Chapter 59
"Open your eyes and look! Look at all these wounds you've suffered! Look at that bloody hole in your chest! That almost killed you! Sheng Xuan is a young master of noble birth! He's Sheng Chi's beloved younger brother! He has the entire General's Mansion behind him! He has plenty of ginseng and deer antler to keep him alive! He won't die! But what about you?! If you stay here any longer, you'll just be draining your last drop of blood! You'll just be waiting to be treated as an evil creature and torn to pieces! Do you even understand that?! Huh?!"
Su Yan became more and more agitated as he spoke. The immense grief and anger caused him to lose his usual composure. He suddenly reached out and grabbed Su Zhelan's collar so hard that he almost lifted her off the ground!
Su Zhelan stumbled as he pulled her, aggravating her wound and causing her to turn pale with pain, gasping for breath.
But Su Yan was consumed by rage and couldn't care less about any of that. He shook Su Zhelan's frail body violently, his voice hoarse and desperate, tinged with tears:
"Are you stupid! Zelan! Are you completely stupid?! I saved your life! I used herbs, acupuncture, and countless days and nights to pull you back from the brink of death! Not to let you... to let you stay here and be used as a blood sacrifice for some damn general's brother to die!!"
Upon seeing this, Gu Linzhao frowned deeply, a fierce glint flashing in his eyes.
He stepped forward decisively, his strong arm swiftly inserting itself between the two, firmly gripping Su Yan's wrist as he clutched Su Zhelan's collar, and said in a deep voice, "Ayan... let go, he can't hold on much longer."
Su Yan loosened his grip.
Su Zhelan felt as if her bones had been removed; she staggered backward and crashed heavily and helplessly into the cold, rough stone wall.
A sharp pain shot through his back, but the ache in his heart, and his master's blood-curdling roars, were a hundred times more intense than the physical agony! He gasped for breath, tears mixed with cold sweat streaming down his face, his whole being like a flickering candle in a storm.
"Yes... I owe him..." Su Zhelan's voice trembled violently, filled with desperate sobs. He raised his tear-blurred eyes to look at the furious and heartbroken Su Yan, gasping for breath in anguish, "Master... it's my fault... if it weren't for me... he wouldn't have become bait... he wouldn't... wouldn't have turned out like this..."
He pointed to his heart, and then to the depths of the General's Mansion, sobbing uncontrollably: "If I leave... I'll be cutting off his lifeline with my own hands... I'll be watching helplessly as he's slowly devoured by the Gu worms... Master... I can't do it... I really... can't do it..."
The desperate cries, like the wails of a dying young animal, echoed in the cold stone house.
All of Su Yan's roars and questions were choked back by this desperate cry.
Looking at Su Zhelan's pale, tear-streaked face, and listening to those words that were like tearing out his heart, "owing him" and "personally cutting off his own path to survival," his soaring anger and resentment seemed to be frozen instantly, then turned into bone-chilling ice, which heavily smashed into the depths of his lungs, making his limbs tremble!
Gu Linzhao stood silently between the two, like a reef separating a storm.
His deep gaze lingered for a moment on Su Zhelan's figure, huddled in the corner, tears streaming down her face, almost crushed by despair, before falling on Su Yan's stiff back, which seemed to have been drained of all its energy in an instant.
The air was thick with the suffocating embers of sorrow, anger, and despair.
After a long silence, Gu Linzhao slowly exhaled, breaking the deathly stillness. His voice was deep and steady, carrying a composure honed by experience and an undeniable decisiveness, clearly reaching Su Yan's ears:
"Su Yan." Gu Linzhao's voice was not loud, but it startled Su Yan, who was immersed in great grief and indignation. "Since Zhelan insists on this... then... let's go along with it."
"Accept him?!" Su Yan suddenly turned around, his bloodshot eyes like burning embers, staring intently at Gu Linzhao, his gaze filled with unbelievable anger and the pain of betrayal!
He spoke as if he were seeing Gu Linzhao for the first time, his voice sharp with extreme disappointment and incomprehension: "Gu Linzhao! Are you crazy?! You're letting him run wild like this?! Are you just going to leave him here to die?! Look at him! Look at the state he's in now! If he stays any longer, they'll drain him dry!"
Gu Linzhao met Su Yan's almost fiery gaze, his eyes not flinching at all, but instead becoming even calmer, like a bottomless, icy pool.
