Herbal Medicine for Healing

### Chapter 34: Herbal Healing

Dusk had fully sunk into the mountain valley, the last thread of daylight swallowed by the endless ridges. The Safe Zone's barrier silently lit up in the thickening darkness, casting a soft, watery silver glow like a massive translucent dome, quietly sheltering this final patch of purity. Fine patterns of light rippled across the barrier's surface, like moonlight on a lake, gently cradling the entire base in its embrace.

Chen An knelt by the fire pit. On the straw mat, the pitch-black giant dog—the one he called "Little Black"—remained unconscious, only the faint rise and fall of its chest proving life had not yet departed.

The flames danced, illuminating the crisscrossing wounds on its body: three deep gashes on its back that reached the bone, their edges curled and raw; a piercing wound on its neck that oozed pale pink froth with each breath; and claw marks on its abdomen, shallow but dense as a spiderweb.

"Clean the wounds first, then stop the bleeding..." Chen An muttered to himself, forcing calm.

He habitually broke problems down into actionable steps. He quickly inventoried his resources:

A basket of dried Hemostatic Herbs (scientific name: agrimony, leaf edges with fine serrations, oozing pale yellow sap when crushed), a few bundles of washed dandelion roots (anti-inflammatory and antibacterial), half a jar of plant ash (a simple disinfectant), and some soft deerskin he'd tanned earlier (usable as bandages).

He leaned close to the deepest wound on Little Black's back, using bamboo tweezers (self-made from polished bamboo slivers) to carefully part the fur matted with blood and grime.

Deep in the wound were embedded several irregular, dark purple crystals. They resembled no known mineral in the world, more like a forced fusion of half-coagulated blood and shattered starlight—remnants of Witch Tribe curse magic, carrying an alien, bone-chilling cold.

Sweat beaded on Chen An's forehead. Gritting his teeth, he picked up the roughly sharpened stone knife. The blade gleamed cold and hard in the flickering firelight. Without hesitation, he pressed the edge against the ring of gray, lifeless dead flesh around the wound, took a deep breath, and scraped hard.

"Ssshhh—" A grating sound, somewhere between friction and tearing, cut sharply through the silent air.

Necrotic tissue was peeled away bit by bit from the healthy flesh, shaved off to reveal the slightly fresher muscle beneath, still being eroded by purple threads.

With every scrape, his body trembled violently, but the hand holding the knife remained rock steady, as if all his willpower was poured into those few inches of blade.

After scraping away most of the dead flesh, the dark purple crystals deep in the wound became clearer. They seemed to have grown into the flesh, their pulsing light carrying a hint of defiance.

Chen An set down the stone knife and picked up the prepared bamboo tweezers. Their tips had been carefully polished but still looked crude and clumsy.

He held his breath and carefully probed the tweezers into the wound.

The moment the cold bamboo tips touched the crystal's surface, the crystal seemed to flinch, releasing a sharper chill that made the surrounding muscles spasm.

Chen An steadied his wrist, using every ounce of precision and control, clamped onto the largest crystal fragment, and tried to pull it out.

But the purple energy threads embedded deep in the flesh showed astonishing tenacity, clinging stubbornly to the crystal as if unwilling to give up their parasitic bed.

Chen An had to increase his force, pulling the crystal and those stubborn threads out of the living flesh bit by bit with a slow, resolute motion.

This process was more painful than scraping flesh, like tearing a part of the soul away.

Finally, with an extremely faint sound like a snapped string—"twang"—the dark purple crystal was fully extracted, leaving the wound.

Every time a dark purple crystal was forcibly pulled out by the bamboo tweezers, dragging the energy threads rooted in the flesh along with it, Little Black's body would suffer a violent, uncontrollable shock.

It wasn't a simple tremor; it was more like being struck hard by an invisible electric current.

Its originally limp body would suddenly arch into a painful curve, every muscle instantly stiff and spasming, pulling at other wounds and making them ooze blood again.

Its four claws instinctively dug into the old linen cloth beneath it, sharp tips tearing through the fabric and gouging deep marks into the dirt floor.

Accompanying this violent convulsion, a suppressed whimper squeezed out from between its clenched teeth and trembling throat. The sound was low, broken, mixed with blood froth and unspeakable pain. It didn't sound like a dog's bark, but more like the cry of a dying cub.

It seemed to use all its strength to fight against the agony of having its very essence torn away, trying to lock the sound in its throat to avoid adding pressure to Chen An, who was doing his best to save it. But the sound still leaked out uncontrollably, each one more heart-wrenching than the last.

In the brief intervals between convulsions, all it could do was gasp for air, its tongue hanging limply from its mouth, its wet eyes glazed over with the sheen of extreme pain, staring blankly and helplessly into the void, as if asking why it had to endure such torment.

And every time Chen An had to continue his work, it heralded the arrival of the next round of torture, trapping it in this silent, endless cycle of suffering.

"Bear with it..." Chen An stroked its trembling ear tip and turned to the piercing wound on its neck.

This wound was the most dangerous. The cut edges were neat and cold, bearing the jagged tearing marks characteristic of Demon Race claws, a hair's breadth from exposing the trachea.

He used a linen cloth (woven from tree bark fibers) soaked in dandelion juice to gently cover the wound surface, avoiding direct pressure on the trachea. The claw marks on the abdomen, though numerous, hadn't damaged the internal organs; he just needed to sprinkle plant ash to prevent infection.

Chen An put the dried Hemostatic Herbs into a stone mortar, added a little well water, and ground them.

When the herb juice seeped out, it gave off a faint golden glow—the herbs of the Primordial World seemed infused with the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, their potency far beyond the ordinary. He then chopped the dandelion roots and mixed them in, forming a sticky paste.

When the paste touched the wound, Little Black jerked violently, but the charred black edges of the wound visibly faded before his eyes. The curled flesh contracted slightly, and the bleeding slowed markedly.

"Spiritual energy catalysis..." Chen An mused.

He quickly noted in the Hide Notebook: "Hemostatic Herb + dandelion root: wounds show synergistic effect, suspected spiritual energy activating the herbs' active components."

Then he applied a thick layer of the paste to the back wounds, securing it with cross-bound deerskin strips.

For the neck wound, he covered it with a linen cloth soaked in the medicinal juice, then suspended it with thin vines to avoid pressure.

After treating all the wounds, Chen An was drenched in sweat. Little Black's body was wrapped in deerskin strips like a mummy, only its head exposed.

He fetched dry thatch to spread around the fire pit, moved Little Black to a warm spot, and covered it with his own beast-hide cloak. In the firelight, the black dog's breathing gradually steadied, and the skin where the medicine was applied no longer spasmed from pain.

In the dead of night, as Chen An added firewood, he noticed something strange—at the edge of the linen cloth on Little Black's neck wound, extremely faint green light specks seeped out, like fireflies sinking into the wound.

He gently lifted a corner of the cloth and saw that deep in the piercing wound, a translucent membrane of flesh had formed, slowly covering the exposed trachea!

"Its self-healing ability has been triggered..." Chen An was stunned. The vitality of a Demon Commander-level being far exceeded imagination, but without the herbs guiding spiritual energy to repair the injury, such a severe wound would still be fatal.

He stared at the sleeping black dog, a storm of questions churning in his mind: Who is it, really? How did it end up so gravely wounded? What role did it play in the War of Witches and Demons?

At the first light of dawn, Chen An fell into a deep sleep, slumped over the stone table. The fire pit was nearly out. On the straw mat, the black dog curled up slightly in the warmth, the medicinal paste on its wounds hardened into an amber shell, like a suit of armor guarding its life.