Chapter 620: The Arrival of the Medicine Peddler

Pei Ye watched the closed light screen for a while, sighed lightly, and lay on the pillow in a daze.

He thought of the Princess Jinyang who had just left. When they first met, she was wearing a striking red dress and a hard gold mask, standing out from the crowd like a fresh fire in this cold and lonely palace.

But bright colors aren't necessarily just confidence and provocation; sometimes they are also defense, just like the cold, hard gold mask.

The color of fire can warm the body and can remind others from afar not to get close. So, growing up all alone in this great hall, she didn't even have a maid.

Li Youlong couldn't save one of Meng'er's legs. At the same age, she naturally knew that she couldn't bear the lives of anyone in this hall.

Pei Ye turned to Xu Chuo again, thinking of her calm expression when discussing those strategies, and then turned to those things she didn't show to others: the clapping of hands when excited while playing pitch-pot and drinking in the small building, the footsteps of jumping with hands behind her back on a cold night after eating beef bones together, the arguing with three children in the snowy forest while mourning a friend...

He couldn't help but want to laugh when he thought of this, but when his mouth curled up, he still sighed lightly. Lowering his eyes, he saw the black cat step on his chest, then step on his face and forehead with both feet, leap up to extinguish the candle, and lie down beside the pillow.

Pei Ye frowned and squinted: "What are you doing?"

"You just smiled too much like an adult." The black cat shone a pair of emerald eyes quietly in the dark.

"What do you mean?" Pei Ye slid down his body and pulled the quilt to his shoulders. Once the candle was extinguished, his voice became lighter.

"It's that kind of helpless, smiling expression. It's so unfamiliar, I couldn't help but step on it twice." The black cat said calmly.

Pei Ye was silent for a while, suddenly turned over, pressed the little cat under him, and rubbed it ten times back and forth.

When he woke up and opened his eyes again, there was a cold, disheveled face in front of the bed.

Pei Ye was silent for a while, closed his eyes, and opened them again. The face still hadn't disappeared.

"You're here early." Pei Ye sighed lightly.

"Afraid you might die." Qu Xin lowered her head to write the medicine formula. A small table board with various medicines had already been set up by the bed, and a large curtain enclosed the entire bed.

"I won't. You've treated me a few times, and I understand some things now. Torn muscles, broken bones, lacerations, and penetrations—I can all recover from these without leaving any underlying illness. If it were really that serious, I would have invited you over night."

"One shoulder bone broken and muscles tangled, one shoulder bone cracked, right arm bones and blood scattered, elbow and wrist strained, two ribs broken, internal organs shaken and bleeding, nine blood wounds on the body, all closed with true Qi." Qu Xin nodded calmly, "It's indeed not bad. According to the experience of the previous few times, if I let you out in this state, you can still fight for another hundred or so rounds."

"Then, why were you in such a hurry to strip me naked before I woke up?"

"Because I'm also very busy."

Pei Ye looked at her silently, his two hands hanging down to hold onto the only pair of shorts on his waist.

Qu Xin didn't raise her eyes lazily: "There's no injury there, I'm not stripping you."

Pei Ye didn't move or speak; this was just his own sense of security.

"This month's 【Great Reduction Needle】 has also been used on you." Qu Xin said, "I'll tidy up your wounds for you in a moment, and then you'll take this 【Sprouting Pill】 yourself, and there will be nothing else. The gold mask said you have to take action every day these days and don't have time for quiet recuperation, otherwise I wouldn't have spent so much."

Pei Ye was immediately very vigilant, raising his hand to block her action of taking the thin blade: "Wait, how much did you spend?"

"【Great Reduction Needle】 I can only use once a month. I already said that at Kongdong, it's not for sale. I think it should be used when it should be used. But if it's used, it's one hundred taels once." Qu Xin bypassed his hand and took down the thin blade, "【Sprouting Pill】 is cheaper but not often sold, only opened and taken by me, priced at eighty taels."

"..."

"But don't worry," Qu Xin said quickly, "The gold mask has already paid the silver."

Pei Ye lowered his voice and glared at her: "Piaoqing has already prepaid you seventy taels, why are you still collecting money?"

"You forgot again, that's life-saving money." Qu Xin said earnestly, "Didn't you say yourself that this time it didn't endanger your life."

"..."

"Don't worry, twenty-three taels were paid. When I saved your life, I only used twenty-three taels worth of medical skills, I wouldn't use such expensive things."