He shook his head slightly, his voice still steady, yet carrying an undeniable force: "It's not nonsense. It's a choice. He chose this path, and we... can't stop him."
He paused, then turned his gaze to Su Zhelan, who was leaning against the wall and flinching at Su Yan's roar, and continued, "I will personally deliver medicine and tonics every day. With me watching over him, Sheng Chi... won't dare to go too far."
His tone was calm, yet it carried an invisible pressure and confidence, as if he were stating a given fact: "At least... it can save his life and make him suffer less."
As Su Yan listened to Gu Linzhao's words, his chest heaved violently. The anger in his eyes did not subside; on the contrary, it burned even brighter because of Gu Linzhao's almost "indulgent" attitude!
He glared fiercely at Gu Linzhao, his eyes seeming to roar silently: Su Zhelan is so willful! So reckless! And you actually let him have his way?! You even said you'd indulge him?! Are you watching him jump into a fire pit?!
Gu Linzhao understood the anger and questioning in Su Yan's eyes, but he did not explain. He simply looked back at Su Yan with his calm and deep eyes, conveying a sense of helplessness and persistence that "things have come to this point, and there is no point in forcing things. We can only do our best to protect him."
Su Zhelan huddled in the corner, burying her head deep in her knees, her shoulders trembling slightly from crying and the cold.
Master Su Yan's gaze, filled with utter disappointment and fury, was like a red-hot iron, burning him with shame.
Gu Linzhao's calm yet helpless words tore at his heart. He knew he had failed his master's kindness in raising him and had betrayed Gu Linzhao's kindness in risking his life to save him.
He was willful and stubborn; for the sake of an "outsider," he put his master and Gu Linzhao in such a difficult and dangerous situation.
A profound sense of guilt weighed him down like heavy shackles, making it hard to breathe. He dared not look up, dared not meet his master's eyes, which were burning red with anger and disappointment, and dared not look at his elder brother Gu Linzhao's calm yet all-knowing gaze.
He could only bite his lower lip hard, choking back all his sobs and apologies, curling his body up even tighter, as if trying to shrink himself into a speck of dust and disappear into the cold crack in the ground.
Silence fell over the stone house once again. Only Su Zhelan's suppressed sobs and Su Yan's heavy breathing, filled with resentment and indignation, mingled in the air.
Looking at the master and disciple in front of him—one was furious at their lack of ambition and heartbroken; the other was filled with guilt but stubbornly insisted on their own opinion—Gu Linzhao felt a mix of emotions.
"Fine! Fine! Fine!" Su Yan's voice seemed to be squeezed out from between his teeth, hoarse from burning anger and icy coldness bordering on despair. "You insist on staying! You insist on being the catalyst for this medicine! You insist on walking down a path to death! Fine! I can't control you anymore!"
He uttered each word almost through gritted teeth, each "good" like a heavy hammer blow to Su Zhelan's heart.
Su Yan suddenly reached into his robes and roughly pulled out an object—a piece of warm, smooth, and white mutton-fat jade, with no elaborate patterns on it, only an ancient character "林" (Lin) engraved in the center.
This was a talisman given to him by a reclusive master when he was practicing medicine in his early years. It was said to be able to soothe the mind and spirit and bring good fortune and ward off evil. He always kept it close to his body and regarded it as a treasure.
At that moment, without even glancing at it, as if discarding an eyesore of trash, he hurled the jade pendant hard towards the direction where Su Zhelan was curled up!
The jade pendant landed with a "thud" on the cold stone ground at Su Zhelan's feet, making a crisp sound.
"Take it!" Su Yan's voice was like a knife chilled to the bone, "When you're drained of all your blood and tortured to the point of collapse, then crush it!"
He stared intently at Su Zhelan's lowered head, as if trying to see through his disheveled black hair into the depths of his stubborn soul. His voice carried an almost curse-like ruthlessness and a deep-seated, unspeakable pain: "I... and Lin Zhao... will come back to take you away! To take you away from this hellhole! One last time!"
After saying that, he turned around abruptly, as if looking at Su Zhelan's appearance any longer would make him so angry he would vomit blood! He roared two words at the door: "Go!"
