Chapter 251: Anxious, promptly sitting down
The two people below them?
Mu Linger’s words immediately caused Gu Qishao’s complexion to darken. A doubtful Han Yunxi asked, “There are people below us? Aren’t there king cobras down there?”
At these words, Gu Qishao’s face changed again, this time to ashen white.
The reason why Han Yunxi had walked here at all was because of all the poisons here. Her detox system had sensed that a large ma.s.s of king cobra poison existed here as well as a bunch of toxins all mixed together. Though Gu Qishao’s face was pale, he still calmed down enough to ask, “How do you know there’s king cobras here? Have you pa.s.sed by this place?”
“Smelled them. The scent of poison’s so strong here, can’t you tell?” Han Yunxi replied naturally. If the white-robed man wasn’t here, then she’d have to commend herself for walking past anything like that.
How could it be so easy to smell such things!
The white-robed man looked at Han Yunxi closely, but Gu Qishao had no time to suspect her. Instead, he changed the topic. “He brought you down here? He wants to help you find the poison beast?”
But Han Yunxi wasn’t so easily deceived. She walked over and stomped on the ground, testing for an entrance. “If there’s people below us, then who are they?”
Mu Linger wanted to say, but a fierce glare from Gu Qishao made her stop in terror. Qi gege had never treated her so harshly in all the years she’d known him. But for Han Yunxi’s sake, he was willing to act fierce! Feeling grieved, Mu Linger’s eyes reddened again as she clenched her hands into fists. But no matter how tightly she clenched, she still didn’t dare to speak up. She was afraid that Qi gege would never pay attention to her again in the future.
When n.o.body replied after a while, Han Yunxi looked towards Mu Linger. “Little girl, who’s trapped down there?”
Mu Linger didn’t know how to hide her own feelings, so all she did was glare at Han Yunxi before turning away to ignore her. A baffled Han Yunxi turned towards Gu Qishao. “She’s…”
“Mu Linger, the Mu Clan’s genius pharmacist,” Gu Qishao was only too eager to find a topic to talk about. The Mu Clan’s genius pharmacist was an important personage in charge of drugging the poison beast this time. Of course Han Yunxi had heard of her.
“You two know each other?” Han Yunxi asked.
Mu Linger quickly replied, “Qi gege and I, and I…” All right, she couldn’t dig up any relation between them beyond the ‘and I.’ She didn’t want to say they were like siblings, but they were definitely more than just friends. Finally, she settled on one thing. “In any case, Qi gege already knew me before he knew you.”
Han Yunxi didn’t take any offense to their relations.h.i.+p. She started up the detox system to automatically search for the surrounding toxins while interrogating Gu Qishao. “What happened down there?”
“Just people who came to steal the poison beast. I don’t know them,” Gu Qishao replied carelessly as if it really was something inconsequential.
“You trapped them down there?” Han Yunxi kept asking. She was worried when she first saw Gu Qishao covered in blood, but seeing him so energetic made her less anxious to ask after his well-being. A careful look just then had verified that most of his injuries came from snake bites. In other words, this fellow must have fallen into the snake den before and gone through an intense battle. Thinking up to here, Han Yunxi’s eyes changed as she looked at Gu Qishao. Just what kind of people were trapped down there? They were strong enough to injure him to this extent, yet he insisted on concealing their ident.i.ties? If he hadn’t hid a thing, she would’ve gone off to search for the poison beast since she was in a hurry. Now the cover-up made her much more interested.
There had to be a problem here somewhere, and Gu Qishao was keeping it from her.
Gu Qishao avoided Han Yunxi’s question and urged the white-robed man instead. “Hurry up and go. It’ll be troublesome if Jun Yixie finds the poison beast first.”
Han Yunxi was in no rush. Unless the person knew these surroundings well, they’d probably b.u.mp into a trap by accident and get stuck for a long time. She slowly paced back and forth as she searched for the entrance, muttering to herself all the while. “There’s Heat Powder down there, as well as…”
Even Mu Linger was stunned when she heard ‘Heat Powder!’ Technically speaking, Heat Powder was a type of medicine with only trace amounts of poison. She didn’t understand poisons, but Han Yunxi had said she could sniff them out. Perhaps that was true, but Heat Powder had no scent. Moreover, it’d been used a while ago, so how could Han Yunxi smell it?
Once again, the white-robed man looked carefully at Han Yunxi as if trying to discover something off her person. Gu Qishao’s lips twitched, but before he could speak, Han Yunxi did instead. “There’s also Black Snake Essence Juice, but there’s not much of it. It’s very fresh, so it was probably created on-site.”
Black Snake Essence Juice!
This was exactly the poison venom that Gu Qishao had created with the snake corpse in the den. Han Yunxi could even smell such a thing! By now, Gu Qishao finally realized something was off and asked, “Poison la.s.s, you can really tell poisons by smell?”
Han Yunxi ignored him, but suddenly stopped in one spot to stare at her feet as she muttered, “There’s a lot of poisons here. Seven Star Flower Gra.s.s, Dragon’s Snakechild, Clear River Viper Leaf…” She slowly crouched down as she listed the poison names while putting on a pair of gloves. Then she felt around the floor and found quite a quant.i.ty of powdered poisons. Gu Qishao leaned against a wall and suddenly felt an urge to flee.
