My Lord, your wife is spreading rumors about you again.

Chapter 33: First Encounter at Medicine Poison Mountain

About, ten years ago.

The sky in the northwest is always so bitingly cold. The barbarians gathered all the men in the tribe, from the elderly to the young boys, and attacked with the whole tribe's strength, risking the destruction of the Manchu people.

Old Lord Zhang led his troops to fight the barbarian army in the ice valley for 23 days. The 5,000 elites of the Northwest Army were almost wiped out. On the last day, only 100 people were left. That year, Zhang Zhi, who had just turned 10, resolutely took up his gun and mounted his horse, holding high the Zhang family battle flag, and galloped towards the enemy alone in the cold wind.

He said: "If my death can save the lives of a hundred people, why not do it?"

As he galloped, he shouted, "The son of the Marquis of Zhenbei is fleeing! The barbarian soldiers will kill him quickly! Whoever takes Zhang Zhi's head will be rewarded with a thousand cattle and sheep and five hundred gold and silver coins!"

Half of the barbarian troops rushed to Zhang Zhi, and only then could the old Marquis Zhang and the 100 soldiers fight their way out. But for some reason, when the news reached Kyoto, it became a rumor that Zhang Zhi had deserted the battlefield.

Explanations were always useless, and Zhang Zhi was happy to act like a dandy.

He rode his horse for a long time, fighting with countless pursuers. Five days later, he was stabbed in the chest and his horse's head was chopped off by the enemy.

He hid in a deep mountain, which was named "Medicine Poison" because there were many herbs growing on the mountain, but they were all poisonous herbs, and the mountain was surrounded by poisonous miasma all year round.

The pursuers stopped their horses here. Zhang Zhi would surely die if he entered here, so there was no need to pursue him any further.

Zhang Zhi was indeed an unlucky little guy with bad luck. The poisonous miasma only appeared once a month in Yaodu Mountain, and it happened to be the day he escaped in. The poisonous miasma covered the sky and even the poisonous insects, snakes and ants were unable to come out.

He was already seriously injured, and after inhaling some poisonous miasma, the Black and White Impermanence came directly in front of him. His face was three times paler than the snow that day.

When his consciousness was about to fade away, he seemed to see a glimpse of sky blue and a crisp little girl's voice: "Hey, a living person!"

"Are you Lan Wuchang?"

The girl seemed unhappy, she kicked him and said, "I'm your father!"

After being kicked, Zhang Zhi fainted. The girl was startled and leaned down to check his breath, but he was dead!

I checked her pulse again, it was barely detectable, and I checked her heartbeat again, it almost stopped.

"Oh my God! You are going to die!"

The girl took a pill from her bosom and stuffed it into Zhang Zhi's mouth. She then moved the bamboo basket she was carrying behind her to her chest and carried Zhang Zhi, who was two heads taller than her, on her back. He was a young boy, like a calf, wearing armor and carrying a heavy sword.

“It’s heavier than the old sow I raise.”

It was winter, and the girl was sweating from exhaustion, her face flushed. She took off his heavy armor and sword, and now it was much easier to carry them on her back.

Even with the straps, the journey that was supposed to take half an hour turned into an hour and a half. The girl threw Zhang Zhi on the ground in the cave, lit a candle skillfully, and cut open Zhang Zhi's clothes with a knife.

He just lay naked on the ground. The girl didn't care whether he would freeze to death or not. She moved a chair to prop up her feet and stood on the medicine table which was taller than her to pound the medicine.

"You must have burned incense in your previous life to have the good fortune to meet me, a living Bodhisattva who saves people from suffering. If the poison I took today had not happened to be able to resist the miasma, I would not have gone out, let alone run into you. If Master had not been away traveling today, you would have become his poisoned person."

"Hey, who are you? Where are you from? Where are you going? By the way, do you have a sister? Haha, I have a sister, and your sister must not be as pretty as mine!"

"What do you do? Why do you have so many knife wounds on your body? Are you the general who fights on the battlefield as often mentioned in storybooks? I read in the books that generals are heroes who can hold their own against ten thousand men! But with your tiny body, can you be a general?" "I don't know how to cure this miasma, so I'll just make a random antidote. Just try to take it. Anyway, if you don't take it, you'll die in two hours. If you take the wrong medicine, you'll die now. You'll die sooner or later. If you die, I'll burn paper money for you every year on this day. After all, you're the first poor person to die at my hands."

It was as if the girl had never spoken to a living person in her entire life. She didn't care that Zhang Zhi was dying and couldn't respond to her at all. She just kept talking and talking.

Finally, the antidote was ready.

The girl carefully jumped off the chair with a bowl of steaming medicine in her hand and picked up an iron funnel.

She knelt beside Zhang Zhi, pinched his chin to force him to open his mouth, stuffed the funnel in, and then poured the bowl of freshly brewed medicine directly into his mouth.

Hot air was coming out, and the girl smiled with satisfaction. She calculated the time and decided to check the pulse again in a quarter of an hour. If he was not dead, then the poison was cured. If he was dead, then the poison was cured.
The girl's shoulders slumped and she pursed her lips. If he was dead, she would have to go out in the wind and snow to dig a hole to bury him, which was another physical job.

She threw Zhang Zhi's bloodstained and tattered underwear aside, and searched through boxes and cabinets to find a quilt to cover him.

Now is the critical time for detoxification and people cannot suffer from hypothermia.

After doing all this, the girl came over with a candle. She sat in front of Zhang Zhi and looked at the poison scripture in her hand intently.

A quarter of an hour later, Zhang Zhi moaned hoarsely: "Shuishui."

"Ah! Alive!"

The girl was overjoyed. She slammed the poison scripture in her hand on the table. She ignored Zhang Zhi's request for water and rushed over to feel his pulse.

Although it was still weak, at least it was not as half-dead as before.

The little girl laughed. She patted Zhang Zhi on the shoulder and said in a mature manner, "Young man, if you survive a disaster, you will have good fortune in the future. Congratulations!"

"Girl, can you give me some saliva?"

"Water?" The girl looked embarrassed. "I don't have clean water here, only poisonous water. Do you want to drink it?"

Zhang Zhi: “.”

"Then I'll go outside and get you some ice and snow." The girl propped herself up and said, "It can be drunk even if it melts. Just wait."

Zhang Zhi exhaled a breath of foul air, and he opened his eyes with great effort, only to see that familiar sky blue color, and then he ran out while holding up his skirt.

Three days later.

The snowstorm stopped, and Zhang Zhi's wakefulness lasted longer and longer, but his voice was still as hoarse as ever. He asked the girl several times why this was the case, but whenever he mentioned this, the girl would always evade the question, saying it was the sequelae of the knife wound.

The injury is in your body, so why should you worry about your throat?

The girl brought him a bowl of melted snow ice water. He looked at her carefully and felt that her face seemed familiar, as if he had seen a similar one in Kyoto.

After the girl felt Zhang Zhi's pulse and gave him acupuncture, she said, "The wind and snow have stopped, and my master will be back soon. It's time for you to go."

(End of this chapter)