In an ordinary house in Mingzhou City, Zhou Yun'an crushed the secret report he had just received.
"Withdrawn?" He sneered, crumpling the scraps of paper. "Looks like this Miss Wang's daily remedies still need a little something extra."
Zhou Yun'an pushed open the door and entered, his face terribly gloomy.
He grabbed Wang Xiuxiu's chin, his voice as cold as ice: "Lu Jingze didn't come."
Wang Xiuxiu looked up at him, her eyes calm and expressionless: "Oh? That's a real shame."
"What did you do?" Zhou Yun'an's fingers tightened. "How could he know it was a trap?"
Wang Xiuxiu chuckled: "Lord Zhou, that's a strange question. What can I do locked up here?"
Zhou Yun'an stared at her, then suddenly released her, sneering, "You think I'd believe that?"
"Believe it or not, it's up to you." Wang Xiuxiu rubbed her chin, which had been pinched red, and said in a calm tone, "However, I do have a question for you."
Zhou Yun'an squinted.
"Doctor Chen is renowned throughout the land, and you just killed your most capable assistant like that?"
Zhou Yun'an toyed with the silver bell in his hand, the serpentine patterns on its surface gleaming coldly in the candlelight: "What, you feel sorry for me? Do you think I'm indiscriminately killing innocent people?"
"I was just curious." Wang Xiuxiu coughed lightly. "Given your personality, you shouldn't be the type to cut off your own arm over something so trivial."
The silver bell suddenly stopped ringing.
Zhou Yun'an raised his eyes, his deep gaze meeting Wang Xiuxiu's directly: "You want to know the truth?"
An eerie silence filled the room.
Xiao Cheng stood in the shadows, unconsciously tightening his grip on the sword at his waist.
Wang Xiuxiu narrowed her eyes, noticing the unusual fluctuation in his tone.
"Do you know where all this poison in my body comes from?" Zhou Yun'an slowly stood up, walked in front of her, and looked down at her.
Wang Xiuxiu didn't say anything, she just looked at him quietly.
Zhou Yun'an's voice was very soft, eerily calm, as if he were telling a trivial story: "My father is suffering from a rare poison called 'Bone Corrosion,' and his life hangs by a thread."
Wang Xiuxiu's pupils contracted slightly.
She had heard of this poison before; those poisoned would watch helplessly as their bones rotted away.
"Chen Yuan offered a plan—" Zhou Yun'an loosened his collar, revealing a gruesome scar below his collarbone, "Only by testing the medicine with the blood and flesh of a close relative could we possibly find an antidote."
Zhou Yun'an raised his hand, his fingertips gently tracing the surface of his heart: "My father chose me without hesitation."
Xiao Cheng's hands trembled slightly.
He remembered that day, when the twelve-year-old young master was tied to a wooden frame, and Doctor Chen injected tube after tube of poison into his body. The boy convulsed in pain, but didn't even have the strength to scream.
"Every time we tried the medicine, it felt like a thousand ants were gnawing at my heart," Zhou Yun'an chuckled. "But Chen Yuan said it was the only way. I would faint from the pain, only to be woken up by cold water, and then continue to be forced to take the medicine. For three whole months, my father never hesitated once."
"After three months, I tasted all the rarest poisons in the world, and Chen Heng finally concocted an antidote."
"The price is this crippled body," Zhou Yun'an sneered. "The poison is cured, but Father despises me for being a cripple."
Xiao Cheng turned his face away.
During that period, the master was bullied by the servants and couldn't even get a hot meal. In the dead of winter, he could only huddle in the stable.
Until one day...
"Later, I took the initiative to find Chen Yuan," Zhou Yun'an said, stroking the silver bell, "willing to become his poisoner."
Wang Xiuxiu's heart skipped a beat.
A so-called "poisonous person" is someone who tests poison on themselves, living a life worse than death.
"I survived." Zhou Yun'an suddenly leaned closer, his breath brushing against Wang Xiuxiu's face. "And I unexpectedly discovered that these toxins have achieved some kind of balance within my body."
Xiao Cheng still remembers the glint in the patriarch's eyes when his master publicly executed the traitor in the council hall.
It's as if it's saying that the discarded waste has suddenly become useful again.
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