Help, I’m Being Forced to Marry a Frail and Sickly Immortal Doctor! 52

Chapter 52: Plucking a Plum Blossom for Whom

…acting with incomparable naturalness and unrestraint.

Ning Ruoque didn’t think there was anything wrong with tugging on Yin Buran’s sleeve.

But when Yin Buran looked over, and her enthusiastic junior sisters also cast their gazes, Ning Ruoque felt a little embarrassed.

These were all Yin Buran’s fellow sect members. It was both a kindness and a duty for Yin Buran to answer their questions.

And she was actually fighting with a group of juniors for a person. How shameless!

Ning Ruoque’s hand, which was tugging on Yin Buran’s sleeve, tightened, and then slowly relaxed.

Finally, she steeled herself and said, “About my request to see the Medicine King, is there a result?”

Yin Buran’s expression was indifferent. “Master said she is tired. Let’s do it another day.”

Ning Ruoque was not surprised by this.

She had no relationship with the Medicine King. It was normal for the other to have some concerns about her rash request. She would just find another opportunity.

But after the short question and answer, Ning Ruoque couldn’t help but subconsciously compare Yin Buran’s attitude towards her junior sisters with her current attitude towards herself.

Her peripheral vision swept over the crowd again, and that inexplicable food-protective emotion in her heart swelled a few more times.

Seeing that Yin Buran was about to leave again, Ning Ruoque suddenly had a flash of inspiration.

She said quickly, “Then… Yin Buran, you said you would go back to Mount Xuansu with me…”

This was not a clumsy excuse. It was something Yin Buran had said before. She was just taking this opportunity to remind her.

Yin Buran tilted her head. “Let’s rest for two days first. We’ll set off for Heavenly Eon Palace, and we’ll pass by Mount Xuansu on the way.”

Having received a positive answer, Ning Ruoque finally felt a little more comfortable.

She obediently held her sword and stood behind Yin Buran, discreetly sizing up everyone who came to talk to Yin Buran.

Most of the time, she showed herself in disguise and was very good at hiding her aura, so the medical cultivators present did not notice anything unusual.

It was just that every time someone tried to pull Yin Buran’s sleeve or act cute towards her, she would always feel her scalp tingle and a strong sense of crisis.

As if if they went any further, they would be attacked by something lurking in a dark corner!

Yin Buran’s junior sisters looked at each other.

They tacitly dispersed after half an hour, not forgetting to bow. “Thank you for your guidance, Divine Pivot Lord.”

Yin Buran returned the bow and turned to leave gracefully.

Only after she could no longer see the crowd did she stop and extend her hand to Ning Ruoque.

This was a sign that she wanted to be carried. Ning Ruoque had already learned.

She cleanly and neatly carried the person in her arms, planning to ride her sword back to Suwen Peak.

Yin Buran hooked one arm around Ning Ruoque’s neck and poked her shoulder with the other, her tone inquisitive.

“Why were you scaring them just now?”

“…”

Ning Ruoque looked straight ahead and quickly explained, “I wasn’t scaring them. I just looked a few more times.”

How could that be called scaring? It was clearly that their own mental fortitude was not good enough.

But even though her answer was so self-righteous, she did not dare to lower her head and meet Yin Buran’s eyes.

She was afraid of catching a glimpse of displeasure or disgust in them.

After all, she had done a very childish thing, actually wanting to hide Yin Buran in Mount Xuansu like hiding food.

The sword streaked across the sky like a stream of light. When it landed, Yin Buran yawned, her eyes squinting.

But she looked a little happier than before.

Only then did Ning Ruoque feel a little relieved.

She carried the person back to the room to rest, and she herself sat at the door in a daze, eating the glutinous rice lotus root.

She thought to herself, if she happened to meet her master, she must ask her—

Is it because her body has become younger, so she has also become more childish?!

*

After sleeping for two days on Suwen Peak, Yin Buran bid farewell to the Medicine King, and then went to Heavenly Eon Palace with Ning Ruoque.

She did not bring Qingtong this time.

The opening of the Mirage Sea Secret Realm was imminent, and Qin Jiangli would naturally send people to select suitable juniors to go to the secret realm to train. They might even meet then.

The two of them set off in the afternoon. The flying boat traveled for less than half a day and landed on a mountain peak.

