You Stabbed Me 23,900 Times

Lin Shou's hand brushed beneath Ning Luowei's ribs, touching the sword and knife wounds that crisscrossed her body, as if he were touching a whole world of blood and violence.

"Do you think the martial world is cruel?"

Ning Luowei suddenly asked.

Lin Shou didn't answer.

Ning Luowei carried on by herself. It seemed she'd been running and hiding for so long that she'd finally found an outlet today. She chattered on and on, saying a great deal.

"When I was three, my parents sold me to my master. From then on, I trained in martial arts with him on the mountain."

"I never liked practicing martial arts. I liked pretty clothes, rouge and powder, needlework, and reading romance stories about men and women falling in love and becoming husband and wife."

"But my master always told me that those weren't the right path. I should pursue a great cause. A woman ought to make herself strong, practice martial arts to punish evil, and make a name for herself in the martial world. That was what I should do, not waste my life sewing and weaving, or serving a husband and raising children."

"But I never wanted to make a name for myself. I don't even like the martial world. It's full of bloodshed everywhere you look."

"Sometimes I wonder how wonderful it would be if I weren't part of the martial world. I could spend my days working at the loom and cooking meals. I don't ask for much. I'd be happy with a simple life of plain tea and simple food. Even if I were poor, even if life were hard, it would still be better than living in fear every day, never knowing when I might die by someone else's sword."

"Every time I take up my sword, I think: if only one day I could leave it behind in this blood-soaked martial world, flee my sect, marry someone, and live a peaceful life..."

As Ning Luowei spoke, her voice gradually faded. The Corpse-Stitching Shop fell quiet. In the silence, it was as if they were waiting for something. But in the end, all that came was Lin Shou threading his needle and saying:

"Time to stitch."

Lin Shou didn't answer a single one of Ning Luowei's words. He was just a humble corpse-stitcher in the Corpse-Stitching Shop. He'd merely listened to a Lantern of Life from someone still alive.

Ning Luowei turned her head away and fell silent. It was hard to tell what she was sulking about. Then she felt a needle prick her and cried out in alarm:

"Wait!"

Lin Shou was about to put the needle in when Ning Luowei stopped him.

"What is it?"

"N-no... shouldn't you use Immortal's Drunkenness?"

Immortal's Drunkenness was an anesthetic.

"I don't have any. I stitch corpses every day, and corpses don't need it."

"No, but... this is going to hurt, right?"

Well, there went the whole mood.

"It's definitely going to hurt, but you're a martial artist. You should be able to endure a little pain. Don't be so fussy. I'm starting."

Watching Ning Luowei fuss and fret, Lin Shou thought, What a pain. Stitching corpses is better. Living people are so much trouble; the dead don't talk back.

In Lin Shou's mind, someone ruthless enough to kill twelve people and show up at his door in the middle of the night, covered in wounds and without a word, ought to have the endurance of Guan Yu undergoing bone-scraping treatment. Even as a woman, she should be able to manage without anesthetic.

But he hadn't expected that, at the very first needle—

Ning Luowei let out a catlike yowl!

The sound could've carried eight streets away, and it set the dogs at the neighboring Qingcheng Teahouse barking wildly.

"Come on, you're a tough martial-world heroine. Can't you bear it?"

Lin Shou knew it would hurt, but the worst of the pain was still to come. That was only the first stitch, no worse than getting an ear pierced, yet she was making enough noise to wake the whole Capital City.

"It hurts! I'm scared of pain. Is there any way to make it not hurt? Could you stitch gently...?"

Ning Luowei was acting like a child afraid of shots, bargaining with a doctor. This woman had been ruthless and decisive when killing people. How had she become so fussy over a few stitches?

"Forget it, then. I won't stitch you up."

"No, no! Stitch me!"

"If you make a racket like that with every stitch, the authorities will come sooner or later."

"I'll endure it. I'll endure it. Find me a stick to bite down on."

Ning Luowei clenched her teeth, looking ready to brave anything for the sake of restoring her beauty.

Lin Shou went and found her a rolling pin to bite on.

Then he resumed stitching. With each precise movement of his hands, the Corpse-Stitching Needle Technique bloomed with uncanny finesse. He brought the edges of the wounds together perfectly, without the slightest deviation.

The stitched skin was smooth as jade, so even and flawless that the stitches couldn't be seen. It was as if she had never been wounded at all!

His needlework was so exquisite that even when he stitched cabbage leaves together, no one could see the seams—let alone when he stitched a person.

When Lin Shou first saw the wounds covering Ning Luowei, he'd been horrified, but he'd already known he could stitch her up.

If he wanted to, he could certainly keep her face from being disfigured.

