However, if Otis happened to come across an ordinary person having a medical emergency on the road, and if he was in a good mood, he wouldn’t mind using his skills to save them.
“Benefactor! I never thought, after thirty years, I’d actually get to see you again!” Dawson Head was so emotional that tears streamed down his wrinkled face. His hands, gripping the head cane, were trembling.
The younger members of the Dawson Family might not understand how formidable this old man was, but Dawson Head had lived through that era. He knew firsthand just how incredibly skilled this man’s medicine was. Saying he could snatch patients back from death’s door wasn’t an exaggeration.
All the younger family members, called over by the Dawson Head, hadn’t experienced that time and didn’t know Otis’s reputation.
But seeing their own revered Dawson Head being so respectful to this white-haired old man, even giving up the main seat and standing beside him like an attendant, they didn’t dare make a sound. They stood quietly.
His son, daughter-in-law, and daughter, in particular, were silent but also very surprised. So, Dad wasn’t lying after all. Eric Vaughn really does have masters backing him.
They just wondered if this man’s medical skills were truly as magical as the Dawson Head claimed.
They’d certainly never heard of any “Medicine King.”
If this old man’s skills are really that amazing, able to bring the dead back to life and maybe even cause death, then maybe not canceling the engagement is an option…
The current head of the Dawson Family, Dawson Head’s son and Clara Dawson’s father, kept his head down, his eyes darting around thoughtfully.
Dad hasn’t been tricked, has he? Is this old guy really a doctor? But even a miracle doctor couldn’t cure his student’s mental problems! I don’t care if he’s a god of medicine; my daughter absolutely cannot marry a psycho who… well, who has those kinds of public accidents! Clara Dawson’s mother inwardly scoffed, pursing her lips in distaste.
So that lunatic actually has real backing… No, no, I have to tell Alex about this immediately. He needs to be prepared… Ashley Dawson’s eyes flickered. She was already planning to contact Alex and give him a heads-up as soon as this meeting was over.
Putting down his teacup, the white-haired Otis looked towards Dawson Head standing to his left.
His tone was neutral, impossible to read.
“After Eric came down the mountain, he should have come to your Dawson Family to fulfill the marriage agreement as planned. Why isn’t he here?”
“I don’t know either!” Speaking of this, Dawson Head felt incredibly wronged. “Benefactor, I swear, I haven’t even seen a shadow of Eric Vaughn this whole time!”
“Hmm?”
Dawson Head quickly explained everything he knew about Eric Vaughn’s activities since coming down the mountain.
After finishing, he added, trying to show his efforts, “Eric Vaughn got locked up by the police twice! Both times, it was my Dawson Family who bailed him out. The second time, I even had to risk offending the wade family in the City just to get Eric out of detention!”
“Locked up twice?” Otis frowned slightly.
“Yes,” Dawson Head confirmed, sounding baffled himself. Who gets arrested twice in just a few days, and potentially linked to murder cases both times?
After bailing Eric Vaughn out the second time, Dawson Head had even secretly assigned people to follow Eric, asking them to record everything he did.
Honestly, at first, he hadn’t believed Eric could be such a screw-up. This was supposed to be the student of a miracle doctor! How could he be so utterly disappointing?
There must be some hidden reason for all this, he’d thought.
But as the reports kept coming in from the people tailing Eric, Dawson Head’s hopes completely died.
Eric wasn’t just a screw-up; he was a completely shameless, bottom-feeding degenerate. A total pervert.
The incident where he… soiled himself in public right at a university entrance? Fine, Dawson Head could maybe chalk that up to some kind of mental issue. He wouldn’t judge that part.
But shamelessly chasing after another woman like a desperate dog? That, Dawson Head could not tolerate.
What, is my granddaughter not good enough for you?!
Instead of coming to City to fulfill the marriage agreement with his granddaughter, he ran off to another city to grovel after some woman who clearly wanted nothing to do with him.
Pah! Despicable!
