TATSD Chapter 48

Ji Wei ran desperately, carrying Lin Sanjie to Xinglin Hall.

“Doctor! Look at her first! It’s a matter of life and death!” As soon as he entered Xinglin Hall, he bypassed a few men waiting in line and brought Lin Sanjie directly to Old Doctor Wu.

Old Wu was feeling someone’s pulse when he was startled by the sight of Lin Sanjie’s bloody and mangled state.

“What happened here?”

“Doctor, please help!”

Old Wu didn’t waste any time. He pried open her eyelids and checked her condition. Seeing there was still hope, he quickly pushed back his stool, stood up, and went to the medicine cabinet for ginseng, moving with an agility that belied his age.

He placed a small recovery pill in Lin Sanjie’s mouth and had her hold a slice of ginseng. Once her faint breathing stabilized, Old Wu let out a sigh of relief, wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, and sat down to carefully check her pulse.

“Good thing you brought her in quickly. If you’d delayed any longer, she would’ve died, and not even a god could have saved her.” Old Wu glared at Ji Wei, clearly blaming him as if he were the culprit.

Ji Wei felt wronged but couldn’t explain himself. He had no way to defend against the accusations, so he kept it bottled up.

Now that Lin Sanjie was out of danger, Ji Wei realized Liu Yimian hadn’t followed. Worried that he might be overthinking things, Ji Wei ran outside Xinglin Hall to see if Liu Yimian was coming.

“Don’t you run off! The person’s still unconscious, where do you think you’re going?” Old Wu slammed the table in anger, thinking Ji Wei was trying to flee, and shouted at him.

“I’m not running! Someone else got left behind. I’m checking if they’re catching up.” Ji Wei reassured himself, thinking maybe Liu Yimian had gone home already. Surely, nothing would happen to someone as grown as him. After calming himself for a bit, Ji Wei sighed and returned to Xinglin Hall.

The three other patients surrounded Old Wu, standing in front of Ji Wei, all staring at him.

Their eyes were full of disdain and disgust, as if Ji Wei were some filthy thing.

Ji Wei pretended not to notice, walked over to Old Wu, and anxiously glanced at Lin Sanjie.

“How is she? Will she be alright?”

Old Wu snorted. “She’s alive, but she lost too much blood and is very weak. She’ll need at least a month of good care and plenty of supplements.”

Ji Wei nodded quietly.

“A woman doesn’t try to end her life unless she’s been driven to the edge. As a man, you should take some responsibility!” Old Wu didn’t know the exact relationship between Lin Sanjie and Ji Wei, but seeing how urgently Ji Wei had carried her in, he figured there must be something unusual between them.

But as an old doctor, he didn’t care much about that.

As a physician with a compassionate heart, he just couldn’t stand to see someone throw away their life, no matter the reason.

Old Wu prepared several doses of medicine, giving detailed instructions before finally allowing Ji Wei to carry her home.

On the way back, Ji Wei hesitated for a moment and decided to take her to his own house.

There were no workers at her home at the moment, and bringing her there would mean constantly going back and forth. It was better to wait until she was awake and could get out of bed before sending her back.

Ji Wei was deep in thought, pondering the situation as they returned.

After all, he wasn’t the original Ji Wei, and there was no way he could give Lin Sanjie a formal status. Simply taking care of her wouldn’t satisfy her. Lin Sanjie was soft on the outside but strong-willed inside. Who knew what her state of mind would be when she woke up? If she still harbored thoughts of death, there would be no preventing it.

When Ji Wei reached the entrance of his house, he noticed the copper lock on the gate had already been opened. It seemed Liu Yimian had arrived home before him.

Ji Wei let out a breath of relief and kicked the door open.

Sitting in the kitchen, silently crying, Liu Yimian quickly wiped the tears from his face with his sleeve, smoothed out his messy hair, and stood at the door, waiting for Ji Wei.

“Brother Ji, is she alright?” Liu Yimian stood in the dim kitchen, not wanting Ji Wei to see his swollen eyes.

He was trying to be careful, but the hoarseness in his voice gave away that he had been crying.

Ji Wei was too preoccupied to notice, even though it was obvious.

“She’s fine. By the way, is the ginseng that Shopkeeper Lin sent over still here? Make some ginseng soup. I’ll take her to the bed first.” Seeing Liu Yimian, Ji Wei felt a weight lifted from his heart, and hurriedly carried Lin Sanjie to the bedroom, placing her on the bed. He pulled up a chair, sat at her bedside, and couldn’t help but sigh.

“What a mess this all is,” Ji Wei muttered as he massaged his temples, feeling the throbbing at his temples.

Before long, Liu Yimian came in with a bowl of ginseng soup.

Seeing Ji Wei’s troubled expression pained Liu Yimian, but he forced a smile and said, “Brother Ji, why don’t you take a rest? I’ll feed her the soup.”

“That’s a good idea. You’re more careful than I am.” Ji Wei stood up and let Liu Yimian take his seat, leaning against the wall and quietly watching them.

Liu Yimian placed another pillow behind Lin Sanjie’s head, blew on the soup to cool it down, and began feeding her small sips.

Halfway through the bowl, Lin Sanjie, still unconscious, suddenly choked, coughing a few times and spilling the soup all over Liu Yimian’s fingers. He hurried to wipe the water from her neck and nervously glanced at Ji Wei, relaxing a little when he saw Ji Wei hadn’t noticed.

After feeding the ginseng soup, Liu Yimian stood up to leave, but Ji Wei grabbed his arm and shook his head.

