Chapter 99 You knew Lu Jiangbei
Ning Yuan stared at the girl in front of him unhappily. Wasn’t she the one who got a head start and picked Huolie Flowers up before him?
“Huolie Flower is shaped like burning fire. The flower is small and white. It smells fragrant and tastes spicy and bitter, which can be used as medicine, low toxicity. Horses, cattle, pigs and sheep go crazy right after eating it, and then their eyes would turn red and white spots would appear on their tongues. There’s no cure for this. After half a day, the symptoms begin to ease. Its stem is not poisonous at first. However, after it blooms for 3 days every 3 years, the flower itself would wither, while the stem became highly toxic, commonly known as Jiaochang Grass (a kind of grass that could cause intestinal strangulation). This flower reproduces fast in the presence of water, explodes in the presence of fire, and withers in the presence of salt.”
This text was detailed in the Classic of Rare Herbs in the study of Lord Ning’s Mansion.
Ning Yuan frowned and thought, as far as he knew, the Classic of Rare Herbs was a unique copy which had kept in the imperial palace for hundreds of years. Because most of the royal families in the Yuan Dynasty could not understand Chinese characters, many miscellaneous books in the imperial palace were deeply sealed. Last year, he went to the Depositary of Buddhist Texts once. When he found the Classic of Rare Herbs in an old iron box, the lock of the box was rusty and could not be opened. After reading it, he felt it was novel, so he went to the official in charge of historical records to report that he took this book away. Now he kept it in his small study, and never circulated it to others.
Huolie Flower was a rare medicinal material, which could be added to hundreds of prescriptions to double their efficacies. There were only several words of description about the flower in the Classic of Rare Herbs. As for the magical effect of Huolie Flower, actually, it was Ning Yuan who accidentally discovered this feature a year ago, so he wrote a two-line comment in the blank space of the book, praising it as “the salt for ten thousand medicines”.
Counting this time in, Ning Yuan had seen Huolie Flower for three times. He thought that there would not be a second person in the world who could recognize it, not to mention knowing the magical use of it. But if the girl in front of him hadn’t known what Huolie Flower was, why did she send someone to pick the flowers up? Why did she know how to deal with toxic stems? Ning Yuan looked at her up and down. When he was in the gharry before, he happened to hear that Madam Luo said she was... the daughter of First Madam Luo’s daughter? It looked like she’s about 10 years old... Did she make the healing pill which worked so well and took effect instantly?
“Well, Eh-hem...” Suddenly, Ning Yuan’s injury broke out again. He painfully held his chest and used his palm to convey Zhenqi to suppress the pain for a while, but still couldn’t suppress the cold poison of Lu Jiangbei’s palm strength.
He held a bitter bamboo with his left hand and barely stood upright, but a burst of blood was squirting to the ground. Darkness came over his eyes, and he was almost about to faint. He needed to find a quiet corner to heal right away, but those maids of Luo’s Mansion were noisier than a few thousand of ducks. They laughed and moved in and out of his room, so he went out and found this uninhabited Bitter Bamboo Grove. But unexpectedly, He Danggui came to this horrible place… What was she doing here?
He Danggui was startled by this sick boy who spit out so much blood... Could he be... in a 10-level phthisis... The doctor’s instinct made her want to go over and help him with his condition. But when she walked 2 steps forward, she stopped suddenly.
“Lu... Master Lu?!”
She stared in amazement at the sick boy’s face who looked like Lu Jiangbei’s in front of her, and felt confused. When she looked at him again, her confusion gradually faded away—Lu Jiangbei was mild and kind, and had nothing in common with the cold temperament of this sick boy. Moreover, she thought that Lu Jiangbei was at least 26 years old. Not only did this sick boy look 10 years younger than Lu Jiangbei, but his appearance was only about 50% similar to Lu Jiangbei’s. His cold eyes and thin lips clasped into a line were very different from Lu Jiangbei’s. There were many similar people in the world, and she just met this by chance.
She was relieved inside, and laughed at herself for misjudging this person out of weakness. But... had she offended the sick boy? Why did he stare at her with such cold eyes?
Ning Yuan held the bitter bamboo and stood up straight. He stared in amazement and asked, “You... know Lu Jiangbei?”
He Danggui was even more surprised with her eyes wide open and said, “You… you know Lu Jiangbei, too?” Their looks were similar, and he also knew Lu Jiangbei. Were they relatives?
