Chapter 117: Trust Crisis

What the hell?

For a moment, I thought I’d misheard. My head throbbed. Lu A’yao was saying my blood could cure the Corpse Poison in his system? This joke wasn’t funny at all. If my blood really could cure Corpse Poison, it wouldn’t be long before I was hauled off to some medical research institute to be dissected.

Despite my internal skepticism, my body reacted instinctively. I reached behind me for my knife. My reasoning was simple: regardless of whether it was true or not, saving him was the priority. If there was even a shred of a possibility, I had to try.

However, He Yu was faster, pressing his hand down on mine. “Wait a second. When did you get so reckless?”

He immediately turned his gaze to Lu A’yao. “Old Lu, Gan Ji doesn’t have any kind of special constitution. His blood should be the same as ours. I’ve never heard of human blood curing Corpse Poison. Are you sure that just letting him bleed will neutralize the poison?”

Chen Canghai also frowned. He had personally witnessed me falling from that high stone pillar earlier and clearly didn’t want to see me lose any more blood.

I knew they were looking out for me. While crawling through the tunnels, I had already fainted for a while due to extreme stress and blood loss. Then, while still weak, I’d been forced into a fight with an Infant Corpse. Just moments ago, I’d been beaten by Qiao Sangui’s shameless lackeys until my nose was gushing blood.

I had only just managed to stop the bleeding, and now I was expected to bleed again.

Lu A’yao seemed lost in thought, his head hanging silently. I suspected he wasn’t entirely sure about this either. So many things here were bizarre and supernatural; survival often meant chasing a mere possibility.

But if I let Lu A’yao suffer just because I was afraid of a little bloodletting, that wouldn’t be me.

I gently pushed He Yu aside. “It’s fine. I feel okay right now. We don’t have anything else to treat Corpse Poison. Since Old Lu mentioned it, I want to try. Even if it doesn’t cure it, easing the symptoms would be a good thing.”

“It’s just a little blood. I’ll apply it to the wound. It’s not like I’m draining myself dry. Don’t worry, it’ll be fine,” I added, gripping the knife and patting He Yu’s shoulder to reassure him.

I moved to roll up Lu A’yao’s sleeve. Beneath the skin near the wound, dark veins had already begun to spread. Fortunately, the toxin wasn’t spreading quickly. There were still some traces of my blood on his arm from when I’d accidentally brushed against him earlier.

He Yu looked at me with a complicated expression, but he didn’t stop me again. Instead, he shifted his position, stepping over Lu A’yao to the other side to help me roll up the sleeve and fully expose the wound.

I gripped the blade like a kitchen cleaver, trying to find the right angle. On one hand, I had no medical experience and was terrified of nicking an artery and causing a hemorrhage. If that happened, both Lu A’yao and I would be finished.

On the other hand, I had absolutely no self-harming tendencies. Cutting myself was a genuine challenge.

Finally, I handed the knife to He Yu and held out my left hand. “I can’t do it, my legs are a bit shaky. You do it. Just avoid the artery, cut wherever else you need to.”

He Yu looked at me like a heartless butcher eyeing a pig on his chopping block. He weighed the knife in his hand a few times and said, “Get some gauze. Hold it under the wound. If any extra blood drips down, we can reuse it.”

I looked back, and Chen Canghai efficiently folded several layers of gauze and handed them to me.

I braced myself. He Yu’s hand moved with practiced speed, making a quick slice across a specific spot on my palm. His technique was remarkably professional. I watched as the blood welled up and began to flow, and before I even felt the pain, the blood was already dripping into Lu A’yao’s blackened wound.

A wound infected by Corpse Poison must have been excruciating. The muscles in Lu A’yao’s arm began to spasm almost instantly. It seemed to be having an effect. He Yu quickly gripped his arm tightly, while Chen Canghai moved fast to pin down his shoulders.

As the blood began to overflow, He Yu stopped squeezing my hand. I wrapped my palm in gauze and turned my attention to Lu A’yao. He was drenched in sweat, his muscles trembling uncontrollably from the pain. Yet, he gritted his teeth and didn’t make a sound. The only noise in the tomb robber’s tunnel was the sound of heavy breathing.

Chen Canghai and He Yu held him down for a full twenty minutes before the pain from the wound finally began to subside. Taking advantage of Lu A’yao’s numbness, He Yu quickly swapped positions with me and expertly snapped Lu A’yao’s dislocated right wrist back into place.

