"Aaaaaaah!!!!!" Gen howled as he pumped the bellows with both hands.
The people of Ishigami Village beside him were doing the same.
They suddenly regretted coming out to eat Senku's ramen.
"With upgraded bellows, the Ironworks has reached level 2!" Chrome announced.
Kohaku took over for someone, forcefully pumping the bellows with both hands. "This will make things more efficient."
Then the black smoke rising from the Ironworks went from wispy cooking smoke to an eruption of volcanic ash.
Asagiri Gen, standing nearby, was utterly exhausted.
He was a magician. How was he supposed to handle physical labor?
"Asagiri Gen, are Taiju and Yuzuriha doing all right?" Senku asked.
Gen was so tired he barely looked human anymore. "I see. You're trying to trap me while I'm pumping these bellows for dear life and can't spare any attention. You've got some nerve, challenging a mentalist on his own turf."
Then Gen stopped. "But don't worry. Especially about our boy Taiju-his stamina is practically bottomless. His reputation isn't so great, though. You know how it is, Senku!"
After saying that, Gen gave Senku a meaningful look.
Chen Yu arrived and smacked him hard on the head. "Don't stop."
Left with no choice, Gen kept pumping.
"So he's confirmed to be one of the Long-Haired Man's subordinates? Should we kill him?" Kohaku asked when she came over and heard their conversation.
"Taiju and Yuzuriha have bad reputations? That's impossible, isn't it?" Senku asked, puzzled by Gen's words.
"It's all because of Xiao Yu, who's close to them. Apparently..." Gen slowly explained why.
Senku: (;一_一)
Kohaku: (;一_一)
The two looked at Chen Yu, finding it hard to imagine that he had been the cause of all this.
"What are you looking at me for? Those simple-minded idiots were too stupid. I just taught them a lesson," Chen Yu said, taking a sip of tea.
He called it tea, but it was just some medicinal herbs he had steeped.
"All right," Senku said helplessly. Then he looked at Gen and asked, "What about you, then, Asagiri Gen? What have you decided?"
Hearing that, Gen stopped and looked at the enormous so-called Ironworks. "Things have changed, because I saw this."
"But even without this, I think you'd still succeed, wouldn't you?" Gen said, looking at Chen Yu. His meaning was obvious.
Senku understood as well. After all, Tsukasa merely disagreed with his ideals. If Senku's creations won Tsukasa over, and Chen Yu-the person Tsukasa cared about most-helped make peace, the process of winning Tsukasa over would be halfway done.
After that, all they needed was for Tsukasa to understand what made Senku special.
"Oh, right, Chen Yu. About my sister..." Kohaku brought out the medicinal herbs Chen Yu had given her last time and asked about them.
"Ah, let me take a look. Mm-hmm, nicely done. Next, I just need to see your sister's condition, and I can make this stretch of time more comfortable for her until Senku finishes making the specific medicine she needs." Chen Yu examined the herbs Kohaku had prepared, sniffed them, then gave them a lick.
Kohaku stared blankly at what Chen Yu was doing.
She didn't understand why Chen Yu had licked them.
"Curious, are you? Then how about I tell you a story from my country?" Chen Yu asked Kohaku with a smile.
He then told Kohaku the whole story of Shennong tasting hundreds of herbs.
"So that's how it was?" After hearing the story, Kohaku had never imagined that people thousands of years ago had identified medicinal herbs like that.
"Then what happened to Lord Shennong in the end?" A child nearby, wearing a watermelon on her head, raised her hand and asked.
"I'm not sure, but I heard back then that Shennong died after eating a medicinal herb called pokeweed," Chen Yu said after a moment's thought.
The sudden revelation of Shennong's death made Suika flinch in fright.
"Then can you really cure my sister? Even the great Shennong died, after all," Kohaku said, looking at the herbs in her hands.
"Of course. After all, if we include the time spent petrified, that makes nearly ten thousand years, doesn't it? In other words, traditional Chinese medicine has never been lost in nearly ten thousand years. The most advanced Western medicine lost its legacy because people couldn't make precision instruments to manufacture pills, leaving you with only the medicinal herbs passed down through memory to treat illnesses. See? That's the appeal of traditional Chinese medicine. It can be passed down forever. Training a good practitioner, though, takes the longest." Chen Yu explained it bit by bit.
