Chapter 120 Snake Witch Tribe
When Qin Suisui emerged from the space again, she showed her first genuine smile in a long time.
Song Yunlai and Chi Donglin were both stunned for a moment before they reacted, grinning widely and asking, "Little sister, it's done?"
Qin Suisui nodded, then shook her head; now the two of them were truly bewildered.
"No, little sister, what happened? Explain yourself!"
Qin Suisui didn't keep me in suspense: "The snake medicine that boy gave me before couldn't directly cure Ayan and Donglin's poison, but it gave me a new idea. Perhaps to cure the poison, I still need..."
"Knock knock knock," before Qin Suisui could finish speaking, there was a sudden knock on the ward door.
The three of them looked outside and saw a nurse pushing an elderly woman in a wheelchair. Qin Suisui had a guess in her mind, but Chi Donglin went straight up and opened the door, asking with concern, "Grandpa, what brings you here? Are you here to see Ayan?"
Sure enough, it was the old man that Ayan had saved.
The old man was wheeled in by a nurse. As soon as he looked up, he met Qin Suisui's gaze. He smiled and said in somewhat broken Mandarin, "This comrade must be Comrade Pei's wife, right?"
Qin Suisui nodded, but before she could speak, the old woman burst into tears: "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry to you all. I heard you have a three-year-old child. If it weren't for saving me, Comrade Pei wouldn't be here... I should be the one lying here, this old woman..."
Qin Suisui squatted down and handed him a handkerchief: "Old man, don't say that. Ayan is a soldier. Protecting the people is his responsibility. He paid such a high price to save you. You should live well so that his injury won't be in vain, right?"
The old man looked up at her: "You don't resent this old man?"
Qin Suisui smiled and said, "You are the person my lover risked his life to save. In my eyes, your life is just as precious as his. How could I possibly resent you?"
The old man burst into tears again: "My own son and daughter-in-law all despise me and think I'm a burden. That's why they deliberately abandoned me before the house collapsed, wanting me to be buried on that land."
"But a stranger in the People's Liberation Army risked his life to save me, and you, young comrade, said my life was precious. How interesting... Hmm? What's that? A snake witch totem?"
The old man was sighing when he suddenly noticed the bottle of snake medicine on the table, and his eyes immediately changed: "Young comrade, how do you have snake medicine from the Snake Witch Tribe?"
Qin Suisui was taken aback. She had come out of her spatial storage earlier intending to give this bottle of medicine to Chi Donglin to try, so she hadn't put it back in.
Hearing the old man's words, Qin Suisui also looked at the small medicine bottle. This small medicine bottle was probably made of some kind of wood, with intricate patterns carved on it. To be honest, Qin Suisui couldn't recognize the pattern, but the old man recognized it at a glance.
Her eyes lit up: "Grandpa, do you recognize this totem?"
The old man nodded: "This is the totem of a branch of the Li people deep in the wilderness. Because they believe in the snake god and are good at driving away snakes, they were known as the Snake Witch Tribe in ancient times. They still live in the deep mountains and rarely contact the outside world. Little girl, how did you get this medicine?"
Qin Suisui had already learned about the old man's basic situation from Chi Donglin and Song Yunlai.
His name was Huang Weimin. He married into Zhang Hongmei's family in Wuxingding Brigade from elsewhere. Outsiders didn't know anything else about him, only that Huang Weimin seemed to have originally lived in the mountains, but he willingly left the mountains to marry into Zhang's family because he fell in love with Zhang Hongmei.
Qin Suisui's heart pounded. She had a premonition that Huang Weimin might know where the Snake Witch Tribe was, or even that he was a member of the Snake Witch Tribe. If that were the case, the hope of saving Pei Jiuyan would increase considerably.
She decided to take a gamble.
“This medicine was given to me by a snake-driving boy I met while collecting herbs in the wild forest. That boy was dressed differently from us, and he had a copper ring on his nose…” She described the boy’s appearance as clearly as possible so that Huang Weimin could better confirm it.
Finally, she added, "Pei Jiuyan's injury may require their medicine to aid in treatment." She was being careful not to mention the poisoning, only saying that it was for treating the injury.
But she found that before she could finish speaking, tears welled up in Huang Weimin's cloudy eyes again.
After venting his emotions, Huang Weimin wiped away his tears and smiled, "Young comrades, please forgive my predicament. I was just homesick! Since you didn't hide it from me, then I, a man with one foot in the grave, have nothing left to hide."
"Actually, I am also a member of the Snake Witch Tribe. When I was gathering herbs in the Wild Forest, I met my wife. That's when I said goodbye to my parents and tribe and came out of the Wild Forest alone to marry into their family."
"My wife and I had three sons and one daughter. We raised them with great difficulty, but unfortunately, in the end, we couldn't rely on any of them. If it weren't for Comrade Pei Jiuyan, I might have gone to see my wife a few days ago."
"Since you've said that, it means this medicine is ineffective. You're going to the Snake Witch Tribe to find medicine, is that right?"
He looked at Qin Suisui, his eyes no longer showing the dejection they had before, but instead a strange look in them.
Qin Suisui nodded. This was exactly what she hadn't had a chance to tell Chi Donglin and Song Yun earlier. The few bottles of snake medicine the boy had given her couldn't directly cure the poison, but they contained several medicinal formulas that were key to the antidote. She needed to personally go to the snake witch tribe.
Chi Donglin and Song Yunlai immediately became anxious: "No! The wilderness forest is too dangerous, sister, you can't go! Tell us what medicine you need, and we'll go find it for you!"
