Chapter 111: Tossed Around
It wasn’t until dusk fell that Huai Yu finally managed to sit on a bench and catch her breath.
Her clothes were already soaked, saturated with the murky medicinal solution of Celery-leaved buttercup. The colors were a chaotic mess, looking like they’d been pulled out of a pickle jar, and her whole body reeked of a bizarre herbal scent.
If it weren’t for the fire still burning in the stove inside, she would’ve started sneezing already.
But—Huai Yu no longer had the strength to change clothes.
She panted, staring blankly at Zhou Qian who was curled up and twitching in the small wooden tub.
The good news was—Zhou Qian wasn’t dead.
The bad news—he was still in pain.
And how painful was it?
Just look at Zhou Qian now—His tall, sturdy frame was curled up in the tub, his amputated leg submerged in the murky water.
As for concerns about infection or whatnot, Huai Yu simply didn’t have the bandwidth to think about that anymore.
His hands were tied, and a cut piece of towel was stuffed into his mouth. The towel, too, had been soaked in that cloudy medicinal brew.
His face? Oh, you couldn’t see it either—another towel, looking like it’d been dredged from a soy sauce vat, was draped over it, dripping wet.
Every time he struggled and tossed it off, Huai Yu would persistently place it back.
After all this chaos all afternoon, she was absolutely exhausted.
At this point, soaking, applying, and feeding—she had used every Celery-leaved buttercup multicolored pellet she could. Not knowing medicine, Huai Yu had no idea what worked best, so she went with a full-force, all-around attack.
But…
“Why does it still hurt so much?”
She stared at the scattered Clown pellets in the basin—red, white, yellow, green, purple—but none of them were the rare multicolored Celery-leaved buttercup kind.
The water in the tub had already turned into a bizarre shade. All the medicinal pellets had been used, and even though there was still half a kettle left, and the eerie black spiderweb patterns on Zhou Qian’s body had gradually faded—his agonized groans only grew more intense.
He hadn’t even regained consciousness. His brows were furrowed, as if locked in some immense internal struggle.
Huai Yu paused, then went outside to find Keta Rō. The evening wind blew cold through her wet clothes, chilling her to the bone.
She couldn’t help but sneeze, and two lines of snot were about to run down her face.
Keta Rō lifted the curtain and stood there, then turned and went back inside to fetch her a brown medicinal pellet.
Huai Yu: …
Honestly, shouldn’t cold medicine be taken orally? But… sigh.
Zhou Qian had no other options—so…
She cautiously pinched the pellet, “Thanks, Keta Rō. I’ll drink more hot water first.”
“And also… the one inside… does your medicine really match his condition?”
Keta Rō flapped his wings, and his two antennae curled confidently. But…
Huai Yu sighed and followed him into the den, where the porcelain bowl in the corner was once again filled with colorful pellets—just no more of the Celery-leaved buttercup kind.
And since Keta Rō didn’t offer any more, it likely meant there weren’t any that really fit.
Huai Yu gently patted his shell, “Thanks for the hard work, our Keta Rō! I’ll go take care of the patient now.”
A few chicks hadn’t returned to the coop yet and were still chirping away in the grass. It was too dark for her to see them clearly, so she went back inside and grabbed a handful of rice, “Here, chick-chick-chick-chick…”
As soon as she called, there was a flurry of fluttering, and the sound of chicks rustling through the grass.
In no time, four of her ¥250-a-piece chicks came dashing back to the coop, eagerly pecking around.
Judging by how skilled they were at this, they’d probably been running back and forth all day.
Huai Yu couldn’t help but smile, and her heavy heart lightened a bit. “Picky little things.”
That rice had been purified, after all.
…
Back inside, Huai Yu changed out of her wet clothes, looked at the brown pellet Keta Rō had given her, and ultimately poured herself a cup of hot water instead.
Then, she turned her attention back to Zhou Qian.
Lifting the towel, the black web patterns on his face had vanished—but a black lump had formed on his cheekbone.
It wasn’t a perfect circle—about four centimeters long, narrow at the ends like a line, but widening to about 0.5 cm in the middle.
It lay on his face like a sinister snake.
Huai Yu hesitated. When she gently touched it, Zhou Qian trembled violently in his sleep. The lump felt tight, like a blister about to burst.
She looked further—from his right cheek to his ear was another similar black lump, around four or five centimeters long.
Then down his neck and…
Huai Yu reached out to unbutton the patient gown. From collarbone to chest, the same kind of grotesque marks spread across his body.
She silently retracted her hand, torn in thought.
—If she sent Zhou Qian back now, could the professional doctors save him?
But how would she explain the high-concentration Celery-leaved buttercup medication? Would Keta Rō’s existence be exposed?
And there was an even scarier possibility—She rested Zhou Qian’s bound arm on the edge of the tub, pulling up the sleeve so it no longer touched the murky water. In just moments, a black streak running from the back of his hand to his palm began to visibly swell, as if something inside was crashing around, eager to spread—
Huai Yu hurriedly put his hand back into the tub.
Zhou Qian’s violent spasms gradually eased, but without the constant wet compress on his face, he began to groan in pain again.
This scene—far from looking like treatment—resembled torture.
In his current state, the moment he left that medicinal tub, Zhou Qian probably wouldn’t even make it back to a hospital.
And with the Rose Corridor forbidding anyone from approaching, Huai Yu definitely couldn’t carry a whole tub of water by herself, and reality didn’t give her the luxury of slowly transporting it in batches.
Even if she tried negotiating with the Rose Corridor…
There was the problem: everyone knew the Rose Corridor had a bad temper—why could she approach it?
Not only approach—but talk to it, and even make it cooperate.
Huai Yu sighed, setting aside these complex, painful questions.
She re-draped the wet towel over Zhou Qian’s face and, after a moment’s thought, finally made a decision—At this point, she might as well gamble—she was already treating a dead horse like a live one; how much worse could it get than being buried under the Rose Corridor?
Taking a deep breath, she pulled out her favorite small knife and began heating it slowly over the fire.
The blade darkened slightly, the nick in it becoming more obvious. She thought about how it had been used not only for cutting food, but also for digging and shaving branches. After a moment, she rummaged through a box and found broken eggshells from Big Zai and Second Zai.
She didn’t need much force—she picked a bamboo stick from beside the stove, slid a shard of eggshell in, and it cut through the wood with ease.
—-
Author’s Note:
Woke up early to write, but progress is slow. It’s been slow these past couple of days since Zhou Qian’s situation needs careful planning…
Heading out soon—will finish writing tonight.
Wishing everyone a safe and happy Dragon Boat Festival.
