The tattered cotton wadding tickled her neck. Lin Cuiying stared at the mossy trails along the mountain path, her mind racing with questions about her family: "Has my father's leg injury healed? Shouldn't my second brother be getting married by now?"
"Ding—Lin Changgeng has a 97.3% probability of an open fracture of his right leg with infection; Lin's mother, Chen, has an 89% probability of severe malnutrition; Lin Tiandong of the Lin family has a 99% probability of typhoid fever with high fever..."
"Speak like a human!" Lin Cuiying almost stepped on a drooping vine.
The electronic voice paused for half a second: "Your father's wound is festering and his fever won't go down, your mother is so tired that she's coughing up blood, and your brother is delirious with fever and wants to see his older sister."
The little girl suddenly tugged at her sleeve: "Mother, I'm a little hungry."
Lin Cuiying touched the child's protruding wrist bone, her fingertips trembling.
In the distance, a mountain sparrow fluttered across the treetops, startling a few drops of overnight rain.
The sun hung askew in the mountain valley as Lin Cuiying broke the last half of the bran cake into pieces and soaked it in a bamboo tube.
A few specks of oil floated on the murky water; those were the lard that the original owner had secretly smeared into the lining of his clothes last night.
"Drink slowly." She watched as the little girl gulped down the bamboo tube, her throat bobbing as she did so.
A few grains of millet still clung to the bottom of the broken earthenware bowl, which Daya picked off little by little with her fingernails and ate.
Gray smoke rose from the distant mountain road, like the tracks left by an oxcart rolling over the loess.
Suddenly, a red arrow popped up in front of Lin Cuiying's eyes: [Edible plants are located at the three o'clock position]
A mountain breeze carrying the damp, grassy scent rushed towards her. Lin Cuiying stared at the direction marked by the system, where a few clumps of serrated, dark green leaves could be vaguely seen among the dappled shadows of the trees.
Da Ya suddenly tugged at her clothes: "Mother, wild berries!"
Behind a half-dead tree, a slender raspberry plant curled up, its fingernail-sized red berries glistening with morning dew.
Just as Lin Cuiying was about to reach out, she caught a glimpse of the red arrow suddenly pointing towards the roots of the dead tree, where several clumps of grayish-brown umbrella-shaped leaves were peeking out from the pile of decaying leaves.
"Don't touch that!" She pulled Da Ya's hand back, her burlap sleeve brushing against some kind of sticky mycelium.
The system screen flashed twice, and a skull icon popped up next to the termite mushroom.
The little girl suddenly broke free from her mother's hand and squatted down, pointing to the shiny things at the base of the mushroom: "Mother, beads!"
A few bluish-white, egg-shaped objects clung to the gills, then fell into the humus as the stem trembled.
Lin Cuiying felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, and she pulled the child back three steps.
A dark red-spotted centipede emerged from under the mushroom cap, its hundred legs rustling clearly as they scraped across the withered leaves.
A system alarm suddenly blared: [Neurotoxin secretions detected!]
Lin Cuiying's straw sandals sank into the pile of decaying leaves, and the sticky sensation crept up between her toes.
The system screen flickered between the raspberry bushes and the poisonous mushrooms, and the red warning box made the centipede's ring-shaped patterns exceptionally clear.
"Da Ya, take my good sister's hand!" She picked up a dry branch and pried open the rotten wood entwined with mycelium, and a sweet, fishy smell wafted out.
The dark red-spotted centipede suddenly stood upright, its forebody rising, and the sticky fluid seeping from between its fangs dripped onto the withered leaves, making a soft sizzling sound.
The system interface suddenly displayed a scrolling message: "[The probability of Termitomyces albuminosus and red-headed centipede coexisting is 98%]"
Lin Cuiying pulled out the broken bamboo tube from her waist, and three centipedes suddenly emerged from the humus.
The system screen flashed red light, and data indicating the toxin level in red cascaded down my retina like a waterfall.
She quickly grabbed the largest tail and flung it into the bamboo tube. Just as she was about to stop, the system called again.
"Host, they've all been arrested."
"Why?"
The system's voice carried an air of self-assurance: "It's useful."