Qin Suisui shook her head; this was the crux of the problem. She had plenty of rare medicinal herbs in her space, but the peculiarity of the Snake Witch Tribe's medicine lay in the fact that their preparations weren't like traditional Chinese medicine, using different herbs in varying proportions. Their medicine seemed to be made by refining herbs in some way, then combining the refined herbs in specific proportions, making it impossible for her to replicate.
Huang Weimin nodded, a hint of pride on his face: "That's right, our High Priest is the most powerful witch doctor!"
Chi Donglin and Song Yunlai were anxious, but they really didn't understand traditional Chinese medicine and didn't even recognize the herbs. Sending them there would be like going into complete darkness, knowing absolutely nothing.
"Then, little sister, why don't we go with you?" In any case, with them around, Qin Suisui's safety would be more guaranteed.
"No, Donglin, Yunlai, you two need to stay here and protect Ayan for me." Qin Suisui gave them a wink, and their expressions immediately turned grim.
A few days ago, Qin Suisui had analyzed with them that the poisoning of Pei Jiuyan and Chi Donglin was no accident. Starting with Wen Lian's poisoning three years ago, and then to them, there was a common point: they had all just gotten married and were in their prime.
Imagine a soldier who has just gotten married. He and his new wife are naturally very much in love and inseparable. The poison is that his body doesn't react abnormally at all. On the contrary, when they do "that," he is even more vigorous and enthusiastic than usual.
Just like opium, the more you make it, the more addicted you become, and the toxicity slowly spreads throughout your body.
Who would suspect a young, middle-aged man who has just gotten married?
Interestingly, those who have been poisoned will be very strong in that area, but unable to bear children. This inability to bear children will cause both parents to worry, and thus become even more diligent... This vicious cycle continues until the third year, when the poison takes over the body, causing sudden ulceration and pus, and death from the poison, with no cure.
These individuals also share a common characteristic—they are all technical talents, possessing almost all of the most advanced and important technologies in the Chinese Navy.
Wenlian was poisoned three years ago. Perhaps the person who poisoned her didn't have a full range of poisons at the time, so Wenlian was only poisoned by a single type of poison, which she could cure.
However, both Chi Donglin and Pei Jiuyan were poisoned three years later. The poison was of the same type, but more complex, belonging to a mixed type of poison.
The reason why Chi Donglin's poison was not as severe as Pei Jiuyan's was that he was injured immediately after being poisoned, and the toxin was quickly discovered by Qin Suisui. There was almost no incubation period in his body, but even so, the poison could not be completely removed, which shows its domineering nature.
However, the toxin had been in Pei Jiuyan's body for a long time, and apart from the time when Qin Suisui was unwell and when she helped Chi Donglin with acupuncture, they had been doing it almost every night for the past week or so.
Therefore, Pei Jiuyan has much more toxins in his body than Chi Donglin, and they are much harder to cure.
Moreover, Qin Suisui guessed that not only Chi Donglin and Pei Jiuyan, but also Song Yunlai were their targets, but they just hadn't found an opportunity yet.
This is also why Qin Suisui insisted that they conceal the fact that Chi Donglin had been poisoned and that she had already helped Wen Lian cure the poison. She always felt that there was a huge conspiracy behind it all.
Qin Suisui's glance made Chi Donglin and Song Yunlai calm down simultaneously, their expressions becoming even more grim. No one could feel at ease knowing their life was constantly being watched.
Huang Weimin didn't understand the reason for the sudden silence, assuming that the two PLA comrades were worried about Qin Suisui's safety. He sighed, unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, and took off a bronze and jade ornament from around his neck, handing it to her.
“Comrade Qin, your wife was injured because of me, and I have no reason to stand idly by. Take this scale-patterned snake pendant; it is a token of our tribe. Upon seeing this, they will allow you to enter the tribe.”
Qin Suisui was taken aback, not expecting this unexpected surprise. She knew that tribes like this were usually very xenophobic, otherwise they wouldn't live apart from others.
After saying that, he looked at Qin Suisui and asked, "Do you have any paper or pen?"
Qin Suisui nodded, quickly took out paper and pen and handed them to him. Huang Weimin took them, lowered his head and began to carefully draw stroke by stroke.
The more Qin Suisui looked at the map, the more excited she became. If she wasn't mistaken, Huang Weimin had drawn a route to the Snake Witch Tribe. The wild forest was vast and fraught with danger; finding even a small tribe deep in the mountains would be extremely difficult. She had originally planned to try her luck and see if she could encounter that Li ethnic boy again.
Unexpectedly, Huang Weimin gave her a pleasant surprise.
Huang Weimin finished the drawing in less than half an hour. He had sketched that road home a thousand times in his mind, but he could never walk it again. For the Snake Witch Tribe, leaving meant forever; he could not go back, and he had no face to return.
“This road hasn’t been traveled for decades, so it’s bound to have changed to some extent, but if you follow this direction, you shouldn’t go wrong.”
Huang Weimin was right. The Snake Witch Tribe was not only a very xenophobic tribe, but also very wary of outsiders knowing their whereabouts. They lived in the high mountains, and once they discovered that outsiders were visiting, they would quickly cover up or even block the mountain road. Outsiders would not be able to see it and would only think that it was a dead end, or they would not be able to find the road at all, thus missing the path to the mountain.
This is also why the Snake Witch Tribe has never been found.
The longer Pei Jiuyan's poisoning dragged on, the more dangerous it would become. Qin Suisui couldn't wait, so she packed her bags the next morning and prepared to go alone.
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