Seeking Truth with a Sword-Chapter 459 - 410 Blushing
CREAK.
The door closed as Su Xinghuo returned to Room Eleven. He heaved a sigh of relief, facing the black cat in his arms.
"MEOW."
The black cat called out softly, and the air in the room rippled like water, achieving an effect similar to a soundproof talisman.
It jumped down from Su Xinghuo’s embrace, landed on the wooden desk, and said solemnly, "So, you’ve just explained everything like that?"
"If there were another option, I wouldn’t want my life controlled by someone else either."
Su Xinghuo sighed. "But An Xuehai is only a puppet. As you’ve also said, you didn’t feel any trace of Spiritual Power on the SS Sea Charm. Either the person behind the puppet is far stronger than you, or he isn’t on the SS Sea Charm at all. The latter is even more terrifying. Imagine having such powerful Heart Thought that it can traverse hundreds of nautical miles, across the outskirts of the Endless Sea, right to the SS Sea Charm. The cardinals of Taihao Mountain can’t achieve that, can they? His puppet clone might not be as good as you, but we ultimately have to return to land."
Su Xinghuo paused. "The gap in strength between us is too great. If I lie again, I worry that he might adopt even more aggressive measures."
Such as abduction, torture.
The man and cat looked at each other in silence, while fine rain fell like silk outside the window.
「————」
Sitting in a clothing store in Chang’an City, Li Ang slowly let out a heavy breath.
He was certain that Su Xinghuo had not deceived him, because the Mo Si Clone on the SS Sea Charm had already tested Su Xinghuo’s blood.
It contained traces of black powder, almost negligible.
Black powder and Mo Si stem from the same source but are different, almost like charcoal and diamonds. Mo Si can even absorb black powder without hindrance, with an efficiency equivalent to a hundred times that of Fine Gold.
He had finally figured out the origin of Mo Si, but this also brought many more questions.
Is Black Stone one of the forms of Mo Si? If so, to what stage of evolution does the Mo Si in Black Stone belong? Why did the Su family only regard Black Stone as a medicinal stone for curing diseases, without mentioning the ability of Mo Si to parasitize the human body and enhance cultivation? What exactly does worshipping the Black Stone entail? Having forsaken the Su family, where did the Supreme Mysterious Sect go with half of the Black Stone? The doubts were mounting.
Li Ang rubbed his temples. The only good news was that he had obtained two new clues.
One was the origin of Mo Si: Nameless Island in the Endless Sea. The other was the Supreme Mysterious Sect, which had taken away half of the Black Stone.
Nameless Island was a lost cause for now. With no map available, finding a specific island in the perilous, vast sea was akin to finding a needle in a haystack. The most hopeful lead is the Supreme Mysterious Sect. Whoever passes by leaves traces. Such a large secret sect couldn’t have vanished without a trace during the turmoil of the Late Sui.
Li Ang suppressed the impulse to rush back to the Book Collection Pavilion of the Academic Palace to consult materials on the Supreme Mysterious Sect. After so many years, a day or two more wouldn’t hurt.
"CLANG! CLANG!"
Qiu Feng walked out of the fitting room, clad in a light purple chiffon blouse and a white, finely embroidered long skirt. She twirled in front of Li Ang. "How do I look?"
"Very pretty."
Coming back to his senses, Li Ang nodded, giving Qiu Feng a thumbs-up.
"Really?"
Qiu Feng’s face brightened with joy. Praising a lady’s beautiful attire these days, one would either use phrases like ’silk woven like wild geese flying beyond autumn clouds, dyed the color of Jiangnan’s spring waters,’ or ’when she sits, her sash winds like tender grass; when she walks, her skirt sweeps fallen plum blossoms.’ If those didn’t suffice, one might quote, ’Her robe, a cloud; her face, a flower; a spring breeze brushes the balustrade, dew-kissed and radiant.’
As for Li Ang, well, she knew his vocabulary for compliments was severely limited, basically just ’pretty,’ ’very pretty,’ and ’extremely pretty.’
Li Ang nodded. "Guaranteed genuine."
"Hehe, I told you I have a good eye. I should be the one to pick the summer uniforms for the students at the Imperial Medical Bureau."
"Those students..."
Li Ang felt a headache coming on again. I’m really afraid all that studying will make them silly.
A few days ago, he had prepared an exam paper on handling doctor-patient relationships, and the answers the students submitted had left him dumbfounded.
Question: Doctor Wang walks out of the operating room and announces to the patient’s family that the surgery has failed. The family scolds him for his lack of communication skills and even tries to physically assault him.
What should Doctor Wang say?
The correct answer should be to firmly convey the poor prognosis without giving false hope. It’s also important to repeatedly emphasize the patient’s current suffering, perhaps through different people. One should use phrases like "choosing not to adopt measures such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation, which would only increase the patient’s needless suffering" to alleviate the psychological pressure on the family as they face this choice. Some family members, possibly due to the pressure of public morals, still choose to have the doctor continue emergency treatment despite knowing the patient’s suffering.
However, the students of the Imperial Medical Bureau were young. They hated medical disturbances the most and couldn’t stand unreasonable nuisances, even despising family members who antagonized doctors.
The exam answers they submitted were wildly varied.
Some said the doctor should say, "Good news, the surgery was very successful. Bad news, the patient didn’t make it."
"Ha ha ha, here comes the corpse!"
"Time to eat? I’ll take the kids’ table."
Correcting the papers made Li Ang’s head spin.
Seeing Li Ang’s pained expression, Qiu Feng covered her mouth and snickered. "Give them some time. After experiencing more in the sick house, they will grow eventually."
It would be good if they could grow.
Li Ang rolled his eyes. Fortunately, his students, despite their eccentric answers, still respected him deeply. Their flippant responses were merely due to the expansion of the sick house network across Yu Country, which had brought doctor-patient conflicts to the surface.
"We’re also done changing."
Li Leqing and Chai Chai also walked out hand in hand from the fitting room. The former still chose a palace-style, goose-yellow gown with large draped sleeves, while the latter picked a form-fitting, low-neckline outfit from the Holy Empress era.
"How do we look?"
Li Leqing, pulling a somewhat shy Chai Chai, spun around.
Li Ang’s mind went blank, and he stuttered, "Pre-pretty good-looking."
Perhaps because they had grown up together and spent so much time together, he hadn’t realized it was already the Zaiqian Sixth Year. The little girl who used to climb trees to get bird nests with him, and go down to the river to catch fish and shrimp, had reached the age for her hairpinning ceremony.
"I’ll go pay the bill."
Li Ang stood up swiftly, nearly fleeing to the store’s female manager to pay, simultaneously shaking his head furiously to forget the images in his mind.
It wasn’t that Chai Chai wasn’t attractive, but this was... too weird.
As the sun set, the carriage came to take everyone home.
Li Ang sat in the carriage, watching Chai Chai, who was blissfully checking out the new clothes and jewelry in her package while eating ice cream.
He coughed lightly, rubbing his palms, and asked, "So, um, has the weather been a bit hot at night recently?"
"Has it?" 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶
Chai Chai tilted her head in confusion. "It’s been okay, right? Don’t we always use the Cooling Wind Charm to adjust the room temperature when we sleep at night?"
"I mean,"
Li Ang rubbed his chin, unhesitatingly awakened the Mo Si inside his body, controlling his capillary blood flow to prevent blushing, and tentatively asked, "Isn’t it a bit cramped for two people to sleep in the bedroom? Maybe... we should sleep in separate rooms from now on?"
PLOP.
Chai Chai’s ice cream fell to the floor of the carriage.