Qu Xin sterilized the thin blade with fire, clicked a few acupuncture points around his wound, blocked the sensation, put on a mask, put on hand gloves, and gently sliced open the broken bone area.

This time she didn't let him faint. Pei Ye propped his head up and watched her slice open his skin, sometimes comparing and piecing together a few pieces of broken bone with a frown, sometimes reaching her hand into his belly to knead and touch his internal organs, and then coming out with a small arm stained with blood...

Pei Ye probably understood at this time why Qu Xin liked to perform surgery on him. Clearly, for this strong body, this kind of "butcher's knife" technique caused damage that could truly be fully restored after a sleep. The physician could let go and perform without worrying about the fragility of the injured person, which was simply the best platform for someone who was extreme in medical arts to perform freely. Coupled with the fact that he always faced various rare enemies, leaving behind many rare injuries, he was simply a rare patient in the eyes of someone who was extreme in medical arts...

Qu Xin, who was covering her mouth and nose, glanced at him sideways, gently lifted the tendon she was pinching, and Pei Ye's hand twitched violently, his whole body leaning toward her.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing, testing if this tendon of yours is complete." Qu Xin's indifferent eyes rose with some satisfaction, her fingers playing with the tendon head, "Round, clean, fresh, and tough, I really want to pull it out and take a look."

"..."

"Did you also talk to yourself with such terrifying words when I was unconscious the previous few times?"

"No, I was using suggestion to seek your consent."

"How could I possibly agree."

"I would sew it back for you, wouldn't I." Qu Xin sighed lightly and used an ointment to continue the two sections of tendon, "You truly have a unique bone pulse. Even if you don't cultivate, you are a good seedling for practicing martial arts—ordinary people's tendons are two inches shorter than yours. I feel like yours could be tied into a knot."

"Is this also a suggestion?"

"Can't it be?"

"No."

After being quiet for a while, Qu Xin said calmly: "Actually, I am now confident that I can transform a person's body to be more useful, cutting a tendon, grinding a bone... Pei Ye, do you know? Actually, what is natural isn't necessarily the best."

"No, it's not."

So Qu Xin stopped talking completely, lowering her head and silently repairing every one of his wounds. Pei Ye had long known that there wouldn't be any real idle chat in this person's mouth. Every seemingly normal conversation was for her secret, ulterior motives.

Sometimes this purpose was medical arts, sometimes this purpose was silver, and sometimes this purpose was to mock him.

Setting bones, continuing tendons, and combing pulses—the delicate work took a whole morning. Qu Xin finally took off her hand gloves and mask, washed the surgical tools, took a wine towel to wipe the bloodstains off his body, and after everything was done, actually took out a pen and a small notebook from her bag and started scratching away at Pei Ye.

"..."

"Don't move." Qu Xin lowered her head and said calmly, occasionally raising her eyes to look at him.

This was a link that hadn't happened in the previous few times, but seeing that Qu Xin didn't intend to explain it to him, he was too lazy to ask again. He sat up and put on his clothes and pants. When he was fastening the buttons, the young girl had already packed up her things, turned her head, and said: "Let's go, isn't there one more thing? You said you wanted to take a look at a patient with madness."

"You mean Guo You. You do need to take a look, but he's probably not suffering from madness, but damage to his mind-spirit realm." Pei Ye lowered his head to put on his shoes.

"Madness itself will lead to confusion in the mind-spirit realm." Qu Xin glanced at him, "And you don't study medicine, so stop making random comments."

"..." Pei Ye rolled his eyes and stood up.

The two lifted the curtain. Pei Ye raised his head and laughed: "You really have this habit, always surrounding yourself with gauze curtains when going out for a medical visit."

"Patient privacy is written in the *Medical Ethics*, and the gold mask was in the hall when I was stripping your clothes, so I thought it was necessary to surround it."

Pei Ye thought of the time at Kongdong when he walked into Ming's clinic and Qu Xin said "Prevent some people who don't knock before entering." At the time, he felt it was cold, but at this moment, he felt a bit comforted.

He laughed: "You always give people nicknames, what gold mask, that is Princess Jinyang, the superior of my direct superior."

"I can't recognize faces very well, I've been calling people like this since I was a child." Qu Xin said calmly, "Besides, this princess doesn't have a face anyway."

"However, she still came in after I surrounded it." She added.

"?"

"Because she said this is her territory." Qu Xin said, "And she paid three hundred taels of medical fees."

"..."

"Aren't you someone who has read *Medical Ethics*!"

"Yes, my *Medical Ethics* has always been a D-minus." Qu Xin said, "I don't know why I just can't go up."

