"...Oh."
An awkward silence.
It was not that Pei Ye had run out of questions. It was just that, with half a buttock exposed, anyone would lapse into a calm pretense that nothing was amiss.
In the stillness, the girl finished inserting the needles in sequence. "Your arm."
Pei Ye drew an arm out from beneath his chin. An icy hand positioned it, and by the time that hand withdrew, a fine needle was already in place.
This was the first time Pei Ye had actually watched her insert a needle. His eyes widened. Her hand seemed to move entirely at will, graceful and flowing as a breeze. There was no visible motion of "piercing" at all; one light pass, and the needle remained.
"The other one."
This was the densest needling Pei Ye had ever seen. A single arm held nearly seventy or eighty needles. He genuinely wondered whether there were even that many acupuncture points on it, but in any case, the girl treated his other arm the same way.
"My name is Qu Xin. Three treatments of [Silver-Jade Life-Weaving] are enough; any more would be useless. This time, I used the [Great Returning Origin Needle] to repair your injured body. At present, I can only perform it once a month," Qu Xin said. "White Braid asked me to get you back on your feet as quickly as possible. After this treatment, take a [Sprouting Pill]. You'll be weak for today, but by tomorrow, you should be seventy or eighty percent recovered. Beyond that, you'll have to recuperate slowly."
Fine beads of sweat covered her forehead. She lowered her eyes and removed her gloves, her lips a little paler. Only then did Pei Ye realize that she had been unable to spare the concentration to answer him earlier.