Lin Cuiying didn't ask any more questions and quickly put the remaining centipedes into the bamboo tube.
Then, staring at the centipede coiled up inside the bamboo tube, he thought to himself that this thing would be a valuable medicinal material in later generations, and it should be valuable here as well.
She pinched the mouth of the bamboo tube and smeared some mud on it, using the wet mud layer to cover up the struggling sounds inside the tube.
The little girl tugged at her clothes and backed away, crying, "Mother, bugs!"
"Don't be afraid." Lin Cuiying stuffed the bamboo tube into her clothes and turned around to push aside the raspberry bushes.
The system cursor blinked among several weeds: [Edible]
She squatted down, picked a handful of wild grass, and rubbed it between her fingers to extract a pale green juice: "This is shepherd's purse, it's edible."
Lin Cuiying picked two more handfuls of shepherd's purse and put the tender leaves into a ceramic bowl: "We'll save these for tonight."
She gathered her clothes to wrap the wild vegetables and quickened her pace, pulling the child along.
As the sun began to set, a few dilapidated thatched huts finally came into view in the distant mountain valley.
The fence surrounding the courtyard leaned precariously on the earthen slope. Looking at the village, both strange and familiar, Lin Cuiying felt a pang of sadness in her heart.
She led the two maids to the fence gate and knocked on the wooden door.
"Is anyone there? Father, Mother, it's me! Cuiying is back!"
The bolt rattled, and the wooden door creaked open.
Half a sallow face peeked out from behind the wooden gate. The veins on the back of Chen's hand, which was supporting her on the door frame, were bulging, and the scabs on her knuckles had cracked open.
Just as she was about to speak, dark red blood suddenly welled up in her throat, and she quickly covered it with her hand.
"Mother!" Lin Cuiying rushed forward to support the limp old woman, and the protruding joints of Chen's lower back made her palms ache.
The system screen above Chen's head flashed frantically: [Hemoptysis with a 92% probability of tuberculosis infection]
The sound of a clay pot shattering came from the inner room, accompanied by the boy's hoarse murmurs: "Sister... the bamboo horse is finished..."
Lin Cuiying's heart pounded, and she was so choked by the musty smell that she took a half step back as soon as she stepped into the main room.
The crooked bamboo couch on the mud wall creaked, and Lin Tiandong was burning red all over, with suspicious yellow liquid seeping from the straw beneath him.
The system suddenly displayed a 3D scan image, revealing a purplish-black ring-shaped mark on the boy's left calf.
"Snake venom." Lin Cuiying felt a chill run through her body, and out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a half-dried snake skin curled up against the wall.
The bamboo tube in my arms suddenly vibrated violently, and three centipedes were gnawing at the tube wall with their pincers, their dark red carapaces gleaming eerily in the dim light.
The system cursor suddenly locked onto a bunch of herbs hanging from the roof beam: [The probability of neutralizing the toxicity of *Caulis Amaranthus* with centipede saliva is 79%]
Lin Cuiying tiptoed down the bundle of herbs hanging from the roof beam, where moldy spots spread yellow stains on the dried stems of the blackberry vine.
"Da Ya, get the mortar and pestle!" She crushed the black berries with trembling hands, and the dark purple juice mixed with the sticky liquid splattered by the centipede dripped into the earthenware bowl.
The purplish-black ring marks on the boy's legs had spread to his knees, and foul-smelling pus and blood were oozing from the festering flesh.
A countdown timer popped up on the system interface: [23 minutes remaining for the Poisonous Blood Attack]
When Lin Cuiying applied the medicinal paste to her younger brother's calf, she touched a hard lump wriggling under the skin, and pus and blood mixed with purplish-black mucus spurted out from the ulcer.
The system countdown suddenly accelerated, the numbers leaving a scarlet afterimage on my retina.
Suddenly, the medicinal paste in the earthenware bowl began to bubble and boil, and wisps of blue smoke rose from where the juice of the black berry and the centipede's slime mingled.
Lin Cuiying held down her brother's twitching leg tightly, and the medicine paste made a sizzling sound like a branding iron being quenched as it seeped into the festering flesh.
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