and Sue Lochiro had all the data they’d just gotten, though they both had serious expressions. That caused a bad feeling to arise in Chen Mu. Seeing Chen Mu walk away, Elder Kong sighed lightly and turned to leave.

“Don’t worry. Go back, and we’ll do our best. If we make any progress, I’ll call you first thing,” Sue Lochiro said mildly to comfort him. Chen Mu forced a smile. “No problem.” Sue Lochiro using the words “do our best” had immediately caused him to realize his situation.

He wasn’t so good at hiding his feelings, and Sue Lochiro had seen a lot and could tell at a glance. She was about to give some words of comfort, but she didn’t know what to say. Out of nowhere, her heart turned sour, and a few tears dropped from her eyes.

The other card artisans’ gazes toward Chen Mu were a little more direct, as though they were looking at a dead man.

Afterward, Chen Mu didn’t quite remember how he had left the Medical Card Artisan Association. He was already on the street before he reacted.

Staring at all the people coming and going and looking into the sky where shuttle cars and card artisans were whizzing by, and then looking at the tall buildings, Chen Mu felt empty. He didn’t have anything, and a formless feeling filled his heart.

But, he wasn’t all that sad, although it was bad news for him. Perhaps it was his mental preparation ahead of time, but Chen Mu found he felt neither very sad nor terrified.

Being only 18, he had already seen too many deaths. He realized there were still a lot of things he had to do.

The card play “The Legend of Master Shi” was still unfinished. He didn’t know where Copper was now, and Chen Mu had a powerful urge to finish it. There were still too many mysteries he hadn’t penetrated inside the mysterious card, and he still hadn’t figured out where it came from. There was still no sign of Wei-ah’s memory coming back, and then there were the children in the underground city.

Chen Mu suddenly couldn’t help but laugh. He was so concerned with Wei-ah’s memory. When he thought about it, however, there was nothing he could do about it.

He raised his head to look at the sky. The blue, as though the air were cleansed, abruptly brightened his gloomy mood. In any case, he wasn’t going to die in the next little while, so why not take the time to take care of his concerns and the things on his mind?

That way, even if he were really to die, he would have fewer regrets.

Chen Mu’s vision was gradually clearing up.

None of the card artisans flying by in the sky, nor any of the hurried people walking past, had any idea there was a youth among them who had just completed an important transformation in his life!

Just then, the apparatus on his wrist sounded.

“Do you have time today, young brother Cao? Why don’t you come over to your big brother’s place to look around?” Yang An’s enthusiastic voice came through the apparatus.

Chen Mu understood why his counterpart was so anxious. On the one hand, he wanted to see his ability to be sure the cooperation would be valuable. If it truly had value, then the fatty would naturally hope to be able to sign the contract soon.

“I’ll be right over,” Chen Mu said readily. He flew right up into the sky toward the fatty’s auction house.

His own time was very tight. He had a lot of things to finish!

Chen Mu’s steadfast belief flashed past his eyes like a shooting star piercing the sky.

The fatty’s auction house was a lot bigger than Chen Mu had imagined. It completely destroyed his previous impression of auction houses. It was a group of buildings that were all five stories, crisscrossed by streets that were open in all directions with people shuttling everywhere. The bustle wasn’t any less than that of Pomelo’s most flourishing commercial street.

The fatty was waiting at the main entrance in person, which doubtlessly attracted a lot of attention. Passersby would all glance and guess to themselves about what kind of VIP would cause the big boss, Yang An, to receive him personally. The big boss was seldom personally involved in the operations by that time. The ones holding the power were all managers. Those with sharp eyes immediately discovered the middle-aged man standing to the side of the big boss, respectfully clasping his hands. He must have been one of the four principal managers, Xi Ping.

Just as the crowd was wagging their tongues, a sallow-faced youth dropped from the sky.

“I have kept my big brother waiting!” Chen Mu saluted.

“Ha ha, I’ve only just gotten here.” Yang An was pleased to see Chen Mu and gave him an introduction. “This is my assistant, Xi Ping. If you need anything, contact him directly, or come to find me just the same.”

Chen Mu saluted. “Good day, Manager Xi.”

Xi Ping rushed to return the courtesy. “Mr. Cao is too polite!” There was also someone next to the fatty dressed in a battle uniform—a cold-faced beauty, whom the fatty didn’t introduce and Chen Mu didn’t ask about.

“Let’s go. I’ll give you a tour of your older brother’s life’s work.” Fatty Yang was full of pride as he pulled Chen Mu inside.

“Big Boss!”

“Big Boss!”

Along the way, people would respectfully salute the fatty incessantly, and he would reciprocate in a way to correct the laziness he’d shown Cleo at the banquet.

“Big brother is awesome!” Chen Mu praised. He was speaking from his heart. The bustle in front of him was started by the fatty single-handedly. He was the king of the place!

“Well, I haven’t wasted my life so far, ha ha.” There was both feeling and pride in what the fatty said, and Xi Ping also showed some pride.

