Chapter 106 He hated her; he couldn't bear to watch her die in front of him. ...
"Yingying! Yingying, you mustn't fall asleep, you have to stay awake!"
Jiang Feiyan knelt beside Yingying, reaching out to embrace her. Her expression was anxious, and the girl, weak and breathless, lay in her arms, struggling to breathe and trying to keep her eyes open.
"Don't sleep, Yingying, Yingying, I beg you..." Jiang Feiyan saw Yingying about to close her eyes again, and one of her arms fell limply down.
She was about to reach out and grab it when another slender, fair hand beat her to it.
Jiang Feiyan suddenly looked up and found it was Yue Yining.
“…If it’s moldy rice poisoning, I know how to treat it.” Yue Yining covered her neck with her hand and coughed softly. “Please let me try.”
Jiang Feiyan's jaw was grinding; she was furious. She had just raised a fist when Yue Yining shouted, "Jiang Feiyan!!"
Jiang Feiyan was startled and froze on the spot.
The flames, after several twists and turns, finally reached Yue Yining's eyes, flickering brightly. She looked at her, her words resolute: "Let me try, I can save her!"
"You? Who knows if you're trying to save people or harm them!" someone shouted angrily.
"Why would I harm her?" Yue Yining released her hand, revealing a shocking red mark around her neck. Her expression was calm, and her eyes swept over people with a chill. "Even if I killed her, I wouldn't be able to leave this mountain, and I wouldn't survive either."
"If I save her, perhaps you will spare my life."
Yue Yining coughed twice more. Jiang Feiyan's action of choking her neck had obviously injured her vocal cords, so the more she spoke, the lower and hoarse her voice became: "Moreover, Yingying once pleaded for me. Even if you don't intend to let me go, I will save her."
"Wait." Another woman, who had been watching them coldly, stepped forward and sized up Yue Yining, who was kneeling on one knee. "But why should we trust you? Are you a doctor? Do you know anything about medicine?"
"Exactly! If you kill Yingying, are we supposed to thank you?!"
Yue Yining finally spoke those words, the opening line she used to use to introduce herself to strangers: "I am a Taoist priest."
“The Celestial Master is skilled in the Five Arts. Although I am not good at medicine, I am still much better than someone who knows nothing about medicine at all,” Yue Yining said in a hoarse voice, her eyes calmly sweeping over the faces of the people present, taking in their expressions of astonishment or surprise. “Let me try first. At least I know how to save her.”
Jiang Feiyan's lips were tightly pressed together, her expression still filled with anger, but she slowly released her grip.
Yue Yining breathed a sigh of relief, took the limp Yingying from her and laid her flat on the ground.
He was covered in sweat, his eyes were closed, his face was yellow and his lips were blue, and his hands and feet were twitching slightly.
She frowned; it was indeed moldy rice poisoning.
Yue Yining didn't hesitate any longer. She tore off a piece of her clothes and wrapped half of the embers from the firewood pile in it, sealing it tightly. Then she quickly crushed every inch of it with a piece of wood until all the embers inside were crushed into powder. She then said to Jiang Feiyan, "Give me a bowl of water."
Jiang Feiyan waved her hand, and Xiao Ying, who was standing behind her, ran to get a water bag and a wooden bowl, and hurriedly handed them to her.
Yue Yining opened the cloth bag, poured the charcoal powder into the bottom of the bowl, added a whole bowl of water, helped Yingying up, and slowly fed her half a bowl of charcoal water.
"Are you crazy?!" The crowd erupted in uproar. Seeing Yue Yining give Yingying water mixed with charcoal powder to drink, someone couldn't contain themselves any longer and shouted angrily, "How can you eat charcoal powder?! I think you're trying to kill Yingying—"
Before she could finish speaking, Yue Yining brought the remaining half bowl of charcoal water to her lips, tilted her head back, and drank it all in one gulp.
She casually tossed the wooden bowl onto the ground. Everyone stared in disbelief at this scene. Yue Yining wiped her lips and said calmly, "I drank it too, don't worry."
"This is the method others used to save me when I was poisoned by moldy rice. Burning charcoal or cooked charcoal can absorb toxins in the body. If you drink it with water in a critical moment, it might be able to save a person who is about to die." Yue Yining felt a squeezing pain in her throat and the veins on her forehead bulged slightly. She closed her eyes and endured it. When she opened her eyes again, they were clear and calm as she swept her gaze over everyone present.
"I've done all I can. If I'm lucky, I should wake up in an hour."
