Chapter 56: Want to Drink Milk Tea (Thump~)

The torrential rain curtain shrouded the streets and alleys in a grayish-blue mist.
Lu Qingyu’s knuckles, clutching the umbrella handle, were white, and the surface of the umbrella was pounded by the rain, creating a dense drumbeat.

The bluestone road in front of the medical hall had long since turned into a stream.
Turbid water, carrying withered leaves, rushed past her deerskin boots.
The tip of her foot lightly tapped, and the sole of her shoe, embroidered with a meander pattern, skimmed across the surface of the water, and the splashing water droplets wet the hem of her apricot-colored horse-face skirt.

At the street corner, where the day was not yet bright, the bronze bell under the eaves of the medical hall jingled in the wind and rain.

It was almost dawn now that she had returned from the Demon Suppression Division.
Even though the city was in an uproar, Lu Qingyu still had to run the medical hall that her parents had left behind.

After all, besides being a doctor in the Demon Suppression Division, this medical hall also had to help heal the civilian demon slayers in Lin’an City.
It was precisely because of the zombie that the city was in an uproar, and there might be many injured.
She couldn’t relax for a moment.

Lu Qingyu bit the kraft paper bag full of fresh meat buns, her neck clamped the umbrella handle as she fumbled for the keys in her crossbody bag.

“Eh?”
Lu Qingyu suddenly froze.
She squinted at the shadow in the doorway—the figure huddled there was twitching slightly with the rain.

“Thump.”

The kraft paper bag slipped from her lips, and the buns that fell into the sewage floated with an oily sheen.

Lu Qingyu rushed to the doorstep.
Her soaked long hair stuck to the boy’s pale cheeks.
His pale skin was exposed under his torn clothes, and dozens of crisscrossing wounds were seeping with blood as he breathed.
The rain washed them into a light red stream, which spread into ripples on the bluestone slab.
The deepest gash ran from his collarbone to his waist, and the rolled-up flesh faintly revealed a pale white bone shard.

‘Is he a victim?’

“Wake up!”
Lu Qingyu’s shout was swallowed by the thunder.

But the boy’s eyes were tightly closed, and he was trembling, as if he were trapped in an endless nightmare.

Lu Qingyu couldn’t be bothered with the scattered buns.
She grabbed the boy’s cold wrist and dragged him into the door.
The boy’s body temperature was extremely low, and touching him was like touching a piece of cold iron.

The door hinge of the medical hall made a difficult creaking sound, and the smell of agarwood mixed with the smell of blood came from the boy’s cuffs.

“This is…”

In the light of the medical hall, Lu Qingyu suddenly discovered that strange dark purple crystals were condensed on his wounds, as if some substance had been burned and then condensed.

The cold light reflected in the boy’s pupils had not yet dissipated.
The sharp blade that had pierced through his companion’s heart seemed to still be hanging in front of his eyes.
The image of blood dripping from the tip of the blade burned on his retina.
The last tragic cries of the young couple, mixed with the cry of a baby, turned into a ringing in his ears that roared in his skull.

His eyes were wide with anger, and he wished he could swallow this blurry figure whole!

“Traitor!”

The roar made his throat ache.
The boy suddenly opened his eyes.

The old pine beams came into view, and the spiderwebs in the morning light had a silver sheen.
A cold, itchy sensation came from his left wrist.
The light yellow medicine in the infusion tube was trembling slightly with his pulse, and the light spots refracted by the IV bottle wove a broken net on the ceiling.

A long-lost thumping sound came from his chest.
The heart that had long since been riddled with holes seemed to have regained its vitality in the bright sunlight of today.

He suddenly felt very thirsty.
He fumbled and grabbed for the bedside table, and his fingertips touched a pink paper cup with a cartoon rabbit on it.
He roughly lifted the lid, and the remaining bubble milk tea splashed on the back of his hand.
The sticky, sweet scent mixed with the smell of creamer rushed into his nasal cavity.

The cold liquid flowed into his throat.

‘So sweet… just like when I was a child…’

His almost greedy swallowing motion pulled at the wound between his ribs, and a brown medicine stain bloomed into a blood flower under the bandage.

“Eh? You’re awake?!”
A gentle voice suddenly drilled into his ear.