The final nail in the coffin for Dawson Head was the news from the hospital. Apparently, Eric had snuck into someone’s hospital room to peep on a girl.
When he was discovered and tried to escape, he had an accident. The result? He completely lost his ability to have children.
His ‘dick was permanently out of commission, never to see the light of day again.
Unbelievable! The student of a miracle doctor managed to destroy his own manhood! Is this something a normal person does?
At that point, Dawson Head finally saw the light.
Just because someone is a miracle doctor’s student doesn’t mean they are a miracle doctor. Just like a rich man’s son isn’t guaranteed to have business talent, he could very well be a complete failure.
If it weren’t for Otis’s reputation, Dawson Head wouldn’t even spare a glance for a wreck like Eric, who had problems both mentally and physically.
After hearing Dawson Head recount everything Eric had been through since leaving the mountain, Otis frowned slightly again. “It sounds like this Alex person is behind all this trouble. But Eric has no history or grudge with him. Why would this person deliberately target Eric?”
“Has he truly convinced himself that the House of the Medicine King stands alone, with no one left to protect its name? That we’re so easily trampled?”
“Benefactor, from what I understand, the conflict between Eric and Alex started because Eric took an interest in Alex’s woman. And then he began a rather… intense… pursuit.” Dawson Head chose his words carefully, trying to spare his guest’s feelings.
What ‘appropriate pursuit’? The truth is he was groveling like a dog! And the girl ignored him completely! Just a pathetic simp.
Pah!
“Ah, then that makes sense,” Otis said with a small, understanding smile.
Any normal man cooped up on a mountain for twenty years would naturally feel something upon seeing a beautiful woman.
‘Fair maiden, sought by noble man,’ as the saying goes!
It was perfectly normal.
He was just pursuing her, not forcing himself on her. It wasn’t that big a deal.
However, you shouldn’t have retaliated so harshly, Alex. He’s just some rich kid. A spoiled brat managed to run the heir of our Medicine King in circles… Otis couldn’t help but shake his head and sigh.
“This disciple of mine… his character and his cunning still need a lot of work!”
‘Indeed, it was right to send him into the world to gain experience. A man’s character isn’t shaped in comfort—just as a rainbow never appears without a storm.’
Hearing this, the Dawson Family members exchanged slightly puzzled glances.
No matter how you sliced it, this whole situation looked like Eric Vaughn’s fault. He went after someone else’s woman, and even knowing she was taken, he shamelessly kept chasing her like a lost puppy.
Besides, Alex hadn’t actually done much wrong in this. Eric landed in detention twice because he foolishly tried to play hero without knowing his own limits: first by beating up a doctor and causing chaos in a hospital, and second by actually killing someone on the street while attempting treatment.
Looked at from any angle, it really had nothing to do with Alex.
It wasn’t like Alex forced Eric to go save people, right?
Although most of the Dawson Family (aside from Ashley Dawson) hadn’t formally met either Alex or Eric, based on the recent events, they had already formed their own opinions.
The white-haired Otis lowered his head, staring into his empty teacup at the leftover leaves, and suddenly burst out laughing.
“Benefactor?” Dawson Head looked completely baffled. Your student’s morals are so twisted, Benefactor, how can you possibly find this funny right now?
“It’s nothing.” Otis put the empty cup down and stood up from the master chair. His long white hair seemed to move on its own, giving him the air of a true master. “My student is naturally wild and got used to being unrestrained on the mountain. But setting aside personal matters, this Alex, just a rich kid, has gone too far.”
He knew Eric’s personality inside out. He wasn’t a bad person, actually quite kind-hearted, just had absolutely no filter. He’d blurt out anything, appropriate or not.
On the mountain, the kid would even call the three of them “old man” directly. It sounded disrespectful, but that was just Eric, free-spirited and unconventional.
Plus, he loved to exaggerate. Back on the mountain, whenever he wanted to slack off, he’d make the tiniest bit of progress in his training and dramatically claim he’d already mastered it. It was the same with making medicine, poisons, everything.