Tingfeng Hall was tossed about once more after midday.
Shortly after the second young master of the Qiu family departed, Commandant Lu Zican arrived in person under the pretext of delivering vegetables to conduct a search. Naturally, he found nothing. After pacing around for a few turns, he discreetly blocked the dog hole with stones before finally taking his leave.
Old Tang and the others seemed accustomed to such displays. Not only were they unbothered, they actually seemed quite content. They hadn't shifted an inch from their seats throughout the ordeal, but the moment the man left, they jumped up to inventory the melons, eggs, and meat Lu Zican had brought, busying themselves with preparations for the evening meal.
While the small kitchen was a scene of bustling activity, the side wing remained quiet.
The door, its window paper torn across half a pane, stood ajar. Qin Jiuye sat on a stool before the threshold, using the last rays of the setting sun to put the finishing touches on her needlework.
If she truly had to attend the birthday banquet at the Su manor tomorrow, she couldn't go dressed in rags. If anyone noticed something amiss, the task ahead would only become more difficult.
After Xu Qiuchi left, she had rummaged through Jin Bao’s luggage to find a relatively clean inner robe, then "borrowed" a rather flamboyantly colored tunic from Old Tang. The tunic had been made at a cloth shop in the east of the city before Old Tang grew stout; the fabric wasn't exquisite, but it looked decent enough. Had Tang Shenyan not been unable to squeeze into it anymore, he certainly wouldn't have let it fall into her hands.
Turning it over, she noticed a snag on one sleeve. She carefully took a length of thread of a similar color and began to mend it. As she sewed, flashes of the bloodstained clothes Li Qiao had worn that day flickered before her eyes.
Though it had been but a fleeting glimpse, she remembered the tears in his outer garment were short and sharp; some were mere punctures. Over the years, she had treated many wanderers of the martial world who were being hunted; such damage was usually caused by various weapons piercing the body, often concealing fatal, penetrating wounds beneath.
The human anatomy was peculiar. Some parts could withstand heavy blows, while others could not endure even a light touch. Abrasions, cuts, and gashes looked gruesome, but they were less troublesome than puncture wounds or blunt force trauma, which often caused internal organs to rupture and bleed, potentially leading to a loss of consciousness in a short time.
He must have been severely injured that night. It was incredible that he had managed to flee the city at all; it should have been impossible for him to recover overnight.
During the days she had spent sequestered in her room, she had reflected on this carefully, combining her thoughts with the findings from his daily pulse readings to reach a hazy conclusion.
Counting the incident at Qingping Path, Li Qiao had twice hovered between life and death only to miraculously survive. While she could have credited her own skills the first time, this instance was clearly different. She suspected it might be some kind of stimulatory effect brought about by the strange, lingering poison in his body. As for the rapidly healing wounds...
Qin Jiuye’s hand paused. She involuntarily reached up to touch her own neck.
Though she was loath to think in this direction, it was currently the most direct association. Perhaps he had been able to recover so quickly and heal so completely because he had drunk her blood. What kind of poison or heterodox art would make a person manic and bloodthirsty? If a similar situation occurred again, would he lose control once more? Would the condition worsen until one day he became entirely incapable of self-restraint?
The wound on her neck was neither deep nor shallow. It had already begun to scab and flake away, though it still stung occasionally when pulled. Thinking back, had he bitten just a bit further to the side that day, he would have pierced her carotid artery. At best, she would have bled uncontrollably; at worst, she would have died on the spot.
In the next heartbeat, the image of Kang Renshou’s mangled corpse flashed before her eyes. Qin Jiuye hurriedly closed her eyes and shook her head.
The golden sunset bathed her face, dispelling some of the unease and chill lingering in her heart. When she looked up again, a sudden, random thought surfaced.
"Li Qiao?"
Sure enough, his voice rang out near the doorway only a moment later.
"I am here."
She finished the final stitch, neatly tied off the thread, and beckoned him over with feigned nonchalance.
"Come try this on. See if it fits."
The youth obediently crossed the courtyard and approached. He reached for the inner robe and tunic, intending to leave, but she cleared her throat.