When he'd said earlier that he might not be able to stitch her up properly, he'd only been playing with her expectations.

Still, stitching up these wounds would take a lot of work. Ning Luowei didn't have just two or three injuries. Her body was covered in over a hundred wounds of all sizes. How long would it take to stitch them all?

If he used the method for patching a torn sack, he could play Doctor Frankenstein and sew her up in broad, rough strokes, quickly and easily. But Ning Luowei would probably end up completely disfigured.

If he used the stitching methods of a cosmetic surgeon from his previous life, the work would be considerable. To a certain extent, the finer the thread and the closer the stitches, the better the results.

The Corpse-Stitching Needle Technique had its own esoteric principles. At the peak of mastery, one could stitch grains of rice together and thread noodles through them. Its finest work went far beyond cosmetic suturing.

But practicing the technique at such a level was an enormous test of one's stamina and energy.

Beneath the candlelight of the night, Lin Shou's eyes held nothing but wounds and thread. His mind worked at full tilt, planning every stitch and the course of every thread. His hands moved so fast they blurred, and he was utterly absorbed, lost in his work.

By the time the rooster crowed at dawn, the first light of day had illuminated the jade-like beauty.

On the cold bed where corpses were usually laid, a flawless beauty now sat. She touched her smooth, jade-like skin in disbelief, unable to find a single flaw.

Who could have guessed that before last night, this fair, delicate body had been battered beyond recognition, covered in over a hundred horrifying wounds?

Lin Shou really had preserved her looks. She'd watched him concentrate on stitching her wounds all night, never closing his eyes once.

"Last night, you stabbed me 23,900 times."

Ning Luowei said this because she'd counted every single stitch the night before. Lin Shou had spent the whole night stitching her more than a hundred wounds without stopping. It had taken 23,900 stitches to preserve her beauty.

Of course, to Lin Shou, that didn't sound right at all. Wait, was she holding a grudge?

He'd worked his butt off all night, and she was counting how many times he'd stabbed her? Was that how every vain woman's mind worked?

Unable to help himself, Lin Shou rolled up his sleeves and pant legs. His arms were covered in bite marks, and both thighs were mottled with purple bruises from pinching. Judging by the look of it, she hadn't used the rolling pin during the second half of the night.

Ning Luowei watched Lin Shou roll up his sleeves. "What are you doing?"

"I'm counting how many times you bit me and how many times you scratched me. We'll settle the accounts. And don't think you can swindle me."

Ning Luowei covered her mouth and laughed. Her wounds had all been stitched up, her looks preserved, and she was in an excellent mood. After letting everything out the night before, she found Lin Shou more likable with every passing moment.

She was the sort of woman who wasn't bound by convention. Unlike most young women, she wasn't coy. She even stretched out her pale little leg and nudged Lin Shou, teasing him:

"Hey, am I pretty?"

Where did she get that confidence? Lin Shou thought. But he had no mind to pay attention to Ning Luowei right now.

What did it mean to spend the whole night stitching 23,900 stitches with his mind at full concentration? His stitching speed had exceeded one stitch per second.

And this hadn't been mindless, repetitive labor. Stitching the wounds so they looked as if they'd never been there took thought; every needle placement and thread had to be carefully considered.

It was like an embroidery master spending decades pouring his life's work into a masterpiece, only for Lin Shou to whip one up in a single night.

His head was pounding as if it might explode. He was dizzy, and his mind was a complete mess.

If not for the Corpse-Stitching Needle Technique having reached the pinnacle of mastery, and the Subtle Perception he'd recently grasped boosting his logical abilities, Lin Shou figured he'd have given himself a stroke staying up all night.

What made the whole thing even worse was that Lin Shou had put in all that effort to stitch up a living person, not a corpse.

Before he started, Lin Shou had wondered whether stitching a living person might trigger the Record of Selling Corpses. After he finished, it indeed hadn't been triggered.

Only stitching corpses counted. Stitching living people didn't.

Lin Shou felt he'd been taken advantage of all night for nothing.

He'd poured so much heart and energy into it, only to receive no reward or compensation from the Record of Selling Corpses. He felt deeply wounded.

Ning Luowei was still gloating in front of him, which only added to his irritation. Lin Shou shooed her off the cold bed and said:

"Give it a rest. You're not even as useful as a corpse. A corpse is more useful than you."

Ning Luowei stared at him, completely baffled. Huh? Huh? He thought she was less useful than a... corpse???

Lin Shou chased Ning Luowei off, climbed onto the cold bed, and lay down. He was completely exhausted after a whole night of work.

As he drifted off, he thought that he'd never stitch up another person again. It was far too much trouble. Corpses were better.