Chapter 55
After several days of torment, which felt like several winters and summers had passed, Shengxuan finally opened his heavy eyelids to the mournful cries of birds outside his tent at dawn.
But those eyes, which were once as scorching as the sun, are now nothing but chaotic ashes and bloodshot veins.
The poison did not lessen at all upon his awakening; on the contrary, it was as if a ferocious beast had finally found its conscious prey, unleashing an even more cruel torment. It was an excruciating pain that pierced through the bone marrow and melted the nerves. It was no longer the chaotic erosion of unconsciousness, but a heightened awareness of every inch of flesh and every joint being gnawed at by invisible fangs and scorched by chilling flames.
Sweat instantly soaked through the mattress beneath him, his muscles spasmed and tensed uncontrollably, and the veins bulged out like twisted snakes under his pale skin.
A beastly roar escaped Shengxuan's throat, only to be choked into broken sobs by intense pain. Each rapid breath carried a rusty, bloody stench, accompanied by a churning, agonizing pain deep within his abdomen.
"Ugh... Ah—!" A suppressed growl escaped from his clenched teeth.
He abruptly propped himself up on his elbows, as if frantically trying to break free from the cage of his body. The sudden force almost snapped the cloth straps securing his wrists to prevent him from hurting himself, leaving a glaring red welt. Cold sweat dripped down his sharp jawline, splashing onto the mattress and forming a dark puddle.
That afternoon, General Sheng Chi made his routine inspection of the wounded soldiers' camp and stopped heavily in front of his personal guard, who was recovering from serious injuries.
The guard struggled to get up and bow, but Sheng Chi pressed him down: "Lie down and rest well. You were saved by the King of Hell."
The guard's chapped lips parted, his voice hoarse but filled with the relief of surviving a close call: "The general is right... It's all thanks to the second young master. If it weren't for him throwing out that little bottle at the last moment..." Deep fear and lingering dread were evident in the guard's eyes.
“Those Gu worms… they were like madmen! They lunged at the smell without restraint, tearing and gnawing at each other… the sight…” His Adam's apple bobbed, as if he were suppressing a gag, “The bottle shattered, and the contents got covered in mud, so they fought over that clump of mud! The few of us entangled by the Gu worms only managed to catch our breath before being dragged back to camp…”
The guard's voice trailed off, as if recalling that hellish scene: "...I've never seen a Gu worm so...craving that thing..."
Sheng Chi's heart skipped a beat, but his face remained expressionless, though his thick eyebrows slowly furrowed. He reassured his guards a few words, then turned and left, his steps faster and heavier than when he arrived.
Sheng Chi directly lifted Sheng Xuan's tent curtain. A strong smell of medicine and the stench of illness rushed out.
Sheng Xuan was curled up on the bed, tormented by a sudden, intense pain. His body was taut like a fully drawn bowstring, his teeth were clenched so tightly they were grinding, the veins in his temples were throbbing, and his knuckles were pale from gripping the bedding so tightly. As soon as the pain subsided slightly, he slumped down, his eyes unfocused.
Sheng Chi stood silently by the bed, looking at his younger brother, who was once as dazzling as the sun, but was now being devoured by pain and was no longer human. His heart felt like it was blocked with a block of ice.
He didn't exchange pleasantries, cutting straight to the point, his voice as deep and heavy as a pressing cloud:
"Where did that little bottle you threw out at the last minute that night come from?"
Sheng Xuan struggled to lift his eyelids, his unfocused gaze lingering on Sheng Chi's face for a moment before finally grasping the definite question amidst the blurry pain. He opened his mouth, his throat dry and hoarse like a broken bellows: "...The bottle?"
He seemed to be struggling to search for fragments of memory, “…Oh…that…was it Zhelan…” Each word he uttered required immense effort, “…Zhelan gave it to me…cough cough…” A violent cough interrupted his words; he coughed so hard it was heart-wrenching, tears welling in his eyes, as he uttered the last few broken syllables, “…The medicine he…made…was…very…strong…very…special…”
As soon as he finished speaking, Sheng Xuan seemed to have exhausted all his strength. His head lolled to the side, and he once again fell into the painful quagmire of being half-conscious and half-asleep. His body was still twitching slightly involuntarily, resisting the endless torment.