"Change here."
His figure paused, and he turned around. Qin Jiuye felt his gaze on her, so she kept her head down, pretending to be impatient.
"I won't know where it's ill-fitting unless I see you try it. I can fix any problems right now."
A brief silence hung in the air, followed by the rustle of clothes being changed.
First came the dark, coarse cloth garment he had worn for several days, then the thin undergarment against his skin... His movements were swift, seemingly without the slightest hesitation.
Qin Jiuye grumbled inwardly, but her eyes were busy, desperate to confirm her suspicions.
The slightly wrinkled fabric fell to the ground before her—clean white, without a single bloodstain.
So... had she truly been seeing things that day? Had those wounds really healed so cleanly?
Refusing to give up, she stole another glance upward.
The youth’s body was laid bare in the light, every detail more distinct than she had ever seen before.
His body was covered in scars, both old and new. She didn't need to look closely to know they hadn't all come from the encounters at Qingping Path and Treasure Mirage Pavilion.
Something stirred deep within Qin Jiuye. An indefinable emotion welled up, and the gaze she should have averted long ago remained fixed on that body.
The intersecting scars formed pale, bloodless ridges, yet the skin beneath still held a delicate luster. The fading sunlight traced golden lines across his form—burning, fluid lines that shifted with the rise and fall of his muscles. They stretched and contracted like a plantain tree drenched in the rainy season, its form rugged and its leaves green as silk; or like a surging hot spring in the height of summer, vibrant and overflowing with life in every inch...
*Thump, thump, thump.*
What was that sound?
It seemed like the pitter-patter of rain on plantain leaves, or perhaps the bubbling of a hot spring...
Qin Jiuye blinked.
The sunset outside the windows of Tingfeng Hall was perfect. There was no rain, no hot spring. There was only the sound of her own heartbeat.
She jerked her gaze away, suddenly feeling that something was wrong with her.
She was a healer. In all her years of treating patients, what kind of body had she not seen? To her, any physical form was the same; look at enough of them, and they were no different from the freshly slaughtered pork at the eastern market.
But in this moment, her gaze had clearly been arrested by something, causing her to forget what she had originally intended to investigate. Instead, she was being led by instinct and emotion.
"Did Sister not want to measure the clothes?"
In her daze, he had already finished changing. Qin Jiuye snapped back to her senses and quickly put on a stern face, reaching out perfunctorily to measure and pat his waist and lapel.
"It fits well enough. No need for changes."
She had been altering Jin Bao’s clothes for so many years that she could usually get it right without a fitting.
The youth, however, did not know this. He simply allowed her to fuss over him, standing there obediently in the new clothes.
Qin Jiuye finally felt a twinge of guilt. She stood up to smooth out the hem of the tunic where it had caught behind him, complaining in a low voice.
"You haven't even figured out your own mess yet. Why are you following me tomorrow? Even if the Su family deals in medicinal ingredients, it's not like their manor will have your antidote."
The youth’s features looked exceptionally soft bathed in the twilight, making it hard to associate him with the body she had just seen in the sun.
"I am not going for the antidote. It is always good to have someone to look after you when away from home. Is that not what Sister said?"
Even if he wasn't going for the antidote, he was likely afraid that something might happen to her—his "antidote"—which would naturally ruin his chances of a cure.
Still... she *had* said those words about "looking after each other," likely back on the road to Qingyang Market. But at the time, she had only wanted to drag along a free bodyguard and porter; she never imagined it would lead to so much trouble.
Qin Jiuye suddenly understood why the top experts of the martial world preferred to travel alone. If she were given the choice again, she would rather do things by herself. Success or failure, she would accept it; it was better than being caught in a situation beyond her control, dragged along by others.
Perhaps seeing her silence, the youth asked another question.
"Have you thought of a plan for the Su manor tomorrow, Sister?"
"What plan could there be? We'll play it by ear," she replied, her irritation rising at the mention of tomorrow. She pivoted to another topic. "I heard Xu Qiuchi mention it today... I wonder if that Second Miss Su’s illness is truly cured."
