The next day was a rest day.
Early morning.
The dosage of sleep-inducing components in the medicine Feng Ke gave must have been considerable. Lian Shenwei woke much later than usual.
His body was far from what it had been in his youth. Now, both his medicine and diet had many restrictions. He basically couldn’t eat any foods containing medicinal properties.
His daily diet was all controlled by Feng Ke.
Since his last cold, he’d been eating supplements almost daily. Anyone else would have gotten heatiness from such tonics, but Lian Shenwei adapted well. He barely managed to restore his body to how it was before the cold, and his complexion gained a bit more color.
Feng Ke felt quite accomplished by this, inexplicably recalling a sickly, listless cat he’d once raised as a child that he’d later cured into a lively, bouncing creature.
He now found Lian Shenwei much more pleasing to the eye—at least he wasn’t being sarcastically critical anymore.
Though he couldn’t restore his childhood friend to his former state, as long as nothing went wrong and he continued careful care, at least he wouldn’t die young.
With these thoughts, Feng Ke checked his pulse as usual before Lian Shenwei’s morning meal.
After this sleep, Lian Shenwei was still somewhat drowsy and said, “I can’t take this medicine every day. The sleep-inducing dosage is too high.”
“I know. Let’s alternate between two types. Take the one with sleep-inducing components when you’re not attending court or don’t want to go. Other times, as usual.”
Feng Ke calmly withdrew his hand and took a few drops of blood from Lian Shenwei’s fingertip into a jade vial.
“I ran out from last time, so I’m taking a bit more. Also, do you think there are many medicinal materials left in this world that you can use?”
Lian Shenwei closed his eyes, refusing to look at Feng Ke’s silver needle. “…I’ve said it many times—if you need to take blood, you can use a knife. I don’t want to see silver needles.”
Feng Ke was speechless. “This thing saved your life. If I were you, I’d enshrine it like an ancestor.”
While the two were talking, Tian Nan brought up today’s breakfast. After Feng Ke finished his inspection, he placed foods that were easy to gain weight from and healthy closer to Lian Shenwei. “Eat. Eat more.”
“…”
For some inexplicable reason, he didn’t really want to eat.
Just as he was about to pick up his chopsticks, Ming Zhu appeared hurriedly with a cold expression, breaking the relatively peaceful breakfast atmosphere. Her tone was grave. “Master, something has happened to the Young Marquis!”
–
“Hold down the Young Marquis! Quickly, hold him down!”
An extremely strong smell of blood emanated from Li Ningfeng’s bedroom. He was surrounded by a group of imperial physicians, his upper body firmly held down. His exposed legs below were already a bloody mess.
His eyes were filled with bloodshot veins. His arms gripping the edge of the bed showed bulging veins, and he bit down on a cloth in his mouth.
Ying Jingjue looked from outside, anxious beyond measure.
At dawn today, the Loyal Righteousness Marquis had rushed into the palace. Chief Eunuch Li hadn’t dared stop him. As soon as the old Marquis entered, he knelt before Emperor Jingcheng’s bed with tears streaming down his face.
This man with iron bones kept kowtowing, requesting the palace’s imperial physicians to make a trip to the Marquis Manor.
Emperor Jingcheng, confused by what he heard, first dispatched the Imperial Medical Academy’s physicians to the Marquis Manor before having the presence of mind to hear what had actually happened.
After Li Ningfeng had gone to sleep last night, the internal energy in his meridians suddenly expanded, becoming chaotic and uncontrollable. Just when he was about to die from qi deviation, in desperation, he forced most of his internal energy into his legs…
The head of the Imperial Medical Academy wiped his blood-stained fingers and looked at Li Ningfeng’s mangled legs, sighing. At least he’d saved his life.
He walked out. The old Marquis and Crown Prince outside surrounded him. Ying Jingjue saw the regretful expression on the Academy Head’s face, and his heart sank. Yet still unwilling to give up hope, he asked, “How is Ningfeng’s condition?”
The Academy Head looked back at the room, meeting Li Ningfeng’s eyes that still held hope. He paused, then asked the Crown Prince and old Marquis to step away several paces before lowering his voice. “Your Highness, Old Marquis, this humble subject suggests… the Young Marquis’s legs should be amputated as soon as possible. After adapting for a few years, we can make a pair of iron legs. At least he can keep his life.”
Ying Jingjue’s mind went blank as he murmured, “How could this happen?”
Just yesterday when they found the embezzled funds together, everything had been fine. They’d even discussed sneaking out to Drunken Immortal Pavilion for a good meal.
The old Marquis trembled, took a step forward, and tightly grasped the physician’s hand, his voice hoarse. “…Lord Jiang, please think of another way. This old official begs you. Feng’er isn’t even twenty yet. How can he—how can he be like this old official, unable to walk properly, trapped in this small world for the rest of his life…”
“Our Li family is full of loyal martyrs. Only Feng’er is left. Lord Jiang, Imperial Physician Jiang, please think of another way. It must be treatable.”
