Chapter 379 She had to take off her clothes before receiving the treatment
He Danggui just felt her whole body was burnt in the fire and every touch of Lu Jiangbei was so hot as if her clothes would be in flames right away. Then, she realized it was true that she had to take off her clothes before receiving the treatment. When she was half-awake before, she could only feel things not very clearly but she already lost control of her body and even had no strength to push away the man in her dream. At that time, she was lying in the bed of Ice Pool and her limbs were cold, but now she was lying in the arms of a man as if she was bathing in the burning sun.
Lu Jiangbei put his right palm on her Dantian and rubbed her Xuehai acupoint with the index finger, middle finger, and ring finger of his left hand. He was doing the treatment for her but it seemed his hands had some kind of ineffable magical power. They brought a feeling of soreness, numbness, and hotness which was spreading in her body and eating away at her sanity. At first, she bit her lips to fight against the feeling and stop herself from making any sound. However, she failed. Her fitful painful moaning even echoed lightly in the icehouse where only the two of them stayed.
“Can you take it? Is it so hard?” Lu Jiangbei’s voice sounded above her head, “What about you lie back on the ice?” While asking, he held her more tightly and the fragrance of agilawood on his robe could be smelled more clearly. Although she disliked it, instead of pushing him away, she couldn’t help getting closer and closer to him...
Lu Jiangbei looked at her pale face with rosy cheeks and some moments later, his gaze became burning as well and his fingertips on her skin trembled slightly. Then, she asked, “How long... will the treatment... take?”
“The longer, the better. The longer it takes, the sooner you can recover.” Lu Jiangbei replied, “This is also called ‘One-finger Death Touch’ and one finger represents one touch. When I’m exerting it on you, I use five fingers of my right hand and three of the left with the other two curved. There are eight fingers being used in total so it’s named ‘Ba Huang Finger’. It originated in northern Wu Bi Xiang...”
“Ah!” He Danggui interrupted him with a low scream, “It hurts! My left leg hurts!”
“Where are you hurting?” Lu Jiangbei looked at her calf that was moving below her robe, “What kind of pain are you feeling? If your blood circulates well, the pain will be relieved; if not, you will feel pain. The blood in your left calf must circulate not well. Where are you hurting?”
She looked up and asked with tears streaming down, “Can we stop it? Can you do it in another way?” Her hand made lots of wrinkles on his robe.
It was Lu Jiangbei’s first time seeing her being so childish. He was amazed so he decided to tease her. He said with a smile, “You should take the treatment when you’re ill. You can’t hide your pain and avoid medical treatment. If you can’t bear it, you can cry out to relieve the pain and I won’t let anyone know about it. This is also why I asked you to choose a man to be your husband as soon as you woke up. Originally, Du Yao and you are a good match and he has written an engagement contract for you. You two are kind of destined, but he has lost his internal force and can’t do the treatment for you. Thus, you should choose a man as soon as possible so he can come to treat you.”
Chose a man? Treated her? He Danggui could imagine Meng Xuan’s unhappy face so she immediately came to her sense slightly. She wiped her tears and asked, “What if the man can’t use One-finger Death Touch? Won’t you teach others this skill? Can you teach me?”
Lu Jiangbei became in a daze for s moment and replied while smiling, “I see. Danggui, you’ve already fallen in love with someone and he isn’t an Imperial Guard, which means Mr. Duan has no chance now.” She was so cute. She still thought about learning a skill while she was already injured. However, even if Lu Jiangbei wanted to be generous and teach her, she couldn’t learn such a masculine skill. The man didn’t work in Imperial Guards so...
He Danggui knew she couldn’t hide her thoughts from a careful man like him so she said honestly, “Right. I did have someone I want to marry and he is also good at martial arts, but he may not know about One-finger Death Touch. Can you just teach me this generally so that I can go back and tell him how to exert it?”
Lu Jiangbei smiled inscrutably and shook his head while replying, “I can teach him but not you. Don’t worry. When I have time in several days, I will tell him about it and ask him to learn the skill, do the treatment for you more frequently, and treat you better.”
He Danggui looked up at his mask in confusion and asked while frowning, “Do you know him? But... but he...” Meng Xuan always wore a mask when he fought against Imperial Guards!