At this time, it had not yet snowed on Mount Xuansu. The bamboo forest on the mountain was like a sea of green waves, looking no different from an ordinary mountain peak.

In fact, it was indeed ordinary.

But this was the place Ning Ruoque was most familiar with.

The moonlight of Mount Xuansu had shone on her robes, and it had also shone on her sword’s edge like snow.

She had practiced her sword here, seen the sunrise from the peak, and drunk the water from the deep ravines. She had quietly bandaged her own wounds on countless nights, and had also poured wine for her master and chatted with her for half the night.

It was no exaggeration to say that all of Ning Ruoque’s assets were here.

Ning Ruoque reached out and pointed at the air. The scenery before her seemed to be disturbed and rippled like water.

A small courtyard appeared out of thin air.

Because no one had tidied it for too long, the fence was entwined with withered vines, and a clump of withered grass grew on the roof, looking particularly desolate from a distance.

When Ning Ruoque first looked at it, she was stunned for a moment, but she quickly accepted the situation.

She was like a big dog that had finally returned to its own territory, and she introduced it to Yin Buran with a light-hearted tone, “We’re here. This is my home.”

The last word “home” had a rising tone, and one could hear the fullness of her joy.

Yin Buran glanced at the dilapidated small courtyard, then at the sparkling-eyed Ning Ruoque, and nodded reservedly.

So the smile on Ning Ruoque’s lips became even more obvious, as brilliant as the scorching sun in June and July. “You find a place to sit. I’ll be able to clean it up quickly.”

She summoned her spiritual energy to sweep away the dust and fallen leaves in the courtyard. Yin Buran sat primly on a stone covered with a soft cushion, her hands folded in her lap, staring at her with an unfathomable expression.

Ning Ruoque’s peripheral vision caught a glimpse, and she almost saw a vision of a pampered white cat she had once raised.

It didn’t do any work at all. Even if she swept the broom to the cat’s feet, the cat was too lazy to move.

It had to supervise the work. If she carried the cat away, the cat would not only run back to its original spot and curl up, but it would also sulk.

In the past, Ning Ruoque had been helpless against the little cat. Now, with Yin Buran, she could still only coax her.

Not to mention, Yin Buran was not a cat she had raised.

She diligently tidied up the courtyard before she opened the lock of the small house and lit the lamp.

Just as she was about to call Yin Buran over, a certain person had already pushed the door open and entered.

Her target was quite clear. After a dust-removing spell, she lazily lay down on Ning Ruoque’s bed.

And in front of Ning Ruoque, she kicked down the meditation mat she used for sitting.

This set of actions was incomparably natural and unrestrained, as if Mount Xuansu was actually her own home.

Ning Ruoque: “…”

This small house was not large, and the furnishings were also quite simple. In total, there was only a broken bed, a table, and two wooden cabinets.

It was not an exaggeration to say that the house was bare.

After spending the time it takes to drink a cup of tea to clean the house, Ning Ruoque came to the low cabinet, gently turned the mechanism, and opened the hidden compartment.

When she reached in again, she took out a black storage pouch.

Ning Ruoque sent her spiritual sense in to count her assets and raised an eyebrow in surprise.

Her drunkard master actually hadn’t taken the money to buy wine. It was really unexpected.

Without avoiding Yin Buran at all, she turned to another wooden cabinet, and after undoing the multiple restrictions, a secret door leading to the basement appeared out of thin air.

This was the place where Mount Xuansu stored wine and swords.

Ning Ruoque looked back. A certain person was yawning out of boredom, clearly not interested in these things.

So she went down herself, thinking of picking a suitable sword for Yin Buran as a return gift as she had promised.

The moment she stepped into the basement, the lamps lit up on their own, and the sound of swords humming rang out.

She saw rows of square compartments carved into the surrounding walls, in which were displayed all sorts of swords.

There were swords with a sinister aura, and swords with a righteous and proud aura. Long swords, short swords, sheathed and unsheathed, and even unsharpened ones.

All swords had their own temper.

They had been neglected for nearly a hundred years. Now that they saw a tall and straight sword cultivator again, they were naturally exceptionally happy.

If it weren’t for the fact that they were concerned about the broken sword fragments in Ning Ruoque’s body, they would probably have already surrounded her.