Suika was also astonished by the traditional Chinese medicine Chen Yu described, with its legacy stretching back ten thousand years.
"Oh, right. You said training a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine takes decades. How long did it take you?" Kohaku asked.
"Me? From the age of five until petrification... I suppose I only studied for about ten years?" Chen Yu said casually, rubbing his chin.
"There's a reason he's called the most gifted medical expert. But it didn't take him ten years. It took eight. In eight years, he stored all that medical knowledge in his brain and kept developing new medical applications. He was the most incredible high school medical student around," Senku explained from beside them.
Gen, standing nearby, also revealed an enigmatic smile. Chen Yu truly was a genius.
The next day, Gen was a little shocked as he watched Senku pour molten iron out of the Ironworks.
"My job was to confirm your death, Senku. 'Tsukasa, Senku is still alive.' That would put you in danger. That was what I'd originally planned. As long as your death was reported, Tsukasa's ideals could become reality sooner. But here, I've seen a kind of hope. Both your science, Senku, and Chen Yu's legacy have given me quite a shock," Gen said, looking from Senku to Chen Yu.
"In terms of strength, you can't beat Tsukasa. But if you make iron weapons, that changes things," Gen said calmly.
"But don't we have Chen Yu too?" Kohaku asked, raising her hand.
"Little Kohaku, you have to understand that Chen Yu belongs to Tsukasa's side. Even if Chen Yu came over here, you couldn't overcome the difference in numbers," Gen explained.
Was that how it was?
"Whoa! So this is iron!" Chrome said, holding up the cooled iron.
Kohaku and Suika were drawn over, exclaiming in surprise.
"This is just a primitive village," Senku said, looking at the three of them.
"Senku is dead. As long as I make a false report, you'll be saved, Senku," Gen continued, his expression unchanged.
"If you could say that, it would be a huge help," Senku told Gen.
"I'm a man without principles, the world's greatest silver-tongued talker. I'd be satisfied as long as I could live happily with cute girls. I don't care whether Tsukasa dies or Senku dies. Whoever dies, I win. I'm really torn here," Gen continued rambling.
Chen Yu, standing nearby, couldn't stand it anymore. There was no helping it-Gen was far too chatty at this early stage.
He walked straight over, took out a pill and a cup of water, and forced them down Gen's throat.
"Cough, cough, cough! What was that?" Gen asked between repeated coughs.
Suika and Kohaku came over too, looking at Chen Yu curiously, wondering what he had fed Gen.
"A poison pill I made. Without the antidote, you'll drop dead within three days," Chen Yu told Gen expressionlessly.
"P-poison?" Gen was scared out of his wits. If anyone else called it poison, he wouldn't really believe them, but Chen Yu was different. When Gen had been following him around, he had spent every day tinkering with medicinal herbs. Could it have been back then?
"Yes, back then. You were so annoying, I figured I might as well poison you. It's not like Tsukasa would lose anything," Chen Yu said casually.
"Eeeek-" Gen collapsed straight onto the ground.
Even little Suika trembled when she looked at Chen Yu.
What do I do? I saw his secret. Is he going to kill me too?
Kohaku's trust in Chen Yu grew shakier and shakier.
After all, his friend said he had poison, and he himself said he carried poison around. If one day he thought she talked too much or was too much trouble, wouldn't he kill her too?
"Xiao Yu, I was wrong! Give me the antidote! Hurry, give me the antidote!" Gen clung to Chen Yu's leg, refusing to let go as he cried and shouted.
"Is that so? You have to promise not to annoy me anymore," Chen Yu said, taking out another pill.
"I promise! I promise!" Gen nodded repeatedly.
Then Chen Yu handed him the pill. Gen immediately took it and swallowed it without even chewing.
"Why does it taste a little strange?" Gen asked after swallowing it.
"Oh, the one just now was a health supplement. This one is the poison," Chen Yu said with a smile.
Gen: Σ(っ °Д °;)っ
Then Gen fainted on the spot.
After all, how did it feel to willingly swallow poison?
(It looks like the book has started getting recommended, and the stats are stable for now. I hadn't expected that with a new book only twenty thousand characters long. I'll focus on writing well from here on. These last two chapters weren't very well written, so please point out anything that needs work.)
Before you continue