The heavy scent of medicine in the room couldn't mask the stench of blood.
An Jiu saw Gu Jinghong's face, pale as paper, and the complete absence of rise and fall in his chest. She turned to Mo Sigui and asked, "What... happened to him?"
"With me here, he won't die." Mo Sigui's confidence bordered on arrogance. But his arrogance wasn't born from being a natural medical genius or inheriting the teachings of a Miracle Doctor—it came from countless days and nights of painstaking research, forgetting sleep and meals.
Pride earned through blood, sweat, and toil was admirable; baseless bragging was detestable.
An Jiu completely ignored his air of a Miracle Doctor and patiently clarified, "I asked what happened to him, not whether you could cure him."
"The Buddha says," Mo Sigui set down his teacup and murmured, "some things cannot be spoken."
"Hah." An Jiu let out a cold laugh, her expression blank, but the sound was dripping with undisguised scorn.
"What kind of attitude is that!" Mo Sigui crossed his arms and glared at her. "Mei Shisi, An Da Jiu, I swear talking to you is the most annoying thing in my life. Let's chat less from now on unless absolutely necessary!"
An Jiu asked, "Why add a 'Da' (big)?"
Mo Sigui leaned back lazily. "Two-character names don't roll off the tongue well. Calling you An Xiaojiu (Little Jiu) is too nauseating, and you're not worth the effort for me to come up with some poetic, picturesque name."
Poetic and picturesque... An Jiu couldn't help but recall how Mo Sigui named his medicines things like "Spring Breeze Cannot Understand Words." She really had no expectations for his naming skills.
"An Xiaojiu, An Xiaojiu." She repeated it a few times, and the image of Chu Dingjiang calling her that flashed in her mind. For some reason, her heart trembled faintly. After a moment of thought, she surprisingly agreed with Mo Sigui's opinion. "True."
Mo Sigui immediately felt a sense of accomplishment, his peach-blossom eyes brimming with charm as he pulled out a fan and flicked it open with practiced grace.
But then An Jiu said with utmost seriousness, "I’ll have to tell Chu Dingjiang not to call me that."
"Cough!" Mo Sigui's fan-waving paused mid-motion. He half-covered his stiff expression. "Actually, now that I say it a few more times, An Xiaojiu does have a poetic ring to it. The more I hear it, the more pleasant it sounds—quite profound, really. An Da Jiu, on the other hand, is rather vulgar."
An Jiu mercilessly exposed him. "You're just afraid he’ll beat you up, aren’t you?"
"Nonsense!" Mo Sigui snapped his fan shut angrily. "I’ve spent my life defying the King of Hell—who could I possibly fear?"
An Jiu ignored him and walked to the bedside, reaching out to check Gu Jinghong's breath. "He’s not breathing?"
"He will be soon!" Mo Sigui rapped his knuckles on the table. "Shouldn’t you be heading back? What kind of proper young lady stays in a man’s room in the middle of the night?"
"I only came to check and was about to leave, but you knocked me out and kept me here all night." An Jiu turned her head to look at him. "Does Lou Mingyue know you’re this kind of person?"
"Hey!" Mo Sigui jumped up as if his tail had been stepped on. "You can eat whatever you want, but don’t go spouting nonsense! Just leave already, will you? My lady!"
"What happened to him?" An Jiu circled back to the earlier question, but this time it was clearly a threat.
Mo Sigui had always thought of An Jiu as someone who pursued prey with wolf-like ferocity, forgetting that wolves were also cunning. Now he finally understood what it meant to invite a god in but struggle to send them away. "Someone planted something extremely important inside him. Before his long journey, he came to me to have it removed."
With that explanation, An Jiu could roughly guess—though she didn’t know it was about extracting heart blood.She turned her head and glanced down at Gu Jinghong's snow-like handsome face. After standing silently for a moment, she turned and left.
Mo Sigui let out a sigh of relief.
An Jiu opened the door but suddenly paused. She turned her head to look at him. "I wasn't mistaken. Your integrity really is negligible."
