Chapter 35 Too Tough to Be a Human
In a room with dim light, two figures were sitting opposite each other.
Guima looked at Xia Houmo with coziness, playing with a tea cup in his hand.
On the other side, the face of Xia Houmo was cold as ice, with the chill around him preventing any stranger from coming nearby.
“Achoo!” Guima rubbed his nose with his hand. He had used too much scented soap and the smell was a bit aggressive.
“So Lord, what do you want me here for?”
“I was poisoned.”
“What?” Guima jumped up to his feet, with his laziness look disappeared within one second, he walked behind Xia Houmo and felt his pulse.
His face was now in seriousness.
“You were poisoned by the Red Blaze!”
Without many expressions on his face, Xia Houmo took his hand back.
“Yes.”
“When was that?”
“About half a month ago.”
After he heard about the answer, Guima frowned and doubted whether it was a coincidence since that escaped woman got poisoned at a similar time.
The Red Blaze was a kind of very rare toxin, which meant that it was also rare for a person to get poisoned by it.
“Who did this to you?”
“The southern barbarians.”
The expression on Guima’s face was telling that he had already expected so. “No wonder. There was one drug stimulator that we don’t have in Chu, and only can it be found in the horrible land of the southern barbarians.”
“You don’t have the antidote for this toxin?”
Guima paused, and straightened his neck a little bit. “How come? I can make the antidote, and I’m just lack of a few kinds of herbs!”
Xia Houmo frowned.
“Explain it clearly.”
Guima gave him a glimpse. “Although I don’t have the antidote now, I have some drugs for controlling the toxicity. With one pill taken every month, you won’t have to worry about losing your life at least in this half year.”
Guima took out a porcelain bottle and gave it to Xia Houmo.
Xia Houmo took over the bottle and noticed that Guima’s eyes were still on him.
“Did the toxin break out on you?”
“Yes.” Xia Houmo answered as if it was such a normal thing.
There was a deep wheeze-like sound.
Guima gasped for air.
“And you just put up with it?”
Xia Houmo closed his dark eyes as said nothing.
There was an unconscious tremble of Guima’s body.
What a horrible person in front of him! Despite of the fact that he had never experienced the break-out of the Red Blaze, he knew it well that it was much more painful and terrible than being taken out the vessels and skins off an alive person. And this man, he just put up with it!
Donglin was at the door when they were talking.
“Lord, the southern barbarians have started their action.”
The deep and dark eyes of Xia Houmo opened all of a sudden, with a murderous look.
“Yanxia pa.s.s. I haven’t smelled the scent of blood for a long time. Get the horses ready for me. We are going back to Yanxia pa.s.s right now.”
“Yes.”
Guima looked at Xia Houmo, who was standing up. “You are going to fight the battle in person?”
“It’s time for them to know who’s the real boss!”
…
“What, what happened to Old Lady?” An Mama glared at Su Muge, with her eyes red in anger.
Su Muge was about to step forward and feel the pulse for Old Lady Meng, but she was stopped by An Mama.
“Miss Su, what else do you want to do?!”
This aroused a sudden impatience in Su Muge. She was never good-tempered when she was facing the relatives or accompanies of a patient.
“You are wasting time on Old Lady Meng’s treatment. If anything bad happened, how could you take the responsibility?” The voice was tough and motionless, almost giving one a cold chill.
An Mama trembled and had a look at the fainted Old Lady Meng. She moved her body reluctantly, yet with her eyes set on Su Muge with sharpness.
Su Muge felt the pulse of Old Lady Meng, and took out the silver needles from her body.
“What on earth is going on here?”
“She fainted because she was too nervous. It won’t be long, and she’ll come to herself soon.”
An Mama pursed her lips, and looked at Rumei in the room. Rumei was also frightened to death when she witnessed the whole process. Therefore, she didn’t get the meaning from An Mama’s eyes.
Su Muge had removed all the bamboo tubes from the body of Old Lady Meng before Rumei could understand that look.
“Old Lady cannot touch any water nor eat any cold food till tomorrow morning.”
Su Muge started to pack her medical box after she left the words. Old Lady Meng didn’t wake up by the time she left the Longevity Courtyard.
“Hurry up! Go and get Doctor Hu!”
An Mama said so to the maids right after Su Muge left.
Rumei didn’t get An Mama, since Su Muge had been treating Old Lady Meng all these days long and they had never asked Doctor Hu to come.
“But An Mama…”
“But what? Hurry up! Don’t you see that Old Lady is still in a coma!”
Rumei finally went after taking a look at Old Lady.
…
Su Muge sensed the unusual atmosphere in the Su mansion once she was back.
When she returned to the Peachblossom Courtyard, Yueru came out to greet her with tension on her face.
“Eldest Miss, you’ve finally come back.”
Su Muge stepped into the room with her eyebrows frowned. “What happened?”
Yueru took a look at Xinche, a maid who was waiting outside the door, and said, “Xinche, go and get the eldest Miss a cup of warm ginger tea.”
Xinche left with a bow.
After carefully closing the door behind them, Yueru went back to the side of Su Muge.