“Don’t go. My mind’s a mess. Stay here and keep me company.” Ji Wei, usually brimming with confidence and control, rarely felt so lost. He had never been in a romantic relationship, so he didn’t know how to handle this tangled situation. After thinking it over, he still had no clear solution, so he pulled Liu Yimian to stay with him.

Even if Liu Yimian just sat there quietly, the way he looked at Ji Wei, with complete trust, always managed to calm him down.

“Yimian, what do you think I should do?”

“Brother Ji is asking me?” Liu Yimian’s heart twinged, but he still replied gently, “She probably just wants a proper status. Why not give her one?”

“I’ve been a scoundrel in the past; I wronged her. But I can’t give her a title.” If Lin Sanjie became his wife, he’d be stuck paying for the original Ji Wei’s mistakes.

He was Ji Wei, but not that Ji Wei.

He could make up for the original’s wrongs, but he couldn’t be held accountable for them his whole life.

“What if I send her elsewhere, give her money to start a small business? No one would know about her past.” As Ji Wei spoke, he nodded to himself, thinking the idea might work. The only question was how Lin Sanjie would react when she woke up.

“Is Brother Ji thinking this?” Liu Yimian clenched his fists, suppressing his joy so Ji Wei wouldn’t notice.

“Yes. Once her emotions are stable, I’ll talk to her.” While they were talking, Lin Sanjie groaned softly from the bed and started calling out faintly.

Ji Wei was about to check on her, but remembering how she became agitated at the sight of him, he decided against it and asked Liu Yimian to look after her instead.

“I’ll be right outside. If anything happens, just call me.”

Before leaving, Ji Wei opened the window, pulled over a small stool, and sat under the eaves. Through the window, he could still see half of Liu Yimian’s figure.

On the bed, Lin Sanjie slowly opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was the unfamiliar bed canopy.

Then she noticed Liu Yimian and, after a moment of blankness, remembered that he was Ji Wei’s companion. The thought of Ji Wei made her agitated again.

“Where am I?” she asked weakly.

“The Ji residence.”

As soon as Lin Sanjie heard that, she struggled to get up. But she had lost too much blood, and the severe blow to her head left her dizzy and weak. Even the simple act of trying to sit up was a struggle. She collapsed again, and the wound on her forehead, which had just been treated, started bleeding slightly.

“Don’t move! Your wound will open again!” Liu Yimian, nervous and frantic, pressed down on her hand to keep her still. But mindful of the impropriety of touching a woman, his face was filled with awkward conflict.

He didn’t want to care for Lin Sanjie, but if someone had to, he preferred it to be him.

Brother Ji should stay away from her.

“If it opens, let it be. Better if I die,” Lin Sanjie muttered, struggling again only to be pressed back down by Liu Yimian. Too weak to fight, she sneered at him, “You’re young and pretty now, so he’s interested in you. But when someone better comes along, you’ll end up like me.”

Liu Yimian stared blankly at the bedpost, pretending not to be affected.

“You don’t believe me? Right now, he treats you well.” Lin Sanjie, exhausted from speaking so much, paused to catch her breath before continuing. “He used to treat me well too. Brought gifts, did favors for me, promised me a title.”

“And look where I am now. Don’t believe a word men say. The one who believes is the one who loses.”

“That’s not true,” Liu Yimian whispered in rebuttal.

“…What?” Lin Sanjie hadn’t heard him clearly and asked him to repeat himself.

But Liu Yimian just shook his head, unwilling to say more.

Maybe it was her illness making her vulnerable, but Lin Sanjie, who was normally quiet, found herself wanting to talk in front of Liu Yimian’s gentle presence. She wanted to warn him to escape this misery, though she had no idea that Liu Yimian, teetering on the edge, didn’t know how to cross the threshold.

She rambled on about Ji Wei, herself, and everything in between. Eventually, she tired herself out and drifted off to sleep.

Liu Yimian tucked her in, then looked out the window, quietly observing Ji Wei from afar.

“Brother Ji…” Liu Yimian murmured.

There was a deep-seated fear in his heart, a fear that wouldn’t go away.

The better Ji Wei treated him, the deeper that fear grew.

Why was that?

It had been eight months since Liu Yimian entered the Ji family.

Watching Ji Wei from a distance, Liu Yimian longed to run up to him and ask how he felt about Lin Sanjie, and him. But he didn’t dare.

He was a coward.

Liu Yimian composed himself, making sure there were no signs of his inner turmoil, then forced a smile and pushed open the door.

“Did she wake up?” Ji Wei asked, hurrying over at the sound.

“She woke up for a bit, then fell asleep again.”

“Alright, I’ll go make some porridge. We still need to boil her medicine later.” Ji Wei remembered that they didn’t have a medicine pot and asked Liu Yimian to borrow one from Aunt Zhou.

When Aunt Zhou heard they needed a medicine pot, she gave Liu Yimian a once-over, thinking he was sick, and became alarmed.

“It’s not for me, it’s for someone else,” Liu Yimian explained softly.

“Dalang looks so strong, how could he be sick? Is it a cold or a fever? I’d better go check on him.” The idea of Ji Wei being sick shocked Aunt Zhou more than if Liu Yimian had been, and she hurried to fetch the pot, planning to visit the Ji family.

Liu Yimian tried to stop her midway, but he couldn’t hold back Aunt Zhou, who was determined to check on Ji Wei. In the end, he had no choice but to explain about Lin Sanjie.

Aunt Zhou was so shocked she nearly dropped the pot.

“What did you say?! That widow from the alley is at your house? How could you let her into your home? No good can come of this!”