Mixing

There is a cellar behind the courtyard. When Xu Jinnian asked He Wenwen to help prepare the antidote, he stored all the dead rat flowers he brought back in there. Fearing that the rat flowers might rise from the dead, all the rat flowers were gutted, dried, and then stored.

“These can only delay the onset of the poison, not cure it.” He Wenwen’s expression was solemn. Seeing that Ren Xiangxiang was about to go in, she couldn’t help but stop her, saying, “The smell inside is not very pleasant. If you go in like this, don’t throw up all over me.”

Ren Xiangxiang suddenly felt a surge of energy, but as soon as she opened the door, her stomach churned, and she immediately turned and rushed to the side to vomit.

To his surprise, when he looked up, he saw He Wenwen fully armed, holding a set of protective gear in her hand. "Put it on, you're welcome."

"Thank you so much!" Ren Xiangxiang gritted her teeth and snatched it away.

Even though the two were fully armed, the nauseating stench still kept wafting into her nose in the stuffy, hot, and humid cellar.

She had only held it in for a moment when she couldn't help but take a breath, and almost vomited again. She looked up and saw He Wenwen's shoulders shrugging. Noticing her gaze, she pretended that nothing had happened.

"You just wait." Ren Xiangxiang silently made a mental note of him. She couldn't help but admire Uncle Xu again; under such circumstances, he was still able to persevere and concoct the antidote.

The antidote he concocted was similar to the one given by the old turtle in the wilderness lake; both could only temporarily delay the onset of the poison, but could not cure it.

These antidotes lacked a crucial ingredient, which could also be interpreted as the toxicity of the rat poison itself being insufficient.

An oil lamp was lit in the cellar, and several rat carcasses, some freshly gutted and others dried out, were displayed on the table. Sticky flesh and blood were everywhere. Ren Xiangxiang endured the stench and began to examine the pile of poisonous rat carcasses with He Wenwen.

I stayed there for the entire night.

The next morning, despite being sleepy, Ren Xiangxiang forced herself to wash up before going back to bed. When she woke up, the food was already on the table, and the temperature was just right.

She glanced out the window instinctively, as if she wanted to say something, but after a pause, she said nothing.

Xu Caiyou, standing outside, glanced at her senior brother and then at Ren Xiangxiang's room, looking as if she wanted to say something but hesitated.

"Weren't you supposed to bring food to Master?" He Wenwen glanced at him and reminded him.

"Oh, oh." Seeing this, Xu Caiyou tactfully walked away.

Ren Xiangxiang ate her meal with a bitter taste, looking at the porridge in her bowl, but her stomach felt nauseous. She even saw the dead rat carcasses in the cellar. But since it was a person who was poisoned, could she use a human corpse?

"Brother Wen!" Ren Xiangxiang suddenly burst out of the door, her eyes lighting up. He Wenwen, who hadn't gone far, turned around immediately upon hearing the voice. "What is it?"

The two sat under the grapevines and exchanged ideas for a while. After listening to Ren Xiangxiang's insights, He Wenwen shook his head with a worried look. "I've tried it, but the heart of a corpse is not as effective as the heart of a rat, and it is also very easy to mutate. So we don't have many corpses here, and we haven't tried to work on the corpses again."

Ren Xiangxiang's gaze dimmed.

“However…” He Wenwen didn’t know why she suddenly spoke up. Seeing Ren Xiangxiang looking up at her, she suddenly said as if possessed, “Maybe we can try again. Besides the heart, is there anything else that can control the corpse?”

"So you tried it once? And what was the result?" Ren Xiangxiang pressed.

“They’re dead.” He Wenwen explained, “I’ve been using rabbits for experiments. The rabbits died on the spot after consuming the medicine I made. Afterwards, I dissected the rabbits and found that the situation was the same as when they were bitten by rats. So far, there has been no progress in the development of the antidote.”

After he finished speaking, he recalled that after the failure, he handed the record to his master, but his master was too weak to provide any help, so the matter was dropped.

"Where is the body? We can start now." Ren Xiangxiang said impatiently, "We don't have much time."

In other words, Mo You can't wait much longer.

"Give me half an hour," He Wenwen said, and immediately went to make arrangements.

Because corpses are prone to mutation, most were burned immediately after death, with only two or three kept for research. These were all placed in the pond in the backyard, making the pond incredibly foul-smelling and killing many fish and shrimp, simply because corpses seemed less likely to mutate in water.

The underlings endured the stench, carried a half-rotten corpse to the cellar, and then fled as if their lives depended on it.

Ren Xiangxiang was fully armed, but she was still disgusted by the corpse in front of her and vomited violently, instantly feeling that the meal she had eaten earlier was unnecessary.

"Are you sure you can do it? If not, just stand aside and watch, I'll do it!" He Wenwen shouted from behind her.

Ren Xiangxiang gave him a sharp look, rejecting him with her actions.

His chest was completely blackened, and his heart had been pierced. Based on He Wenwen's experience, the heart could not be used as an antidote, so where else could the most poisonous part of his body be?

Another point is that they still haven't figured out what kind of poison this potent poison is, or what caused the mutation.

Ren Xiangxiang held the knife and slid it across the corpse's stomach. Thick, sticky flesh immediately rolled out, accompanied by a stench that made her vision go black.

"Let me do it, I'm used to it." He Wenwen frowned and tried to take the knife from Ren Xiangxiang, but Ren Xiangxiang dodged her.

She meticulously examined the corpse, finding the most toxic areas to be the heart and chest/abdomen, while the limbs showed relatively few signs of poisoning.

