8. Eight Characters
◎【Isn't this intimate?】◎
In fact, he regretted it as soon as he saw the painting.
What is he saying? It sounds like he's trying to curry favor...
Fortunately, the cold prevented the unexplained flush on his face from looking out of place. He slowly buried his face in the quilt, smelling a familiar medicinal scent.
It was the scent of the medicine he had personally brewed that she carried.
The cold seemed to be getting worse; he felt dizzy and had difficulty breathing. After waiting for a while without seeing any reaction from Du Zhijin, he couldn't help but peek outside and found her standing by the medicine stove under the window, fanning the fire, as if she hadn't heard what he had just said at all.
This eased his anxiety a little. But what was simmering in the stove wasn't medicine; it was the leftover chicken from yesterday.
Ying Jianhua: "Didn't you say you were going to sell it for money?"
Du Zhijin lifted the lid and added another handful of goji berries, replying, "I originally wanted to save up money to help you redeem your things, but your health is more important now."
He was taken aback: "Redeem? Redeem what?"
She didn't answer; the only sounds in the room were the crackling of the fireplace and the tapping of the overnight rain on the window. After a long while, Ying Jianhua's muddled mind finally cleared, and her voice rose slightly: "You saw it?"
Du Zhijin nodded with his back to him, his face veiled in the flickering firelight, a warm glow tinged with his features: "That's your mother's keepsake, isn't it? It should be cherished. Wait for me... wait for me to get Zuilan back, and I'll find a way to redeem it for you."
His mind, clouded by the high fever, finally cleared up for a moment. He was silent for a moment, then said, "It's not all for you. Besides, inanimate objects are nothing compared to living people."
He remembered that she had once said she had two swords, named after "the bright moon when awake, and the gentle breeze when drunk," but he only had the bright moon at hand, and never saw the drunken mist.
With the human hearth gone, the wind blew in after a while, making his hands and feet icy cold. He shrank back to the side, hiding his whole body under the thin blanket, but he still couldn't stop feeling cold.
"Where is the other sword? How can you retrieve it?"
After a moment's thought, Du Zhijin said, "It probably fell to the bottom of Tiger Xue Pool. But it's not a big deal. As long as I return to my previous state, I can stand on the shore and call out, and it will come out."
Ying Jianhua seized the opportunity to stab her: "So you know you need to get back to your old self first? You were hunting in the mountains with Lu Ping yesterday, having a great time."
Du Zhijin was surprised that he would bring up old grievances at this time. He silently poked the branches at the bottom of the stove to cover his embarrassment.
A moment later, she couldn't help but mutter a defense of herself: "I wasn't having a lot of fun. I remembered not to use too much force, otherwise how could I have only caught two?"
Normally, all the monkeys on the mountain would be chased away by her.
Ying Jianhua gave a soft snort, it was unclear whether he believed her or not. After a moment, he casually inquired, "What do you think of Lu Ping?"
The strange voice said something about apologizing to him, climbing the wall and knocking on a flat boat, leaving everyone completely baffled.
First, we can conclude that Lu Ping's appearance distracted the monster, but what was the meaning of climbing the wall? Could it be that the monster was only separated from him by a wall? But the Huang family, his neighbors for ten years, lived next door. If the Huang family had been possessed by the monster, he couldn't have been completely unaware.
And then there's this "knock on a walnut." I've only ever heard of "knock on one," but how do you knock on a walnut? Do you use your front teeth to crack a walnut?
I couldn't understand most of what he said, so I could only start with Lu Ping.
Seeing that he was no longer pressing her about going hunting in the back mountains, Du Zhijin breathed a sigh of relief and recalled, "His skills are not bad. Although he is not as good as me, he is more than enough as a constable. Rather, it is quite puzzling that someone with his skills is only a constable."
The evaluation sounds quite high? The two are truly in love.
A nameless anger suddenly surged in his chest, faint and inexplicable. He cursed the monster inwardly for being fickle, able to "swoon" over any man or woman he saw.
"Oh, by the way, he's twenty-one this year, earns two taels a month, and has a nine-year-old sister at home," Du Zhijin recounted. "He experiences chest tightness, shortness of breath, and a rapid heartbeat, so he may suffer from palpitations."
After he finished speaking, Doctor Ying's chilling voice came from behind him: "Oh? Is that so? It seems that Officer Lu is in poor health and needs to be properly nourished."
She nodded approvingly and added, "Also, he said his birth date and time are..."
Ying Jianhua was shocked: "He told you his birth date and time the first time we met? Aren't you afraid of being cursed?"
Du Zhijin also looked puzzled: "Yes, I thought it was fashionable to ask a doctor about one's birth date and time before examining a patient these days." She paused, then added, "I don't think I mentioned it to you. Let me think, my birth date and time should be..."
He wanted to say that there was no such rule, but he listened to it anyway and mentally calculated it.
In the year of Gengzi... she was only nineteen years old? Only two years older than him?
Thinking back to the first time he saw her covered in blood, he couldn't help but think that ordinary people her age had only recently started a family and career, and at most were worried about making a living from daily necessities. How could they be in such a precarious situation, risking their lives and living on the edge?
