Under the dim yellow light of the oil lamp, Li Muyang glanced at his adopted younger sister on the bed and said,
"I'll sleep on the floor. Doctor Lin said your injuries need time to heal, and you can't move around too much. The demonic energy in your body will keep eating away at you."
"It's only just begun. Over the next few days, you'll feel worse and worse."
"I'll go to Cloud City again tomorrow. How much money do you have left? Give it all to me, and I'll buy you some spirit medicine."
"And where did Dad and his friend agree to meet? The mountain gate closes in three days, so he should be arriving soon."
"When he gets here, I'll take the spirit medicine and refine it to treat your injuries."
Li Muyang briefly laid out his plans for the next few days.
The girl curled up beneath the covers drew her neck in and asked timidly,
"Um... Brother, you're not angry, are you? I spent all your money..."
Twenty taels of gold was no small sum for anyone in Jiuyuan City.
If her brother had been the way he was before, he would never have wanted to spend that much on her...
The girl eyed Li Muyang guiltily, carefully watching his expression.
Li Muyang glared at her. "Then I'll write you an IOU. You can count the money as a loan from me and pay me back once you start earning."
Li Yuechan immediately looked embarrassed. Seeing that Li Muyang was displeased, she hurriedly changed the subject.
"When I left, Auntie gave me thirty-five taels of gold. I exchanged it all for gold notes and hid them."
"They're tucked inside one of the books I brought with me. If you look in my room tomorrow, you'll find them."
The amount she named made Li Muyang stare at her.
"How much?"
Thirty-five taels...
He'd gotten only twenty taels, while his adopted younger sister had been given thirty-five.
So which one of them was the biological child?
Li Muyang was speechless for a moment.
Li Yuechan quickly explained, "When I left, Auntie told me to take extra money with me. In case you, um... in case you ran short, she wanted me to give you more."
Her answer made Li Muyang understand.
It seemed the original owner, that good-for-nothing, had kept throwing money at Ning Wan'er, leaving his mother worried. So she'd given some of the gold to her adopted daughter instead.
That way, if Li Muyang spent all his money in the Demon Sect, his adopted younger sister could still help him out.
Tsk... That lovesick fool had been nothing but trouble.
Li Muyang shook his head. "I see. Go to sleep. Get some rest. You won't have it so easy tomorrow."
Doctor Lin had said that once the demonic energy left in her body began corroding her flesh, all sorts of complications would follow: high fevers, unconsciousness, and increasingly intense pain... The little girl's good days were still ahead of her!
After making his bed on the floor, Li Muyang blew out the oil lamp and lay down in the corner of the room.
The hard-packed earth was even colder and stiffer than the hard bed.
Li Muyang rolled around on it a couple of times but still couldn't get comfortable.
Then, from the bed in the darkness, the girl spoke up, her voice cautious.
"Um... Brother, can I ask you something?"
Li Muyang glanced toward the bed. In the faint light, he could just make out a pair of watery eyes watching him from the darkness.
She seemed very serious.
"What is it?" Li Muyang asked with a frown.
What was with this girl? Why was she acting so strangely?
After a long silence, the girl suddenly let out a breath and pulled the covers over her head.
"Nothing. You should go to sleep, Brother. I'm going to sleep too."
Soon, the girl's breathing grew steady, as if she'd fallen asleep.
Li Muyang didn't feel like asking more. Maybe girls that age were just like that—odd for no reason.
He closed his eyes and tried to lull himself to sleep.
Because of his adopted younger sister, Li Muyang hadn't eaten spirit-rice porridge that night or played any games.
He couldn't exactly cook top-grade spirit rice right in front of her...
Fortunately, he'd dug a hidden cellar in the little tiled-roof house long ago and stashed his jar of spirit rice inside. Even if a thief broke in, he wouldn't have to worry about it being stolen.
Before long, Li Muyang fell asleep.
When he woke the next morning, Li Yuechan's condition had indeed worsened considerably.
The girl's face was even paler, and her body trembled slightly. The flesh and blood inside her were being corroded, and she was enduring the pain as best she could.
A faint dark-red color was visible beneath the fair skin of her right shoulder.
Her entire right arm and the right half of her face were also covered in that dim, blood-red hue.
If her condition kept worsening, all the flesh tinged with dark red would rot away.
Li Yuechan had none of the mischievous spark she'd shown the night before.
She lay curled up beneath the covers, trembling as she said to Li Muyang,
"Brother... don't pull off my covers..."
The girl seemed so delirious with pain that she'd started talking nonsense.
Who would pull off your covers for no reason?
Seeing her like this, Li Muyang couldn't help sighing.
He didn't feel much affection for his adopted younger sister, but seeing such a young girl suffer right in front of him still stirred his compassion.
Li Muyang sat by the bed and talked with her for a while. Only after her mind cleared a little and the pain temporarily eased did he get up and leave.
He went to Li Yuechan's little house at the foot of the mountain and found the gold notes tucked in the book. Then he went to Cloud City and bought spirit medicine worth thirty-five taels of gold.
As luck would have it, he ran into his adopted father Li Damu's friend, who handed over the spirit medicine he'd brought.
The spirit medicine had been prepared by Li Damu for the siblings to use in their cultivation at the Demon Sect. It was worth far more than Li Muyang had expected.
But Li Muyang brought it all back to the little tiled-roof house and refined it in the medicine cauldron.
Once all the spirit medicine had been refined, it yielded three bowls of medicinal liquid.
Li Muyang carefully woke the girl, who had passed out from the pain, and had her drink the three steaming bowls.
After she'd finished them, the black line on her right wrist had faded by about half.
The blood-red discoloration on her right cheek had receded considerably. The redness on her shoulder had vanished completely, and only the part below her upper arm remained stained red.
Nourished by the spirit liquid and with the demonic energy drawn out, the girl was finally in less agony.
She came to and saw Li Muyang before her, along with the medicine boxes lying open nearby.
Smelling the fragrance of the medicine in the air, Li Yuechan blinked.
"Brother, where did you get so much spirit medicine...?"
Li Muyang sighed. "I refined all the spirit medicine our family sent, but unfortunately, it still wasn't quite enough..."
The girl fell silent.
She looked at the pile of empty medicine boxes in the room, then at the black line on her wrist, and finally murmured,
"...You didn't have to bother with me. It wouldn't matter if this flesh rotted away. If I reach a higher cultivation realm someday and get promoted to the inner sect, maybe I'll find a way to regrow it."
"You don't have to worry about me anymore, Brother. It's only an arm. It won't affect anything."
The girl tried to comfort Li Muyang in a small voice.
Li Muyang only glanced at her, his expression calm.
"Do I look like I'm worried about you?"
Before you continue