We helped him lean back into a wider section of the tunnel to rest. The three of us turned off our extra flashlights and leaned against the tunnel walls, panting. We left only one light on for illumination.

“Not bad, Dr. He. I didn’t realize you were a man of such hidden talents!” I teased.

He waved his hand with mock humility. “Please, Student Gan, don’t say that. I’ve only studied the basics. Occasionally setting a bone or checking a pulse is nothing special, really nothing special at all!”

“Don’t get cocky. I give you a compliment and you start acting like a big shot,” I laughed.

He Yu’s smile faded. “But seriously, your blood actually seemed to work on Old Lu’s wound. I can guarantee that a normal person’s blood would never have that effect. Tell me the truth, did your grandfather feed you something special when you were a kid?”

I snorted. “How is that possible? I’m just like anyone else. When I was little, I was the easiest one in the family to raise. I wasn’t a picky eater at all. My grandfather didn’t know anything about herbal medicine, let alone feeding me strange things.”

“Then how do you explain your blood? It’s not like you’re a walking ginseng root,” He Yu wondered.

“You bastard,” I reached out to swat him. “You’re the walking ginseng root! If Lu A’yao hadn’t said anything, I wouldn’t have known my blood could do that either.”

I quietly looked away, glancing at the unconscious Lu A’yao. I wasn’t sure if it was just my imagination, but the color of his wound seemed to be fading.

In truth, I was the one who should be most surprised by the fact that my blood could neutralize poison. This “special ability” actually frightened me. It made me feel like something was wrong with my body, and that whatever it was had caused my blood to change.

When did this change begin?

It might have been the mycelium that had bound me earlier. Those filaments had tiny hairs on them, and I didn’t know their exact function. Our theory about them being hallucinogenic was just a guess. I couldn’t be sure there weren’t other effects. For instance, back in Shennongjia, I had accidentally eaten some of that fungal mass while hallucinating.

But that fungal mass had tasted different from the white mycelium here. I vaguely remembered that what I’d swallowed then was so bitter it could make a person cry on the spot, whereas the mycelium here just smelled like ordinary mushrooms.

Furthermore, because I’d been unconscious, there were several gaps in my memory. If someone had secretly fed me something during those periods, I would have been none the wiser.

I rubbed my leg and took the opportunity to remove the splint Tian Xiaoqi had made for me. I fashioned a new one with fresh gauze and tied it securely.

“I think we need to have a serious talk with Lu A’yao once he wakes up,” I said solemnly. “We can’t leave this place as ignorant as we were when we entered. At the very least, we need to know who the master of this underground palace really is.”

Chen Canghai sat there with his eyes closed, resting. All three of us were exhausted, and the conversation gradually died out. After a while, I was on the verge of nodding off when He Yu shifted closer to me.

He hooked his finger under the gauze covering my palm and peeled it back to take a look. Seeing that the bleeding had stopped, he finally breathed a sigh of relief. He patted my shoulder and said softly, “It is good the bleeding stopped. I did not really want you to draw blood earlier. I know you want to save him, but in a situation like this, we have no choice but to consider the implications.”

Having been together for so long, I naturally understood that He Yu was truly looking out for me. In a place like this, weakness was the greatest danger, and blood loss meant potential weakness. I also realized that among us, He Yu was the only one who saw the reality of our relationships with such clarity.

He knew a great deal, but in this regard, he chose to keep his mouth shut.

He Yu glanced at me, then propped himself up and moved past me to sit beside Lu A’yao. He lifted the man’s clothing to show me. There were many wounds on his arm, and it was hard to tell which were new and which were old.

“If it were just Corpse Poison, he should not be this weak. What actually caused him to lose consciousness is the combination of old wounds that have not healed and new ones flaring up. The Lu family has a custom of soaking their children in medicinal wine from a young age, so the Corpse Poison in his system is spreading slower than it would in a normal person. It should not be a problem for him to hold on until we get out.”

“Little Yao, do you understand why I am telling you this?” He Yu paused, covering Lu A’yao back up, and continued.

“After leaving Shennongjia, he went somewhere else and was seriously injured. That is why he teamed up with Han Jian to gather information and recover. But he never mentioned any of this to us. I think you might be placing too much importance on him. Have you considered what would happen if those three copper coins did not exist? If you risked excessive blood loss to save him now, but he still chose to pursue his own goals in the end, what would we do?”