CH 144

February 17, 2023Merchie

The corridor was deep and long; it seemed endless.

Hu Lan’s soldiers had already surrounded the entire prison.

Pei Zheng was still clutching the small, silent man against his chest. Up ahead, there were soldiers brandishing weapons, their lances and arrows pointed directly at them.

The shadow guards from the Prime Minister’s Manor quickly came from behind them and formed a wall of people, shielding Pei Zheng and the others, before they slowly continued to move toward the exit.

Cheng Feng had also finished dealing with Hu Lan. He hurried over and stood at the very front.

After Pei Zheng woke up, he didn’t have any time to rest; the first thing he did was stabilize the situation within the Imperial Court, and annihilate the Empress’s forces in one fell swoop. Even the Empress herself was deposed.

Right now, in the Celestial Dynasty’s Imperial Court, there was no one who could match Pei Zheng’s power; he really had the entire government clenched in the palm of his hand.

But later, he couldn’t care less about the threat of foreign invasion, he ignored the news of the barbarian army taking over a few of the Celestial Dynasty’s cities, and he ignored the Emperor’s incessant nagging. Instead, he took his shadow guards and travelled a great distance to trespass into foreign territory.

If he flaunted his power, it would only strengthen the tensions between the Celestial Dynasty and the foreign tribe, so all of this had to be carried out in secret.

Someone yelled from across the corridor, before they recklessly charged over and promptly had their throat slit by Cheng Feng.

Melee broke out between the two sides, and within moments, blood had sprayed everywhere. Soon, the entire corridor was spattered with scarlet.

While everyone was locked in the midst of a chaotic battle, as blood continued to fly in every direction, Pei Zheng turned sideways to shield the person in his arms.

The small man’s eyes opened into slits. Everything in his vision was red, including the handsome chin in front of him.

“Who are you…?”

“Your man.”

Pei Zheng tilted the small man’s head into his chest, and said a low, gentle voice, “Sleep for a bit, it’ll be over soon.”

The small man’s heavy eyelids immediately shut themselves.

Indeed, the fight did not last long; those foreign soldiers were beaten into a pulp by the shadow guards.

The gate to the prison was right in front of them. Pei Zheng walked up to it and kicked it open.

The first rays of light shone in, and the person in his arms actually reacted to it. His brow furrowed slightly, as though his eyes had been stung by the light.

Pei Zheng looked up.

The weather was nice today. Warm sunlight spilled over the pair standing in front of the prison’s entrance, wrapping them in a layer of gold. The picture of perfection and bleakness; it seemed like a scene on a painting.

Except that one of these figures was covered in brilliant scarlet blood, while the other looked terrifyingly cold and gloomy, like he was about to murder someone.

There was already someone outside to receive them.

They had just killed the newly appointed chief of the foreign tribe, slaughtered everyone in the foreign tribe’s prison, and rescued a criminal. Naturally, this would cause quite a stir, so they had to find a place to hide for the time being.

The most important thing was to make arrangements for Shen Huan and Shen Shijiu to receive treatment.

Two carriages were waiting there; the group boarded the carriages and sped off.

The border between the foreign tribe and the Celestial Dynasty had already been blocked off, so no one could enter or leave.

The carriages could only turn around and head in the opposite direction.

“I know a place where we can go.”

Shen Huan said. Her injuries were quite serious; she was on the verge of collapsing.

The carriage followed the route Shen Huan mentioned, heading toward the desert. Near the edge of the desert was a forest; in the depths of this forest, there was a thatched hut.

This was where Shen Huan had lived many years ago. The location was inconspicuous, so no one knew about it.

The carriage stopped, and Pei Zheng carried Shen Shijiu inside.

The inside was plainly furnished, but everything was covered in dust.

Pei Zheng ordered someone to spread a soft blanket over the bed, before he gently placed the small man upon it.

Shen Huan ignored the bleeding wounds over her body; she hurried over to examine her little disciple.

She rattled off a long list of medicinal ingredients, “You must get all of these ingredients, and get me some silver needles too, as soon as possible!”

Cheng Feng immediately left.

After a little while, Cheng Feng returned, bearing those medicinal ingredients. Shen Huan hurriedly ordered someone to begin decocting it, before she took out the silver needles and began to perform acupuncture on Shen Shijiu.

Shen Shijiu felt as though he had been stuck in a long dream. Everything in that dream was strange yet familiar to him.

His body was weightless. At one moment, he seemed to be floating in the clouds, and in the next, it seemed as though he had crashed into the muddy ground.

There was always a blurry figure appearing in front of him, but he could never see it clearly. When he reached out to touch it, that figure would suddenly disappear.

The entire world suddenly turned black, empty and cold; he was the only one left here. He yelled and called out, but no one answered him. He ran forward with all his might, but he couldn’t find a shred of light.

It was as though he had been abandoned by the world. He stood alone where he was, dazed and clueless on what to do next.

At this moment, a dot of faint light suddenly appeared in the distance, so dim that he almost couldn’t see it.

Shen Shijiu stared at that thread of light, refusing to blink.

That bit of light was slowly expanding, and everything was growing brighter and brighter.

Shen Shijiu’s eyes were stung by this light, so he closed them.

When he opened his eyes again, his eyelids felt terribly heavy; he could only peel them open into tiny slits.

There was a voice in his ear, calling for him.

“Disciple, Disciple, you’re awake! That’s great, you’re finally awake!”

The small man’s gaze looked a bit sluggish. He stared at Shen Huan as though she were a stranger.

“Here, drink your medicine first, it’ll warm you up.”

Shen Huan helped him to sit up, and tried to feed him the medicine, but couldn’t muster any strength due to the wound on her arm.

Someone at the side took the bowl, and said in a soft voice, “I’ll do it.”

