Chapter 121 The World Changes

Ji Nian looked at him quietly for a while, then suddenly turned to the side and said, "Come in."

Ma Wenbo stared wide-eyed in disbelief: "You...you really want to save me?"

“I am a doctor,” Ji Nian’an said calmly. “When the ‘Death Sentence’ takes effect, it feels like the internal organs are being gnawed by insects, causing unbearable pain. I know that.”

She turned and went into the house, lit the medicine stove, and the firelight illuminated her serene profile.

She saved him not because she forgave him, but because she was a doctor.

Ma Wenbo lay on his sickbed, watching Ji Nian'an's golden needles precisely pierce his acupoints.

The moment the needle pierced through, the excruciating pain actually began to subside.

He vaguely recalled how he had mocked, slandered, and defamed her, yet now he needed her to save his life.

"Why..." he asked hoarsely, "Why did you still save me?"

Ji Nian'an didn't look up, but focused on adjusting the acupuncture technique: "You are the patient, and I am the healer."

Ma Wenbo froze, feeling as if a piece of burning coal was stuck in his throat, both painful and astringent.

Three days later, Ma Wenbo's life was saved, but the imperial court's verdict was also handed down.

"Imperial Physician Ma Wenbo embezzled military medicine and framed his colleagues. He was exiled three thousand miles away and will never return."

On the day he left the capital, Ma Wenbo, wearing heavy shackles, looked back at the city gate.

Ji Nian'an stood outside the crowd, still dressed in a simple doctor's attire, her gaze calm.

He suddenly remembered the last words she said to him the night she saved him.

"I saved you because I am a healer. You were exiled because you are a sinner."

Ma Wenbo lowered his head, and the chains on his shackles rattled.

This time, he had nothing more to say.

The north wind whipped up sand and dust, swallowing up the hunched back.

...

Five years later, the Great Sheng Dynasty was devastated, with its land scorched and barren.

Ji Nian'an is now the youngest sixth-rank judge in the Imperial Medical Academy.

"Your humble servant requests permission to go to the disaster area." She knelt before the Golden Palace.

Looking at the young imperial physician who had once disguised herself as a man, the old emperor couldn't help but feel a surge of emotions.

"Approved."

On the day she left the palace, Ji Nian'an left her imperial physician's badge at the Imperial Hospital.

Outside the palace gates, Lu Yao's white robes fluttered in the hot wind.

"Have you thought it through?" Lu Yao looked at her empty waist. "Becoming a sixth-rank court judge is no easy feat."

Ji Nian'an chuckled, "What are fame and fortune compared to a bowl of water at this moment?"

They walked through three hundred miles of scorched earth.

The scorching sun baked the cracked earth, and the dried-up riverbeds looked like hideous scars.

Ji Nian'an used moxibustion to expel gas from a child whose abdomen was bloated like a drum, and used gold needles to revive an elderly person who had fainted.

Every night, she would write down new methods of treatment by the campfire.

Ji Nian'an walked on the scorched earth with her medicine box on her back, the soles of her shoes already brittle from the heat.

In the distance, a group of emaciated disaster victims were gathered around a dry well, scraping the last bit of wet mud off the well wall with earthenware pots.

"Imperial Physician Ji," a gaunt old woman tugged at her sleeve, the baby in her arms crying weakly like a cat's meow, "I beg you..."

Ji Nian'an squatted down and placed her fingertips on the baby's delicate wrist.

The pulse is weak and thready, indicating hunger.

"Eat up," she said hoarsely, handing the last pancake to the old woman. "It'll last you three days."

The old woman kowtowed repeatedly in gratitude, leaving red marks on her forehead on the scorching ground.

Ji Nian'an turned her face away and looked at the figure on the rain-praying platform not far away.

Lu Yao hasn't left the rain-praying platform for three days.

The Imperial Preceptor's white robes had long been tanned yellow by the scorching sun, and his lips were dry, cracked, and bleeding.

She formed hand seals, and spiritual energy flowed around her like a thin mist. Only when she cast a spell would dark clouds gather in the sky and a brief shower of rain fall.

