Under the dim light of the oil lamp, Li Muyang glanced at his stepsister lying on the bed and said.
“I’ll just sleep on the floor. Doctor Lin said your injury requires quiet recuperation, and you shouldn’t move carelessly. The Demonic Qi inside will keep corroding your body.”
“We’re just starting. In the coming days, you’re going to feel worse and worse.”
“Tomorrow I’ll make another trip to Yunxiao City. How much money do you have left now? Give it all to me, and I’ll use it to buy Spiritual Medicine for you.”
“Also, where did our father’s friends agree to meet? The mountain gate is closing in three days; they should be arriving soon.”
“When the time comes, I’ll get the Spiritual Medicine and refine it for your healing.”
Li Muyang simply planned his itinerary for the next few days.
The girl curled up in the blankets shrank her neck and said cautiously.
“Um… brother, you’re not angry, are you? I’ve spent all your money…”
Twenty taels of gold, a large sum for anyone in Jiuyuan City.
If it were the brother she used to know, he definitely wouldn’t have spent that money on her…
The girl guiltily looked at Li Muyang, carefully observing his expression.
Li Muyang glared at her and said, “Then I’ll write you an IOU. Consider this money a loan from you, and you can pay me back when you earn money.”
Li Yuechan suddenly felt embarrassed, sensing Li Muyang’s displeasure, she quickly changed the subject.
“When I left home, my aunt gave me thirty-five taels of gold, which I turned all into gold notes and hid.”
“It’s hidden inside the book I carry with me. Brother, you can find them if you search in my room tomorrow.”
The amount the girl mentioned made Li Muyang pause.
“How much?”
Thirty-five taels…
Twenty for himself, yet thirty-five for his stepsister.
Who is actually the blood relative here?
Li Muyang was momentarily at a loss for words.
Li Yuechan hurriedly explained, “When I left home, my aunt said she wanted me to carry more on me. If, um… if you, brother, didn’t have enough money, she told me to give you some.”
This answer made Li Muyang understand.
It seemed like the original was a good-for-nothing who constantly spent money on Ning Wan’er, making the family worry, so they put a portion of the gold on the adopted daughter.
That way, if Li Muyang ran out of money in the Demon Sect, his stepsister could still bail him out.
Tsk… the original sure was irresponsible.
Li Muyang shook his head and said, “Understood, go to sleep. You won’t have it so easy tomorrow.”
Doctor Lin said that once the Demonic Qi remaining in the body started to corrode it, various complications would appear like high fever, fainting, and increasingly severe stabbing pains… Her tough days were still ahead!
After preparing the sleeping spot, Li Muyang blew out the oil lamp and lay down in the corner of the room.
The hard clay floor was even colder and stiffer than a tough wooden bed.
Li Muyang rolled over a couple of times on it, still somewhat not used to it.
Meanwhile, in the darkness, the girl on the bed suddenly spoke up, her tone cautious.
“Um… Brother, may I ask you a question?”
In the darkness, Li Muyang glanced at her silhouette on the bed, the faint light barely revealing a pair of watery eyes staring at him in the darkness.
She seemed very serious.
“What’s the question?” Li Muyang asked, frowning.
This young girl, why is she being so peculiar?
The silence lingered in the darkness, but suddenly, the girl on the bed took a deep breath and covered her head with the blanket.
“Never mind, brother. You should sleep early, I’m going to sleep too.”
Soon, the even breathing of the girl resonated from the bed, suggesting she had fallen asleep.
Li Muyang couldn’t bother to ask more; maybe that’s just how girls her age are, inexplicably whimsical.
He closed his eyes, trying to hypnotize himself to sleep.
Because of his adoptive sister’s distraction, Li Muyang hadn’t eaten any Spirit Rice or played any games that evening.
He surely couldn’t cook rice with premium Spirit Rice right in front of her…
Fortunately, Li Muyang had already dug a secret little cellar in the tile-roofed house, where he stored the Spirit Rice, so even if thieves came, he wasn’t worried about it being stolen.
Before long, Li Muyang had fallen asleep.
When he woke up the next morning, Li Yuechan’s condition had indeed worsened significantly.
The girl’s complexion turned even paler, and her body trembled slightly, enduring severe pain from her flesh and blood being corroded.
On her right shoulder, one could barely see faint dark red spots beneath her fair skin.
Her entire right arm, including half of her right face, was covered with this dull blood red.
If the situation continued to deteriorate, all the flesh that had turned dark red would rot away.
By then, Li Yuechan had lost her spirited charm from the previous night.
She lay weakly curled up in the blanket, her body trembling as she spoke to Li Muyang.
“Brother… don’t lift my blanket…”
The girl seemed to be in so much pain that her consciousness was beginning to disperse, and she started to talk nonsense.
Who in their right mind would lift her blanket?
Seeing her like this, Li Muyang couldn’t help but sigh.
Although he didn’t have much affection for this adoptive sister, seeing such a young girl suffer in front of him still inevitably stirred his compassion.
Li Muyang sat beside her bed, talked to her for a while until her consciousness cleared a bit, and the pain in her body temporarily subsided, then Li Muyang stood up and left.
He went to Li Yuechan’s cottage at the foot of the mountain, found the gold note tucked in a book, then made a trip to Yunxiao City and bought Spiritual Medicine worth thirty-five taels of gold.
And, fortunately, he ran into a friend of Li Damu, his adoptive father, who handed over the Spiritual Medicine he brought to Li Muyang.
This medicine, prepared by Li Damu, was intended for the siblings in the Demon Sect to use in their cultivation and was worth much more than what Li Muyang had envisioned.
But now, Li Muyang had brought all back to the small tile-roofed house and refined them all in the alchemy cauldron.
After successfully refining all the Spiritual Medicine, he produced three bowls of medicinal liquid.
Carefully, Li Muyang woke up the pain-stricken girl and had her drink these three steaming bowls of medicinal liquid.
After consuming the three bowls of medicinal liquid, about half of the black lines on the girl’s right wrist disappeared.
The blood red on her right cheek greatly reduced, the redness on her shoulder completely disappeared, and on her arm, only the part below the elbow remained.
With the nourishment from the Spiritual Liquid and the removal of the Demonic Qi, the girl finally felt less pain.
She regained consciousness, looked at Li Muyang standing in front of her, and saw the medicine chests opened beside him.
Smelling the scent of the medicine in the air, Li Yuechan blinked.
“Brother, where did you get so much Spiritual Medicine…”
Li Muyang sighed, “I refined all the Spiritual Medicine that the family sent, but unfortunately, it’s still not quite enough…”
The girl suddenly fell silent.
She looked at the pile of empty medicine chests in the room, then at the black line on her wrist, and finally muttered,
“…Actually, you don’t need to worry about me, it’s just flesh rotting away. Perhaps if I reach a higher level of cultivation later, and if I get promoted to the Inner Sect, I might find a way to regenerate flesh.”
“You don’t need to worry anymore, brother, it’s just an arm, it won’t affect me.”
The girl quietly comforted Li Muyang.
Li Muyang glanced at her, his expression composed.
“Do I look like I’m very worried about you?”