His right leg had been slashed three years ago and froze to death in the icy snow, necessitating amputation. But Li Ningfeng had become like this for no reason—obviously someone had framed him!
Who was trying to harm his son!
Ying Jingjue first comforted the old Marquis, then said to Imperial Physician Jiang, “Explain to this Prince why Ningfeng became like this.”
Imperial Physician Jiang explained the reasons once through.
Internal energy chaotic and surging, but they couldn’t find the cause.
In summary, it could possibly be villains framing him, or it could be Li Ningfeng himself suffering qi deviation from practicing martial arts.
After listening, Ying Jingjue was silent for a long time. He knew how proud Li Ningfeng was. Could such a person accept living the rest of his life without legs?
“Ningfeng’s legs…?”
Imperial Physician Jiang sighed.
Inside the room.
The light in Li Ningfeng’s eyes gradually extinguished bit by bit, becoming incomparably dim.
His realm hadn’t yet fallen, so he could roughly hear seven or eight parts of the conversation outside that avoided him.
His legs were still in severe pain, but he no longer had the strength to struggle. The cloth he’d been biting loosened. His face deathly pale, he lay on the bed, letting the coming and going imperial physicians and folk doctors treat his legs.
This matter still spread.
However, what outsiders knew was only that the Young Marquis had been injured while practicing martial arts and was bedridden, needing to recuperate. The matter of his legs—Emperor Jingcheng personally issued a death order, killing some people before sealing mouths tightly.
Common people unaware of the truth still praised Li Ningfeng for being devoted to the country, injuring himself in his eagerness to improve his strength. Some people even personally went to the entrance of the Loyal Righteousness Marquis Manor, bringing vegetables they’d grown in their own gardens and eggs.
After a day of diagnosis and treatment, the imperial physicians said Li Ningfeng could barely eat now. Ying Jingjue personally brought in a bowl, feigning ease. “Come, come, it’s time to eat.”
Li Ningfeng had no reaction.
After a long while, he said hoarsely, “I don’t want to eat.”
Ying Jingjue paused. “Eating will help you recover faster.”
“Can I still recover?” Li Ningfeng smiled miserably. “Your Highness, no need to deceive me. I heard what you all said outside. My legs—can they still be saved?”
“…”
Ying Jingjue was silent.
Li Ningfeng closed his eyes. His hands beneath the bedding clenched tightly.
He couldn’t imagine his future life. Or rather, in the nineteen years of life before now, he’d never once thought that one day he’d be lying in bed, permanently losing his legs.
Li Ningfeng remembered the period when his father lost his right leg and returned from the frontier.
He’d seen more than once how his father, who had valiantly killed enemies on the battlefield, became so dejected. His realm fell. He looked powerlessly and desperately at his empty leg until he got an iron prosthetic and improved somewhat.
And his condition was more severe than his father’s.
Even with prosthetic legs attached, he’d still have great difficulty standing up. Lying on a bed like a grave, emanating the smell of a dead person, watching himself helplessly become a cripple…
Li Ningfeng couldn’t accept it.
“I don’t want my legs amputated,” he said.
As expected.
Ying Jingjue’s heart grew heavy. “Ningfeng, Imperial Physician Jiang said that if you amputate your legs, you can still live. Otherwise, if your legs fester, you’ll only have a dead end.”
Li Ningfeng opened his eyes. “Father will definitely make me live. Your Highness, for the sake of our brotherhood, if you don’t want to watch me live a fate worse than death, give me release.”
“No!”
Ying Jingjue said decisively, “I will do everything to preserve your legs. I’ve already sent people out to find capable jianghu figures.”
“The Feng family! You know of the Feng family! I will definitely be able to invite them!”
Li Ningfeng was startled.
He knew of the Feng family—very famous. Reportedly, they’d had six generations of single successors so far, each heir treasured greatly.
The Feng family’s fame wasn’t just reflected in their medical skills but also because their location was unfixed, their numbers few, traveling the four corners year-round.
Among the Feng family’s household rules was one: those without affinity would not be treated.
For so many years, countless people sought medical treatment. Even if people were fortunate enough to contact Feng family heirs, they were still blocked outside by this rule.
They refused treatment often, but those they did save were many. Unless there was a blood feud of life and death, no one was willing to offend the famously renowned Feng family medical immortals of the jianghu.
Though faint, Li Ningfeng’s heart still uncontrollably surged with a trace of hope.
His taut nerves relaxed slightly. He didn’t know what medicine the Imperial Medical Academy people had used—his legs felt no pain, only swelling and heat. He reluctantly ate a bit before succumbing to exhausted drowsiness.
