13. Dead, but Not Completely Dead
After a long time, Yan Chuyue finally withdrew her hand.
Her expression was complicated, and she didn’t say a word, making it unclear whether she had found anything.
Murong Yun, however, was quite calm.
“Those people all looked shocked after examining my meridians and pulse, then they would just say there’s no cure. I’m used to it, so you don’t have to feel embarrassed.”
However, Miss Gong, seeing Yan Chuyue’s expression, knew that she hadn’t failed to diagnose the condition, nor was she unaware of the cure.
It was just that this matter… was not suitable to be discussed here.
“Your Highness,” Yan Chuyue, after a moment of thought, finally said, “I’ve seen this condition in my master’s medical texts, but I need to contact him and ask for his opinion.”
Murong Yun, seemingly not expecting this, asked, “You really know?”
Her tone was still filled with a hint of doubt and confusion. Clearly, she didn’t believe her, thinking it was just a way to make her feel better.
“Your Highness’s condition is composed of many factors, and the most crucial one should be… the Twin Gu, right?”
Hearing this, Murong Yun and Lord Yuan’s expressions changed drastically.
Clearly, Yan Chuyue had hit the nail on the head with a single sentence, something no one had ever pointed out before.
But this Twin Gu… Gong Yiling searched her memory but couldn’t find anything related to it in the book.
And… why was it Gu poison again? Was she fated to encounter this stuff everywhere she went?
“How did you know… I was infected with the Twin Gu?” Hearing this, Murong Yun’s attitude changed completely, a flicker of hope in her eyes.
“I’ve seen it in my master’s medical books.” Yan Chuyue replied, “The Twin Gu is like a Gu, yet not a Gu. Only this can make a person’s meridians and pulse resemble a dead person’s, yet the host is not dead.”
“But the cure is complicated. I don’t know what will happen to your body after it’s removed, so I’ll have to wait until I’ve consulted my master.”
Murong Yun stood up.
Perhaps because she was too excited, she didn’t know what to do for a moment. After a long hesitation, she bowed and could only manage to say,
“Thank you, miss.”
“Not at all.” Yan Chuyue quickly waved her hand. “I don’t know if I can cure you. I might even need my master to come in person. It’s not too late to thank me after he has cured you.”
“No… I’m not thanking you for curing me.” Murong Yun couldn’t help but chuckle, a genuine joy that seemed to have been absent from her face for a long time.
“I can’t explain this feeling. If I had to say, it’s that you’ve given me a chance to no longer hate others.”
This… what did that mean?
Although confused, Gong Yiling and Yan Chuyue didn’t ask directly.
They then left under the pretext of writing a letter to their master and went to a corner of the courtyard.
As soon as they arrived, Miss Gong muttered, “How come I don’t know about any Twin Gu? Did you make it up?”
“The Gu poison section I wrote is not complete. I just wrote down the common ones. But the Divine Physician’s space naturally has more than just those. So, it has knowledge of all the strange diseases, Gu, and poisons in the world, including the parts I didn’t set.”
“So you actually know all her symptoms?” Gong Yiling, while pretending to grind ink for her, asked, “If so, why didn’t you say so directly?”
Hearing this, Yan Chuyue secretly looked around and, after confirming no one was watching, said, “Do you know how the Twin Gu is planted?”
“How?”
“Its Gu seed is a strange insect called the Hundred Deaths Insect. When planting the Gu, you need to use this insect and a portion of its cultivated offspring as a guide, and plant them in two people respectively.”
“The person who nurtures the offspring with their own heart’s blood will gradually become like that princess, while the other person will not have any changes.”
This thing sounded… not good.
Gong Yiling couldn’t help but ask, “So what… is the effect of this Gu?”
Yan Chuyue sighed. “All the calamities the mother insect host encounters in their cultivation path will be borne by the offspring host. And before the offspring host dies, the mother insect’s host will never die.”
“What!?”
This thing—
Miss Gong’s eyes widened in disbelief.
Good heavens, this thing actually had this effect?
Didn’t that mean the offspring host was just a consumable for the mother insect host? No matter what kind of big death the mother insect host made, there would always be someone to bear the responsibility of death.
This life-saving method was very similar to the creation of clones in soft science fiction to provide various organs and prevent the rich from dying.
It was even simpler and more direct than those methods, a life for a life!
And the one who could plant this Gu on a princess must be the current emperor, right?
“To imprison his own sister here as a scapegoat for fatal injuries, what a good emperor.”
Gong Yiling couldn’t help but sneer, her impression of the unseen person already at rock bottom.
“But no matter what Gu it is, the Nine-Tailed Min can easily deal with it, right? And what about the other symptoms you mentioned?”
Yan Chuyue countered, “Yiling should have also noticed that the spiritual energy in her body is extremely unstable, as if she could explode at any moment, right?”
“Mmm.”
“The reason this Gu is said to be like a Gu but not a Gu is because once the ‘scapegoat’ effect is activated, the offspring will die. But the Nine-Tailed Min can only cure the Gu of a living insect, not a dead one.”
“Wait…!?” Gong Yiling found a strange point in her words. “You’re saying the offspring on that princess is already dead? But why is she—”
Oh, right. Gong Yiling suddenly thought of something.
According to what Yan Chuyue had just said in front of them, this princess had no pulse, and her meridians should be lifeless. This could only prove that she was a dead person, but the reality was not so.
What was going on? Was there really a Schrödinger’s dead person in this world? Or was this Gu actually…
“The scapegoat effect was clearly activated, but someone used another method to prolong her life. But because the effect of the Twin Gu is still there, she has been in a ‘dead’ state, and the chaos of the spiritual energy in her body should be left by the method that prolonged her life.”