Sheng Chi stood there, like a cold stone statue. The words "given by Ze Lan" weighed heavily on the vague doubt that had been swirling in his mind for days.
Su Zhelan… that mysterious young healer, a master of both medicine and poison, always shrouded in a veil of aloofness and fragility. Was it a coincidence? Was it his foresight and vigilance? Or… did he simply possess profound knowledge of the art?
Sheng Chi's gaze became incredibly sharp and profound.
Is the "medicine" that Su Zhelan concocted, which could cause thousands of Gu worms to crave it madly, a protective treasure? Or... a kind of bait that only the "source" can possess, which has a fatal attraction to its own kind of Gu? This countermeasure, which is too precise and too effective, is itself a huge shadow, pointing to an answer that he does not want to think about deeply but cannot avoid.
A chilling coldness, mixed with anger at betrayal and wariness of unknown danger, slowly but irresistibly spread from Sheng Sheng's spine.
His hand gripping the hilt of his sword tightened unconsciously. Looking at his younger brother lying on the bed, tormented by pain, the gratitude Sheng Chi felt for Su Zhelan's treatment was now shrouded in a deep, complex cloud of gloom.
For the first time, the suspicions about Su Zhelan pierced through all the warm and tender facades in such a sharp and realistic way.
At this moment, Su Zhelan was completely unaware of this.
He had just returned from the medicine storehouse after taking inventory of the wound medicines. Flakes of herbs still clung to his forehead, and a lingering weariness clung to his brow. With his eyes lowered, he quietly ground the herbs he was preparing for Sheng Xuan's pain relief using a copper mortar. In the dim light, the lines of his thin profile appeared exceptionally soft, and also exceptionally fragile.
He felt a vague unease, like a fine spider's web brushing against his heart, causing a faint, ominous ache to rise from the scar on the back of his neck, which was covered by heavy bandages. He frowned, but his hands continued moving, assuming it was just from days of exhaustion.
Outside the tent, a cold wind swirled, swirling up a few withered leaves. A storm concerning trust, life and death, and the deepest buried secrets was quietly gathering above the general's mansion, brewing a thunderbolt that would tear everything apart. He, however, was still immersed in worry about Sheng Xuan's illness, completely unaware that he had already stood at the very eye of this storm.
Su Zhelan carried the freshly brewed medicinal soup and walked unsteadily toward Shengxuan's tent.
The weight of days of worry, guilt, and the secret had made his already thin frame appear even more frail, and the dark circles under his eyes were so thick they seemed impossible to erase. The suppressed groans of pain inside the tent mingled with the low murmurs of the soldiers outside, cutting into his nerves like a dull knife.
"...Who would have thought? The Second Young Master actually volunteered to be the bait himself..."
"Shh! Keep your voice down! The general has strictly ordered that this must not be spread..."
"But this is too much... those cult methods, tsk tsk, look at the Second Young Master now..."
"I heard it's to expose a cult, Second Young Master is really..."
The word "bait" struck Su Zhelan like a thunderbolt, catching him completely off guard! His hand holding the medicine bowl trembled violently, and the scalding medicine splashed out, burning the back of his hand red, but he was completely unaware.
The whispers of those soldiers were like poisoned ice picks, piercing deep into the depths of his heart!
Bait? Voluntary?
So that's how it is! The reason Shengxuan suddenly went crazy that night was because...
And Su Zhelan, the "holy son" whom Sheng Xuan pursued with his life, the person whom Sheng Xuan protected with the purest passion, is precisely the root cause of Sheng Xuan's current miserable existence!
His secrets, his evasions, and his concealment not only betrayed Sheng Xuan's trust but also became the sharpest knife piercing Sheng Xuan!
The medicine bowl crashed to the ground with a loud bang, splattering brown liquid everywhere, just like his heart, now shattered by the truth. He stood frozen in place, his face ashen, his body trembling uncontrollably.