Ying Jingjue said, “You sleep. That you became like this is definitely not coincidental. I’ll be here these days. Think carefully about whether there’s been anything unusual recently.”
Li Ningfeng acknowledged. The medicine took effect. He was truly weak, half-unconscious and half-asleep, and quickly fell silent.
–
Deep night.
An indescribable fragrance spread into the Marquis Manor. Those sleeping slept even more deeply.
Two figures in black fitted clothing with cloth masks silently landed.
Feng Ke released Lian Shenwei’s shoulder, somewhat emotional. The former… current Great Sheng Regent Prince was actually doing the sneaky deed of visiting a good family’s young man’s chambers at night.
Lian Shenwei couldn’t use internal energy, so naturally his qinggong didn’t work either. He could scale walls, but to slip in silently still required Feng Ke’s help.
“Don’t worry. This fragrance comes from the amnesia-inducing Mengpo Soup. Smelling even a bit will make people unknowingly enter dreamland.” Feng Ke glanced at him and softly comforted, “Even if someone dies, I can snatch them back from the King of Hell.”
Setting aside other matters, just speaking of the generations of friendship between the Feng and Lian families, and that Li Ningfeng was currently a successor of Fudu Manor, he would save him no matter what.
His father would be the same.
Lian Shenwei’s mind was still thinking about Li Ningfeng’s situation. Hearing this, he was half a beat slow to react. “Mengpo Soup? The kind I asked you for last time?”
“Right.”
“I remember when Jingjue was taken away, he once took the imperial family’s secret medicine—medicine that could make people forget the past. Does your Mengpo Soup conflict with what he ingested?”
“This…” Feng Ke pondered. “I’m not clear on the components of the imperial secret medicine, but it should be fine. After all, he’s taken it for so many years without any signs of memory recovery.”
Lian Shenwei felt relieved and stopped mentioning the matter. The two quickly walked toward Li Ningfeng’s bedroom.
The young man on the bed slept very uneasily.
The imperial physicians and servants caring for him by the bedside had all fallen into deep sleep.
Feng Ke lifted the blanket to look at his legs. The moonlight from outside shone in. After seeing clearly, he drew in a sharp breath. “Parasitic insects?”
Those legs were bruised purple and black. Despite treatment, pus and blood still flowed out. The applied medicine treated symptoms but not the root cause. The Imperial Medical Academy’s physicians rarely encountered jianghu witchcraft and parasitic insects—not one person had noticed this wasn’t an ordinary injury.
Lian Shenwei asked, “What kind of parasite?”
Feng Ke’s eyes darkened. He took out a long glass needle, picked off a piece of rotted flesh, sniffed it at his nose, frowned, and tossed it into a copper basin full of bloody water nearby.
Then he hesitated for a moment and pulled out a small jade vial—the one containing Lian Shenwei’s blood he’d collected this morning. He poured the blood onto Li Ningfeng’s leg.
These few drops of blood mixed with countless medicines and poisons seeped into the rotted flesh of his leg.
The next second, the skin beneath where the blood touched began to wriggle. Many blood-colored, rice-grain-sized parasitic insects crawled out from the swollen skin and flesh of his leg, one after another.
The moment they touched air, they rapidly melted into bloody water, as if an illusion—as if they’d never appeared.
Feng Ke cut off another piece of rotted flesh and dropped a drop of Lian Shenwei’s blood on it. This piece of flesh trembled on his dagger. After a few worms emerged, it rotted even more severely.
Lian Shenwei asked, “How is it?”
Feng Ke walked over to feed Li Ningfeng a pill, his brow tightly furrowed. “Tricky.”
Lian Shenwei’s heart tightened. “Trickier than me?”
Feng Ke: “…………”
So you know you’re tricky, huh?
He rolled his eyes dramatically. “Then I might as well go home.”
“I originally thought the parasitic insects he was infected with weren’t on the same level as yours back then. Now it seems his situation is much better.”
Lian Shenwei had been infected with poisonous parasites from the Central Plains. That demon monk’s internal energy wasn’t high, but his parasite cultivation was unparalleled. Though he later died thoroughly, he’d treated Lian Shenwei as his most perfect medicine person and had implanted King-level parasites with very strong toxicity.
Even after all these years, Lian Shenwei’s blood, eroded by medicine and poison, still retained the toxicity and aura of that King parasite—a potent weapon for suppressing other parasitic insects.
Combined with the toxicity and medicinal properties that achieved balance in his blood, Lian Shenwei’s blood was extremely special—precious to an extreme degree in another sense, unique and irreplaceable.
So at first, he’d used Lian Shenwei’s blood to probe the nature of the parasitic insects in Li Ningfeng’s body and lure them out.
Lian Shenwei asked, “What do you mean?”
