Help, I’m Being Forced to Marry a Frail and Sickly Immortal Doctor! 32

Chapter 32: Short Are These Bitter Days

“If it’s true, I’ll let you do as you please…”

Yin Buran did not answer, turning her head to look out the window as if nothing had happened.

Her demeanor was as elegant and noble as ever. Those who didn’t know would have thought she was admiring flowers.

Ning Ruoque took it as a tacit admission, and the corners of her mouth couldn’t help but turn up slightly.

She doesn’t like to drink medicine.

The dignified Divine Pivot Lord of Azurefall Creek, the greatest medical cultivator of all time, could she really have such a childish side?

Perhaps her smile was too undisguised and was caught by Yin Buran.

A certain person squinted her eyes and said faintly, “Actually, this medicine is very nourishing and can also calm the mind. I deliberately let you drink it. It’s good for your body.”

She didn’t think she was tricking the sword cultivator. After all, this was indeed a tonic.

Ning Ruoque was stunned. “Really?”

“Mm.”

Yin Buran lowered her eyelids, her dense eyelashes fluttering slightly, and the sunlight shone on her just right.

As if she were about to melt in this warm sun, her breath was almost inaudible. “If you’re really unwilling, then give it back to me.”

Ning Ruoque couldn’t stand to see her like this.

Like a cat that had lowered its pride and was rubbing against someone, but received no response, and could only curl up in its nest, wronged.

Thinking about it carefully, apart from those messy remarks and the occasional bristling, Yin Buran had been very good to her from beginning to end.

She would gently treat her injuries, listen patiently to her, and even personally handle matters like finding her sword.

And what had she done to deserve such concern from Yin Buran?

Ning Ruoque took a small sip of the medicinal soup in a daze and said reservedly, “Thank you.”

She had completely forgotten that Yin Buran had drunk this medicine.

After she finished, she stroked the porcelain cup and suddenly wanted to ask Yin Buran another question.

“If,” Ning Ruoque stared at the reflection in the cup, as if talking to herself, “if I’m really not your fiancée, and all of this is just your imagination? What would you do?”

Yin Buran looked up, her emotions unwavering. “I want to hear what you plan to do first.”

This question made Ning Ruoque stunned for a moment, and then she began to think seriously.

After a moment, she came up with her own answer.

The black-clad sword cultivator’s face was serious, even a little too persistent. Her eyes were as bright as stars, as if she would definitely fulfill her promise.

“I will find a way to help you recover. Then… we’ll just pretend that the events of these past few days never happened.”

If Yin Buran felt embarrassed about this, she could stop appearing in Yin Buran’s sight.

Yin Buran stared at her calmly.

This was a completely unsurprising answer.

Ning Ruoque’s scalp tingled a little from being stared at. She averted her gaze to hide her inexplicable emotions.

The next second, Yin Buran suddenly leaned over and easily snatched the teacup from Ning Ruoque’s hand.

Caught off guard, Ning Ruoque didn’t have time to stop her. “Wait—”

She could only watch helplessly as she drank the remaining medicine in the cup.

Ning Ruoque was completely dumbfounded, and only one thought flashed through her mind.

Yin Buran did it on purpose.

She deliberately turned the cup halfway, covered the rim with her soft lips, and slowly drank it for her to see. She deliberately pursed her lips and showed a mischievous smile.

She even deliberately tricked her into drinking this medicine, just to…

Share a cup with her.

Although there was no physical contact, Ning Ruoque burned from head to toe, and even the coldness of the Sudden Rain sword couldn’t suppress it.

She didn’t need to touch it. Her face was definitely hot, and her heart was also hot.

And yet, even when she was like this, Yin Buran still asked as if nothing had happened, “Then what if what I said is true?”

After a long while, Ning Ruoque tried to open her mouth, but for the first time, she couldn’t speak, her throat was extremely hoarse.

Only on the second try did she lower her eyes, her voice low and slow.

“If it’s true, I’ll let you do as you please.”

*

Half an hour passed in a flash. Yin Buran yawned, was helped downstairs by Ning Ruoque, and sat down gracefully in front of Wang Laosan.

She took a sip of the hot tea that Qingtong had brought, her mood visibly cheerful.

In stark contrast was Ning Ruoque, who was standing behind her, lost in thought, hugging her sword.

Dazed, she would move when Yin Buran said a word, it was unknown what she was thinking.

Yin Buran said directly, “Tell me your thoughts.”

Qingtong’s round face instantly scrunched up into a bun, even more nervous than during the sect’s grand examination.

Although she had been studying frantically for the past few days, she was still clueless during this training trip.

The clues that Little Senior Sister could see with a single touch, she couldn’t find a single one even after half an hour.

She held it in for a long time and could only say dejectedly, “This… this is a person…”

In comparison, Qieyu was even more direct, bowing and saying, “Qieyu’s skills are not refined. Please guide me, Senior Sister.”

Hearing that someone was embarrassing themselves with her, the chagrin in Qingtong’s heart lessened a lot.

She gathered all her spirits and listened attentively to Yin Buran’s explanation.

Yin Buran took out a willow-leaf knife, and a translucent celestial silkworm silk covered her uniform hands.

The tip of the blade instantly pierced the other’s flesh, but not a single drop of blood flowed out, and the person naturally showed no sign of waking.

She calmly cut open Wang Laosan’s chest and made a cut on the beating heart.

Strangely, the wound healed in an instant, without any effect.

Yin Buran put away the willow-leaf knife and motioned for Qingtong to treat Wang Laosan.

She explained unhurriedly, “Someone made a heart from a demon’s flesh and put it into his body.”