The immense guilt and intense sense of responsibility, like a surging tide, instantly breached the dam of fear that had been built in his heart.
He practically stumbled as he rushed into Shengxuan's tent.
The tent was dimly lit, and the heavy smell of medicine and illness was almost suffocating. Sheng Xuan lay on the couch, having just endured a round of torture from the Gu poison. His body was drenched in cold sweat, his chest heaving violently, each breath a broken, hissing sound. His eyes were unfocused, his lips cracked, and his former vibrant spirit had been completely worn away by endless pain.
General Sheng Chi stood by the couch, his tightly furrowed brows revealing unfathomable worry and a hint of barely perceptible fatigue.
Master Su Yan sat on a small stool to the side, fiddling with silver needles in his hand. Looking at Sheng Xuan's pained expression, his brows furrowed, and his eyes were full of anxiety and heartache.
This scene, like a red-hot branding iron, seared deeply into Su Zhelan's heart. Sheng Xuan's pain, Sheng Chi's heaviness, Su Yan's anxiety... all of this was because of him! Because of him, the "source" hidden in the shadows!
Fear? The fear of having their identity exposed? The fear of being executed as a "remnant of a cult"? The fear of losing their foothold in the General's Mansion? At this moment, all of these were completely crushed by the heart-wrenching scene before them.
A more powerful force—originating from his inherent kindness and sense of responsibility towards Shengxuan, Suyan, and even this hard-won peace—like a bamboo shoot breaking through the soil, with resolute courage, broke through all the gloom.
He could no longer hide. He had to do something! Even if it meant being shattered to pieces!
As the night deepened and the dew grew heavy, all was silent.
The once bustling military camp was now deathly silent, save for the heavy footsteps of the night patrol soldiers and the occasional cold twang of the watchtower in the distance, which broke through the thick darkness.
Su Zhelan's figure appeared silently outside Su Yan's tent, like a ghost. His thin frame almost blended into the shadows in the dim moonlight, only his eyes shone brightly, burning with a resolute, desperate flame.
He took a deep breath; the icy air stung his lungs, yet strangely suppressed the trembling in his fingertips. He gently lifted the curtain.
Inside the tent, only a small oil lamp shone, casting a dim, flickering light. Su Yan was slumped over the table, dozing off while looking at an open, old medical book. The worries and anxieties of the past few days had taken their toll on the physician.
“Master…” Su Zhelan’s voice was very soft, but it was like a pebble thrown into a silent deep pool.
Su Yan suddenly woke up and looked up to see Su Zhelan standing in the shadows. His eyes sharpened: "Zhelan? It's so late, what happened? Is it Sheng Xuan...?" He subconsciously got up to check on Sheng Xuan.
“No,” Su Zhelan stepped forward, stepping into the faint halo of light. His face appeared unusually pale in the dim light, but his eyes were firm and unwavering. “It’s me… I have a way to save him.”
Su Yan stopped moving and looked at him in confusion: "A way? What way? You've found a cure for the curse?"
Su Zhelan shook his head. He walked up to Su Yan and, without hesitation, knelt down! His knees slammed onto the cold ground with a dull thud, startling Su Yan.
"My blood..." Su Zhelan raised her head, looking directly into Su Yan's shocked eyes, and said each word clearly, "Master, my blood... can suppress the Gu poison in Sheng Xuan's body!"
"What?!" Su Yan suddenly stood up, causing the medical books on the table to clatter. The flame of the oil lamp flickered violently, casting an uncertain light on his horrified face. "Nonsense! Zhe Lan, do you know what you're saying?!" His voice was filled with the inherent seriousness of a physician and an incredulous anger.
Su Zhelan did not back down. He straightened his back, his voice carrying an almost tragic calm: "I know this sounds absurd! But you saw it with your own eyes! When I was a child..." He took a deep breath, forcibly dredging up that long-buried, blood-stained memory, "Do you remember? When you bought me from human traffickers, I was covered in wounds, plagued by countless poisonous creatures, and living a life worse than death..."
