Chapter 12 Chapter 12 "My dear!"

Quarter of an hour later, Zhang Jingxian pulled out the silver needle, washed it with hot water, and put it back.

As Xie Yun calmly put down his robe, she couldn't help but look at the blackened and slightly rotten wound on his leg.

"Knock, knock." Someone knocked on the gate. Zhang Jingxian silently withdrew her gaze and walked out of the house.

When I opened the door, it was Dr. Meng who had arrived late.

Facing Zhang Jingxian, he apologized for his late arrival. "A family from the neighboring village stopped me and told me their child was sick. But after taking their pulse, they found nothing wrong."

Doctor Meng spoke with disdain, "A fifteen-year-old boy, old enough to support his family, feigned illness to avoid farm work. What's even more hateful is that after I exposed the truth, the family refused to pay for the consultation. It really infuriated me."

In the village next door, there is a fifteen-year-old who loves to be lazy and unreasonable... Zhang Jingxian's eyebrows moved, and she asked whether the family's surname was Yang, and there were two jujube trees at the door.

"Yes, Madam Zhang, do you know them?" Doctor Meng nodded in agreement.

Hearing this, Zhang Jingxian wrinkled her nose.

Her uncle told her that the two jujube trees were planted by her mother with joy when she got married, but the man who married her mother did not bring her the happiness she deserved.

Now, the son he had after remarrying is just like him, lazy and full of lies.

Fortunately, her uncle brought her back to Xishan Village, otherwise she couldn't imagine what she would become now.

"We've had a few interactions. Doctor Meng, if you run into them next time, it's best to avoid them. That family is used to bullying the weak and taking advantage of others."

"Exactly. Exactly."

Doctor Meng entered the room and unexpectedly discovered that Zhang Jingxian had already given acupuncture to the nobleman. He checked it and praised her endlessly.

His technique was skillful and his strength was just right, so he wouldn't have to rush anymore.

"I've brought a few more doses of medicine today. Please take them diligently. I'll come back in half a month. A broken bone needs a hundred days to heal. Please be patient and rest during these hundred days."

Doctor Meng stroked his beard and ignored the obviously blackened wound on Xie Yun's leg. For him, as long as the bleeding stopped, it was good enough.

Save your life first and see if you can walk again. Since you are not sure, just skip it.

Xie Yun understood his hidden meaning and his face darkened slightly, but that was all. Most of the doctors in the countryside had mediocre medical skills. It was rare for them to know how to use silver needles to stimulate acupuncture points, and nothing else could be expected.

"Doctor Meng, doesn't the bruise on my husband's leg need to be treated?" The person who asked the question was Zhang Jingxian, who had initially intended to ignore it.

Doctor Meng looked a little embarrassed. "To remove the blood stasis, I need to open the wound, but your injuries are too severe. I am afraid that if I act rashly, the wind and heat will enter the body and endanger your life."

After saying this, he worried that he might be mistaken for being perfunctory, so he added, "There is a way to treat wounds without having to cut open. Medical books record a magical medicine for wounds called Wangbuliuxing. It can be taken internally and applied externally and can quickly dissolve blood stasis. However, this medicine is too rare, and we have to go to a prosperous place like Jiankang City to find it."

He briefly described the appearance of Vaccaria, and Zhang Jingxian carefully wrote it down with a piece of charcoal.

She gestured on a piece of linen, and Xie Yun was looking at her, with no expression on his face.

Just a pair of black eyes, gentle and strange. Look, this peasant girl is fiddling with the contradictions in her body again, afraid that he won't notice it.

While giving him the injection, she glanced at his wound, her expression dazed and cold. And now, she carefully remembered every word that Doctor Meng said.

Wuling County is thousands of miles away from Jiankang City. The people here may never even leave Wuyang County in their entire lives. Why would they go to Jiankang City to look for a rare medicine?

It's simply a fantasy.

After seeing off Doctor Meng, the courtyard returned to silence.

Xie Yun sat on the couch, silently watching the woman busy herself through a bamboo window.

She washed clothes, watered the fields, fumigated mosquitoes, compacted and dragged away the bluestone ground over and over again, and before dinner she went to the fields to weed.

Today's evening meal is particularly rich.

Zhang Jingxian used the cloth she had dyed to exchange for a duck from the village, which she stewed with radishes. She also put some lard in the wheat cakes and baked them until they were crispy. She also steamed a lot of vegetable dumplings and fried pheasant eggs, filling up a small table.

Seeing this scene, Xie Yun raised his eyebrows and asked with a smile if today was some happy day.

Zhang Jingxian shook her head and looked up at the man's face. "My dear, I have to go hunting in the mountains early tomorrow morning and may not be back until the evening. I won't have time to prepare breakfast and dinner. The vegetable dumplings and wheat cakes can be kept for two days. You can make do with them for the first two meals."

She originally wanted to ask her neighbor Aunt Qin to bring him food, but when she thought about how frugal Aunt Qin's family was and that they didn't eat as well as she did, she gave up the idea.

The flickering flames cast a warm yellow on the woman's face. Xie Yun suddenly reached out and touched her cheek.

Zhang Jingxian was caught off guard and stood there in a daze, not trying to hide.

"It's covered in dust." He smiled and gently wiped it with his fingertips. The touch was cold, and he said, "Ah Xian, remember to return home early, otherwise... it will be very dangerous."

The tone sounded caring, but she could sense a threat. If she didn't return in time, something unexpected would happen.

