Wuxia 6

The Zhou family must have had someone waiting for the doctor to treat them urgently. After Zhou Wang asked Song Qinghua's name, he hurried home with his daughter and the doctor.

Song Qinghua was worried, so he actually followed them to their home.

Liu Zhong naturally had to follow, too.

On the way, Liu Zhong learned from Song Qinghua what had happened to the Zhou family.

The young Zhou Zhiruo's mother had suffered a difficult labor, and Zhou Wang had gone to find a doctor.

But he had no money, and the doctor refused to make a house call.

Zhou Zhiruo knew that without a doctor to treat her, neither her mother nor the baby brother in her mother's belly would survive. Heartbroken, she cried outside the pharmacy, where Song Qinghua saw her.

After asking why she was crying, Song Qinghua took out the silver he had been hiding and gave it to Zhou Zhiruo.

Zhou Zhiruo used the money to hire the doctor to come to her home.

Calling it a home was generous; it was no more than a small fishing boat.

The Zhou family ate and slept on the boat, making a living by fishing and ferrying passengers across the river.

The doctor might have loved money, but he was still quite skilled.

After a few needle pricks, he opened Mother Zhou's birth canal, allowing the midwife to safely deliver the baby.

A few more pricks stopped Mother Zhou from suffering a postpartum hemorrhage.

Both mother and child were safe.

Grateful, Zhou Wang gave the doctor all the silver he had received from Song Qinghua.

Once the doctor had his money and was in a better mood, he offered Zhou Wang a few words of advice. "The boat is too damp, which is bad for both the mother and the baby. If you want them to stay healthy, you should move ashore."

Zhou Wang agreed, though his heart sank a little.

Without money, he couldn't even build a house. How could he settle ashore?

Just then, Zhou Zhiruo came over with another silver ingot and said to Zhou Wang, "Brother Qinghua's older brother gave me another ingot. He said it was a gift to celebrate my little brother's birth."

Zhou Wang asked, "Where are they?"

"They left," Zhou Zhiruo replied.

Zhou Wang stepped out of the cabin and looked around, but he couldn't see the two little beggars.

Those two were definitely no ordinary beggars. Perhaps they were members of the Beggar Sect.

As he thought this, Zhou Wang turned toward a certain direction and bowed deeply.

The ingot Liu Zhong had given them was heavier than the two ingots Song Qinghua had given them combined. It weighed at least ten taels.

Zhou Wang used the money to build a house in a village not far from the river. It was made of yellow mud and straw, but it was far better than living on a boat.

After his wife and son moved into the new house to recuperate, their health improved at a visible pace.

The whole Zhou family was deeply grateful to the two young men who had helped them. Zhou Zhiruo, in particular, firmly remembered the young man who had appeared while she was crying in despair.

That young man was like sunlight, brightening her entire world.

She carefully committed his appearance to memory, and she remembered his name, too: Song Qinghua.

There was a household next to the Zhou family's, where a mother and daughter lived.

They didn't look like ordinary people. Their clothes and accessories were completely different from those of ordinary farmers, and the jeweled flowers in their hair were worth enough to support an average family for a month or two.

So the villagers didn't associate with the mother and daughter.

They weren't people from the same world. Getting too close to them might bring trouble to one's family.

A month later, the mother and daughter left the village.

Two days after that, a middle-aged nun arrived in the village with two young women and found the house where the mother and daughter had lived.

"Master, we're too late. Junior Sister Ji has already left." Ding Minjun searched the house and reported back to Abbess Miejue.

Abbess Miejue gave a cold snort and walked out of the courtyard.

Just then, a little girl came out of the courtyard opposite and met Abbess Miejue's gaze.

Abbess Miejue let out a soft "Oh," strode over to the girl, and grabbed her.

Abbess Miejue felt the little girl all over, examining her from head to toe.

Zhou Zhiruo was startled and frightened, but she didn't lose her composure. She gritted her teeth and glared at Abbess Miejue, enduring it in silence.

This reaction made Abbess Miejue admire her even more.

She introduced herself. "I am Abbess Miejue, the leader of the Emei Sect. Your bones are unusually well-suited to martial arts. Would you be willing to take me as your master and become my disciple?"

Zhou Zhiruo said, "Huh?"

And so, although she hadn't been on the Han River and hadn't lost her parents, Zhou Zhiruo still joined the Emei Sect.

Zhou Wang and Mother Zhou couldn't bear to part with their daughter. They also thought that with the protection of Emei, they wouldn't be harassed by Yuan Dynasty soldiers, so they followed Zhou Zhiruo to the foot of Mount Emei and settled there.

Meanwhile, Liu Zhong and Song Qinghua were on their way.

The two headed west, crossed Jiayuguan, and entered the Western Regions.

Their identities as little beggars spared them a lot of trouble. Even Mo Shenggu and Yin Liting, who had gone down the mountain to look for them, couldn't find a trace of them.

Once they entered the Western Regions, both of them made a point of asking around about the Black Jade Ointment.

Song Qinghua didn't know that the ointment he was looking for was called the Black Jade Ointment. He only had a vague sense that the Western Regions ought to have some miraculous medicine capable of healing Yu Daiyan.

Liu Zhong, on the other hand, knew exactly what they were looking for, so he asked about the Diamond Sect.

The Diamond Sect was a fairly large school in the Western Regions and had considerable influence in the area. Liu Zhong learned about it just by asking a passerby.

The people in the sect were simply too arrogant. Relying on their allegiance to the Yuan Dynasty and their disciples' formidable skills, they threw their weight around locally, bullying men and women alike.

They dressed like monks, but they had no qualms about abducting respectable women.

Liu Zhong took Song Qinghua through the mountains and forests, picking all kinds of plants Song Qinghua didn't recognize and catching plenty of snakes, insects, rats, and ants.

Song Qinghua got goosebumps just watching him.

"Brother, what are you catching those things for?" Song Qinghua kept his distance from Liu Zhong, determined not to go near the snakes, insects, rats, and ants.'

Liu Zhong smiled faintly. "To make medicine!"

Song Qinghua said, "Huh? Brother, you've never studied medicine!"

"I haven't studied medicine. But who says you have to know medicine to make drugs?"

It wasn't as if he were making medicine to cure people!

He was making drugs that could kill without a trace.

In his previous life, he had studied biology and chemistry, and had even figured out the zombie virus.

Making some deadly poisons in this life was still within his abilities.

Song Qinghua: ??

While Song Qinghua watched in bewilderment, Liu Zhong made a drug that produced exactly the effect he wanted.

Then Liu Zhong took Song Qinghua and mingled with the people delivering vegetables to the Diamond Sect. They slipped into the sect's kitchen and left behind the drug Liu Zhong had made.

In the dead of night, Liu Zhong led Song Qinghua through the Diamond Sect's front gate.

No one came to stop them. The place was eerily quiet—even the insects in the grass had stopped chirping.

Liu Zhong and Song Qinghua swaggered around the Diamond Sect, searching. Before long, they found a box containing a batch of finished Black Jade Ointment and its recipe.

Everything had gone perfectly!