However, her birth chart... "Lu Ping is a water element person, and you are a fire element person. The five elements clash, and your birth charts are incompatible."
Du Zhijin was stunned: "Doctor Ying, you can also read birth charts? My master wanted me to learn it, but I feel sleepy as soon as I hear the elders chanting scriptures, and I haven't learned anything."
She sighed, "We should really switch roles. You go to school for me, and I treat patients for you."
Ying Jianhua thought to herself, "How dare she treat people like this? It's clearly just a case of a young man's heart racing, but she's diagnosing him with palpitations."
"What kind of birth charts are compatible? I belong to the fire element, and the compatible element... is wood?" To stew a pheasant until it's tender, it needs to be simmered for an hour or two. With nothing else to do, she decided to find something to talk about.
Ying Jianhua taught her: "Besides the simple five elements, you also need to look at yin and yang, the ten gods, the major luck cycle, the annual luck cycle... It can't be explained in a sentence or two." Although it can't be explained in a sentence or two, he still explained the principles to her in detail.
For as long as he spoke, Du Zhijin listened with his chin propped up on his hand, feeling that Doctor Ying was truly a promising teacher, speaking much better than the elders.
Finally, she asked a question: "Dr. Ying, what is your birth chart?"
The sound of the painting paused.
He lowered his eyelashes and said softly, "...I forgot."
Forgot? Du Zhijin asked in surprise.
Is it really possible for someone to not remember their own birth date and time? Moreover, he clearly has a lot of knowledge about this.
————
Illness comes like a landslide and goes like a slow, drawn-out process; even doctors cannot avoid it.
Ying Jianhua seemed a little better at noon; he got up, drank a bowl of chicken soup, and then lay down and talked for a while. But as night approached, the temperature on his forehead rose higher and higher, almost burning hot.
This was not something Du Zhijin could solve by simply flipping through medical books. Ying Jianhua forced himself to direct her in preparing and decocting the medicine. Some medicines were out of stock at the pharmacies, and she even wanted to brave the rain to go up the mountain, but he stopped her.
"Cough... I'm sick and you're taking care of me. If you get sick too, are we just going to sit here and wait to die?"
He was her doctor and knew her body best; she only appeared healthy now, but was actually very vulnerable.
Minor skirmishes were fine, but as a martial artist, her physical condition was far superior to that of ordinary people. After a few days of rest, she was as good as new.
However, her foundation was still weak. Although he wasn't sure, he vaguely sensed that her so-called "cultivation" hadn't fully recovered. That's why he had always forbidden her from using her internal energy, but didn't stop her from going out occasionally.
Du Zhijin had no choice but to watch helplessly as the rain outside grew heavier and heavier, and he spoke less and less.
The chicken was stewed until tender, but Ying Jianhua found it hard to swallow and ended up eating it all. She suddenly remembered the sweet soy milk he had brought back yesterday and thought to herself that if it were that, perhaps he would have an appetite.
But clearly, the weather doesn't allow her to go out, and Ying Jianhua also disagrees.
As the stars began to twinkle faintly on the horizon, night quietly descended, and the already deep sky became even more profound.
Darkness makes people vulnerable. Du Zhijin searched high and low but could only find a half-burnt candle, barely enough to illuminate a corner of the bed.
It was only then that she truly realized how impoverished the painters were.
A roof without a single tile, meals consisting only of vegetables and porridge, and a candle that can never be found.
Despite his poverty, he would rather pawn his mother's belongings than abandon her and leave her to fend for herself.
In the dim candlelight, he closed his eyes tightly, concealing the sharpness he possessed when lucid, revealing a hint of tenderness. His long eyelashes, like green ribbons, rested quietly on the shore, their delicate strands drooping down.
The green ribbon startled the water's surface, and he opened his eyes: "What are you looking at?"
Du Zhijin bluntly stated, "I'm watching you."
Her straightforward, almost candid response made him feel as if someone had suddenly grabbed him by the throat, causing him to catch his breath and his eyelashes to tremble involuntarily.
Coming to his senses, he hurriedly turned his face away, trying to cover up his misunderstanding, and said, "It's not like it's the first day I've seen it... I've never seen you staring at me like this before."
Actually, this had happened a few times before, and each time it ended with him fleeing in disarray.
He glared at her secretly.
How frivolous a Taoist practitioner is! Bah!
Du Zhijin, unaware of his thoughts, continued to express her own: "Dr. Ying, has anyone ever told you that your eyelashes are very long? Long enough to be like a small fan?"
Ying Jianhua let out a soft hum, muffled: "Save those words for Lu Ping."
He finally understood that the reason the monster was haunting Du Zhijin was because of her outspokenness.
"Why did you tell Lu Ping? I never paid attention to whether his eyelashes were long or not." She found it strange, thinking he was delirious with fever, and leaned closer to feel the temperature of his forehead. Still feeling that her hands were cold, she lowered her head and pressed her forehead against his.
With a soft sound, her face magnified infinitely in his eyes.
Bang, bang.
His heavy heartbeat suddenly lightened at that moment, and he heard the monster shouting noisily in his ear:
[This isn't even a kiss? Ying Jianhua, are you even a man?!]
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