The morning light outlined a slender silhouette by the door.
The medicine box in Lu Qingyu’s arms made a crisp clinking sound.
She walked quickly and pressed down on the back of the boy’s hand, where the veins were bulging.
A cotton swab soaked in iodine wiped the area around the needle hole.
“Don’t move! You’ve broken three ribs, and your organs are still bleeding—”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”

The boy suddenly froze, and his originally ferocious expression instantly softened.

The jasmine shampoo scent on the girl’s hair lingered at the tip of his nose.
Her warm palm pressed against his cold skin.
This touch reminded him of the hand of that mother-like woman who had caressed his brow.

The lipstick mark on the rim of the pink cup had a coral color.
The residual warmth of the bubble milk tea seeped into his palm through the paper cup.

‘This sweet taste, I miss it so much…’

The siren of an ambulance came from outside the window, mixed with the shouts from the morning market’s soy milk stall.

He suddenly clenched the paper cup and took another big gulp.
The milk tea that spilled from his throat splashed on the medical record, smudging the ink.

“Hey, that’s what I didn’t finish last night…”
The girl watched the boy’s barbaric swallowing motion, at a loss for what to do.
“Forget it, drink slowly…”

“Cough, cough…”

As expected, the boy choked.

“Really, no one is fighting you for it…”
Lu Qingyu sighed and took away the soaked paper.
She patted the boy’s back to help him catch his breath.
“Like a wolf cub.
If you want to drink it, I can just go and buy you another one…”

She always treated everyone with such gentleness.

“You’re quite clever, you know to run to a medical hall when you’re injured.”
Lu Qingyu chattered as she took out bandages and a medicine bottle from the medicine box.
When she turned around, her ponytail brushed against the boy’s nose.

“You’re much more sensible than the two fools I know, one big and one small…”
she muttered in a low voice.
When the bandage wrapped around the boy’s lean waist, her fingertips touched a strange tattoo on his lower back—the half-talisman pattern had a faint bluish-black color.

“What’s your name?”

“Feng… Yi…”
He forced out the syllables with difficulty.
His Adam’s apple rolled, pulling at the scabbing sword mark on the side of his neck.
His vocal cords, which had not been used for a long time, seemed to have rusted, and every word was tinged with the smell of blood.

“Feng Yi?”
The girl’s trailing voice was hesitant.
The instruments in the medical tray collided with the tremor of her fingertips, making a clear and melodious clinking sound.
“I haven’t heard this name before.
You just came to Lin’an recently, right?”

“Be careful not to do any strenuous exercise recently.
The wound will reopen.”

“That… what’s it called?”
The boy suddenly pointed to the head of the bed.
The pink paper cup was printed with the logo of a milk tea shop.
The water droplets condensed on the cup wall were sliding down the cartoon rabbit’s ears, leaving a small dark stain on the medical record.

“Bubble milk tea?”
Lu Qingyu was using tweezers to pick up a gauze soaked in medicine.
Hearing this, her hand trembled, and the morning light jumped on the cuff of her white lab coat.

‘Strange, how can someone in this day and age not have had bubble milk tea?’

But then she quickly figured it out.
The profession of a demon slayer, especially a civilian demon slayer, was often passed down through a master’s lineage.
Although she was not a demon slayer and didn’t know much about it, she had heard that in those very ancient master’s lineages, those disciples might not have come down the mountain for ten or twenty years.
It wasn’t strange that they had never had bubble milk tea.

Lu Qingyu pressed an alcohol cotton ball on the back of his hand where the needle had been pulled out, and a blood bead instantly bloomed into a vermilion flower on the cotton.
“You cultivators in the mountains should also keep up with the times…”

Before she could finish, the boy had already stepped barefoot on the cold floor tiles.
The morning wind lifted the curtains, dyeing the torn corner of his clothes a semi-transparent color.

“Thank you…”

“What are you going to do?! Lin’an has been unstable recently, and you’re still covered in injuries…”

The medicine box closed with a “thump.”
When the girl chased to the doorway, Feng Yi’s back was being stretched long by the morning sun.
A half-blue-black tattoo was faintly visible on his lower back.
The twisted talismans were like some ancient soul-suppressing spell.

“Your… tea, I… will return it to you…”

In the steaming heat of the breakfast stall at the street corner, the boy’s hoarse voice drifted over with the wind.