Chapter 2: Entering this bloody game, you save one person, I kill one person
Before the morning light appeared, Qing Guiyu had finished her preparations. She changed into an indigo-colored half-sleeve top with the cuffs tightly twisted to hide the old scar on her wrist. She took off her usual silver hairpin, tied up her hair, and fastened it with a small copper buckle.
She took most of the change in the chest of drawers, and left all for Doctor Meng to put under the ebony medicine scale.
The needle bag was kept close to the body, and its outline could still be felt through two layers of ramie cloth. Several bottles of medicine and seventy-two "Medicine King Valley needles" were densely placed on the right side, and the sharp blades as thin as cow hair made people feel heavy.
When he reached the door, he turned back and grabbed half a cold, hard sesame cake from the stove and put it in his bag - the feeling of hunger when he first came to Yuzhou seven years ago was easier to swallow than the taste of blood.
Yuzhou City is located on the bank of the river, where three rivers converge, and the traffic coming and going from the south and the north is the most chaotic.
If one wants to avoid being seen, water is always the way to go. Land routes inevitably leave traces, but water routes have so many channels and inlets that who knows which one to take?
Yuzhou will have the advantage of the current and the wind, and will reach Guihu Lake in two days. Once she rows her oar to the depths of the vast and misty waters, where will others be able to find her?
When she thought of this, she felt a little better and raised her hand to straighten the gauze curtain around Mi Li.
The boatmen at the city's ferry were the first to get up. The morning mist slowly rose from the surface of the river, the river steps were stained with moisture from the previous night, the masts were in disarray, dozens of small black-covered boats were moored densely, and the boatmen were busy piling moldy sacks on them.
"Miss, would you like to take a boat?" The old boatman lifted his bamboo hat, tapped his pipe, and threw a chipped porcelain bowl onto the gangplank. "This trip is twenty cents west. After passing the sled boats, you can get on the raft."
"Twenty cents, Hongli Ferry." She deliberately put ten more coins in when she counted out the copper coins, and tapped her fingers lightly on the edge of the bowl three times - this is the rule for traveling by water. If you encounter an inspection, you don't need to ask too many questions. The secret compartment in the cabin is big enough to fit a living person.
The old boatman glanced at her and waved his hand, which meant he agreed.
"Excuse me." Qing Guiyu nodded, "Please wait for me."
She walked towards the bamboo forest by the river, used both hands to break off a piece of green bamboo, and weighed it.
The bamboo was about three feet long and lush green. Qing Guiyu looked at it carefully and felt that it was not very comfortable to use. He would have to repair it on the boat later so that it would be similar to the one he was used to.
She put away the green bamboo, and suddenly there was a commotion at the ferry.
Someone on the cargo ship yelled, "You're asking for death! This box of medicinal herbs has been soaked in water. Are you treating your Jiaotang's goods like rotten cabbages?" The dull thud of the wooden box hitting the gangway startled a flock of gulls, and Qing Guiyu took advantage of the chaos to slip into the shadow of the black-sailed boat.
"Isn't it bad luck? The catch we caught this morning is all rotten." Another person on the boat flying the "Cao" flag retorted, "Did you remove that thing from your chest? The headquarters said it must never be seen again..."
"It's time to set sail!" the old boatman shouted in a gong-like voice. The gong for the boat to untie the mooring rope rang out rapidly, and the waves broke the reeds floating on the river bank.
Qing Guiyu hurried to the ferry and was about to jump onto the small black boat when suddenly a shrill scream was heard.
"He fell into the water!" someone shouted, "Help!"
Qing Guiyu took a deep breath. To be honest, this was just too much of a coincidence. In such a big city like Yuzhou, how could she run into two ghosts who were trying to hang themselves for their lives in one night?
It was such a coincidence that it seemed like someone had deliberately planned it.
She lowered her eyes and lowered her head. There was already a commotion going on nearby. Ten feet away from the center of the river, she could vaguely see half a piece of blue cloth swirling on the water.
Some fishermen picked up bamboo poles and tried to row across to rescue people, but the ferry was crowded with dozens of black-sailed boats, which were arranged densely, and no one could get through for a while.
The ferry was in chaos, with the cries of women and children and the shouts of the boatman mixed together, making it extremely noisy.
Qing Guiyu took off Mi Li, looked around, and sighed. She was leaving soon anyway, so what was there to worry about? Mi Li was thrown onto the board, and she tried to use her Qing Gong. She hadn't used it in years, but it was still quite smooth.
