Chapter Twenty-Six: The Rebirth of a Severed Limb?

Looking at Catherine’s tearful face, Ling Mo’s smile was brilliantly bright. He walked up to her, reached out, and gently felt her arm. “Biceps tendon torn, minor forearm fracture, dislocated knuckles—your right hand is in even worse shape than your left. How does it feel now, does it hurt?”

“It’s not that—ouch, ouch, ouch!” Catherine had meant to say it didn’t hurt and act tough, but Ling Mo suddenly pressed harder. She screamed in agony as he squeezed the spot where her ring finger connected to her palm, a pain so intense she felt dizzy, and her forearm throbbed even more sharply. She immediately realized how foolish it was for a woman like herself to try and act tough, and quickly gave in, pleading, “Master, master, I was wrong! I really was! I promise it won’t happen again, alright?”

“I have to ask…” Ling Mo placed both hands on Catherine, setting her bones back with rough precision as he scolded, “Do you have some kind of misunderstanding about martial arts? Sure, martial artists recover quickly, but that’s only compared to ordinary people. If you suffer serious injuries—like losing an arm or a leg—even I’ll have a hard time dealing with it, you know?!”

After reprimanding her, Ling Mo quieted and focused on treating Catherine’s wounds. This time, her injuries were troublesome—muscle and bone damage that was fine and widespread, far more difficult to heal than before. But even that wasn’t the worst of it.

The greatest danger was the severe trauma to her internal organs. That desperate maneuver—gripping a spike in the ground to escape—had been incredible, demonstrating Catherine’s combat talent and uncanny reflexes. But the sudden shift from a falling motion to matching the spike’s speed was as damaging as slamming into a wall at high speed. Her lungs were now torn, on the verge of hemorrhage, and her heart was in critical condition, at risk of seizing at any moment.

Ling Mo squeezed her arm a few more times, puzzled when Catherine’s screams abruptly stopped. He looked up and saw her staring at him in utter shock, seemingly oblivious to what he was doing. When she noticed his gaze, she snapped back to herself, suddenly leaning in close, her voice urgent: “Master, did you just say that even injuries as serious as a lost limb are just a bit tricky for you to heal? You can make limbs grow back?!”

“It’s not that I personally can regenerate limbs—it’s a capability of martial arts. A high-level martial artist can regenerate any lost limb, as long as it’s not the head.”

“What the—!” Catherine was so astonished she blurted out a curse, then quickly clapped her hand over her mouth and looked anxiously at her left-eye display. On the DouSha streaming platform, blood and violence went unchecked, but foul language or spreading ‘wrong values’ could result in severe penalties if reported. But she needn’t have worried; no one in the chat cared about such trivialities. After a brief stunned silence, the screen exploded with comments, so many that her magical eye assistant was almost overwhelmed.

“Did I just hear what I think I heard?!”

“Someone’s actually claiming they can regenerate lost limbs?!”

“Modern magical medicine has been developing for over three hundred years and still hasn’t solved this problem. You really dare to brag like that? Aren’t you afraid the heavens will strike you down?!”

“Where did this fraud find such a shill? This stream is officially garbage!”

“I’m a medical student—I’m the first to call bullshit!!”

“Check my ID—I’ve been a surgeon for twenty years and never heard of limb regeneration!”

“Wasn’t there a surgery just last month where they barely managed to reattach a finger? That alone shocked the world and was called a miracle. Where does this nonsense about limb regeneration come from?!”

“Teacher Ling, you’ve really gone too far this time!”

“Is Teacher Ling becoming a con artist now?”

“Streamer, ask him clearly!”

“Teacher Ling, stop blowing smoke! Show us live if you can!”

“…”

A flood of comments swept through Catherine’s vision, all demanding that she question Ling Mo about his claim. Of course, Ling Mo, who shared her livestream’s perspective, saw it all as well. He pressed his forehead in exasperation. “Is your stream always this lively? So dense—I can barely read it all with my eyesight…”

“Don’t worry about that!” Catherine cut him off impatiently, pressing for confirmation. “Is limb regeneration really possible? Does one have to be a high-level martial artist to achieve it, or is it possible at lower levels?”

