Chapter 75 (This appears to be a fragment of a larger text, possibly a title or heading. The phrase "哄我点" is unclear and likely refers to a specific act or concept. It doesn't translate directly but can be left as is.)
“Alright, whatever you say.” Long Buxi smiled. “Sailan has already been taken back by the old patriarch. Gasu used my life-giving Gu, and he will be fine after lying down for a while. From now on, no one will stop us from being together.”
Cheng Ying thought to herself, "That's not necessarily true. You haven't solved the biggest problem yet. Wei Muchen will come back sooner or later, and then there will be a lot of trouble."
She stood up. "You lie down and rest. I'll get you some medicine and cook you something. What would you like to eat? I'll cook it for you."
Long Buxi lay down obediently, "I'm not picky about food, I'll eat whatever you cook."
Cheng Ying: ......
That sounds so awkward.
Cheng Ying went downstairs and went to the medicine station on the second floor to look for herbs that could dispel cold and heat and treat colds and fevers.
There are no shops or supply and marketing cooperatives in Pucang Village. When people in the village get sick, they treat themselves with medicinal herbs that they pick at home.
Only when the illness becomes truly severe will one seek help from the village chief to see if a live gu poison can be used for treatment.
Since even the diseased insects couldn't be cured, they considered going to see a doctor in the area where Han Chinese lived.
Long Buxi has a fever, but there are no pharmacies where she can buy medicine, so she has to brew the medicine herself.
As a rural person, Cheng Ying knew about medicinal herbs. In the past, when she was on missions in the army, if she was injured, caught a cold, or had a fever, she had to find medicinal herbs in the wild to treat herself when there was no medicine available.
On the wooden medicine table, there are many bottles and jars, as well as many dried medicinal herbs, which are placed in small baskets, categorized and arranged neatly.
The medicine table was also wiped clean, without a speck of dust, which was obviously due to Long Buxi wiping it frequently to keep it so clean and tidy.
Cheng Ying was somewhat surprised, not expecting Long Buxi to be such a tidy and clean person.
He ignored the room at the far end of the first floor where the coffin was kept, but cleaned the rest of the place spotlessly.
He clearly keeps so many Gu insects and spiders, yet there are no spider webs in the house. The house is kept very tidy, both inside and out, just like him—clean and efficient. I really don't know where he gets so much time and energy to tidy up this huge stilted house.
Cheng Ying didn't touch those bottles and jars because she really didn't know what kind of medicine they contained, and she was afraid of accidentally taking poison or other drugs and poisoning herself to death.
She picked through the dried herbs in the basket, selecting some that she recognized, and prepared a prescription to dispel the cold, then began to brew the medicine.
She started a fire in the sunken stove in the center of the living room. When she got firewood to start the fire, she noticed that the pieces of firewood that Long Buxi had placed in the corner were all one meter long, about the size of a wrist, and exactly the same length and width. They were neatly stacked in the corner and looked particularly tidy.
Does this person have obsessive-compulsive disorder?
Making the firewood pieces exactly the same looks nice, but it must have taken a lot of time and effort to make them all the same length and width.
He's so free!
After lighting the fire and simmering the medicine, Cheng Ying didn't rest either. She took a rag and carefully wiped away the dried bloodstains in the center of the living room.
Long Buxi is such a clean person, if she weren't too weak to clean up in time, these bloodstains wouldn't have been left here today.
She's almost fully recovered. During the three months she was working as a mail carrier, she suffered two serious injuries, and Long Buxi took care of her both times. Now that Long Buxi is sick, it's only right that she does what she can to help.
One cannot simply enjoy the kindness and sacrifices others make for you, whether it be family, friendship, or love. If you take others' efforts for granted without ever reciprocating, even the relationship between parents and children will fade and become distant over time.
Therefore, whether in terms of practical actions or emotional value, it is essential to respond to the other person in order for the relationship to be lasting and go further.
Long Buxi treated her well, and she realized her feelings for him, so she naturally reciprocated.
Although it was just something trivial like brewing medicine for Long Buxi and helping to wipe up the bloodstains on the ground, it was these small things that made her feel how much she cared about him.
After wiping the floor clean and preparing the medicine, Cheng Ying poured the scalding hot liquid into a bowl, carefully blew on it to cool it down, and carried it upstairs.
Long Buxi lay quietly on the bed, her cheeks flushed with an unnatural redness. Her eyes were closed, and it was unclear whether she had fallen asleep or fainted from the fever.