Ning Yuan took a deep breath, calmed down, and then replied word by word after he thought for a while, “No, I don’t know him. I just once heard Feng Yang mentioned this person. He said we are somewhat similar in appearance. As for Lu Jiangbei, I have never seen him before.”
“Oh. In fact, I have only seen Master Lu once.” He Danggui nodded. The world was so big that nothing was impossible. It was not strange that two people had similar appearances. But she still signed sincerely, “But, little dude, to be honest, you two don’t look like a little similar to each other, but share 50% to 60% similarities! Your eyebrows, nose, and chin are like being taken directly from his face! If you tell anyone who knows Master Lu that you are his brother, no one will doubt it.”
Ning Yuan felt annoyed for a while. Lu Jiangbei was the present council member of Northern Zhili’s office. He thought that no one would recognize Lu Jiangbei in Yangzhou City, so he disguised as him for avoiding any trouble. But unexpectedly, when he went out with his disguised face for the first time, he immediately ran into someone who knew Lu Jiangbei! Although the little girl didn’t doubt that his face was fake, he still felt there was something wrong... By the time this little girl encountered Lu Jiangbei again, she would tell Lu Jiangbei about this, and Lu Jiangbei would definitely run to ask Feng Yang why he didn’t hear this from Feng Yang. Ning Yuan thought next time when he met Feng Yang, he needed to make a good excuse with him for this... Eh?!
Ning Yuan raised his eyebrow and said, “Hey, who is the little ‘dude’? How old are you?” The girl who was only as tall as his chest actually dared call him “little dude”?
He Danggui realized that she said the wrong thing, so she waved her hands, “You must have misheard. In fact, when we speak with Yangzhou dialect, our tongues often go the opposite of straightening, so strangers often hear it wrong. I just said ‘little dude’, which means ‘elder brother’ in the dialect.” She was nervous and accidentally dropped a clanger. She always felt that the sick boy gave her a sense of familiarity because his face was similar to Lu Jiangbei’s... But it was not important now. He Danggui looked at him with her eyes squinting, and asked unhappily, “Now that you have been sick while vomiting blood constantly, why do you wander in the grove rather than go back and lie down in your room?” Then she thought, “Don’t you know you’re getting in my way? The Bitter Bamboo Grove is what I had planned for use earlier!”
Ning Yuan glanced at her and said, “I’m coming for a walk.” Then he turned and set foot on the path which was covered with leaves, and walked into the bamboo grove. In Ning Yuan’s mind, the little girl surely didn’t dare to walk into such gloomy and horrified place. Once he got to the deep of this bamboo grove, he would own it and no one would disturb him, so he could securely… What?!
Ning Yuan suddenly turned around and asked indignantly, “Hey, why are you following me? Who allows you to come into this bamboo grove?!”
He Danggui pointed at the path on the ground and told him very seriously, “Guest, you are seriously ill, huh? I am not following the same path with you. How can I follow you? You see, it departs from here. You may go for a walk over there, right? And I’m going over there,” She used her 2 slender fingers to point out 2 directions: one was the east, and the other was the west. Then she told the teenager seriously, “And if you finished walking, go back quickly then. Don’t go anywhere except the grove on the east side. To tell the truth, there are some people once died on the grove of the west, the south and the north side... and they were all menservants who shared the same age as yours. I heard when they died… their bodies were not complete.”
Ning Yuan felt both angry and funny after listening to what He Danggui said. What was this little girl talking about? She actually came to say these words to frighten him. Did she know what he had experienced? However, Ning Yuan had lost his energy, so every word he said would hurt the abdomen that was hit by Lu Jiangbei’s Hanqing Cold Palm. At this moment, he had no time to talk with her, so he just said, “If so, you should not go to other places except the west side. It’s said that there are ghosts… in this kind of misty Bitter Bamboo Grove.”
As a result, the two diverged from each other on the path at the entrance of Bitter Bamboo Grove, looking for the ideal haven in their minds.
He Danggui went west for an hour and still did not reach the end of the bamboo grove. But when she went deeper, the gravel and stones on the ground gradually turned into large stones. When she walked further, the clusters of bitter bamboos gradually became giant rocks which were as high as her body. So, she found a huge rock protruding from the upper half of the strange rock pile, took off her cloak and shook it under the huge rock. Then she sat cross-legged and began to adjust her breath by using a cultivation method called “nine methods for circulating channels”.
After an hour, she felt that this method had a little effect. The Zhenqi in her channels still splashed like cold water were thrown into a hot oil pan. So, she changed another posture. Kneeling on her left knee, lifting her right knee backwards and propping up her right foot against the rocks behind her, she silently recited the instant cultivation method of “perseverance to success” to promote Zhenqi.