The figure of the girl in green clothes flashed and she jumped into the group of black-sailed boats, like a lotus swaying in the wind, with endless dots. It was the unique skill of Medicine King Valley, the Can He Ting Yu Bu, three solid and seven empty, the solid parts seemed to defeat the lotus, and the empty parts were like ripples.
Qing Guiyu lightly tapped her toes, took advantage of the momentum and exerted force, and after a few ups and downs, she had already flashed to the boat in the middle of the river.
She grabbed the clothes of the person who fell into the water, took a breath, shouted, and lifted him up suddenly. Following the "Turning Jade Pot" trick taught by her master, she used her strength to throw the person out, and the person drew an arc and landed steadily on the small boat that came to pick him up.
Smooth and clean.
There were many people at the ferry who knew what was good. When they saw the young girl make such a beautiful move, they cheered.
Qing Guiyu turned around and landed, and several people on the boat came up to greet him.
"Dead!" someone shouted. "Another river drifter!"
The dead man's clothes were in disarray. Qing Guiyu frowned slightly, stepped forward, separated the left and right sides, pulled out the green bamboo from his waist, and lifted the collar of the corpse's clothes.
Her face suddenly changed, her fingers trembled unconsciously, and Cuizhu froze in mid-air. A golden light flashed in the man's heart, and three golden needles were inserted.
The shape and style were exactly the same as the ones in her personal needle bag.
She took a step back in shock. The Tiantu acupoint was pierced diagonally three and a half inches, the Tanzhong acupoint was inserted directly into the sternum, and the Shenfeng acupoint had the tail of the needle about half the length of a grain of rice. Even if an ordinary doctor used a golden needle to seal acupoints, he would never use this secret technique from Yaowang Valley to prolong life.
Outside of Yaowang Valley, there is probably only one person who knows this secret technique.
The boy in her memory took off his shirt and lay beside her, his chest rising and falling slowly with his breathing. She pressed the last needle into the acupuncture point, and the sweat on his neck was sliding down the diagonal neck muscles.
"Miss Qing," he said breathlessly, his brow bones like piles of spring snow, and the corners of his eyes like cut deep ice.
The young man raised his arms toward her in a deep voice, as if to encircle something. He sounded a little scared, and also like he was desperate. The candlelight cast a swaying shadow on his Adam's apple.
"Half an inch deeper would have killed me."
She touched the boy's forehead, hoping he would stop trembling. Her secret golden needle technique, which could distinguish clear from turbid, and tell life from death, certainly couldn't kill Shen Jiansheng.
But it ruined him as a person.
The boat approached the shore, and the crowd gathered around. Qing Guiyu pursed her lips, clutched her sleeves, soaked with river water, and slipped away in the chaos. The old boatman was about to call out to her, but then stopped, probably thinking that this girl had martial arts skills, both powerful and uncanny, and that it was better to keep out of trouble.
Qing Guiyu felt a little discouraged. He walked around the shadow cast by the largest canal boat's mast and looked back at the ferry. In the distance, the golden and red morning light pierced through the river fog, and dawn was about to break.
Suddenly, her eyes blurred and something flew towards her. She didn't dare to take it head-on, so she turned her body slightly and lifted her clothes to catch the object.
The thing shattered with a sound. It turned out to be a wax ball sealed with mud. She opened it and saw a thin piece of paper inside. It was cold to the touch and had a layer of ice on it.
The warmth from her hands steamed the icy paper, emitting a faint mist in the early morning light of late spring. The words on the paper quickly disappeared. It turned out that they had been written with water:
You save one person, and I kill one person.
The speed with which you save people may not be as fast as the speed with which I kill them.
At the end of the signature, her name was written prominently:
Respectfully presented by Master Jinsheng, and personally addressed to Guiyu.
Before the words disappeared, she raised her head and looked towards the ferry, where there was still chaos because of the bodies killed by the golden needles.
Qing Guiyu held the rapidly melting ice paper, his fingertips feeling slightly cold. The writing on the paper gradually faded, but the chill never left, as if it seeped through his fingers into his bones.
"Young Master Jinsheng..." she muttered silently, feeling a little strange in her heart, "It's a good name."
The handwriting disappeared in an instant, leaving no evidence.
She crumpled the wax ball and the paper into a ball and threw it into the river. The water rippled gently and disappeared in the surging waves in an instant.
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