And so the two stayed from dusk until midnight. In the latter half of the night, Ren Xiangxiang even opened the corpse's head to try and use it to prepare the antidote.

He Wenwen skillfully concocted an antidote, and the two of them held their breath and nervously fed the antidote to a poisoned and mutated rabbit in the next cage.

After taking the antidote, the rabbit began to struggle violently, banging against the cage with all its might, seemingly on the verge of going berserk. Ren Xiangxiang's heart sank at the sight. But as time passed, the rabbit slowly stopped struggling, twitched twice, and then lay still in the cage.

“Sigh…” Ren Xiangxiang was extremely exhausted and let out a long sigh.

"It's alright." He Wenwen seemed much calmer. "I was going to die anyway."

Is this how you comfort someone? Ren Xiangxiang was so speechless that she almost vomited blood. Just as she finished speaking, the rabbit, who had already been lying dead, suddenly kicked its hind leg.

"Xiangxiang, look!" He Wenwen suddenly exclaimed.

Ren Xiangxiang opened her eyes wide and saw the rabbit kick its legs, roll over, and come back to life.

She was overjoyed, while He Wenwen was dumbfounded.

"etc……"

The rabbit paced restlessly in its cage, then picked up a carrot stick from the side and started munching on it. Mutated creatures don't eat.

"What are you waiting for? It's alive! It's alive! Look at it—"

Before the rabbit could eat more than a few bites, it suddenly slumped to one side and remained motionless.

Ren Xiangxiang's joy was still on her face, and she couldn't come back to her senses for a moment. After waiting for a while, the rabbit still didn't move, so she got anxious and immediately poked it with a stick.

"Rabbit, get up! Get up!"

The rabbit's body was soft and easily manipulated by her. Ren Xiangxiang's excitement instantly plummeted to the bottom. For some reason, it made her even sadder than if she had failed outright.

"You're almost there, you've got some skills!" He Wenwen was genuinely trying to comfort her this time, but to Ren Xiangxiang, this jerk was just deliberately mocking her.

Ren Xiangxiang ignored him and left the cellar by herself.

"What a temper! So hard to please." He Wenwen didn't think the problem was with her at all. She watched angrily as Ren Xiangxiang walked away without looking back, and then looked at the bloody corpse on the stone table, feeling troubled.

"Should we take this back?"

The body was almost completely dismembered by her; how could she possibly carry it? She'd probably have to find something to put it in and carry it out.

"They're all like this now, there shouldn't be any problems," He Wenwen thought to herself. "I'll just have the disciples take them out and burn them tomorrow."

Thinking of this, He Wenwen also turned and left. The moment the stone door closed, under the dim oil lamp, the pair of hands that had begun to rot and curled up suddenly moved.

Outside, the moon was cold and the wind was biting, probably because a heavy rain had just fallen. The ground was wet and the courtyard was dark, with only a lamp hanging from the eaves of her house. The dim light cast long, thin shadows of the two people.

A gust of wind blew by, and Ren Xiangxiang, who had just worked up a sweat, suddenly shivered for no reason.

She drew a bucket of well water and washed herself thoroughly. He Wenwen followed beside her, acting as if nothing had happened, and used the water with a clear conscience.

"I've already praised you, what more do you want?" He Wenwen said out of the blue, "So many years have passed, and you still haven't changed your dog-like temper."

"Is that what you call praising someone? Is this how you usually comfort people?" Ren Xiangxiang didn't know why, but she got angry as soon as she heard him speak. The repeated failures had made her almost lose confidence in herself. She was a medicine doctor who didn't even have her own demon-refining furnace. She had already tried so hard, what more could he expect from her?

Thinking of this, Ren Xiangxiang felt inexplicably wronged. This damned thing was deliberately going against her. Even if she hadn't met Mo You, all the eligible men in Quanyang Palace would have lined up to propose marriage, and he would have to be the last one in line.

"You're worried about that demon, but don't take it out on me! If I can't make an antidote, who else am I supposed to take it out on? Do you think I'm not worried about my master?" He Wenwen became increasingly agitated as she spoke.

I was so frustrated that I couldn't sleep all night, and I was scratching my head in frustration.

"Yes! I'm worried about Mo You!" Ren Xiangxiang yelled at He Wenwen, her eyes red, overturning the basin and kicking the bucket away. "What the hell is this thing! How can I not make it! Why can't I make it! Why can't I make it! Why..."

She started sobbing, saying that without the antidote, Mo You would die, Mo You would die...

"You—" He Wenwen felt complicated and even a little uncomfortable, but seeing Ren Xiangxiang crying so sadly, she swallowed back the words that were about to come out.

He sat quietly next to Ren Xiangxiang, watching her go crazy and listening to her cry.

After venting her anger, Ren Xiangxiang saw that he still hadn't left, and asked with red eyes, "You...you're mute now, why aren't you saying anything? Weren't you usually so good at arguing with me?"

"..." He Wenwen looked at her expressionlessly, paused, and asked, "Do you really like him?"

"If I don't like him, why would I like you?" Ren Xiangxiang glared at him, wiped away her tears, and murmured to herself.

"But my mother doesn't like him because he's a demon. I know her concerns, and I understand her good intentions, but what can I do? Can I take back the feelings I have for him?"

He Wenwen's heart skipped a beat, and a bitter smile appeared on her lips.

Yes! How could we possibly take it back?

"Get some rest. We're so close to success. We'll definitely be able to make the antidote." He Wenwen patted Ren Xiangxiang's head and left.

As Ren Xiangxiang watched his departing figure, she suddenly felt a sense of loneliness about his frail appearance.