Cheng Ying gently nudged him, "Get up and take your medicine."
Long Buxi opened her eyes and saw the bowl of medicine she was holding, steaming and emitting a strong, bitter smell. She frowned and asked, "Can I not drink it?"
“If you’re sick, you have to take medicine. You’re a grown man, you’re not afraid of taking medicine, are you?” Cheng Ying sat on the edge of the bed with the medicine in her hand and held the bowl to his mouth.
Long Buxi leaned back and turned her head away. "I haven't taken medicine since I was ten years old. Medicine is too bitter, I don't like it."
"You should have said you weren't going to take your medicine earlier! I offered to brew it for you, and you didn't stop me. Are you kidding me?" Cheng Ying laughed angrily, then used her other hand to pry open his mouth. "You have to drink it, whether you like it or not."
Long Buxi looked at Cheng Ying with a faint smile in her eyes and said helplessly, "I'm a patient now. Can't you coax me a little, feed me with a spoon, or put some sugar in the medicine? How can you force someone to take medicine like this?"
Cheng Ying paused.
So it turns out he just wanted her to coax him; she thought he really didn't want to take the medicine.
She awkwardly withdrew her hand from prying his mouth open.
In both her past and present lives, Cheng Ying spent most of her time in the military, and was used to being straightforward, rarely needing to coax or flatter people.
The few times she coaxed someone were when she was coaxing her sister to take medicine; she never thought she would have to coax a man to take medicine.
It's said that women who know how to be charming have the best lives, and the same goes for men who know how to be charming.
Even if Long Buxi wasn't being coquettish, Cheng Ying couldn't refuse since he had said he would coax him.
She picked up a spoon and fed Long Buxi the medicine spoonful by spoonful. When he took the first sip, he frowned and looked like he was about to vomit. She glared at him and said, "If you dare to vomit, this medicine is something I painstakingly prepared. It's all from my heart. If you vomit it up, I won't care about you even if you die from this illness."
after?
Upon hearing those two words, Long Buxi seemed to recall something, and her mood improved instantly. Her previously resistant gaze softened, and she lowered her head, obediently finishing her medicine sip by sip.
Cheng Ying put the empty bowl aside and covered him with a thin blanket again. "You can continue sleeping. I'll go downstairs to cook. I'll call you to eat when I've finished cooking."
Long Buxi peeked out from under the covers and asked, "Have you forgotten something?"
"?" Cheng Ying turned around. "What is it?"
Long Buxi: "Yesterday you told me that I was not allowed to come to your room or sleep in the same bed with you without your permission. Now you're helping me into your room and making me sleep in your bed. What kind of nonsense is that?"
Cheng Ying was speechless: "What's the big deal? I'm just worried about you, okay? This is your room, I'm just staying temporarily, sleeping in your bed for now, what are you so upset about?"
Long Buxi lowered her eyes. "This is not my room. This is our shared room. You are now my fiancée. From now on, this room and this stilted house are your home. You are not just staying here temporarily. You are back home. You can stay as long as you want."
Cheng Ying was stunned, feeling something taking root and sprouting in her heart, warming her limbs and making her feel relaxed.
Cheng Ying looked at him with a smile and said in a light voice, "Yes, this is my home, my room, our home together. You can come in whenever you want, and sleep whenever you want. I won't stop you anymore."
Hearing what she wanted to hear, Long Buxi smiled with satisfaction, "Okay, I'll do whatever you say."
Cheng Ying went downstairs to cook again.
Long Buxi was a patient, so she naturally needed to eat light food. She cooked a pot of porridge.
She ate porridge cooked by Long Buxi for several days in a row, and her mouth was so bland that she couldn't stand it. She saw a string of cured meats, sausages, and cured fish hanging on a bamboo pole on the beam of the window on the left side of Long Buxi's house, and she took a small piece of sausage down.
Then she saw some wilted garlic sprouts and two round white radishes on the table where Long Buxi had placed the dishes. She cut off a small piece of cured meat, washed the sausage and cured meat, and cooked a pot of cured meat and radish soup with the radishes.
Once the soup is cooked, take the sausage out, slice it into translucent thin slices, and arrange them on a small plate.
Sliced cured pork is stir-fried with chopped garlic sprouts, filling the house with the aroma of garlic sprouts.
She carried the prepared food upstairs one by one, and then shook the sleeping Long Buxi awake, "Wake up, it's time to drink porridge. Drink a bowl before you go back to sleep."