This scary woman!
How did she do it? She’d managed to explain everything that had just happened down there. Now all she was missing was the entrance to the den, which was actually hidden by a rock just by her feet. Gu Qishao had completely sealed his lips to stare at that particular rock, figuring that everything would be useless to Han Yunxi as long as she couldn’t find the entrance. A worried Gu Qishao shot another glance at Mu Linger, leaving her heartbroken as her lips thinned. Her tears finally flowed silently down her face.
But Han Yunxi suddenly muttered, “Who put so many poisons here at the entrance?!”
That’s right, she had found the entrance. With so many poisons here, anyone who pa.s.sed through the opening would definitely get poisoned. Many of the poisons inside were fatal, posing an even greater danger than the snake den inside.
“So, these poisons were planted here on purpose,” Han Yunxi explained clearly, before turning to Gu Qishao. “You did it?”
Gu Qishao had no words to reply her, but only tugged his lips into a false smile. Han Yunxi found the situation even more abnormal. She was about to push aside the rock when it was suddenly blasted into the air by a powerful sword qi. Following that, a giant pile of dead king cobras came flying out of the entrance before falling to pieces on the side. It wasn’t just anyone who possessed such a formidable sword qi. The white-robed man’s gaze turned complicated before he landed by Han Yunxi’s side and pulled her up.
“Let’s go!”
Not expecting this development, Gu Qishao made to stop them, but the figure that flew out of the snake den was even faster than him. He chased after the white-robed man before sending out a wave of extremely fine sword qi. Like a stream of light, it aimed precisely for the center of the white-robed man’s skull. He only s.h.i.+fted out of the way, the motion slowing him down just enough for the black-robed man to catch up. He grabbed the white-robed man’s hand, which had been holding onto Han Yunxi’s shoulder, while his other hand scooped Han Yunxi into his arms.
His familiar temperature and scent, along with that ever-aggressive aura, made him a recognizable sight.
It was him, Long Feiye!
His eyes stared coldly at the white-robed man while his hand, filled with strength, held on tightly to Han Yunxi.
Han Yunxi was stunned!
“You brought her down here?” While Long Feiye had been fighting off the snakes below, he’d heard everything that had gone on above his head.
“Coincidentally, we met at the entrance so I brought her along,” the white-robed man said simply.
“Since when have members of the Shadow Clan liked to meddle in other people’s business?” Long Feiye asked again. The Shadow Clan were the personal guards of West Qin royalty. Aside from protecting their imperial charges, they typically didn’t care for anything else.
“I was too idle, perhaps,” the white-robed man bantered.
“You can go now,” Long Feiye’s aggression and superiority had been a part of him since his birth. His words were a simple command.
“She agreed to go with me,” the white-robed man was as gentle as before.
“Now she’ll go back on that promise,” Long Feiye replied directly, not even giving Han Yunxi a chance to speak up.
The white-robed man didn’t reply, but suddenly made a surprise attack with his fist. The wind around his fist was like a blade. Long Feiye s.h.i.+elded Han Yunxi as he dodged, and was about to fight back when Tang Li suddenly appeared through the entrance and shouted, “Long Feiye, your foot! Hurry and treat the poison! Hurry!”
Long Feiye could’ve gone through unscathed, but he couldn’t wait any longer once he heard Han Yunxi’s voice. He’d rested one foot on the ground to make sure his sword qi was powerful enough to blast through the entrance, thus leaving it prey for the poison snakes to attack him. Han Yunxi glanced down and saw the tattered remains of Long Feiye’s pants around his right foot. The foot was covered in snake bites, all of which were pouring black blood. In that moment, Han Yunxi sucked in a cold breath as gooseb.u.mps broke out all over her body.
She was a doctor of poisons, so she’d seen wounds even more severe than this one. Gu Qishao’s back and four limbs had been covered in bites, but she didn’t feel the same way when she saw those. Long Feiye’s ten or so wounds from his leg to his foot were enough to make her feel fear!
The white-robed man didn’t pay attention to Tang Li; neither did Long Feiye get distracted. The two of them were still exchanging blows. Although Long Feiye wasn’t as fast as the white-robed male, he was close enough. Add that to his excellent martial arts skills and the two were an even match.
“Stop it!” Han Yunxi suddenly shouted. She struggled free from Long Feiye’s grasp and stood in front to block him. When the white-robed man saw this, he immediately withdrew his incoming fist.
Long Feiye stopped as well, but it was only to look at Han Yunxi with furrowed brows as he said in a low voice, “Don’t fuss!”
But Han Yunxi was particularly ferocious as she lectured, “Treat your poison! Sit down this instant!” How deep must his poison be with so many wounds? If he didn’t treat them now, he’d die!
Faced with Han Yunxi’s wrath and serious tone, Long Feiye’s heart felt an indescribable feeling. He actually abandoned the white-robed man on the side and obediently listened to Han Yunxi as he sat down. Han Yunxi didn’t care about anyone else at this moment. She hastily took out needles and antidote from her medical pouch, her stern, strict motions striking fear in even Mu Linger’s heart. Mu Linger could only think, some women were terrifying when they got serious!
The white-robed man clenched and unclenched his fists, debating whether to continue the fight; Gu Qishao glanced at the wounds riddling his own body and suddenly lost the spark in his radiant eyes…