Other people didn't matter, but if she accidentally ran into Su Muhe while trying to steal something, Qin Jiuye felt she might actually feel a bit embarrassed and guilty.
"I saw her at the government office that day. She seemed to be in good spirits, not as if she were forcing herself."
Qin Jiuye plucked a few stray threads from his clothes, then stepped back to look him up and down.
"You don't understand the ways of these great households. They say it's an illness, but it's not always just about being sick. In short, it's complicated. Don't be fooled by appearances."
The youth’s brow twitched slightly, seemingly indifferent.
"What kind of person does Sister think the Second Miss of the Su family is?"
"Beautiful and kind-hearted. She looks fragile but has a certain resilience. Most rare of all, though she comes from a wealthy family, she doesn't carry herself with that superior attitude when speaking to us. In any case, she's nothing like her overbearing father. Perhaps she takes after her mother..." She trailed off as something felt off. She looked up at the person before her. "Why are you asking? You haven't developed some... inappropriate thoughts, have you?"
Li Qiao said nothing, his head lowered in a thoughtful manner.
Qin Jiuye felt her guess was correct. Recalling Su Muhe holding the oil-paper umbrella that day, she instinctively adopted a tone of earnest advice.
"I must warn you about this. It's true Su Muhe is beautiful and kind, but she is a Su. No matter how much she might be out of favor, she isn't from the same world as common folk like us. Even if you feel something now, time will likely grind it away. Better to cut those thoughts short now to avoid hurting each other later..."
The words flowed more and more smoothly; she didn't even realize how much she sounded like Qin Sanyou a few days ago.
"Is it the same between Sister and the Protector?"
Qin Jiuye’s words caught in her throat. Her face turned from white to red, then red to black, then black to a bruised shade of green. She looked utterly disheveled.
" I'm talking about you! Why are you bringing me into this?"
"Sister cares for me just as Grandfather cares for Sister, right? As your younger brother, I must naturally keep my family in mind."
Whether it was her imagination or not, he had been particularly focused on this "sibling bond" lately, as if mentioning that relationship gave him the right to say and do certain things.
Then she suddenly realized why he had mentioned Old Qin, and her expression soured further.
"You were eavesdropping on us?! I'm trying to give you good advice, and you're using it against me?"
A faint smile played on the youth’s lips, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"Rest easy, Sister. I have no other thoughts regarding Su Muhe. You are right. She may indeed be beautiful and kind, far better than many of those around her. But ultimately, she is one of those who pans for gold in a sea of blood and grows flowers atop white bones. She grew up within those walls; she has had her share of the Su family's mountains of gold and silver. As for why she appeared at the government office that day..." Li Qiao’s voice paused for a moment, and when it resumed, it held a touch of coldness. "I only know that it is difficult for people to empathize with things that do not exist in their own world. Her life has not known much suffering, so there are many things she cannot understand."
Qin Jiuye stared blankly at Li Qiao’s face, which still held a hint of boyishness. Yet, the image of him changing clothes earlier flashed through her mind, and she suddenly felt a sense of eeriness.
"How old are you, exactly?"
He looked at her, then leaned his upper body closer—so close she could see every single one of his thick eyelashes.
"A bit older than Sister imagines. Are you not a healer? Can you not tell?"
There were many things she couldn't tell.
She had once saved a sect protector who practiced a heterodox art that inverted yin and yang; she had applied needles for three days without being able to tell if the person was male or female. Then there was the head of an immortal sect who came to thank her for treating his forty-year-old daughter; the man himself looked like a youth of sixteen, appearing more radiant and charming than she did.
She was just a traveling doctor, not some transcendent being who could peer into the heavens and earth. How was she supposed to know if he was some old monster or what kind of bizarre arts he practiced?
Fine. She had seen plenty of eccentrics; one more wouldn't make a difference.
Qin Jiuye slapped a hand onto his face and unceremoniously pushed Li Qiao away. She stood up and patted the dust off her seat before heading out of the room.
"As long as you know what you're doing. Get some rest early tonight. We have important business tomorrow."