Mo Sigui froze for a breath before realizing what she meant. He couldn't help but jump in agitation, glaring at the empty, open doorway like a provoked rooster, panting with anger. He decided then—when he reforged her body in a couple of days, he would definitely use even more potent medicine!
After that, An Jiu didn’t disturb him again.
On the evening of the third day, someone from the Crane Control Army came to escort the new recruits. An Jiu gathered her belongings and headed to the training grounds to assemble.
Only ten people were joining the Crane Control Army: An Jiu, Lou Mingyue, Mo Sigui, Sheng Changying, Zhu Pianxian, Sui Yunzhu, Li Qingzhi, Qiu Yunxiao, Sun Dixian, and—unexpectedly—the effeminate Earth Instructor!
The Crane Control Army had suffered heavy losses recently and desperately needed young, skilled fighters. Among the four instructors, the Earth Instructor was the youngest, so naturally, he couldn’t escape the draft. However, like Sheng Changying, his transfer was considered a reassignment. The Earth Instructor clearly had strong objections—his resentment was palpable within a ten-zhang radius.
Sheng Changying, being a civil official, would still serve as a storekeeper in the Crane Control Army, albeit with a promotion in rank. But for the Earth Instructor, it was a tragedy.
His resentment was understandable. While the Crane Control Institute had many higher-ranking Academicians, they rarely interfered with daily affairs. As an instructor, he enjoyed a high salary without the constant life-and-death struggles. But in the Crane Control Army, it would be endless bloodshed and sleepless nights. Worse still, promotions in the Crane Control Army were earned through missions. As a newly transferred member, the Earth Instructor had no chance of securing a high position. Who could possibly be happy about that?
"Shi Commander Gao!" The Crane Control envoy who had come to escort them frowned at the Earth Instructor. "Why this attitude? Do you not wish to serve His Majesty?"
Five men formed a squad, led by a squad leader; ten men formed a platoon, led by a platoon leader.
The others thought to themselves—no wonder he was so bitter. Compared to his position as an instructor in the Crane Control Institute, this wasn’t just a demotion by several ranks. It was like falling from a mountaintop into the dirt.
"Replying to the envoy," the Earth Instructor said in his sharp, eerie voice, staring at the man who had once held a lower rank than him, "serving His Majesty is an honor I could only earn after ten lifetimes of virtue. However, I’ve been like this since the womb, so please don’t misunderstand."
The envoy was left speechless. He then announced, "Of the ten joining the Crane Control Army, Miracle Doctor Mo will be delayed for a few days due to personal matters. The remaining nine will enter the Crane Control Army now. Aside from Storekeeper Sheng and Miracle Doctor Mo, the rest will be assigned to the Divine Martial Army, still under Lord Chu’s command, forming one platoon led by Shi Commander Gao to carry out missions. If there are no objections, follow me."
Who would dare object to a decision already made by the higher-ups?
And so, carrying their belongings, the group trudged through the snow, leaving the Crane Control Institute under the cover of dusk.
They had fought together before, sharing life-and-death experiences. Entering the Crane Control Army together, they felt no unease—after all, it was just a matter of survival, and at least they had comrades by their side.
This winter seemed unusually long. Sparse snowflakes drifted in the sky—whether it was fresh snowfall or windblown powder, no one could tell.Sui Yunzhu let out a sigh, thinking to herself, "With such a long winter, the Liao Kingdom is likely to invade again. The Crane Control Army must be particularly busy right now."
During this period, temperatures were generally low. The Liao Kingdom, located north of the Great Song, experienced extremely harsh winters. It was a time when they had to rely on stored provisions, unable to produce anything new, and livestock like cattle, sheep, and horses often froze to death. If the winter was exceptionally long, by the time spring arrived, the entire nation would be destitute. Every time this happened, the fertile lands and mild climate of the Great Song became particularly enviable to the people of Liao. (To be continued...)
PS: Apologies, my neck issues caused numbness in my left hand, so I took a break and updated late.
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