When Ji Nian'an climbed up the platform, he noticed that Lu Yao's fingertips were trembling slightly.

"That's enough." She grabbed Lu Yao's wrist, the skin burning hot to the touch. "If this continues, you'll burn yourself out!"

Lu Yao turned to look at her, her eyes filled with a smile: "Nian'an, I've found a way."

Ji Nian'an was taken aback: "What method?"

Lu Yao did not answer, but gently pushed her away and faced the countless eager eyes below the stage.

Then, she slapped her own back with her other hand.

Click!

The crisp sound of the first immortal bone breaking made Ji Nian'an's eardrums ache.

"No—!" Ji Nian'an lunged forward, but was repelled by an invisible barrier.

Blood trickled from the corner of Lu Yao's mouth, yet she continued to smile.

She formed a hand seal, and the broken immortal bone transformed into a dazzling stream of light that shot straight into the sky.

In an instant, a gale arose, and dark clouds rolled in like ink.

Click!

The second one.

The torrential rain poured down, and the parched earth hissed as it absorbed the water.

The disaster victims knelt on the ground in the rain, weeping and drinking the rainwater with their chapped lips.

Ji Nian'an pounded on the barrier desperately, yelling, "Stop! You'll die!"

Lu Yao turned to look at her; her white clothes were already soaked in blood: "The third one..."

boom!

When the last immortal bone shattered, the world changed color.

The torrential rain poured down like a celestial river, continuing for three days without ceasing.

Lu Yao collapsed into Ji Nian'an's arms, as light as a feather.

“It was worth it.” She stroked Ji Nian’an’s face with her blood-stained fingers. “Look… they’re alive.”

Ji Nian'an looked in the direction she pointed.

In the cracked fields, tender green rice seedlings are breaking through the soil.

In the distance, people suffering from a long drought embraced and wept in the rain. Some scooped up muddy water and drank it down, while others knelt before the altar for a long time.

On the official road back to the capital, the people knelt on both sides, holding rough pottery bowls to collect rainwater, and kowtowed repeatedly to the imperial advisor's carriage.

Ji Nian'an gazed out the car window at the faces that had regained their vitality, but then heard a suppressed cough coming from behind her.

Lu Yao's fingertips were pressed against her lips, and a line of scarlet blood seeped out between her fingers.

"My lord!" A guard rushed over. "Lu Xuan has stopped you, saying he has important news to tell you."

Ji Nian'an's fingertips trembled.

Lu Xuan, the biological father who abandoned Lu Yao at the Taoist temple when she was born because of the prophecy that she was a "lone star destined for misfortune".

"not see."

The guard hesitated: "He said...it concerns Miss Lu Shu."

Ji Nian'an was taken aback.

Lu Shu, Lu Yao's younger sister from the same parents, is six years younger than her. She was pampered by the Lu family since childhood, but she is frail and sickly.

Although Lu Yao disliked the Lu family, she always harbored an unspeakable attachment to this younger sister.

Ji Nian'an wanted to stop her, but saw that Lu Yao had already managed to sit up straight.

Lu Yao and Lu Xuan met in a private room of a restaurant next to the post station.

Lu Xuan wore a brocade robe and a jade belt, with a gold fish pouch bestowed by the emperor hanging at his waist.

He looked at Lu Yao and sighed insincerely, "Yao'er, seeing you like this breaks my heart..."

Lu Yao sneered: "Speak your mind."

"Shu'er is critically ill; only you can save her."

Just as Lu Yao was about to speak, she suddenly coughed violently, and a mouthful of blood splattered into the teacup on the table, turning the clear tea into a horrifying scarlet.

"It's poisonous..." Her face turned deathly pale. "What did the Seventh Prince promise you? A marquisate? Or a prime ministership?"

Lu Xuan's elegant mask shattered instantly, revealing a ferocious expression, and a sharp edge gleaming with a dark, cold light suddenly appeared.

Bang!

Ji Nian'an burst through the door and saw Lu Xuan's back arched like a hungry wolf, the jet-black Broken Immortal Hairpin completely embedded in Lu Yao's dantian.

The black energy coiled around her like a venomous snake, instantly sealing off her spiritual meridians.