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Join the ServerThe room was dimly lit, and the air hung heavy with the cloying scent of blood and medicinal herbs.
A young girl lay on a simple wooden bed.
Her body had been washed clean, but her face… or rather, where her face should have been, was gone.
The entire layer of skin had been flayed from her skull, leaving behind nothing but a gory, indistinct mass of flesh.
The flesh was already turning black, showing subtle signs of decay—a truly horrific sight.
Stranger still, though the girl was breathing and her chest rose and fell faintly, the vital energy of the living was draining from her at a visible rate.
She was like an oil lamp, her flame of life being siphoned away, bit by bit, by some unseen force.
Lu Hongzhuang fought back the churning in her stomach, her jaw clenched tight.
‘Such a cruel method!’
‘This was no mortal’s doing. It had to be the work of some foul demon!’
“How is she?” she asked, supporting Su Qinghan, her voice hushed. “Is there any way to save her?”
Su Qinghan’s expression, however, was unnervingly calm. She merely studied the girl on the bed for a moment before shaking her head.
Lu Hongzhuang’s heart sank.
‘Even she can’t do anything?’
“She can be saved.”
Su Qinghan’s next words sent Lu Hongzhuang’s heart soaring once more.
“However,” Su Qinghan added, her tone now laced with complexity, “her life can be saved, but her face cannot be restored. For a girl in the bloom of her youth, living like this might be a fate crueler than death.”
“Save her life first!” Lu Hongzhuang declared without hesitation.
She had seen too much death to not understand the value of life.
At the side, the old, sawdust-covered carpenter’s cloudy eyes suddenly blazed with a brilliant light upon hearing her words. With a thud, he moved to kneel before Su Qinghan.
“Thank you, benefactor! Thank you for saving my daughter’s life!”
Su Qinghan instinctively reached out to help him up.
“You mustn’t, you mustn’t!”
She had completely forgotten her own legs were injured and that she was relying entirely on Lu Hongzhuang’s support. But Lu Hongzhuang’s attention was partly fixed on the gruesome state of the girl on the bed, and her grip had unconsciously loosened.
With a soft thud—
Su Qinghan pitched forward, her knees buckled, and she landed squarely on the ground in a kneeling position.
She ended up face-to-face with the old carpenter, who had been about to kneel himself.
The air froze.
The old carpenter stumbled back, startled by the sudden turn of events.
“Benefactor! You mustn’t! This old man is not worthy of such a grand gesture!”
Lu Hongzhuang was stunned as well. She looked from the kneeling Su Qinghan to the flustered old carpenter and asked in confusion.
“Is this… part of the healing ritual?”
A vein throbbed violently at Su Qinghan’s temple.
She whipped her head around and hissed through clenched teeth.
“You idiot, help me up!”
Only then did Lu Hongzhuang realize her unsteady support had caused this massive misunderstanding. A flash of embarrassment crossed her face as she hurried forward, clumsily helping Su Qinghan up from the floor and seating her on the only chair in the room.
The feel of that slender waist and the feather-light weight in her arms gave Lu Hongzhuang an inexplicable pang in her heart.
“You should eat better from now on. You’re so thin, it pains me just to support you.”
“Don’t bother,” Su Qinghan retorted, rolling her eyes. “If I were any heavier, you wouldn’t be able to hold me up at all.”
Lu Hongzhuang’s cheeks flushed a faint red. She turned her head away and said no more.
Su Qinghan couldn’t be bothered to argue with her and extended a hand toward the old carpenter.
“Bring me a brush and paper.”
Soon, the old carpenter returned bearing paper, an inkstick, and a brush. Su Qinghan accepted them without ceremony, dipped the brush deep into the thick ink, and with a flick of her wrist, began to write, her strokes flowing like soaring dragons and dancing phoenixes.
When she finished, she handed over the prescription.
Lu Hongzhuang and the old carpenter leaned in to look.
Then, both of them froze.
The characters on the paper were neat and square with simple strokes, but they couldn’t understand a single one.
“Miss…” the old carpenter asked timidly, his face a mask of confusion, “what country’s writing is this?”
Lu Hongzhuang’s mind buzzed.
It suddenly struck her—the *Dragon-Tiger Guidance Technique* manual Su Qinghan had given her. Were the characters in it the same as these? How was she ever supposed to read it!
She grabbed Su Qinghan’s arm, her voice low and filled with shock and suspicion.
“The secret manual you gave me… it’s not written entirely in these characters, is it?”