Su Yan's pupils suddenly contracted! That memory instantly became clear—the child curled up in the corner, his body covered in festering sores and oozing pus, being devoured by countless strange worms, yet miraculously clinging to life! The child's pained and contorted face overlapped with Su Zhelan's thin but resolute face before him.
"Yes... I remember..." Su Yan's voice became hoarse. The scene was too vivid, a rare and unusual disease in his medical career.
“I survived.” Su Zhelan’s voice trembled slightly. “Although it was worse than death, I survived. My blood… perhaps that’s the reason. Those Gu worms gnawed at me, but they seemed… unable to truly kill me. Perhaps there’s something in my blood… that can restrain them, or at least suppress them!”
This explanation was like a thunderclap in Su Yan's mind! He staggered back a step, bumping into the medicine cabinet behind him with a loud bang.
The light from the oil lamp flickered violently across his face, reflecting the turbulent emotions churning in his eyes—shock, disbelief, a hint of absurdity…and the ensuing, even deeper fear!
He stared intently at Su Zhelan, as if seeing the boy he had raised with his own hands for the first time.
The mist surrounding the child seemed to be torn open with a gruesome gash at that moment! Caught entangled by countless Gu poisons yet still alive… his special blood could suppress the Gu venom… This wasn't some “special constitution” at all; it was clearly…
The words "remnants of a cult" were like a red-hot branding iron, instantly searing Su Yan's heart! He almost blurted them out!
If Su Zhelan's blood could truly save Sheng Xuan, wouldn't that confirm that Su Zhelan had intricate, perhaps even fundamental, connections with those insidious and treacherous cults?! Could the child he had painstakingly taught and treated like his own son all these years... could he really be...?
An overwhelming sense of fear and betrayal overwhelmed Su Yan like a cold tide.
His face was deathly pale, his lips trembled, and he looked at Su Zhelan kneeling before him with an extremely complex expression—shock, fear, anger at being deceived, and an indescribable sense of desolation at being mocked by fate.
“Ze Lan…” Su Yan’s voice was dry, like sandpaper being scraped.
"You...do you know what you're saying? Do you know...what it means if this is true?" His gaze was sharp as a knife, trying to cut through every emotion in Su Zhelan's eyes. "You're pushing yourself to the brink of despair! Jumping into a fire pit!"
Su Zhelan's body trembled almost imperceptibly, and the fear and suspicion in Su Yan's eyes pierced his heart like needles.
But he did not back down. Instead, he met Su Yan's gaze, which held a calm resolute determination: "I know. I know everything."
He forced a smile, a bitter one that was more like a grimace, and said, "It means I may... never be able to call you Master again."
He paused, his voice lowering, yet carrying an undeniable firmness: "But Shengxuan... he can't wait any longer. Master, you've seen it yourself, he's being gnawed at every moment, suffering terribly... I can't... I can't just watch him go on like this! Even if there's only a sliver of hope, even if that hope comes at the cost of my life, I will try!"
He raised his head, his eyes filled with the resolute determination of a lone wolf: "As for the future... at worst, I'll just run away after I've saved him."
These words, though spoken lightly, struck Su Yan's heart like a boulder.
Running away? Where could a boy carrying such a secret go? And how long could he live?
A deathly silence fell over the tent. The flame of the oil lamp flickered uneasily, casting the shadows of the two men facing each other onto the tent wall, distorted and elongated, like two silent stone statues.
Su Yan looked at Su Zhelan. He saw the resolute determination in the young man's eyes, the willingness to sacrifice himself for Sheng Xuan and risk his life.
A tremendous internal conflict tore at Su Yan's heart. His compassion as a healer made it impossible for him to refuse any possible chance of survival, especially since the recipient was Sheng Xuan; yet his tenderness and protectiveness towards Su Zhelan filled him with dread about the devastating truth hidden behind this "sustainable" chance.
Finally, Su Yan closed his eyes heavily, as if he had exhausted all his strength. When he opened them again, his aged eyes held only a tragic weariness and a helpless resolve.
“…Okay.” That single word seemed to have taken all of Su Yan’s strength, crashing heavily into the silent night.
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