Lu Jiangbei nodded and replied, “Actually, I’m familiar with him. Next time I see him, I will tell him you’re my foster niece and I adore you very much. I will ask him to treat you well, so... Danggui, you should stop using Li Xin Gui in the future. This drug is too powerful and if something went wrong, his life would be in danger. Then, it would be too late for you to regret.”
Hearing Lu Jiangbei mentioning Li Xin Gui inexplicably, He Danggui also thought of what he asked before. “Can you tell me the truth? Do you like Lord Ning? Have you used Li Xin Gui on him?” She felt extremely speechless because she didn’t even know what the function of Li Xin Gui was. Thinking about this, she said in anger, “Uncle, since you say you care about me, stop talking vaguely. Why do you think I have Li Xin Gui and I’ve used it on Lord Ning? I didn’t even know the function of it and I can tell you firmly that the man I love is not him. I will never marry him.”
“Is it not him?” Lu Jiangbei looked down at her watery eyes and saw the obvious firmness in them. He couldn’t help feeling confused and asked, “Since you don’t love him, why would you use Li Xin Gui on him? That will kill him. Or did you like him when feeding him with it but you shifted your love to another man later?”
He Danggui was speechless. Lu Jiangbei was really smart sometimes but when he became a blockhead, he did drive people crazy. Was her answer still not clear enough? She looked up into his searching gaze and replied word by word, “I didn’t do those things. I never liked that man or poisoned him. He is a noble man while I’m just an ordinary person. If I poisoned him, I would be executed. I don’t want to die yet!”
Lu Jiangbei shook his head and corrected her, “Li Xin Gui isn’t a poison but a mild tonic. It tastes sweet and not poisonous. When it’s used usually, it isn’t harmful to human health. Instead, it can bring special benefits by nourishing yin and maintaining beauty. The effect is better than that of Zi He Che, namely placentas. It can work more quickly and deeper in human bodies, which is the best tonic for women.”
A tonic? He Danggui tilted her head. That was good. She was in poor health in her previous life and it was normal for her to take tonics.
Noticing the confusion in her eyes, Lu Jiangbei continued, “Otherwise, the most famous effect of Li Xin Gui was ‘Lock Heart’, which represents a kind of lifelong bond. When a man eats the stem of it with alcohol and a woman eats its flower as well as leaves, there will be the ‘servant’ of Li Xin Gui in the woman’s body and the ‘husband’ of it in the man’s. Then, the woman will never be able to leave the man and have to marry him. After their marriage, the woman won’t be allowed to have feelings for any other man, or she will be weak and tired.”
He Danggui was shocked and asked with her eyes wide open, “Is there even such an amazing drug in the world? Although I think I’ve read lots of medical books, I’ve never heard of such an amazing thing. But maybe this is not the truth. If such amazing medicine did exist, every couple in the world would be faithful forever, right?”
Lu Jiangbei answered with a smile, “You’re a brilliant girl but you just like taking things for granted and being serious. First, this is a legend so we shouldn’t believe all of it. People aren’t even sure if Li Xin Gui does exist. After all, few of them have eaten it and it’s rarer than snow lotuses in Tianshan Mountains. Second, no one is sure about the effect of Li Xin Gui or how long it can last. I guess it varies from person to person.” Lord Ning’s situation should be a very rare case. He was obviously like the woman in the legend while He Danggui was like the man.
He Danggui didn’t know Lu Jiangbei’s thoughts and just answered him with an “Okay”. However, she thought, “I haven’t eaten Li Xin Gui this life. Why is Lu Jiangbei so sure that there is the effect of it in my body and it has worked as the guiding medicine to help me get rid of the poison of He He Qi Ri Qing?”
Lu Jiangbei stopped the treatment gradually. She finally felt relieved and didn’t need to clench her teeth secretly to resist the weird feeling brought by his hands. If Meng Xuan knew there was such a good method to cure her, he would want to learn it, wouldn’t he? But how could she persuade Lu Jiangbei to teach Meng Xuan One-finger Death Touch? She had to be more careful if she wanted to get something from a shrewd man like him.
Last time she took from him a whole bottle of the antidote of cold poison. Lu Jiangbei would know she hadn’t been poisoned with that at all if he touched her pulse, but he gave them to her without asking anything. And she just wanted two of the antidote while he gave her about twenty ones! Meng Xuan was the only one that had been poisoned, right? Something seemed to be wrong.
