Chapter 2274: The Miao Youth's Fierce Love 37

Watchtower.

As Nan Yixing pushed open the mottled wooden door, Jin Chen smelled the medicinal fragrance in the air mixed with a scorched bitterness, like the scent of aged mugwort scorched by fire.

A woman wrapped in a plain white shawl sat on the window-side rattan chair, lowering her head to embroider a handkerchief.

Hearing the door sound, she instinctively pulled her hand into her sleeve; the exposed fingertips showed an unnatural blue-black, like bamboo scorched by charcoal fire.

"Aunt."

Nan Yixing called softly; the woman's shoulder twitched slightly before she slowly turned around.

A light gauze covered her face, faintly revealing the cracked pattern of skin beneath.

But her hair was neatly combed, and the fresh jasmine pinned at her temples blended with the medicinal fragrance filling the room.

The shawl's collar was embroidered with exquisite cloud patterns; though the cuffs had faded from washing, they bore no stain.

"Little Xing has come."

The aunt's voice was hoarse, but upon seeing Jin Chen she turned her head away, her thin fingers hastily adjusting the veil.

Her sleeve slipped down to her elbow, revealing the mottled skin underneath and the applied mint ointment.

"Who did you bring?"

Jin Chen stepped forward half a pace, his silver ornaments chiming in the morning light, "Hello, Aunt."

Nan Yixing grasped the aunt's trembling hand and spoke gently: "Aunt, his name is Jin Chen, my beloved; I brought him for you to see."

The aunt startled, then heard Nan Yixing say: "He is a Gu Master from Thousand Screen Mountain, capable of treating the Burning Blight Gu."

The aunt's gaze lingered on their clasped hands for a moment; when the curtain was lifted by the wind, she saw the jade pendant hanging from Jin Chen's neck—exactly the ancestral style of the Nan Family, now bound with a Miao red cord.

The atmosphere grew somewhat tense.

When Jin Chen arrived, he had heard Nan Yixing say that the aunt now almost universally rejected gu masters, so he remained silent and unobtrusively surveyed the interior.

The porcelain bottles on the medicine cabinet were arranged by height; the windowsill's jasmine pot rested on an embroidered handkerchief, and even the ashes in the charcoal brazier were piled into neat little mounds—this woman tormented by gu poison still used her last strength to maintain dignity.

"Please have a seat."

The aunt finally relaxed her lips; as she turned, her shawl brushed the tea table, scattering a few dried jasmine petals.

She bent to pick them up, revealing a patch of unblemished skin on the back of her neck, stark white against the surrounding charred black.

Nan Yixing took the tea the aunt offered, his thumb lightly rubbing the rim: "Aunt, the snow lotus ointment you sent last time…"

"It's working well." The aunt cut him off, her voice suddenly hurried, as if fearing further questioning.

The aunt's tense shoulders suddenly loosened; her thin fingers unconsciously stroked the crack beneath the veil, "You… have some tea snacks first."

"Aunt, let Jin Chen have a look." Nan Yixing's fingertip touched the aunt's blackened wrist skin, feeling the faint pulse beating underneath.

"What's there to see?" the aunt rasped, voice like scorched fire, "Anyone who looks sees the same."

Nan Yixing took a profound iron small box from his medicine pouch: "We've brought back the mother gu of the Burning Blight Gu."

The aunt startled: "Isn't the mother gu supposed to be inside the Thousand Screen Mountain Forbidden Grounds?"

She suddenly realized something, panicked, glanced at Jin Chen, then turned to Nan Yixing: "Don't say that in front of outsiders…"

Nan Yixing curled his lips, also looking at Jin Chen.

"I caught it." Jin Chen said.

The aunt stared, stunned.

She suddenly felt her nephew was truly formidable in his methods.

Nan Yixing lightly grasped the aunt's hand, which was like a dry branch, the skin feeling like sun‑dried bark: "Aunt, it can be cured."

Jin Chen had already walked to stand before the aunt, squatting down; his red serpent earring dangled and swayed.

"If this gu is left another three months, it will attack the heart; I and my elder brother couldn't possibly wear mourning just after our wedding."

"..."

It seemed she had suddenly been persuaded.

"It might hurt a little." Jin Chen produced the Burning Blight Mother Gu; the lingering gu king aura on his body kept the mother gu from moving, "But it should be better than the taste of backlash."

The aunt gazed at the handsome Miao youth before her, then at Nan Yixing's resolute eyes, and finally extended her scar‑covered arm slowly,

"Then I'll trouble you."

When Jin Chen's fingertip touched the aunt's wrist, the charred skin beneath suddenly bulged with tiny writhing.

Nan Yixing immediately pressed the aunt's other hand: "Hold on, it's summoning the child gu."

The aunt bit her lip, already accustomed to this burning‑like pain.

The gu worms lurking beneath her skin began to gather along the blood vessels toward the fingertips; the dense black threads crawling under her arm resembled countless awakening little snakes.

Suddenly several small bumps rose beneath the aunt's skin, as if live things were swimming through her meridians.

Those bumps started from her ulcerated fingertips, crawling up her forearm; wherever they passed, the scorched dead skin flaked away, revealing the newly born pink flesh underneath.

Nan Yixing's pupils contracted slightly as he watched the aunt painfully clutch her chest's garment.

Nan Yixing placed a soft pillow behind her back, his fingers lightly pressing her trembling temple: "It'll be all right soon."

Jin Chen took a drop of blood from the mother gu and flicked it onto the aunt's brow.

That drop of blood, as if alive, instantly turned into a fine net of blood threads covering her entire face.

The aunt let out a heart‑rending scream; her chest exploded with a burst of black mist.

"Seize it!" Jin Chen shouted sharply.

Nan Yixing, quick‑eyed and quick‑handed, snatched the profound iron gu vessel from the table; the red serpent darted out like lightning, bit the center of the black mist, and forcibly dragged it into the vessel.

"... Is it over?" the aunt whispered, her breath like a fading thread.

Nan Yixing looked at her slightly reddened eye corners and suddenly recalled how, when he had a fever as a child, the aunt had likewise kept watch by his bedside, gently patting his forehead with a handkerchief dampened in medicine.

"You've recovered." Nan Yixing said softly.

The aunt's hand was thin as a stick, yet at this moment it was unusually strong; she slowly lifted it, pressing Nan Yixing's and Jin Chen's hands tightly together, fingertips trembling slightly but refusing to be pulled apart.

Nan Yixing froze, his palm touching Jin Chen's warmth, and for a moment he forgot to breathe.

The aunt's fingertip lightly rubbed the back of his hand, just like when she used to coax him to take medicine as a child, carrying a soothing force.

Her lips were chapped, her voice hoarse, yet she held a smile: "Good lad… at last I didn't suffer in vain for you."

Before her words even faded, she finally could no longer hold on and slipped into unconsciousness.

Nan Yixing felt his throat tighten and his eye sockets suddenly heat up.

The aunt was always stern, rarely showing warmth, but this grip of hers now seemed to entrust all her lifelong worries.

He lowered his gaze to their intertwined hands—Jin Chen's fingers were long and slender, the silver bracelet cool, while his palm was warm.

Jin Chen said nothing, simply turning his hand to clasp his five fingers and giving them a gentle squeeze.

Nan Yixing drew a deep breath, suppressing the surging emotions in his chest, lowered his head to tuck the aunt's blanket corner, watched her steady breathing, and the heavy stone that had weighed on his chest for so long finally fell away.

Jin Chen then leaned forward, his fingertip touching her brow, calming her chaotic pulse.

【Detected Villain Blackening Value -40, total 0!】