Long Buxi opened his eyes groggily, and was about to speak when he suddenly noticed a thin, long cut on Cheng Ying's finger as she scooped porridge for him. It looked fresh, as if she had been cut by a kitchen knife, and was still red. He paused, staring straight at her hand, without saying a word.
Cheng Ying thought he was still half asleep and that's why he wasn't talking. She reached out and touched her own forehead, then touched his. "Hmm, it's not so hot anymore. The fever should have gone down. The medicine I brewed is really effective. The fever went down in less than half an hour after I drank it."
Perhaps because she was cooking, washing rice and vegetables, her hands were icy cold, and when she touched Long Buxi's still slightly hot forehead, it felt very comfortable to him.
She tried to pull her hand away, but Long Buxi gently rubbed her forehead against her palm and said softly, "Thank you for your hard work."
The rubbing of her palms made Cheng Ying's heart itch as well.
After Long Buxi fell ill, he became unusually well-behaved and handsome. He lacked his usual sinister aura and looked like a very obedient, sickly, and beautiful young man, which easily aroused people's protective instincts.
Seeing him like this, Cheng Ying's voice softened unconsciously. "It's not hard work. When I was injured, you took such good care of me. Compared to what you did for me, what I did is nothing."
She blew on the porridge to cool it down and patiently fed him spoonful by spoonful. Seeing that his eyes were fixed on the cured meat and sausages on the table in the room, she said seriously, "Don't look at that. That's not for you. You have a cold and fever, so you can only eat light food. That's for me to enjoy. I'll make it for you when you get better."
Long Buxi's lips curled slightly. "I'm not craving cured meat. I'm not picky about food; I can eat anything. I just think that if you like cured meat and sausages, I'll make you a lot more in a couple of days and hang it up at home. You can cook as much as you want; there's no need to make so little."
It turns out he thought she hadn't prepared enough and was worried she wouldn't have enough to eat; she thought he was just being greedy.
Cheng Ying laughed too. After finishing her meal, she told him, "You can continue sleeping. I'll go downstairs to wash the dishes. I'll be going out for a bit in a little while, so don't worry about me."
Long Buxi pulled the thin blanket over herself, preparing to close her eyes and sleep, when she heard this and looked at her, "Where are you going?"
Cheng Ying was clearing away the dishes: "I need to deliver mail. There was no mail in your village last month, but there is this month. I need to deliver medicine to Long Jin's mother."
Long Buxi was silent for a moment.
He quickly replied, "I'll go with you."
Cheng Ying refused, "You're sick, what would you do with me? I'm just delivering mail, I won't wander around or eat anything, don't worry. If you're still worried, you can have A-Lan, or any of your other Gu worms follow me, it's not like it's the first time you've had Gu worms tracking me."
Speaking of Alan, she remembered something else: "What's wrong with Alan? Why does it look sickly and listless, just like you?"
Long Buxi did not deny having the Gu worm follow her. "I have been feeding Alan with my blood. It is connected to my life. It can feel whatever I feel. If I am uncomfortable, it will be uncomfortable too. It is normal."
No wonder he has so many injuries on his hands.
Cheng Ying's gaze fell on his pale wrists and palms. His hands had many fine white knife marks of varying sizes that had healed. Because he usually wore silver bell jewelry on his wrists, the scars were hidden and could not be seen unless you looked closely.
Actually, Cheng Jiuying had noticed the scars on his hands a long time ago, but she didn't pay any attention to them.
At that time, she was not familiar with him. They lived deep in the mountains, making a living by farming, gathering herbs, and hunting. It was inevitable that they would get injured, and it was normal for them to have knife marks on their hands.
Upon learning that Long Buxi had actually used blood to summon Gu, Cheng Ying's gaze involuntarily fell on his bleeding palm.
Upon closer inspection, it was discovered that he had no fewer than fifty scars on his hands, crisscrossing each other. Each scar was quite gruesome, and one could only imagine how fierce and painful it must have been when he made those cuts.
What has he gone through all these years that made him disregard his own health and keep feeding the Gu with his blood?
His current unpredictable, moody, and gloomy personality may simply be a form of self-protection.
In the end, Long Buxi sent a brightly colored little spider to perch on Cheng Ying's shoulder and accompany her to deliver the mail.
The spider was no bigger than a fingernail, but it had eight very long legs. Its body was covered in patterns of yellow, blue, white, and green, with each color representing a different pattern. It looked poisonous.