Another face appeared in the small man’s vision. His gaze was incredibly tender as he looked down at him. He allowed the small man to lean against his chest, before he placed the bowl of medicinal soup at his lips.

“Be good, drink your medicine.”

The small man obediently opened his mouth. After a sip, his brow immediately creased.

“It’s bitter…”

“I know it’s bitter. Just be good, you’ll only get better if you drink it all.”

The small man eventually drank the rest of the medicine.

After he finished, he laid back onto the bed. He felt a bit of a chill, and his entire body was slightly numb. He could hardly feel anything, so naturally, he couldn’t feel any pain either.

He turned over, facing the inside of the bed, before he covered his face with the blanket and closed his eyes again.

After drinking the medicine, his insides felt quite warm, which made him feel sleepy again.

The pair of people behind him were whispering to each other.

“There’s something wrong, why does it seem like he doesn’t recognize us? I only performed acupuncture on him in order to stop the blood, and he didn’t get any head injuries.”

“How did he get that wound?”

Pei Zheng pointed at the small man’s arm. He had noticed it earlier; the wound showed signs of festering, it definitely wasn’t an ordinary injury.

“I think he was scratched… Right! He was scratched by an infected person! No wonder his fever isn’t subsiding, the wound has already begun to hemorrhage….”

Shen Huan froze, “Damn it, I thought that he’d be fine if I just gave him the plague resistance pill beforehand, but he was pregnant at the time, so his body wasn’t the same as a normal person’s. I’m afraid he’s already contracted it…”

Pei Zheng’s gaze changed, “He’s contracted it? He just miscarried, now you’re telling me he’s contracted the plague?”

Shen Huan was drowning in self-blame; she didn’t even try to argue with Pei Zheng’s enraged tone.

She was the one who wanted to take her little disciple with her in the first place. In the end, so many terrible things had happened; she wished that the one lying on the bed was her instead.

“No matter what it is, as long as you can save him, I’ll do anything, just tell me.”

Shen Huan’s tears flowed down, and she shook her head, “There’s… there’s nothing we can do, I don’t have a solution either-”

Pei Zheng grabbed Shen Huan with one hand, “What the hell do you mean, ‘you don’t have a solution either’?! Aren’t you the Ghost Doctor?! You can resurrect the dead, can’t you? Then save him!”

Shen Huan could only continue to cry. She really had no idea how to cure this disease. If it was the same plague from before, she could treat it. But who knew what Hu Lan had done to those infectees; later, the symptoms of the plague began to resemble scurvy. Every patch of skin would fester, their internal organs would dissolve, and they would bleed to death from their seven orifices.

That meant that the small man, who was sleeping peacefully in that bed, would soon end up just like that.

And they were still on the run right now; a huge number of foreign guards could find this place at any moment. When that time came, who knew if they would be able to make it out alive.

The corners of Pei Zheng’s eyes had reddened slightly. The hand that was gripping Shen Huan’s collar was covered in blue veins. He blamed Shen Huan; she took him away without permission, yet she couldn’t even keep him safe. But he also blamed himself. How could he have been unable to take care of his own man?

Shen Huan was having difficulty breathing from being choked, so Cheng Feng hurried over and held Shen Huan up from the bottom.

“Master. This must also be… very hard on Master Shen.”

Pei Zheng looked at Shen Huan and finally let go.

Shen Huan gasped for breath.

Cheng Feng asked, “Master Shen, is there really nothing that can be done? Your experience is vast, there aren’t any folk remedies or anything?”

At these words, Shen Huan came to her senses. Her eyes widened, “Folk remedies… there’s one, but no one has ever used it, I haven’t either.”

Cheng Feng was relieved, “What is it? We can try it out first.”

Shen Huan shook her head, “We can’t try it out. It’s a one-time opportunity. If it fails, we won’t have another chance.”

After she finished, Shen Huan looked toward Pei Zheng, “That remedy is blood transfusion.”

Blood transfusion referred to a literal exchange of blood; the necrotic blood would be let out, and the patient would be re-injected with fresh blood. If the necrotic blood was completely drained, naturally, the patient’s illness would disappear as well.

But this method was extremely dangerous; they had to find someone’s whose blood could merge with Shen Shijiu’s. That meant that they had to find someone who was closely related to him and was willing to provide their blood. On top of that, they had to continue to provide it until the necrotic blood in the small man’s body had been drained completely.

“How sure are you?” Pei Zheng lifted his eyes to look at Shen Huan.

“Even if it’s only a one in a ten thousand chance, we have to do it. Otherwise, his death will be the only certainty.”

After a long while, Pei Zheng finally spoke, “All right.”

Shen Huan immediately ordered someone to bring over a bowl of water. She sprinkled a bit of medicinal powder into it, before she dripped a drop of her blood into the water, as well as a drop of the small man’s blood.

Everyone in the room stared nervously at the two droplets of blood in the water. Unfortunately, they didn’t blend together.

Shen Huan’s eyes immediately dimmed, “It’s no good. My blood won’t work, we still need to find someone else, someone who’s related to him, who can also provide blood.”

Pei Zheng’s eyes narrowed slightly.

In the entire Celestial Dynasty, there was only one person who matched this description.

The Third Princess, Qi Yirou.

But under such urgent circumstances, how could they get Qi Yirou to make the arduous journey to the foreign tribe and give blood to the small man?

Notes

What. What about Qi Changfeng? He has blood, doesn’t he? They were both assholes to him anyway. And as far as I remember, Qi Yirou only told Shen Shijiu about how she really felt about what she did to Qi Changyi, how can they even reach this conclusion?????????????

Anyway, I hope I didn’t make too many mistakes with the medical bits; you get the picture, right? ;-;

Thanks for reading~