It was the first time Catherine had spoken so bluntly to Ling Mo. Seeing her face, filled with eagerness and disbelief tinged with hope, Ling Mo could tell how much this meant to her. He thought for a moment, then replied, “Once you reach the advanced level, regeneration is fairly easy. At the intermediate level, it’s quite difficult. For beginners—your current level—it’s extremely hard, but not impossible. Below beginner, there’s no hope at all.”

With a dull thud, Catherine collapsed to the ground, staring blankly into the distance as tears streamed down her face without warning, soon soaking her cheeks. Then, suddenly coming to herself, she shouted, “Xiaoya! You watching the stream? Go to Scarborough Market and wait for me! Right now!”

Ling Mo watched Catherine’s outburst in silence. When she calmed down a bit, he asked, “Xiaoya—is she someone important to you?”

“Yes, Master. I’m an orphan. If I died in the monster rainforest, she’d probably be the only one in the world to mourn me.” Catherine quickly regained her composure, struggling to lift her arm and wipe away her tears. “Xiaoya has been disabled for ten years. In the early years, every bit I earned from streaming went to hospitals, but there was never any hope. We both gave up. I never thought I’d hear about limb regeneration from you. No matter what, I have to try. Could you teach her martial arts?”

“No.” Ling Mo’s answer was firm and his expression grave. Catherine froze, at a loss for what to do. Threaten him? The man before her was like a human-shaped beast, capable of scaring off a level-five monster without lifting a finger. Beg? When she was on the brink of death, he still left without hesitation. After a long silence, her voice came out strained, “I remember you once said martial arts don’t keep any secrets, that anyone can learn. Why the sudden change?”

“Anyone can learn, but I never said I’d be the one to teach,” Ling Mo said, breaking into a grin as he saw the despair on her face. He patted her head. “I just said I wouldn’t teach her—but you can. Teach her everything you know. I won’t mind.”

Catherine realized she’d been played. She stared at Ling Mo in disbelief, stammering, “You—you were joking with me just now?!”

“Of course,” Ling Mo replied mischievously. “You dared interrupt your master—consider it a lesson you won’t forget. Work hard with me, improve your martial arts, and whether or not Xiaoya can be healed depends on you.”

With that, Ling Mo withdrew his hands from Catherine’s arms, looked her over, nodded in satisfaction, and said, “I’ve treated most of your external wounds, but the internal injuries are troublesome. Can you feel what’s happening in your chest?”

Catherine answered honestly, “My ears are ringing and feel blocked, there’s a strong taste of blood when I breathe, my heart is racing but each beat feels weak. Earlier, the numbness was faint, but now it’s a deep, prickling itch running from my throat all the way down… It’s really awful.”

“Heh, of course it’s awful. You forced yourself to keep going and now your lungs are hemorrhaging, your cardiovascular system is bleeding. If you were an ordinary person, you’d be dead by now,” Ling Mo said coldly. “The medicine you need is far from here. It’ll take me a while to fetch it. Didn’t you just say you’d accept any punishment? Well, your punishment is—stay put until I return.”

“Huh?” Catherine waited tensely for his sentence, surprised when it was so light. “That’s it? That’s supposed to be a punishment? Master, you don’t have to go easy on—what are you doing?!”

Ling Mo, with his back to her, casually flicked aside his animal skin and began urinating against a tree, completely unfazed by Catherine’s shock and embarrassment, or by the fact that tens of thousands of viewers were watching. When he finished, he turned around calmly and pointed at the tree. “That’s your punishment. Don’t go more than twenty meters from this tree. I’m leaving now.”

With a few leaps, he vanished into the depths of the rainforest. Catherine stared at the obvious yellow stain, then slowly walked over to it. Seeing the barrage of questions in the chat about whether limb regeneration was real, she thought for a moment and said, “I can’t say for sure if limb regeneration is possible, but all of you have seen how badly I’ve been injured these past couple of days. Injuries like these would take an ordinary person—or even a magic master—months to heal, if ever. The miraculous recovery speed of martial arts is real. Because of that, I’m willing to try, even if it’s only a sliver of false hope.”