Jiang Feiyan's face was so dark it could drip water. She met Yue Yining's gaze, and Yue Yining looked back at her without fear.
Jiang Feiyan finally spoke: "Xiao Ying, Xiao Zhuo, you two watch over Yingying tonight. I'll personally go down the mountain to invite Deputy Division Commander Jiang back."
"As for her, throw her back into the cave for now, and we'll deal with her tomorrow."
Yue Yining was escorted back to the cave. The curtain was lifted, and she was pushed inside, almost tripping over a stone and falling to the ground.
"Miss!" Xie Qingyu rushed over, preventing Yue Yining from collapsing to the ground. Seeing Yue Yining's furrowed brows and hand covering her neck, he asked anxiously, "Are you injured? Let me see!"
Yue Yining, panting, released her grip, revealing a striking, faint red mark around her snow-white neck.
Xie Qingyu's hands were trembling. He put his arm around Yue Yining's shoulder, not daring to touch the bruise, but the bright red mark was driving him crazy. The desire to kill was tearing at his heart in his chest.
Yue Yining kept her eyes tightly closed. The pain in her neck was like needles, hard to ignore. She tried her best to endure it. Her chest heaved violently a few times before returning to calm. Just as she slowly let out a breath, she felt a faint, cold pine resin envelop her.
The man grasped her knees and carried her to the bed.
Yue Yining opened her eyes, looking somewhat tired as she gazed at Xie Qingyu's tense jaw. She asked in a low voice, "Where are you going?"
"I'll get you some water."
His voice was icy, a stark contrast to his usual gentleness. Yue Yining could tell from his tone. She forced herself to sit up straight, propping herself up on the bed and leaning against the stone wall.
As he approached with a bowl of water, she reached out and gently tugged at his sleeve, gesturing for him to sit on the bed with her.
“…Don’t worry.” Yue Yining explained in a low voice, “It’s just an external injury, and it was just this one time. She didn’t hurt me again after that.”
She could see Xie Qingyu's suppressed anger and undisguised heartache, but she did not want Xie Qingyu to take her anger out on Jiang Feiyan and the others.
Xie Qingyu's tightly pursed lips gradually loosened. He stared at her neck, its color as white as jade, yet it had been roughly violated, the deep red marks extremely unsightly. His gaze slowly descended, and he noticed her bare feet, the soles of which were covered in mud.
Before Yue Yining could react, he grabbed her ankle.
Her heart skipped a beat, an instinctive reaction from her body. When she looked over again, he had already gotten up to get a soft cloth and water, and was gently wiping away the pebbles and mud clinging to her heels with his fingers.
During this process, his fingertips inevitably touched her.
The first time he touched her like that, Yue Yining couldn't help but pull her foot, which was being held, back slightly.
"Does it hurt a lot?" Xie Qingyu asked softly.
"No...no." Yue Yining gripped the blanket tightly in her hands, thankful for the first time that her voice was hoarse and it was hard to detect anything unusual. "You can continue."
"Just bear with it a little longer." His previous coldness melted away, and he began to coax her gently, "It'll be over soon."
The tingling sensation climbed up from the soles of my feet and into my heart.
Yue Yining unconsciously held her breath.
He looked down at the soles of her feet with intense focus, applied herbs to the scraped areas, and carefully bandaged them.
After treating both feet, he let go, and Yue Yining pulled her legs back in front of her, faintly feeling the lingering warmth of his palm on her ankles.
She shouldn't be blushing. She thought to herself, touching her cheek with the back of her hand, but it felt a little hot.
Xie Qingyu didn't notice her little actions. He soaked the white cloth strips he had used to reduce Yue Yining's fever in water until they were completely wet before taking them out. He then sat down in front of Yue Yining, holding them in his hands, and gestured for her to lean over.
He said softly, "Let's apply a cold compress first."
"If it gets swollen tomorrow, I'll go and gather some more medicinal herbs from the neighborhood."
Yue Yining responded and obediently leaned closer, letting him wrap the wet cloth around her neck again and again until the unsightly red mark was completely covered.
He was very careful, and when he finally tightened the strips of cloth, he didn't hurt her.
Yue Yining reached out and touched her neck. The burning sensation at the wound had subsided somewhat, and she felt much more comfortable.
"...So what exactly happened?" Xie Qingyu asked in a low voice. "Why did they suddenly grab you and attack you?"
The two sat facing each other on the bed. Yue Yining clenched her hands and explained, "Something happened in the city, and they misunderstood, so they took their anger out on me."