Gosh, she was too happy when she got the antidote. Except for feeling happy, she only wanted to leave them to Meng Xuan for spare so she didn’t refuse and took the whole bottle of them. She didn’t think too much back then but now she remembered when Lu Jiangbei passed the antidote to her, his look was very strange as if he had realized something. Later, Liao Zhiyuan also felt something was wrong immediately. He pointed out that she shouldn’t have taken away so many of the antidote which was specially and only used to cure cold poison and intended to take them back.
That was very unreasonable. Even a careless man like Liao Zhiyuan could realize it. How could Lu Jiangbei who was always scrupulous not know it? Hadn’t he thought about how she would use the antidote? Or did he already realize that she was related to the bad guy secretly so he decided to use the antidote as bait to catch Meng Xuan and others in an action? The antidote should be genuine, right? She had taken one of them before and nothing bad happened to her so they weren’t poisonous, right? Meng Xuan should feel better after taking them, right? Would he come here to look for her?
He Danggui put her hand on her waist unconsciously and found the green porcelain medicine box was still kept well there. She frowned and thought, “I was stripped of my clothes before, wasn’t I? Why is the box still here since my clothes have been changed? Who put it back for me? Didn’t Lu Jiangbei say it was Duan Xiaolou who took off my clothes and he asked a maid named Liu Sui to help me dress after Duan Xiaolou passed out? Then...”
Lu Jiangbei noticed her slight movement and suddenly smiled. He said, “It was me who put that medicine box back to you. I was afraid that it might mix with other medicine boxes and I might not be able to find it for you so I directly put it back on your waist.”
He Danggui became less confused but what Lu Jiangbei said next made her very nervous. He mumbled as if he was talking to himself, “Two or three of the pills in the box seem to be missing. Have they been left under the city wall? I’ll ask Gao Jue if he knew whether they were left there when he went to pick you up.” After finishing his words, he looked at her and his gaze was like two brushes moving across her face. He Danggui didn’t know if she had shown nervousness in her expression. She could just pretend to be in a daze and continued listening to his words, “The antidote isn’t very precious but it shouldn’t be lost casually, especially when Yangzhou City is in slight turmoil recently. People in the city are from different regions. If someone got the lost pills and found out the secret of the antidote, that would be bad. Icy zhenqi is our trump card.”
He Danggui nodded numbly and her lips moved but she didn’t know what to say.
Lu Jiangbei smiled again while staring at her. This time he smiled very brightly, which made his black pupils under the ice mask look a bit cold. He Danggui didn’t know if it was her illusion but that smile was really cold. He said something else to shock her again, “Danggui, you don’t know that I actually know the young man that attacked us before. His kung fu is indeed brilliant so he can never hide his identity. There aren’t more than five young people in the world who can be powerful like that. I know the other four of them. Only he is still a stranger to me.”
He Danggui smiled hollowly and changed the subject, “Uncle, aren’t you talking about Li Xin Gui? Why did you bring up these things? I’m not interested in anything in Jianghu.”
“You’re not?” Lu Jiangbei raised his eyebrow under the mask and his shock seemed a bit false. He continued, “You’re fond of listening to the stories happening in Wulin told by ‘a guard surnamed Nie who lives as a recluse’ in Luo’s Mansion, aren’t you?”
He Danggui’s expression froze and she smiled more awkwardly, “Yes. That’s why I’m not interested anymore. I’m just... just tired of those stories now.”
“Oh, I see...” Lu Jiangbei said with a faint smile, “Then, I’ll continue to tell you more about the effect of Li Xin Gui. You will like this topic. The function named ‘Lock Heart’ of Li Xin Gui is two-way. Men can use it to lock women’s hearts, and vice versa. Then, men will have the ‘servant’ of Li Xin Gui in their bodies while women will have the ‘husband’ of it instead. But as a result, the yin and yang have been reversed and if those men with the ‘servant’ of Li Xin Gui shifted their love to other women, they would end up dozens of times more miserably than the women with it who had done the same thing. At worse, they would have to share life and death with the women they loved before.”
“Share life and death? How so?” He Danggui was curious. That would even be more powerful than what Love Poison could do, wouldn’t it?
Staring at her puzzled face, Lu Jiangbei explained gently, “It’s just like what Lord Ning did to you that night. He sensed it as soon as you died and came to save you immediately as if he was saving himself, but he didn’t like you so he threw the sedan directly after you were carried here.”