"..."

"We were chatting about some things at the time, about the Taishan Medicine Hut transporting medical personnel to the palace." Qu Xin glanced at him indifferently, "Don't always think your body is so valuable. Except for me, no one treats those hundred-plus pounds of broken meat of yours as a treasure."

"?"

She said this very naturally, but it was also very strange. Pei Ye frowned and looked at her twice, but couldn't see any clues.

Pei Ye walked out of his hall door. The sun was high in the sky. The Zhu Jingdian was as cold and lonely as ever, but there was a beautiful red shadow in the courtyard. Li Xizhou was standing in front of a plum tree in a daze, and only turned around when she saw them come out.

"Divine Physician Qu is indeed well-deserved of her reputation. He already looks normal."

"If he is to be truly useful, it will take at least three more days." Qu Xin stopped her steps and performed a very polite salute, "Thanks to Your Highness's trust, Qu Xin is deeply grateful."

"I have only heard of the little Divine Physician's great name for a long time, and only today did I get to see her. If there are any connections in the future, we can work together more." Li Xizhou smiled slightly.

The side hall where Guo You was settled was on the opposite side. The two parted ways with the woman in the courtyard and entered the hall door on the other side.

The hall hadn't been tidied up much, and only two moved lamps were lit.

"You should try to do more things for this gold mask princess in the future." Qu Xin lowered her voice and said.

"What for?"

"She has money." The young girl said concisely, "And much more money than Li Piaoqing."

Pei Ye was too lazy to pay attention to her. He crossed the second hall door and saw Guo You's familiar figure.

White hair, curled body, tattered clothes, only this time he was draped in a warm cloak. And beside him, a tall woman was busy, boiling water and preparing cloth. It was Li Xianfang.

Pei Ye followed Qu Xin to Guo You's side. The old man was still sitting there dazed and silent. Those eyes were not blind, but it was as if they couldn't see anything.

"Have you tested his mind-spirit realm?" Qu Xin looked at those eyes for a while, knelt down in front of Guo You, and lowered her head to open her box.

"Hm, I have cast a mind-spirit decree into his mind-spirit realm to ask about the assassination of the Bright Moon Palace back then. He reacted strongly and said some things." Pei Ye said, "But after that, he was like this again, and there was no reaction to anything I said. I still have some things I want to ask him, but if I only rely on that kind of mind-spirit technique, firstly, I'm worried that his mind-spirit can't bear the load and might collapse as soon as I ask. Secondly, asking like that, the words in his mouth sometimes have no logic. So I'd like you to take a look. If it really doesn't work, I'll just use that method."

Qu Xin raised her eyes and looked: "This is a Mystic Gate Body-Taming."

"Yes." Pei Ye also squatted down beside her, "So I also want to ask you to see the reason why he went crazy, whether he was harmed by someone."

"Hold his hand, don't let him hit me." Qu Xin took out a transparent ointment and smeared it on her hands.

"He doesn't hit people." Pei Ye sighed lightly and followed her instructions to hold the old man's hand.

Qu Xin placed her two hands on both sides of Guo You's head. The cold feeling seemed to make him a bit dazed. He raised his head slightly, but there was indeed no resistance.

"There is no damage to the skull, it wasn't caused by external injury." Qu Xin put her hands down, "Generally speaking, if a Master's vital point is pressed by a strange cultivator, they will be angered subconsciously and have some counter-attack. He reacted like this, which probably explains two things: one is that his personality is very gentle, and he wasn't used to using force even before he went crazy; the second is that his consciousness is trapped in some kind of world he fabricated himself, and he is very dull to external stimuli."

Pei Ye was stunned for a moment, both were hit, and couldn't help but give the young girl a thumbs up.

"You said he was harmed by others, I think that's not necessarily true." Qu Xin looked at the old man's eyes and continued, "I have seen some damage caused by mind-spirit techniques. The injured are often foolish or have obstacles, while he is more like being trapped in some kind of memory or dream he originally had, wrapping himself up and isolating the outside world... This is more like a collapse and escape after receiving stimulation that the outside world couldn't bear."

"... Are Masters also this fragile?"

"Even if one reaches the Heavenly Tower, a person's mind-spirit is not perfect." Qu Xin said, "A Master's mind-spirit is often powerful, coming from the tempering in cultivation. But if one doesn't cultivate mind-spirit techniques, a person's mind-spirit is still most influenced by the past, personality, and emotions. But when all this explodes in the same place, it is enough to form trauma."

"Then, can you treat it?"