“We can understand each other’s speech, but the writing… why is it completely different? What… what exactly are you? You’re not some demon in disguise, are you?”
Su Qinghan was speechless.
It finally dawned on her.
Since leaving her village, she had been teaching the illiterate villagers how to read in her spare time. She taught them the simplified characters she was familiar with, and they had learned with great enthusiasm.
So, she had crossed worlds only to become a literacy teacher, and she’d even taught them the wrong script. She had managed to create an entire village of functional illiterates!
She pressed a hand to her forehead, a headache blooming.
Seeing Lu Hongzhuang’s wary expression, she irritably tossed the brush and paper to her.
“I’ll speak, you write!”
Lu Hongzhuang took the materials and wrote the words ‘Prescription’ on a spare sheet of paper.
Su Qinghan observed the characters of this world. They were even more intricate and complex than the traditional characters of her past life, resembling the Small Seal Script of the Qin Dynasty with their winding strokes and archaic structures.
She didn’t recognize a single one.
“Three mace of Paris polyphylla, five mace of black nightshade, one liang of Chinese lobelia…”
Su Qinghan rattled off a string of medicinal ingredients, while Lu Hongzhuang’s wrist hovered over the paper, her brush tip flying as she transcribed the complex characters.
Once the prescription was written, the old carpenter snatched it up and, with a torrent of thanks, rushed for the door.
Just as he was about to leave, Liu Ruyan blocked his path.
“Officer, what is it? My daughter… she can’t wait any longer, please let me pass!”
Liu Ruyan stood there impassively, cradling her saber.
She took the prescription from the old carpenter’s hand and glanced at it.
“Tsk.”
A soft scoff escaped her lips.
“Just a bunch of common herbs for clearing heat and detoxifying. What’s all the mystery about?”
Despite her words, she handed the prescription back and stepped aside.
“Go on.”
The old carpenter didn’t dare delay, clutching the paper as he bolted toward the town’s apothecary.
A short while later, he returned, panting, with a large bag of medicinal herbs.
Inside, Su Qinghan had already directed Lu Hongzhuang to set up a large iron pot on a makeshift earthen stove in the courtyard.
“Do you have an alchemy furnace?” Su Qinghan asked.
The old carpenter shook his head repeatedly. “Benefactor, we’re poor folk. We don’t have such a precious item.”
“Do you have one in your courtyard? I’ll go get it for you right now!” Lu Hongzhuang said anxiously.
Su Qinghan shook her head. “No need, it’s too far. We don’t have time. A large pot will do. Pill and medicine refinement should not be constrained by tools. An iron pot can produce medicinal pills just as well.”
Lu Hongzhuang helped her to the stove in the kitchen.
Watching the rising flames, Su Qinghan’s expression suddenly became incredibly earnest and serious.
“There is one final, crucial step.”
Lu Hongzhuang’s expression sharpened, and she grew tense.
“Tell me!”
Su Qinghan turned her head and looked at her with a straight face.
“My legs are injured, so I can’t stand and exert force properly. The refinement process requires me to channel the earth’s fire. You’ll have to get on the ground, and I’ll need to sit on you to borrow your strength and push the medicinal potency to its peak.”
Lu Hongzhuang froze completely.
The blood rushed to her face in an instant, a deep crimson flush spreading from her cheeks all the way to the base of her neck.
“Wh-what did you say?!”
Her voice cracked.
“Is… is that really necessary?”
Su Qinghan nodded gravely, her expression leaving no room for doubt.
Lu Hongzhuang stood rooted to the spot, biting her lip, her mind a complete blank as a war raged within her.
‘Saving a life is what matters… but… this is too…’
Seeing this, the old carpenter began to sweat profusely with anxiety. He looked at Su Qinghan, then toward his daughter’s room, and with a determined grit of his teeth, he stepped forward.
“Miss! How about… how about you use me instead! I’m an old man, I don’t care about such things! My old bones are still sturdy, let me get on the ground!”
Su Qinghan waved a dismissive hand at the resolute old man.
Then, she turned to the still-rebooting Lu Hongzhuang, and the corner of her mouth curled into a lazy smile.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“I was just kidding.”
Lu Hongzhuang was speechless.
A dead silence fell over the courtyard.
The next second, a heaven-shaking roar echoed through the entire carpenter’s shop.
“Su Qinghan! I’m going to kill you!!!”
You think this chapter was thrilling? Wait until you read What Are You Looking At? That's My Wife!! Click here to discover the next big twist!
Read : What Are You Looking At? That's My Wife!
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