“Eldest Miss, people were saying that a county managed by the Lord was flooded! And the county magistrate was nowhere to be found!”
Hearing those words from Yueru, Su Muge twisted her eyebrows. “A county managed by the Lord?”
“Yes. There are ten counties in total which are all under the management of the Lord. Zhou county, of which the dam broke, was one of them. Now they are saying that the Lord will definitely be responsible for this. If the emperor knew about it and accused him for it, the whole family could probably be killed!”
Su Muge’s face hardened with graveness.
Although Yueru’s words were indeed shocking, there was the possibility.
A dam should be very solid, and how came it break so easily all of a sudden? Though she was not a hundred percent sure about the problem of the dam break, at least she was seventy or eighty percent sure about that. If so, as the highest official in the prefecture, there was no way for Su Lun to get away from it.
By that time, it would be hard for him to protect the whole Su family from any punishment along with losing his own life, let alone the job promotion.
If that day came when she, her brother and her mother couldn’t escape, she would not have the gut to believe that she was able to fight against the monarch of this state.
“Don’t panic, and don’t let those rumors and imaginations bring you too much fear.”
“Yes, I understand.”
After updating some other news on the mansion to Su Muge, Yueru left.
Su Muge then took out all her stuff for making the antidote.
The most urgent thing was to detoxify herself. No matter what happened afterwards, it could not be her shackles.
Though there were limited tools for her to use, Su Muge found herself a clue.
She remembered that the other day on the street, the man was looking for ginseng that was over five hundred years old, and fire glossy ganoderma over the age of a thousand. She realized that in the pills she made to control the toxin, she didn’t use those two kinds of herbs.
Those could be the key point to making the antidote for the Red Blaze toxin.
With this direction found, her research on making the antidote had made a great progress.
She believed that it would not take long for her to find a way to make the antidote!
…
Inside the yamen.
Su Lun was sweating because of that emergency, walking back and forth in the study worriedly.
With such a thing happened to Zhou county, even the servants of the Su mansion knew the consequences, and how couldn’t he!
A yamen runner rushed in from outside.
“Lord, some, something is wrong!”
Another tremble hit Su Lun.
“What, what’s happening now?！”
“There is a battle, a battle at Yanxia pa.s.s!”
Su Lun was about to relax when he heard that the war was not within his jurisdiction. But he reminded something, and took hold of the yamen runner’s clothes. With both of his eyes red in fury, he asked again, “Where? Where did you say the battle was?”
The yamen almost cried being frightened by the look of Su Lun.
“It’s…it’s Yanxia pa.s.s. The southern barbarians suddenly started a battle at Yanxia pa.s.s.
The King of Jin has led a troop to the battle himself.”
Shunyang prefecture was the only prefecture near Yanxia pa.s.s. It would be the first prefecture to be involved in a battle if Yanxia pa.s.s fell. No wonder Su Lun was in great panic.
“You said that the King of Jin led the troop in person?”
“Yes, yes.”
The color on Su Lun’s face returned a little with this affirmative answer.
Anyone in Chu knew that the King of Jin was a natural defense for the state. Since he was in charge of the troops and the battles, Chu never failed. Now that Su Lun knew he was at Yanxia pa.s.s, he was not that worried about the intruding of those southern barbarians.
Su Lun had been lost in this terrible fear which he could not even describe after that news of the dam break in Zhou county.
Unexpectedly, someone from the Meng mansion came over to Su Muge and told her that Old Lady Meng’s condition became much better after her cupping therapy and there was no need for her to go over every day to treat her.
Su Muge snorted and said nothing.
Whatever intention the Meng family had, she would never ever treat Old Lady Meng again!
The favor the Meng family had owed her, however, she would better get it back.
“Miss, are you going out?”
Yueru asked Su Muge curiously when she saw her changed to the clothes for an outing.
Su Muge nodded her head. “Yes.”
An should be worried about Zhou country at the moment and have no time to play her tricks against them. Therefore, Su Muge was sure that it would not be a big deal for her to go out the mansion.
There was no sign of the stop of the rain. Su Muge went directly to a tea house right after she left the carriage of the Su mansion.
She went towards the wing-room, and saw a slim figure vaguely, which was already sitting inside.
She pushed the door open, and the person inside raised the eyes and looked at her.
Su Muge went forward and sat down in the opposite.
“Master Meng, sorry for keeping you waiting.”
Meng Xiuwen was in a bamboo-green robe with his waist girdled, which made him look slim and graceful.
With a veil cap on Su Muge’s head, Meng Xiuwen could not tell her expression behind it.
“I have just arrived, too.”
Su Muge poured herself a cup of tea. Looking at her delicate fingers around the tea cup, Meng Xiuwen took out a little box from his back.
“Miss Su, I’ve brought you the things you’ve asked for.”
Su Muge’s eyes fell on the box through the gauze. She reached her hand for it, opened the box and nodded.
“Master Meng, thank you so much.” Then she stood up.
Seeing this, Meng Xiuwen also stood up and stopped her. “Miss Su, please wait.”