A master of both medicine and martial arts, he picked up a beautiful CEO as his wife.

On the third day after returning from Luoxia, Ye Feng went up the mountain.

It wasn't his idea to go; Han Jiuhe made him. The old man said on the phone, "You're carrying that well all over the world on your back, do you think it's luggage?"

It snowed the day we went up the mountain. It was the first snowfall of the year, and it wasn't heavy; the snow melted into water droplets on the ropes of the boardwalk.

Ye Feng walked up on his own. It took him more than two hours to walk the eight-mile mountain road—half a year ago, it only took him an hour.

Reaching the mountain gate, he leaned against a stone pillar for a while. Lin Yuqing followed three steps behind him.

She didn't say a word the whole way. She walked slower than him, and her face was paler than his, but she never stopped.

Charcoal braziers were lit in the Zangmai Hall.

The master sat on a rattan chair, Cen Heming was beside him, and Han Jiuhe squatted in front of the charcoal brazier, roasting his hands while watching Ye Feng.

"Reach out your hand."

Ye Feng stretched out his left hand.

Han Jiuhe didn't take Ye Feng's pulse. He turned Ye Feng's hand over and looked at his palm, his fingernails, and the skin on the inside of his wrist.

He lowered his hand after looking at it. "It's dark."

"Where is it dark?"

"See for yourself."

Ye Feng turned his hand over.

The area on my palm was a shade darker than the surrounding skin. It wasn't dirty, but rather a color that shone through from beneath the skin, like a long-standing bruise.

"The well was dug five days ago," Han Jiuhe said. "In five days, it's grown this far."

He extended a finger and pointed three inches up Ye Feng's wrist.

"We'll be here in another two weeks."

"And then what?"

"Once you get here, you won't be carrying it on your back anymore," the old man said. "You'll be growing up."

The hall was quiet for a while. "Feng'er," the master spoke.

"master."

Do you remember what I said to you last year by the Dongyang River?

Ye Feng remembers.

That was the day he came up from that underground channel at the bottom of the river. He was soaking wet and sitting on the embankment. His master, leaning on his cane, stood beside him and said three sentences.

"This place in Dongyang is newly opened; it's floating on top, but I can keep it under control."

"That part of your body, you brought it in yourself."

"What is brought in can only be taken away by the person who brought it in."

"You'll have to find a place to return it yourself."

"I didn't understand back then," Ye Feng said.

"Now you understand."

"Understood."

The old man moved closer to the charcoal brazier. "You were lucky last time."

"How so?"

"That spot at the snow line weighed you down for more than half a year, reducing your debt from twelve to three," the master said. "You didn't pay that debt—it was paid for you the day the nails were put back in place."

"It originally leaked out of that well, and when the nail went back in, it went back in as well."

"You didn't do anything, and the accounts were even."

The old man looked up. "This time is different."

"The well at Luoxia didn't leak from our well."

"Someone scooped it out and buried it there."

"It has long been disconnected from the well on Nirvana Mountain."

"It only recognizes one place now—"

The old man pointed at Ye Feng with his finger. "You."

The fire in the charcoal brazier flickered. "Can't we just go back?" Shen Yu asked from the doorway. "Our well is sealed off; can't we just pour the water back into it?"

"How do we pour it?" Han Jiuhe asked.

"Make a hole."

"Where should we chisel?"

"The hole where the nail was—"

"That hole is sealed," the old man said. "Why don't you pull that nail out to empty the stuff?"

Shen Yu was speechless. "The second way," Han Jiuhe said, holding up a second finger, "find a secluded spot and disperse."

"Barren mountains, Gobi desert, and the sea."

"Anyway, there's nobody here."

Ye Feng shook his head. "No."

"Why not?"

"When that well in Luoxia County was buried nine years ago, there was no one there," Ye Feng said.

"The square was built later, and the buildings were constructed later."

"Thirty thousand people have grown in nine years."

"I am scattered in the Gobi Desert today, but in twenty years a road will be built there, and in fifty years there will be a town."

No one in the hall responded. "The third way," Han Jiuhe said, extending his third finger.

"You'll have to bear it yourself."

"How long will you hold out?"

"Carry it until you can't carry it anymore."

The old man withdrew his three fingers. "The thirty-two wells are still buried."

"You start one bite at a time."

"You can figure out which bite you should take before you collapse."

Ye Feng sat there without saying a word. He placed his left hand on his knee, looking at the black patch on his palm.

"I got up for five days."

"Um."

"Those 30,000 people in Luoxia should be starting to get better now."

"should."

"Of those eighty-seven critically ill patients, sixty or seventy can be saved."

"almost."

Ye Feng closed his hands. "Then this bite was worth it."

"It's worth it," Han Jiuhe said.

"But you only have one life."

"Thirty-two wells, you're trading your life for thirty-two counties, it's a good deal on paper."

The old man looked at him. "But what about the thirty-third well after you've replaced it?"

"And the thirty-fourth one?"

"If you run out of options in the end, who will take over?"

After those words were spoken, the hall remained silent for a long time. It was Lin Yuqing who spoke next.

She has been standing next to her master's rattan chair the whole time, without sitting down since entering the hall.

"Ninth Master".

"Girl."

"What you just said was all about 'him'."

Han Jiuhe was stunned for a moment. "He dug up the well, he carried it on his back, but he couldn't lift it anymore, he's gone."

Lin Yuqing took a step forward. "It wasn't him."

"That well of stuff was dug out from under the two of us."

"When his hands were three inches black, mine were also one layer less."

"If he falls down—"

She paused for a moment. "I can't stand up either."

Everyone in the hall was looking at her. Ye Feng turned his head away.

"Yuqing".

"Stop talking about 'me' all the time," she said.

"That's ours."

Qi Zhao arrived in the evening.

The old man came from Tingxue Town, having walked eight miles of mountain road. When he entered the temple, he was covered in a layer of snow. He stood at the door and brushed the snow off before coming in.

"I heard it from Shen Yu."

"Senior Qi."

"Show me your hand."

Ye Feng reached out his hand. Qi Zhao didn't touch it, he just glanced at it.

"We encountered something similar three hundred years ago."

Everyone in the hall turned their heads. "It wasn't a well," the old man said. "There were no wells back then."

"One year, there was a plague in the foot of the mountain. In one village of more than forty households, people were so feverish that they couldn't get out of bed."

"My colleague went down to check and said it wasn't an illness, but something at the bottom of that old pond."

"She removed that thing."

Qi Zhao took two steps toward the charcoal brazier. "She carried it on her back after I finished."

"How long did you carry it?"

"I carried it for more than two months."

"And then what?"

"Later, she couldn't take it anymore."

The old man squatted down and put his hands over the charcoal brazier to warm them.

"That's what she did back then."

"She gathered all the people from that generation on the mountain. There were nineteen people in her generation."

Nineteen people sat in a circle, and she sat in the middle.

"Everyone gets a little."

The flames in the hall flickered. "Divide it?" Shen Yu said. "Wouldn't that harm people?"

"It's harmful for one person to carry a well on their back," Qi Zhao said.

"What does it mean when nineteen people carry one well on their backs?"

He withdrew his hand from the charcoal brazier. "One small bite each."

"It can be dissolved."