Long Buxi said that this kind of spider can kill a person with a single bite. If anyone dares to touch her or cast a spell on her, the spider will attack them without hesitation.
This made Cheng Ying feel uneasy, and she didn't dare touch the spider on her shoulder for fear of being bitten. She stiffly held the email and walked towards Long Jin's house on the edge of Zuowu Forest.
As we passed a small path, we saw a father and son carrying pig feed walking towards us in the distance.
Upon seeing her, the two stopped in their tracks, both showing strange expressions. They exchanged a glance and then silently walked down another path to the side.
Cheng Ying stared at their departing figures with a puzzled look, but didn't think much of it and continued walking forward.
When she reached the vicinity of Zuowulin, a group of Miao women who had picked herbs and were carrying baskets on their backs, chatting and laughing, saw her. Their smiles disappeared, they all stopped talking, lined up by the roadside, and ran past her quickly.
They avoided her as if she were some kind of monster.
Cheng Ying: ......
What did she do that makes these Miao people so wary of her?
Is it because Long Buxi insisted on marrying her against all odds that they rejected her as an outsider and are now trying to avoid suspicion?
Soon, she arrived at Zuowu Forest. Just like last time, she walked along the riverbank, avoiding many snakes and insects with the help of the poisonous spider on her shoulder, and arrived at Long Jin's house in the bamboo forest.
As soon as she arrived at Long Jin's stilted house, she saw Long Jin standing in the open space below, his eyes lifeless and empty, like a ghost, circling around the tree stump where sheep were tied down below his house.
Long Jin's father sat beside him, holding bamboo strips and weaving a basket.
Long Jin's mother was hanging clothes to dry in the second-floor corridor.
Upon seeing her arrive, Longjin's father put down his weaving, stood up, nodded awkwardly to her, and said something in the Miao language.
Cheng Ying couldn't understand Miao language, but from his expression and tone, she could roughly guess that he was expressing his welcome to her and thanking her for sending the email.
Cheng Ying handed him the package, glanced at Long Jin who was still spinning around, and asked, "Uncle Long, what's wrong with Long Jin? Why is he spinning around?"
Uncle Long took the package she gave him, and probably understood her Mandarin. His eyes immediately reddened, and he tried to say to her in broken Chinese, "He was punished and became a fool."
Cheng Ying suddenly remembered that when they were in Lizhai, Sai Lan had given Long Jin a bowl of medicinal wine containing the Heart Gu. Could it be that bowl of wine that turned Long Jin into a fool?
A chill ran down my spine. Sure enough, the Gu poison of the Shengmiao people was no joke.
If a bowl of medicinal wine can turn a perfectly healthy person into an idiot, then what will become of Sai Lan, who was given a love potion and then punished by Long Buxi with more than a dozen kinds of potions?
Cheng Ying felt no sympathy for these two people who used witchcraft against her and harmed her at the slightest disagreement.
Seeing Long Jin, a living, breathing person, transformed into a mindless fool, parasitized and controlled by Gu worms, still evoked a deep sense of melancholy.
She said, "Don't be too sad. Long Buxi was angry, which is why he asked Sailan to put a curse on him. Maybe one day, when he calms down, he will remove the curse from Long Jin and he will become a normal person again."
"Thank you. I'm sorry for hurting you because of my son." Long Jin's father, his eyes red, bowed deeply to her. "I no longer expect Arno to be able to remove the curse from him. He hurt the people Arno cares about, he hurt you, and he deserves to be punished. The fact that he's alive now is already a stroke of luck, I don't ask for anything more."
He spoke Chinese with great difficulty, using many strange phonetic symbols, which Cheng Ying struggled to understand. She managed to piece together his meaning with difficulty.
She was just about to say a few words of comfort to him when Long Jin's mother ran down from the stilted house.
Seeing the medicine in Longjin's father's hand, Longjin's mother took the medicine, turned around and hugged Longjin, who was spinning around, and burst into tears.
That medicine was asthma medication that Long Jin had someone buy for her in the county before she drank the medicinal wine.
Now Long Jin has become an idiot. He doesn't recognize his parents or anyone else. He has no memory, no emotions, and doesn't even know how to feel hungry. He's like an empty box that has lost its soul, only knowing how to spin around and sway aimlessly.
As a mother, how could Long Jin's mother not be heartbroken and saddened to see her once healthy son reduced to such an empty shell, while the medicine he ordered still arrived on time?