She told Xie Qingyu her conjecture in detail.
"I wonder what the situation is like in Qinghuai Village now." After a sleepless night and a lot of fussing, Yue Yining, exhausted, rubbed her temples, her face clearly showing her fatigue. "If Lord Shen and Lord Qiu were in charge of the disaster relief grain, they would not have allowed moldy rice to get into the disaster relief tents. I suppose it's because I left that they had too many things piled up and couldn't take care of everything, which is why this mistake happened."
She had an even more ominous conclusion, but she didn't say it.
She suspected that Che Zilong had already seen through her previous scheme.
"Just because of this, she wants to kill you?"
Xie Qingyu's face was extremely ugly when she said this. Yue Yining was stunned for a moment, and sensing a dangerous atmosphere, she subconsciously lied, "No, Jiang Feiyan just made a mistake, she didn't mean to kill me."
No...?
In truth, Yue Yining wasn't entirely confident either.
If Yingying hadn't suddenly woken up and stopped Jiang Feiyan, it's hard to say what Yue Yining's situation would be now.
But there's no need for Xie Qingyu to know this.
"Although it really hurt when she pinched me, it was a good thing for me."
Yue Yining smiled, her eyes crinkling. She said, "You can see that too, right? Jiang Feiyan and the others aren't bad people by nature. Including General He, they are all kind-hearted. Kind people like them will eventually realize that they misunderstood me. The more she hurts me in a moment of impulse today, the more guilty she will feel when she learns the truth in the future. And guilt is often a sharp blade that can be used by people."
She had been observing the people coming and going in this valley for many days, and had gathered a lot of information. She had also been in contact with He Chan, Deputy Division Commander Jiang, and Jiang Feiyan. In fact, she had already developed another plan in her heart.
Without a doubt, He Chan and her group were the Qinghuai rebels that the imperial court wanted to eradicate. The background of that Deputy Division Commander Jiang was still unclear, but He Chan and Jiang Feiyan were clearly people with a story, and that story was inextricably linked to Qinghuai.
Yue Yining had stayed in Qinghuai for nearly two months and had come to understand the corrupt side of the Qinghuai government. She could vaguely guess that these women were forced to leave Qinghuai and become outlaws. Even if they lived in the harsh conditions of the desolate mountains, they were unwilling to really leave this land and their hometown.
She was determined to return alive, but if she did, He Chan and the others' whereabouts would likely be exposed, and she didn't want them to be wiped out by an army. If He Chan and the others were willing to be recruited by the imperial court, they could serve the court, thus preserving their lives while fulfilling the court's mission to suppress bandits—a win-win situation.
She decided to stay on the mountain and stop looking for opportunities to escape; she was obsessed with this decision.
She wanted to find a solution that would benefit both of them.
She has always been insatiable.
Xie Qingyu looked at her. Even though Yue Yining hadn't said anything, he seemed to understand her intentions from her few words, as if they were telepathically connected. For a moment, his thin lips trembled slightly.
"...Was it worth it?" His voice was unsteady. "Just for these things, to suffer so much, to get soaked in the rain until I had a high fever, to have someone choke me, was it really worth it?"
The emotions in his eyes were too complex for her to understand. It seemed to be a mixture of shattered hope, self-loathing for his own powerlessness, and a bewildered look filling the wrinkles of his suffering.
Although her face appeared calm and serene, her eyes seemed to be crying, a pool of water trembling, the light shattered into pieces, too broken to be pieced back together.
He couldn't understand where her unwavering loyalty and deep affection came from. Why did she insist on saving these people? Why did she have to get involved in the struggle for the throne? Why did she work so hard to help the prince ascend the throne? Why did she have to stop the dynasty from collapsing?
She knew that staying here meant certain death, and no one could guarantee that these people wouldn't change their minds and kill her later. Yet, even though she was in enemy territory, she was still thinking of others and had even given up the idea of escaping.
She can disregard her own danger now, so will she be willing to sacrifice her life for the greater good in the future?
So what did his visit change?
Did he come into this book just to watch Yue Yining die in front of him again?
Xie Qingyu clenched her fists at her sides.
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Author's Note: This should be easy to understand. Ningning wanted to gain credit for two things. If she could persuade He Chan to surrender, it would mean that both the disaster relief and the bandit suppression were accomplished by the Eldest Princess, making the second case an overwhelming victory. Plus, she also had compassion; she felt that others deserved to die, so she also wanted to find a way to save He Chan and the others. This was her way of achieving both goals.
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