Zhang Jingxian shuddered and moved aside. "Except for my second uncle and Aunt Qin, few villagers come to my place. If you're bored, you can go for a walk in the village. I'll come back in the evening and give you acupuncture."

She avoided Xie Yun's gaze and ate a big duck leg as if nothing had happened.

After having dinner, she went to the kitchen, carrying a candlestick and a straw mat, just like the previous few days.

"Wait." Xie Yun opened his thin lips and called her to stop her, pointing to the wooden floor and said with a smile, "Since Ah Xian is going into the mountains to hunt tomorrow, you should sleep here tonight. I'm already sorry for taking up her bed, Ah Xian, I shouldn't let you down any further."

The kitchen floor is made of dust, hard and cold, so it's certainly not as comfortable to sleep on as here.

Zhang Jingxian hesitated for a moment, but still left the room holding the straw mat.

She didn't want to put herself in a difficult position, and would make a bed for herself once she finished the things she was doing. But she couldn't do that with him in the same room.

Zhang Jingxian slept very uneasily that night.

In her dreams, she always vaguely felt that someone was looking down at her, trying to see through her flesh and blood into her dreams and heart.

What she was thinking, what she was saying, her true thoughts from beginning to end.

When she was really panicking, Zhang Jingxian opened her eyes with a cold sweat. There was no one in the kitchen except her, and the candlestick not far away had been extinguished long ago.

Opening the kitchen door, she looked up at the sky. It was just getting light.

Wearing straw sandals, carrying a bow and arrow, a rattan stick, wheat cakes and a water bag, Zhang Jingxian gently closed the courtyard door, carried a wooden frame behind her, and walked into the dense forest.

Her figure gradually disappeared, and the kitchen door was suddenly closed with a gloomy and depressing atmosphere.

-

Yangshan is deep, and the forests are home to all kinds of animals. Just as the villagers told Xia'er, there are bears, wolves, and tigers, and Zhang Jingxian has encountered them all.

Perhaps because she had the same aura as the mountains and forests, they did not harm her. They glanced at her with disinterest and pretended she didn't exist.

Later, Zhang Jingxian became friends with the black cat and the red fox. She often exchanged voles and rabbits with them. An underage wolf saw this and one day pretended to pick up a wild flower in exchange for her rabbit.

She was silent for a while, handed over the fat rabbit in her hand, and accepted an ordinary wild flower, just because she saw that the little wolf's stomach was very empty, as if he had been hungry for a long time.

After the little wolf finished eating a rabbit, the wolf pack came looking for it. It turned out that it had lost its way and ran to the edge of the forest.

Originally, the wolves lived deep in Yangshan Mountain.

This was the only direct communication between Zhang Jingxian and the wolf pack, but she and the wolf pack only looked at each other and then tacitly separated in different directions.

However, after Zhang Jingxian returned to the village, she discovered that the wild flower was a species of Croton tiglium that could treat insect diseases.

Without hesitation, she used a flower to boil a large pot of soup and distributed it to all the villagers, and received a large handful of millet and wheat from each of their households.

This time, Zhang Jingxian not only wanted to go into the mountains to catch some pheasants and rabbits, but also wanted to try her luck and see if she could find the fenugreek that Doctor Meng mentioned.

As long as it is a medicinal herb, no matter whether it is rare or not, there may be some growing in Yangshan.

She set up straw cages in several places she frequented, and then carefully searched for similar plants through the linen, but at first she found nothing.

But she also discovered several herbs that could stop bleeding and relieve pain, which she could make into the powder she carried with her.

She picked them and put them in a wooden frame.

At noon, she caught two wild rabbits and a turtledove in a grass cage. She rested for a while, ate a vegetable dumpling, and moved to another place.

Zhang Jingxian went to a small valley full of wildflowers. It was a little far away, but familiar to her. Her family got their honey from the valley. The thick smoke would stun the bees, so she would usually cut off half of the hive to get the honey.

However, she had already collected honey last time, so she did not disturb the bees this time.

But after searching all over the valley, she still couldn't find the narrow leaves and rosy pink flowers on the linen.

Disappointed, she took out a boiled pheasant egg from her pocket and took a bite.

The aroma of egg yolk wafted in the air, and a red fox quietly approached her.

Zhang Jingxian noticed something was wrong and turned around cautiously. When she found it was him, she smiled and said, "Why are you the only one here today? Where's the little fox?"

She and the red fox asked about the black cat's movements. The red fox looked at her quietly and then closed his eyes.

Zhang Jingxian suddenly realized that the black cat must be lying somewhere high up and sleeping soundly.

Seeing that the red fox always kept a safe distance from her, she threw a rabbit to it. However, the red fox did not move, but looked at the remaining half pheasant egg in her hand.

"Here, the eggs are for you."

The red fox came over and swallowed the egg yolk, tilted its head to touch the sackcloth on the grass, and then ran away. Not long after, it came up with a plant in its mouth.

The long leaves and small rosy pink flowers are from the herb Vaccaria.

Zhang Jingxian curled her eyes happily.

She followed the red fox, picked more than ten plants and put them into the wooden frame, and finally walked back with peace of mind.

Following the last ray of sunset light, she pushed open the gate of her home before it became completely dark.

Afterwards, Zhang Jingxian saw a scene that made her breathe stop.

The bloody arrow nailed a man's shoulder to the wooden wall. Xie Yun stretched out his hand expressionlessly and pretended to break the man's neck.

"My dear!"

Zhang Jingxian shouted.

The author has something to say:

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Muah, the red envelope for the last chapter has been sent, there may be a delay~