Gu Linzhao looked at the warm jade pendant on the ground, then at Su Yan's trembling back, which was trembling slightly with extreme anger and disappointment, and a barely perceptible sigh flashed in his eyes.
He said no more, but walked to Su Zhelan's side, squatted down, and once again forcefully stuffed the jade pendant engraved with strange cloud patterns into Su Zhelan's tightly clenched, trembling hand.
He stood up, walked to Su Yan's side, raised his hand, and patted Su Yan's shoulder heavily, with a sense of reassurance and urging. Su Yan's shoulder was heaving violently but held straight and stiff.
"Let's go." Gu Linzhao's voice was deep and resolute. "It's almost time. We should go back."
Su Yan's body jolted when Gu Linzhao patted his shoulder. He didn't turn around, but gritted his teeth, his jawline taut like a knife.
He suddenly lifted his foot, about to rush out of the cell that broke his heart and suffocated him!
Just then—
A cold, trembling hand, wet with tears and cold sweat, gently and carefully grasped the hem of Su Yan's coarse cloth robe.
The force was very light, as light as a feather, yet it carried an undeniable attachment and a desperate plea to stay.
Su Yan abruptly stopped in his tracks! His body instantly stiffened like iron!
He didn't need to turn around to know whose hand it was.
Su Zhelan buried her face deep in her knees, not daring to look up at her master's cold and stiff back.
He bit his lower lip so hard it almost bled, barely managing to suppress the surging sobs in his throat. With all his might, he managed to squeeze out a few broken, tearful words from his dry, aching throat:
"Thank...thank you...Master..." He paused, overwhelmed by immense guilt and sorrow, his voice choked with emotion, "...I...I'm sorry..."
That light "thank you" and the heavy "I'm sorry" were like two blunt knives, stabbing hard into Su Yan's heart!
He snapped his eyes shut, and when he opened them again, a violent storm of emotions raged within them, but ultimately it all turned into a bottomless, heavy gray.
Su Yan didn't turn around, nor did he shake off the hand gripping his clothes. He just stood there silently and stiffly, letting the slight tremor from those cold fingertips spread through his body like an electric current.
A few breaths later, he gritted his teeth and struggled with his arm!
"Sizzle—"
The hem of her clothes was torn open by Su Zhelan's weak fingers, making a soft tearing sound.
Without pausing, Su Yan straightened his back, which seemed to bear the weight of ten thousand pounds, and strode towards the door without looking back!
Just as his figure was about to disappear into the deeper darkness at the doorway, his resolute steps suddenly faltered!
He didn't turn around, his back to Su Zhelan, who was huddled in the corner, silently weeping. His straight back was taut like a fully drawn bow in the dim light. His clenched fists trembled slightly at his sides, as if he was trying his best to suppress something.
Finally, a cold, hoarse voice, filled with deep weariness and a barely perceptible ache, struck the cold stone floor with a heavy thud, as if sanded through:
"What's the use of being sorry..." His voice was low, as if he were talking to himself, or questioning the curled-up figure, "...the right thing to do is to get your body...recover as soon as possible!"
Every word carried lingering anger and a painful disappointment. But deep within these cold words lay a faint, almost imperceptible concern, one that even he himself was unwilling to acknowledge.
After saying this, he seemed to have exhausted his last bit of strength, and without pausing, his figure completely disappeared into the thick darkness at the doorway.
The departing figure, still heavy and resolute, seemed to reveal, at the very last moment, a trace of exhaustion and...helplessness beneath the forced strength.
Gu Linzhao took one last look at Su Zhelan, who was still curled up in the corner, silently shedding tears, and then disappeared through the doorway without lingering.
The heavy iron gate was closed silently, cutting off the last glimmer of light.
Su Zhelan leaned against the cold stone wall, alone, and slowly slid down to sit on the ground. His hand trembled as he reached out and groped for the warm, smooth jade pendant with the character "Lin" on the ground, clutching it tightly in his palm. The cold jade felt rough against his hand, but it was the only source of warmth at that moment.
His master's last words, chilling yet with a faint warmth, "It's the right thing to do is to heal your broken bones as soon as possible," echoed repeatedly in his ears like a spell.
The anger and disappointment in his words were still clear, but a trace of hidden concern, almost drowned out by anger, pierced the icy shell of his heart like a tiny needle, bringing a sharp pang of sorrow and an even more surging stream of tears.
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