In this way, she meditated from noon to dark and switched 5 or 6 kinds of cultivation methods. Since she had never encountered such special experiences like “too much money to count” or “too much strong internal force that she almost wanted to abandon it” in the previous life, she just had the methods but never got the chance to practice any of them. Now she was just like a layman. After trying 5 or 6 methods of transporting Zhenqi and more than a dozen of postures which were supposed to save her some effort, she still found them bringing her few benefits. The only benefit was that she sealed several major acupoints above her chest. So, even if the sudden intermittent Zhenqi caused blood upwelling, the blood would not be ejected from her throat.
As for how those Zhenqi would come out from her lower body after this “dead end” … Since it was the first time she had encountered this situation, she had no experience. However, she consoled herself that in general, it should not come out like the time when girls were on their period. After all, men didn’t have this exit when they encountered this situation. Maybe there was a better way for both men and women.
“Cooing—” He Danggui felt her stomach was empty and she remembered that it’s been 14 or 16 hours since her last meal.
Madam Luo had probably used dinner. They saw He Danggui locking herself in the room for getting more sleep, maybe they had already pushed the door open to check on her. If they saw that there was no one under the quilt, there would be another mess. In this way, she would only excuse for being homesick that she came out and went for a walk. Chan Yi and others should have been to Luo’s Mansion early in the morning, and they also had her luggage. Madam Luo and Mammy Tang were on the gharry before, so she had to get her staffs delivered from the next gharry.
She hoped those things were safe and sound, especially the big bottle of strong wine-soaked jujube, and a dozen pounds of wine jars. Because those were picked down the hill by her step by step. She believed Madam Luo would be comforted to see the 9 jujubes...
If He Danggui wanted to stand firm in Luo’s Mansion, the only person she could rely on was Madam Luo. Although Madam Luo had a sincere concern for her, she meant nothing when it came to Luo Baishao and Luo Baiqiong in all cases. He Danggui only wanted to have a tiny space in Luo’s Mansion and didn’t want to provoke Luo Baiqiong or Luo Baishao, but they were destined to become enemies like “two tigers and one rabbit”. If they didn’t provoke her actively, He Danggui would write her name backwards.
With her 9 magical Shayu Jujube, everyone in Luo’s Mansion could see who was the winner and who was the loser... If Madam Luo’s sib granddaughter was sent into Shui Shang Temple, how many people would lose their sleep at night for this arrangement?
After such thinking, He Danggui had already walked on the path along with the marks she made on the bitter bamboo before. Once she crossed Mottled Bamboo Grove, which seemed newly planted, she would be able to get out of this gloomy place which made people scared in the dark. Being deeply influenced by the mystical conman, Bai Yangbai, He Danggui hadn’t always believed the ghosts, but people’s mind would vary from the environment. At this moment, somehow, He Danggui felt there was a chill behind her, just like a king of the beasts would suddenly appear within miles and make other little beasts scared.
By the way, He Danggui didn’t know the situation of that sick boy’s hematemesis, which made her have a weird feeling… She was in a hurry to find a place to adjust her breath before and didn’t think about carefully her suspicions upon the sick boy. After recalling, she thought his complexion was the strangest part. His complexion was unexpectedly white with red after he kept vomiting blood from the street to Luo’s Mansion. How could that happen? Even if he was a full-blooded man and he wouldn’t be bothered after losing that amount of blood, at least his Cuanzhu acupoint should be black…
He Danggui shook her head. She really couldn’t figure it out but leave him behind. Now that it was Madam Luo who took him to Luo’s Mansion for treatment, his phthisis should be the concern of those famous doctors in San Qing Tang. Running with her feet, she walked through a cluster of newly-developed mottled bamboo and returned to the edge of Bitter Bamboo Grove.
Suddenly, she was relieved, as if she had returned to the human world from another world. No wonder this place was called a “haunted land”. Now it seemed like it wasn’t because those who had spread this story were too timid, but this place was a little strange. She didn’t know if it was because her eyesight became weaker in the dark… Why were there so many big black feathers on the edge of Bitter Bamboo Grove? She didn’t recall seeing these things when she passed here at noon... He Danggui walked forward in doubt.
She did recognize the feathers wrongly.
Those were not “big black feathers” but “big crows’ skeleton feathers”! There were not 1 piece or 2 pieces, not 10 or 20 pieces, but a field of feathers on the ground—
The ground was covered with broken feathers, corpses and dry dark blood!
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