“This parasite is called Blood-Melting Parasite. Extremely rare in existence. Not found in the Central Plains. According to my family’s medical records, this thing appeared in Northern Yi fifty or sixty years ago. Ordinary people eating it have no effects, but if someone above the Yinyuan Realm eats it…
The internal energy in their meridians will make the Blood-Melting Parasite reproduce rapidly. The infected person’s internal energy heats up and becomes agitated. When the parasitic insects accumulate to a certain degree, they’ll detonate the internal energy, causing death.”
Feng Ke sighed. “He must have practiced martial arts before sleeping and consumed some internal energy. Plus, he was smart enough to force all the surging internal energy into his legs. Otherwise, by now, his corpse would already be cold.”
“The Blood-Melting Parasite will slowly erode his flesh, blood, and meridians. Though the speed is slow, it takes a full year to expel these parasitic insects with medicine. To preserve them completely… isn’t very possible. But he can still stand up. Aside from difficult future progress and frequent leg pain, there won’t be other problems.” He laid out his judgment in detail.
Something from Northern Yi had appeared at the Loyal Righteousness Marquis Manor.
Despite all precautions, Northern Yi people still found an opening. Such methods were truly sinister.
However…
Something to expel parasitic insects?
Lian Shenwei asked, “Would using my blood be faster?”
He’d seen clearly just now—his blood had excellent effects on expelling parasitic insects.
Feng Ke’s pupils contracted violently as his expression turned cold. “Are you crazy?!”
“Your blood won’t work!”
“Why?”
“Using yourself as a medicine catalyst and you’re asking me why? Do you know that once we use it, every subsequent treatment step will require your blood?”
Feng Ke sneered coldly. “Do you think you can’t die? Even if treatment speed is faster, it would still require a continuous four months. I want to ask you—are you the reincarnation of an immortal or the Queen Mother herself? Can you give blood for four months and still be lively enough to irritate me every day?”
Lian Shenwei softly called his name. “Feng Ke.”
Feng Ke turned away and immediately walked off, saying coldly, “I won’t save this person anymore. Either follow my method or let him wait for death.”
“Feng Ke.”
The young man carrying a small medicine bag clenched his fists. His footsteps stopped, but he didn’t turn around.
Lian Shenwei said, “He’s half a successor of Fudu Manor and Elder Sister, and also my disciple.”
Feng Ke mocked, “Yes, a successor and disciple who doesn’t know you and harbors killing intent toward you. If Sister Youwei knew, she’d definitely be angrier than me. She’d certainly invoke your Lian family rules to beat you to death.”
Lian Shenwei was silent for a moment. “Even if he had no relationship with me, he’s still a young general of the frontier, relating to the safety of frontier people.”
Feng Ke remained silent.
Lian Shenwei asked, “Back then, did I also lie on a bed like Li Ningfeng now, unknowing and unaware, waiting to open my eyes and become a cripple?”
“…” Feng Ke’s throat felt blocked. He couldn’t bear hearing his childhood friend use such a calm voice to call himself a cripple.
Lian Shenwei said, “Feng Ke, I can’t just watch him become another me.”
Feng Ke couldn’t refuse this statement. After a long while, his clenched fist slowly loosened. His expression was unprecedentedly foul as he stared at Li Ningfeng—looking exactly like the boy owed him ten thousand taels of gold.
“…I don’t want jianghu people to know I’m here, but I need an identity that Li Ningfeng can trust and that can treat him at close range.”
“Also,” Feng Ke smiled coldly, “if this boy gives up on himself and doesn’t have half a backbone, he’s not worth you saving either. I can first take a small amount of your blood to help him control the Blood-Melting Parasite. You take this opportunity to observe his performance when continuously facing despair. If he’s unqualified, I advise you not to bother with this disciple.”
“You can’t refuse. This is also my last chance to give you the opportunity to regret using blood to treat him.” And he would also see in these days whether he could find substitute medicines.
Lian Shenwei looked at the person on the bed and nodded. “I understand.”
He untied his wrist wrapping, exposing his arm, indicating for Feng Ke to take blood.
He couldn’t cut his palm—otherwise, it would be easily noticed during court sessions. With his arm tucked in his sleeve, as long as no one made close contact with him, it wouldn’t be discovered.
Feng Ke pulled out a needle.
Lian Shenwei instinctively withdrew his hand.
Feng Ke: “?”
Lian Shenwei extended it again. After pondering for a moment, he tried to negotiate. “Use the dagger?”
Feng Ke: “…”
Oh.
He’d been so angry he’d forgotten—this childhood friend of his was quite cowardly about medical silver needles, especially the special kind from the Feng family.
He paid no heed and expressionlessly reached out.
The thin silver needle pierced through that thin layer of pale skin. Crimson blood drops flowed out in the blink of an eye, filling the small jade vial drop by drop.
Drip-drop.
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Sam Williams On TYMIMA Chapter 152