“But, we also know our limitations. Don’t look at how many people we have or how big it is. What we move is mostly low-end stuff. Compared with the really big guys in the federation—places like the Gewei Auction House or the Rainbow Eyes Auction House—we fall far short. Any two or three items from them would compare with an entire year’s quota here.” The fatty was being a little self-deprecating.

Chen Mu looked dazed. He had never heard of any Gewei or Rainbow Eyes. He knew pitifully little about the auction house industry.

Noticing Chen Mu’s expression, the fatty laughed. “Let’s talk about something else. Come, I’ll take you to see the materials.”

There was an underground warehouse. While it wasn’t large, it was piled full of all sorts of materials.

Chen Mu’s eyes were fixed.

“Not bad, right?” The fatty’s pride couldn’t be hidden on his chubby face.

“Nice, really nice!” Chen Mu murmured as he looked at the materials in a daze.

It wasn’t that Chen Mu hadn’t seen things, but those mountainous piles of materials in front of him had put him into a temporary daze.

He walked over to some random pile of materials. It was cat’s eye sandalwood. That was used in making three- and four-star cards and was a rather expensive material. Cat’s eye sandalwood was a fruit from a kind of fragrant yellow sandalwood tree. Each of the fruits shone like jade and would look like glowing cat’s eyes under the sunlight. Each one of the cat’s eye sandalwood in front of him was about as large as a thumb. From the size of a mung bean to the size of a thumb, it took them about ten years to grow.

Such a cat’s eye sandalwood would cost about 500,000 Oudi in a materials shop, which could be considered very expensive. No ordinary materials shop would ever have ten-year cat’s eye sandalwood on sale. You would have to go to a large outfit to buy it. There looked to be a few hundred in the pile of cat’s eye sandalwood in front of his eyes. It was hardly strange for the fatty to have cat’s eye sandalwood on hand, but to have such high-quality cat’s eye sandalwood by the hundreds was still shocking.

“Take a look at this!” The fatty ran with his buttocks pumping over to an ice box about half as tall as a person and gestured for Chen Mu to come over.

The fatty lightly pressed a button. With a light noise, the ice box automatically opened, and a cold mist spread out from it. Chen Mu felt a chill air flowing over his face. When his gaze fell onto what was inside the mist-filled ice box, he couldn’t help but call out, “Liquid snow iron!”

In the dense, cold mist were laying a few irregular, fist-sized black pieces of ore that had shards of ice on them. That was the famous liquid snow iron!

If the cat’s eye sandalwood couldn’t be bought on the market, the liquid snow iron in front of him was among the most truly rare materials. Liquid snow iron could only be produced in extremely cold places in very sparse numbers. That sort of ore was rather special. It had to be maintained at temperatures under 30 below, above which it would melt into a silvery black, like liquid iron.

The kind of liquid had a complicated composition; up until then, there hadn’t been anyone who could determine it. Once the liquid flowed out from the liquid snow iron, there was no way to preserve it. It would become useless within three hours when it would turn into ordinary iron and lose its value.

He wouldn’t have imagined the fatty would actually have liquid snow iron on his hands, and not only one piece! Chen Mu had never seen the real thing but had been able to recognize it thanks to his prodigious memory.

The fatty was quite pleased by Chen Mu’s expression. It would be appropriate to show one’s strength to someone who might become your ally in order to promote the two sides’ cooperation.

“Is my young brother satisfied with this batch of materials?” the fatty said with a laugh.

“Quite satisfied!” Chen Mu’s face was reddened with excitement. For a card master born among the grass roots like him, how could he not be excited to suddenly see such a large pile of precious materials?

“So, could my young brother give us a demonstration?” As always, the fatty was smiling.

Xi Ping’s gaze fell onto Chen Mu, knowing the moment of truth had arrived. In fact, he was rather indifferent toward that card master who had popped up so suddenly. Xi Ping had grown up in Pomelo, and whatever card master had any power there, or whoever was an imposter, was something he was very clear about. It didn’t mean much that he was the boss of Heaven’s Wings. Heaven’s Wings didn’t do anything more than make fantasy card advertisements. As everyone knew, fantasy card advertising was all one- or two-star cards; no matter how awesome he was, he was still just an outstanding low-grade card master.

Heaven’s Wings’ takeoff only demonstrated what an outstanding manager he was; it couldn’t show he was an outstanding high-grade card master.

If the boss hadn’t made the proposal himself, and even though everyone had a lot of confidence in the big boss’s judgement about people, the proposal wouldn’t have had any way to get through. Xi Ping was pretty concerned about that batch of materials, which was so hard to get and had cost a lot of money. If it were wasted, then the auction house would suffer rather heavy losses.

“Ok!” Chen Mu responded readily with a flame of excitement dancing in his eyes.

Xi Ping had the illusion that the youth in front of him had suddenly become a ravenous wolf, staring with longing at a fat flock of sheep with a vaguely green-tinged gaze.