Cheng Ying couldn't bear to hear this. She originally had no sympathy for Long Jin's plight, after all, he had put a heart-cursing Gu on her. The process of Mei Shu removing the heart-cursing Gu was extremely painful. It involved using a fine knife to cut open the skin outside her heart and using Mei Shu's Gu worms to slowly draw the heart-cursing Gu out. She bled a lot and suffered a lot.
If it weren't for Long Buxi's Alan always being by her side, interfering with the Heart Gu and preventing it from being planted in her heart, she would have already become a puppet in Long Jin's hands, just like Long Jin, a complete fool who could be manipulated by others.
But this elderly couple, who lost their daughter when they were young and now have a son who has become like this, are also in poor health. They had previously disregarded their dignity and knelt down to Cheng Ying to beg for mercy in order to save Long Jin's life. Now they have to raise their mentally challenged son...
No matter how you look at it, it's pitiful.
Cheng Ying thought of her mother. She dared not imagine how heartbroken her mother would be if she became mentally disabled.
She sighed silently, turned and left quietly, pondering how to talk to Long Buxi, ask him to let Long Jin go, remove the curse from him, and let him become a normal person and live a good life.
Back at the stilted house, it was already dark, and rain started falling again outside the window. With the autumn wind, the rain pattered against the tiles and glass windows, making a rustling sound.
Cheng Ying remembered that the window on the third floor was not closed, so she hurriedly climbed up to the third floor and closed the window.
Only one household in Pucang Village had electricity: Ren Qing's family. This was because she was a former government employee who didn't want to live in a dark stilted house, so she applied to her superiors to have electricity installed.
No other households had electricity; they maintained their primitive way of life, working at sunrise and resting at sunset, and lighting kerosene lamps when it got dark.
Cheng Ying fumbled around in the dark room for a while, lit the kerosene lamp, placed it on the table in the center of the room, turned around and walked to the bedside to look at Long Buxi.
Long Buxi was fast asleep, her body curled up in a ball, her long eyebrows slightly furrowed, as if she were having a nightmare, unconsciously murmuring, "Father, Mother, don't leave me..."
Cheng Ying stood by the bed and touched his forehead with the back of her hand. It was still a little hot, but not as scary as it had been that morning.
I guess it was because I took her medicine and was feeling drowsy and sleepy. She woke me up twice, which disrupted my sleep. Now I'm in a deep sleep but I'm being plagued by nightmares, which is why I'm talking in my sleep.
It's not appropriate to wake him up to talk now.
Cheng Ying decided to put Long Jin's matter aside for the time being. She went downstairs, found a clean cloth, and brought up a basin of warm water. She gently lifted the quilt, took off Long Buxi's clothes one by one, and used the wet cloth to wipe his feverish body to cool him down physically.
After taking off her clothes, Cheng Ying noticed that Long Buxi was very thin. Her ribs were clearly visible, and her collarbones were so thin that they could hold fish. There were also many white scars of various sizes on her body, some of which were knife marks, and others looked like they had been bitten by some kind of insect. They looked particularly ferocious and terrifying.
Cheng Ying guessed that the marks left by insect bites were from when he was ten years old. He was treated as a monster who had killed his father and mother and thrown into the Gu pool, where he was bitten by various Gu insects and poisonous snakes.
She reached out and gently touched the knife marks on his body, her eyes filled with pity.
He endured so much suffering, yet he didn't go mad or become a ruthless killer. His personality simply became somewhat eccentric, which is already quite remarkable. So why did everyone in the village dislike and fear him?
Long Buxi was sleeping soundly. She wiped his body and touched his scars, but he didn't wake up. His furrowed brows relaxed, and he stopped talking in his sleep.
After wiping his body, Cheng Ying dressed him and covered him with a thin blanket.
As it grew darker, she had nothing else to do and was getting sleepy. Long Buxi's other rooms were all empty, without any bedding. After thinking for a moment, she gritted her teeth and decided to get into bed next to Long Buxi and fall asleep.
Anyway, even when she was nearly naked by the pool, when the love potion took effect, Long Buxi was able to remain calm and not touch her.
He's sickly now, so it's even less likely he'll touch her.
Nothing will happen if I sleep next to him.
The bed wasn't big, and the two of them slept a bit cramped. Cheng Ying stretched out one hand, put her arm around Long Buxi's waist, rested her head on his right shoulder, and smelled the pleasant fir scent on him before falling into a deep sleep.
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