“The flesh of this kind of monster can continuously grow, imitating his blood, imitating his bones. It has now completely merged with him.”

Her gaze finally rested on the other’s forehead. “What’s inside this head is just a wisp of a remnant soul.”

His body was too special, so much so that Yin Buran didn’t even notice that his soul was abnormal at first.

Thus, everything could be explained.

Because it was just a remnant soul, his memory was forever stuck on a certain day, repeating the actions of his past life.

Ning Ruoque frowned as she listened. “Neither human nor demon, can’t die and can’t live. What is he considered now?”

“Let me think.” Yin Buran stroked the jade bracelet on her wrist, lost in thought.

Ning Ruoque walked to the door with her sword in her arms. A few strands of cool wind lifted her stray hair.

It hadn’t been clear for long before the sky turned gloomy again.

The streets as far as the eye could see were still empty. The snowstorm last night was too heavy to see clearly. Now, it seemed as if the small town had been abandoned for a long time.

Before long, a curly-haired figure appeared at the end of the street, dressed in bright red, making it hard not to notice.

Chu Xuan’s extremely penetrating voice sounded, “Look! What I’ve brought back.”

Ning Ruoque saw her bringing a tied-up old woman and pushing her over.

The tied-up old woman was not noisy, her eyes were vacant, and she was muttering something under her breath.

Chu Xuan sighed. “But she’s foolish. She’ll run away if you’re not careful, and you can’t get anything out of her.”

Ning Ruoque listened carefully for a while and found that it was all fragmented words.

One moment she wanted to go to the fields to cut wheat and coax a child, the next she was clamoring for candy and looking for her mother.

It was as if a dozen people of different identities and ages had been stuffed into one body.

Behind every sentence, there was probably a life that had once been vibrant.

As Ning Ruoque listened, she felt a little pity.

She repeated Yin Buran’s words to Chu Xuan, and the latter’s reaction was even more shocked than hers.

“Ah? You’re saying this woman’s body is probably stuffed with a dozen remnant souls?”

“What kind of demon or monster could do such a thing?”

Ning Ruoque shook her head. “Yin Buran isn’t sure yet. Let’s wait.”

After speaking, she found a place to sit down cross-legged. Only after silently reciting the Heart Calming Mantra three times did she barely enter a state of cultivation.

It was a good thing she was still thinking about serious matters. Otherwise, after Yin Buran had done all that, she would have had to run ten miles with her sword to calm down.

Chu Xuan pouted in frustration.

She couldn’t sit still. Once she was bored, she wanted to find something to do.

Now Yin Buran was studying Wang Laosan, and Ning Ruoque had already started cultivating on her own.

With no one to pass the time with, she could only entertain herself.

After rummaging through the woodshed in the backyard and finding a basket of hemp ropes and knockout drugs, she also found some damaged clothes, miscellaneous jewelry, and swords.

This black shop had probably been open for a long time. Everyone who came to Yunling Town to investigate couldn’t avoid it.

But what about the victims’ bodies? How were the bodies disposed of?

Chu Xuan jumped up and down in the inn, searching everywhere. She even summoned a ball of fire, wanting to melt some snow to see.

Although the flame was small, the moment it appeared, the surrounding space began to distort. The snow water under her feet gradually melted, revealing wet flagstones.

After the ice and snow melted, a faint fishy smell rose up.

Chu Xuan sniffed, followed the smell, and soon found the source of the strange odor.

She looked down and found that what was under the flagstones seemed not to be soil, but some kind of dark brown gelatinous substance.

What a strange thing.

Chu Xuan couldn’t be bothered to think and directly burned it with fire.

In an instant, the “gelatinous substance” let out a crackling sound and steamed with white smoke.

She tried to identify what this thing was, and just as she was at a loss, she heard the old woman’s voice suddenly change its tone.

“Sect Master!” At this moment, the old woman’s eyes were clear, and she shouted with a trembling voice, “Be careful of the Shirou!”

At the same time, Yin Buran’s scolding came from inside the room. “Chu Xuan, stop playing with your fire. There might be a Shirou here.”

Shirou, an extremely rare monster.

Its appearance was like a pile of mud, but it possessed powerful regenerative abilities. As long as its demon core was not destroyed, it could continuously resurrect.

Normally, the Shirou would lie dormant, but if it was attacked, it would immediately expand and grow until it had devoured all the living creatures around it.

The earth trembled, shaking off the snow on the roof.

The flagstones instantly cracked, and a dense gelatinous substance piled up crazily, trying to suppress the flames.

In just a few breaths, it had already grown to Chu Xuan’s waist height.

Chu Xuan was hit squarely by the snow. She wiped her face, still not having reacted. “Ah?”

“Crack!” More and more flagstones cracked.

While Chu Xuan was standing foolishly at the door, Ning Ruoque had already rushed into the room and hoisted Yin Buran onto her shoulder.

Then she rushed out at an extremely fast speed and leaped onto the roof in one step.

Yin Buran was dizzy from being jostled and said through gritted teeth, “Let go of me!”

Ning Ruoque’s attitude was even more resolute. “No.”

The last time she carried Yin Buran, it was to free up her hands to hold a sword.

Afterwards, she deeply reflected on her actions and secretly swore that she would never make something out of nothing again and would try her best to carry Yin Buran with both hands.

But this time was different.

This time, she really had a sword.

***

Translator’s Notes

• Shirou (视肉): A mythical creature from the ancient Chinese text, the Classic of Mountains and Seas (山海经). It’s described as a lump of flesh that can regenerate indefinitely as long as a part of it remains. It’s sometimes associated with immortality.