Vol 6 Chapter 23 (1/2)

VOLUME 6 CHAPTER 23: DON’T TELL ME THIS IS ON THE WAY TO JIANGDONG (4)

Liu Bei POV

*Tatatata*… The sound of the horse hooves was deafening as we marched on. The noise was made even worse by the luggage of the riders that tended to have things which clanged, clattered and rang.

I followed the sounds and looked at the things that the ones around me brought.

Yun Chang had several bamboo scrolls, Hua Tuo had bags and bags of medicinal herbs on her pygmy horse that seemed to grow as the journey went on, Feng Xian had some vegetables, while Wen Yuan seemed to have some stuff as well but I couldn’t tell what it was. As for Zi Long, her white horse carried almost nothing at all.

As for me, my possessions were few and simple. Part from heavy twinswords, all I had was the feather fan.

All this while, I’ve been diligently taking care of the fan. However, some feathers still fell off. I didn’t dare to fix it up as I was afraid that any action might trigger or break something and make something go wrong in the future.

This was a particularly strong intuition that I was getting, and since it was very cold ever since winter came, I didn’t touch the feather fan much as I waited pa.s.sively for the moment when its secrets would be revealed.

“I’m so bored. We’ve been marching for so many days now.” Wen Yuan complained just as I was thinking it was about time for her to do so.

“Well what fun could there be in marching?” Yun Chang had handed over her glaive to Zhou Cang and was now able to read her scrolls with her freed-up hands, “I have some nice books here with me, won’t you take 1?”

“No thanks.”

An instant rejection.

“How could you be bored during this journey? I’m so busy I don’t have time for anything much.” Hua Tuo said as she wiped the sweat off her brow and bent down from her horse to pluck some weeds from time to time.

No, those should be medicinal herbs.

“Lord Hua Tuo, you’ve really gathered a lot of medicinal herbs huh.” Wen Yuan exclaimed, “Physicians really are different huh.”

“What are you talking about? Who said these were medicinal herbs? Aren’t these just weeds?” Hua Tuo said as a matter of factly.

“Eh?”

Eh?

Looking at that look on Hua Tuo as though what she said was a given, Wen Yuan and I had baffled looks.

“Are you looking down on me?” Wen Yuan muttered.

“Though they may be weeds, they do have their uses~ For example, when you take this and that and mix them together, they can treat blade wounds. But if you use only 1 of them alone, then they are just normal weeds.”

Eh~ So is this some sort of folk medicine then? But I wonder if this era’s folk medicine is more ludicrous than those in the future. I’m a little suspicious but since it’s Hua Tuo, I don’t fully doubt the efficacy of her treatment methods.

“And this plus this can improve one’s eyesight. I’ve been using it all along.”

Un, I can completely doubt it now. Looks like it’s completely useless.

“Umm um, is there any combination that can help Yi De regain her memories?” Yun Chang piped up.

I instinctively looked back at Yi De who was about 2 rows behind. She was sitting calmly on her horse while Zhou Cang on her left and Chen Gong on her right were bickering about something again. Yi De however was utterly unperturbed and continued to look forward with a calm expression.

After the last few conversations, she was now on guard against a few of us and I was beginning to get worried that she might just leave us sooner or later.

“I haven’t discovered a combination with such an effect yet, or perhaps I have yet to find the materials for it.” Hua Tuo shook her head as she searched her bags, “Perhaps she could try this and this, but I can’t promise that it will work.”

“Try that huh? Will there be any side effects?”

“Un, she might die.”

“Isn’t that really serious?!”

“Don’t worry, I can dilute it, and we can try with just 30% of the usual dose.” Hua Tuo said as she extracted a small bottle from her pocket and began the compounding process.

… Is it really going to be alright?

“My lord.” A slow and quiet but powerful voice came from behind me, and I was a.s.saulted by a sudden chill that felt like the sharp killing intent of an a.s.sa.s.sin. I only felt safe once more after I turned back and saw a pair of listless eyes with a scar below one.

“So it’s Liao Hua huh.”

“My lord, I will make sure to remember that expression of yours just now.”

“… What is it?”

“Un, please have a look my lord.” She took out 2 bamboo scrolls from her pocket and handed them to me.

I was a little stunned and only received them after a moment, “This is…”

“This is a new roster for the army that I’ve been working on in this period. Managing 5,000 troops at once might cause some problems so I split the army in 2.”

Split the army in 2? I opened the bamboo scrolls, and saw that they were filled with the names of people and numbers beside them. There was no punctuation so it made it even harder to read.

What’s worth mentioning is that the words are very beautifully written.

“Did you do all this?”

“No, Lord Chen Gong helped me out as well.”

I see.

I closed the scrolls that I couldn’t quite read and handed them back to Liao Hua.

“It looks good, I’ll leave it to you to–”