Ning Ruoque casually picked a few swords to wipe and also looked to see if there were any that Yin Buran could use.

But these swords were either too heavy or their aura was too strong. After a round, there was not a single suitable one.

She had no choice but to return to the room, racking her brains to think of how to compensate Yin Buran.

The bed that Yin Buran was lying on was only three and a half feet wide, just right for one person, and a little crowded for two.

So Ning Ruoque had no choice but to sit cross-legged on the meditation mat.

She pressed her lips together, and her usually bright eyes were also half-lowered, looking particularly dejected.

Yin Buran observed for a long while and asked out of the blue, “What is this?”

Ning Ruoque looked up, her attention following Yin Buran’s gaze, and landed on her own storage bag.

She answered in a muffled voice, “The money I’ve saved.”

After speaking, she took out a palm-sized ball woven from vines from her storage bag and silently placed it in front of Yin Buran.

This vine ball looked as ordinary as the straw mat on Ning Ruoque’s bed.

Yin Buran did not move. “And what is this?”

“…”

The sword cultivator was so awkward that her gaze shifted. After a long while, she said in a small voice, “A little thing I wove myself.”

It had no special use and could barely be used as a wind chime.

She couldn’t offer anything better or more thoughtful at the moment. If she wanted to make Yin Buran happy, this was the most suitable thing in her possession.

Yin Buran looked down at her. “Didn’t you say you were going to give me a sword?”

“I haven’t found one yet. I’ll owe it to you for now. I’ll pay it back in the future.”

After Ning Ruoque finished speaking, the tips of her ears began to heat up and turn red.

She turned her head away, afraid of seeing Yin Buran’s disappointed expression, but she couldn’t help but steal a glance.

She wanted to know if she liked it or not.

Yin Buran picked up the vine ball and played with it.

It was unknown what kind of vine this ball was woven from. The surface felt smooth and delicate, and it was also very elastic, not cutting the hand at all.

There should be something stuffed inside. It would jingle when shaken, and there were simple green tassels on all four sides, which should look good when it spun.

Yin Buran placed the ball on the bed, and with a flick of her finger, the small ball hit the end of the bed and then rolled back into her hand.

She squeezed it a few times in her hand, and the room was filled with a jingling sound.

She put the vine ball into her storage bracelet, and her gaze slanted, just catching a glimpse of the gentle smile in Ning Ruoque’s eyes.

It was just that the other quickly restrained it, lowered her eyes without a word, and only the tips of her ears were still red.

The more Yin Buran stared, the redder Ning Ruoque’s ears became.

Feeling that it was about to spread to her face, she quickly stood up. “You still haven’t taken today’s medicine. I’ll go and get it for you. We’ll leave after you’ve taken it.”

The medicine that Senior Mo Jue had prescribed for Yin Buran, one bowl a day, was still simmering on the flying boat.

Yin Buran frowned habitually. “I don’t want to drink it.”

Excluding the times when she deliberately threw a tantrum, she really hated drinking medicine.

Especially since Mo Jue liked to take a different approach when prescribing medicine and was used to fighting poison with poison. The effect was good, but she would feel uncomfortable for a while after drinking it every time.

Ning Ruoque persuaded in a gentle voice, “I’ll feed you. You can have a sweet cake after you’ve taken it.”

Hearing her being so sensible, Yin Buran reluctantly agreed.

Seeing Ning Ruoque turn and leave, she sat obediently by the bed and waited.

The wind of Mount Xuansu gently patted the window, and a few rays of sunlight leaked through the thin window paper.

Ever since Ning Ruoque had fallen a hundred years ago, Yin Buran had actually never been to Mount Xuansu again.

Now that she was back in her old place, she slowly sized up the small bed and the broken table, thinking about how to get Ning Ruoque to change the old furniture and add her favorite soft bedding.

This way, she could live more comfortably in the future.

Before she could come up with an excuse, a “bang” suddenly sounded by her ear.

The window was wide open, and a cold wind howled into the room, carrying a spicy smell of wine.

Yin Buran shrank into a corner of the bed from the wind and only vaguely saw a black shadow leap into the room from the window.

“Hmm?”

Accompanied by a slightly puzzled tone, Yin Buran opened her eyes and met a completely strange face.