"What...what are you doing?"
Yuwen Sheng's voice was low and deep: "I don't need a hot towel, you can keep it warm for me."
Does he use her as a thermos?
“If you’re sick, you need to get treatment. What you’re doing is only providing temporary relief,” she earnestly advised.
"How do you know it won't work if you don't try?"
Zheng Quchi really wanted to say, "Don't argue with me, and there's no need to try. She's not a ginseng doll that can be cured by touching her. She's sure that doing this will only provide psychological comfort and will have no effect whatsoever."
"It's your health, and I can't persuade you otherwise, but if it doesn't work after trying, you'd better go see a military doctor."
Yuwen Sheng said indifferently, "It's no use. I've seen the best imperial physician in Ye Kingdom. He said it's a ailment I've had since childhood, and there's no other way but to take care of it."
Become a child?
Isn't he a nobleman from the State of Ye? How could he have developed this kind of illness since childhood?
Zheng Quchi guessed: "When you were little... were you too picky about food, so you often didn't eat?"
“It’s not that I don’t want to eat, but…” His overly bright eyes were fixed on the air, his expression shrouded in shadow, as dark as a night-blooming cereus: “I have to compete with dogs for food.”
Upon hearing this, Zheng Quchi's heart skipped a beat, just like the feeling of stepping into thin air.
She felt she shouldn't continue discussing this with him.
There's a saying that goes, "The more you know, the less good it is." But human curiosity is a strange thing; it can compel her to ask, "So you've always been this fierce since you were little? You can't even take a dog's life from me?"
As soon as she said those words, she froze.
Holy crap, is her brain all messed up? How could she ask a question like that about brainstem deficiency?
But Yuwen Sheng's reaction was different from that of ordinary people.
"Hehe..." Yuwen Sheng was not annoyed at all when he heard her say that. Instead, he laughed heartily. However, because the movement was too big, it aggravated his abdomen, and he breathed heavily a few times, as if he was enduring a colorless pain.
“Yeah, even dogs are afraid of me,” he chuckled hoarsely.
Should!
Let him laugh at her.
But she still carefully and gently massaged his stomach, trying to ease his pain.
"So, don't your parents care about you?"
As soon as she asked the question, it seemed she had stepped on a landmine again.
Not long ago, Wang Zebang reminded her that she should not mention the general's biological parents in front of him, and that it was a taboo.
She really knows how to bring up the most sensitive topics.
But you can't blame her for this. The conversation had already come up, so asking about his parents was just a natural thing to do.
"I was just asking randomly, you can—"
Yuwen Sheng said, "My mother... died because of me, and my father wishes I were dead... Tell me, who would care about such a monstrous and harmful person like me?"
Zheng Quchi swore that despite the cold weather, she was sweating profusely.
She really stepped on a landmine, which exposed a previously unknown secret.
She recalled the barbarian who had been beheaded by Yuwen Sheng at the Tianqian Pass, and the curses and swears he had uttered before his death.
He said, "Yuwen Sheng, you monster, no wonder your parents cursed you to a terrible death until their last breath..."
He also said—you bastard! You bastard! Do you think nobody knows how you came to be?
Every word was vicious and a cruel insult. At the time, she thought it was just the other person venting their anger before they died. But what if what they said was true...?
Zheng Quchi was sweating profusely, his heart pounding wildly.
Will she be killed by Yuwen Sheng afterward because she knows too much?
"Um... you're not feeling well, you should rest for a while and stop talking."
As she spoke, she nervously and timidly reached out and closed his eyes, shifted her position slightly, and laid him flat against her thighs.
Escaping may be shameful, but it can be useful.
Yuwen Sheng was indeed not in good condition at the moment. He let her do as she pleased, his body was limp, and he leaned against her, feeling drowsy.
“Cartesian square…” he murmured softly, as if in a dream.
Zheng Quchi heard this and leaned closer to listen: "Huh? What's wrong?"
"Are you... also resenting me?"
She couldn't tell whether he asked that question when he was of sound mind or when he wasn't thinking clearly...
But she remained silent for a moment, without an answer in her heart.
Her silence lasted too long; Yuwen Sheng's breathing had become steady, and he had fallen asleep.
"Why does Liu Fengmian have to be Yuwen Sheng? It's so annoying."
She scratched her hair, muttering in frustration.
——
Not long after, Wang Zebang arrived. When he learned that Yuwen Sheng was unwell, he immediately ordered the guards to summon the army doctor.
Seeing that Wang Zebang had arranged Yuwen Sheng's affairs in an orderly manner, Zheng Quchi felt very reassured and entrusted the man to Wang Zebang's care.
Under the dissatisfying and accusing gaze of the other party, she abandoned Yuwen Sheng, the patient, and ran away to Fuxian County.
She went to the casting workshop, considered all aspects of the situation, and decided to skip the step of turning iron ore into pig iron and directly buy pig iron from the blacksmiths.
Taking advantage of Runtu's influence, she found three old blacksmiths with decades of experience in the casting workshop and planned to have them help her smelt steel.
She used the crucible steelmaking process, also known as the ball steelmaking process or the raw-cooked process, which is one of the most outstanding achievements of early Chinese steelmaking technology.
Before explaining the principles of the crucible steel method and forging techniques to them, she made a three-point agreement with the three men: the methods she taught must never be revealed to anyone else.
Worried that she lacked authority, she even brought in Runtu, the cavalry commander, to supervise the entire process and act as a third-party witness. The blacksmiths, already trembling with fear upon hearing that she was working for the general, dared not disobey. But Runtu went even further, writing three military orders for them to sign.
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