Chapter 53 (2/2)

Afraid of getting burned, I grabbed a towel to carry the decoction pot onto the table, pouring out some of the liquid. He didn’t take it, but only looked at me. I knew that look…he wanted me to try the medicine again.

Hmph!

He really thought himself a rare type, huh. I gave him a glance before lifting my robes to make a show of sitting by his side. Under the intensity of his gaze, I raised the bowl to my lips and took a sip. “It’s not hot, so you should drink it as soon as possible.”

“You should drink some more of it.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “If you can’t finish it, don’t make so much next time.”

He took the bowl and obediently drank it, eyelashes trembling slightly. His joints looked almost transparent beneath the light, his neck fair and slender, the skin white without any sign of the blood flowing beneath it. After all these servings of medicine, he not only refused to recover, but was looking more and more feeble. The black hair that cascaded like a waterfall had grown one or two silver strands within the course of a few days.

I stared for a while before speaking softly, “Have you been feeling better recently?”

He looked rather apologetic as he smiled in embarra.s.sment. “This medicine…even if I drink it, there’s no guarantee that I’ll get well.”

Really…

But when I drank the medicine, I felt energized and comfortable, as well as much stronger than before. This celestial-like figure actually had the reputation outside as a sort of genius doctor. You really couldn’t tell by looking at him…

I remember when he first told me I needed to get better, but I’d ignored him and poured out all the medicine. In the end…he stopped delivering them. Then it was his health that deteriorated, and now it was me who fed him the medicine.

Suddenly, something flared up inside my head as something clicked into place. I thought of something that had been floating in my head for a while, but was unable to accept. Stunned, I stared at the man holding the bowl of medicine…what a unique aura he had.

“Stop drinking,” I said hoa.r.s.ely.

He looked at me blankly.

I hung my head dejectedly as I sat by his bed, voice m.u.f.fled. “I have a stubborn temper, as you know. In the palace I heard all sorts of rumors about you, so of course I had misgivings. That’s why when you first gave me medicine, I was too afraid to taste it, but it’s different now. If you’ve made any other medicine for me then you can hand it over, instead of nursing this grievance and drinking it yourself.”

His hands trembled and he suddenly choked. I hastily grabbed the towel I had before, but he held me back with a wave of his hand, covering his mouth with his sleeves. His body shook continuously as he coughed, a hint of black clothing peeking out from beneath his robes. My expression s.h.i.+fted as I grabbed his wrist, face wooden. “What happened to your hand?”

He tried to shrink back.

I used my strength to hold him in place, using some true qi to help me. He knitted his brows but couldn’t move as I raised his sleeve, eyes narrowing at the jade-like arm inside…

Fl.u.s.tered, he tried to cover it up, but it was too late. The skin that should have been pure white like snow was riddled with what looked like knife marks where he’d cut off pieces of skin, leaving a savage pattern of crisscrossed scars. There was one about the size of a copper coin where one could faintly make out the white bone beneath it, as if he’d cut there recently. Our struggles had split open the cut away, revealing a pale red stream of blood…that filled the air with a sudden soft scent of medicine. Strangely enough, the blood didn’t flow for long before it changed from red to amber…

Meanwhile, the fragrance released into the air smelled both raw and like medicine, but it was a very intimate and familiar scent. My saliva wet my tongue and instantly tasted something bitter and astringent. This flavor…wasn’t it the same taste of the daily medicine decoctions? Before, I could tell from taste every type of medicinal herb, but never the ones in the medicine he brewed. So it had actually been made from his own flesh.

My lip moved a few times before I made a sound. “Are you crazy…”

“Shao’er.” He finally remembered to hold me in place. This was the first time he’d called me by name, but the desolate, sorrowful tone that followed those two words rammed into my chest. Impulsively, I cast his hands aside. He seemed to not understand what was the matter, but lay weakly on the bed, looking at me in a panic. His chest heaved with his breathing, his expression hurt as his right hand clutched the opposite sleeve. Gradually, the snow-white fabric grew stained with amber, and the scent of medicine grew stronger and stronger in the air.

My line of sight slowly crept downwards until I looked at him and froze.

This person…didn’t bleed like a normal person. He wasn’t human, but it was absolutely true that he could be a beast. A Fang Hua Beast.

His pupils reflected my expression, confused and hesitant.

Why did I have to drink his medicine every day?

Why did he trick me into drinking his blood and flesh…

I didn’t know what I had done wrong. But I kept backing away until my body knocked against the door. He’d already propped himself up halfway to lean against the head of the bed, eyes as clear and depthless as pools of water in autumn. Looking at them now, they only seemed hollow, and the words that crept out from a corner of his mouth seemed to be crying tears of blood themselves.

“No matter where or when, you still think of leaving…”

I didn’t know why he would say things like this, but I could see him laughing at himself beyond that pale white face. There wasn’t a trace of warmth in those eyes. I slowly closed and opened my own, dazedly staring at him until his figure grew more and more indistinct. A cloud of true qi surged up and made my head feel as if it was about to explode.

“Shao’er.”

“…don’t go.”

I listlessly leaned against the door, a hand m.u.f.fling my mouth. My body had no strength, and I shook as my hands gripped the icy cold wood, groping until I finally found the door and dashed outside. It seemed as I’d been holding back for a long time, but my steps were as light as the wind as I swept past a thick field of gra.s.s. The pines were still, the bamboo groves deep, their leaves stinging at they lashed against my skin. The wind whistled past the trees, picking up dust in its wake as I ran with true qi circulating in my chest. My legs kicked off against the ground and stepped on air, and I waved my sleeves as I cut through the jade-green bamboo…

Shuttling back and forth within the intricate chaos of bamboo forced me to turn my head aside. The scenery made me dizzy.

“If you agree to come home with me, I’ll give you three meals a day and promise you’ll eat until you’re full.”

“I am a Beast and you can call me Fang Hua, but don’t call me mother.”

“Shao’er, it’s Zichuan and I that are going to the palace, do you understand?”

Everything that person had said, every expression he’d worn and movement he made, poured into my head like a tide. The sudden, acute pain forced me to stop mid-air and crash back to earth, eyes squeezed shut. And yet that image of that person, his words and his shadow, were inescapable…

—

“You’ve always listened to what I said. Yifu hopes that after you leave me, you’ll make a good name for yourself living in the jianghu.”

“The jianghu is free and unfettered, leisurely and carefree. It’s much more fun than the imperial palace.”

“Shao’er, if you think it’s worthwhile, then don’t come back.”

My body grew weak and I covered my ears with my hands as I fell to the ground, vainly searching through blurry eyes at the landscape before me.

“Yifu…”

I had remembered everything. You were clearly by my side, so why didn’t you acknowledge me? How much had I longed to hear you call me, even if it was only once.

Did you really not want Shao’er?

The painful and the sweet, the happy and the sad, all these memories engulfed me like a flood. My head hurt so much that it seemed like it would split open, my train of thought fading farther and farther away. A deep sensation of grief followed my recollections to settle in my chest, as if sinking its teeth into my heart. I curled myself up, the pain leaving me too exhausted to move, and slowly closed my eyes.

Next to the bamboo grove, a clear, bright voice carried over in the air from a long distance away.

“Fourth, are you sure it’s here? How useful are your c.r.a.ppy charms anyways? You folded so many of those paper cranes, but none of them flew back to us.”