Chapter 123: Chapter 124: Sister, you're kind of a pitfall for your brother.

A few days later in the morning, as Qi Yue had just sat down in the pharmacy, Qu Wei suddenly burst in and dragged her away.

“What are you doing? Stop pulling and dragging me.”

“You still have the mind to sit here? Zhao Xiyan is leaving!”

A bolt of fear struck Qi Yue, feeling as if a lightning split her heart.

“Come, I’ll take you to him!”

Qu Wei grabbed her and they both got into a carriage.

At first, Qi Yue was somewhat dazed, but she soon regained her senses.

“Stop the carriage, go back!”

Qu Wei made the driver stop the horses and spoke earnestly, “You asked me to be like a brother to you, and I have. Are you planning to live like this forever?”

“That’s not impossible. A lifetime is not that long.” Qi Yue maintained her composure.

“I’ve never seen anyone like you; I doubt if it’s you whose brain is damaged,” Qu Wei sighed and rubbed the back of his head.

“…”

Half a Shichen later, both of them still rode towards Longfugou.

This place was the last fork before leaving Longnan County for the Capital City.

Qi Yue spotted him immediately among the crowd.

When he arrived, he was a prisoner, clad in rags, utterly forlorn; now, however, he sat on a tall horse, dressed in beautiful clothes, surrounded by followers.

White armor, a steed of the finest breed, a black mask.

A handsome man, looking noble even on horseback,

Through the dense woods, Qi Yue watched that spot of white move swiftly towards the direction of the Capital City; he quickly disappeared from sight.

“Zhao Xiyan, may you have enduring joy and health, long-lasting happiness…”

She articulated each word of her blessing, her brain spun, nearly causing her to fall off her horse.

She fell sick…, and only after three days did she manage to get out of bed.

The first thing she did was to see patients non-stop for three days to make up for her absence.

The second thing was to perform surgery on Qu Wei.

“Qu Wei, you should know that there’s something in your brain, right?”

“Hmm.”

“The weather’s good today; let me take it out for you,” Qi Yue said, her fingers pinching a teacup, her gaze fixed on the distant horizon.

“Take out? How?” Qu Wei covered the back of his head.

“It means opening a hole in your head, taking out what’s inside, and then you’ll never have a headache again.”

Qu Wei paled with shock, “I’d be dead, of course, I wouldn’t feel pain.”

“It seems you don’t trust me.” Qi Yue put down her teacup indifferently and got up to leave, “Then you might as well wait to die.”

Qu Wei caught up with her.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, I’m worried about your condition,” Qu Wei said doubtfully, pointing at her face, “You look like an unfeeling stone, I’m afraid you might snap me…”

“Do you know why I always said the time wasn’t right before?”

“Why?”

“Performing brain surgery, the worst fears are emotional and mental disturbances, a sudden thought could turn your brain into mush…”

“Alright, alright, I’ll do it, happy now?”

“Follow me!”

….

The surgery went smoothly, now with the aid of a space-time assistant, even the most dangerous operations were within Qi Yue’s reach.

After an intense eight Shichen, Qi Yue finally extracted an object the size of an adult’s thumb from the back of Qu Wei’s head.

After cleaning the blood, the object was revealed to be a transparent casing containing a black insect the size of a fingernail, underneath which was a large pile of black sesame-like spots with tiny white tips poking out, seemingly ready to emerge.

This insect had been injured by her Ghost Gate Needle, and in its final moments, it had produced such a large brood.

Truly malicious.

If it had not been removed, Qu Wei’s brain would have been completely infested with insects.

Qi Yue, her face expressionless, threw the capsule into a wide-angle glass jar and sealed the lid.

After finishing the cleanup, the medical assistant suddenly spoke, it neck twisting peculiarly.

“Master, how did the casing around this insect form? Did you create it?”

“No, it was already there when I stabbed the insect.”

“What an outstanding Stimulation Technique, had it not been for this layer, this man would have likely been hollowed out by the insect long ago.”

Qi Yue hummed a response, Huang Zai’an’s aged face flashed in her mind.

Stimulation Technique?

The old man still had some tricks up his sleeve, keeping secrets from her?

Hmph, he can forget about consuming pills made from the Spiritual Spring Water!

Several Shichen later, a recovering Qu Wei gazed at the insect in the jar, retching for half a Shichen.

“Ugh…ugh…”

Qi Yue, in a good mood, handed him a cup of Spiritual Spring Water, and the guy drank it and exclaimed in delight.

“Give me another cup!”

“One cup, one thousand taels. Still want more?”

“Yes,” Qu Wei gritted his teeth.

Qi Yue ended up earning four thousand taels from him before she stopped.

But Qu Wei looked radiant after drinking.

“Sister, you kind of ripped me off, remember how you treated Zhao…”

Realizing he had misspoken, Qu Wei instantly stopped himself, but saw Qi Yue looking calm, as if she hadn’t heard.

He tentatively asked a question.

“Sister, have you really gotten over that ungrateful guy?”

“Don’t talk about him like that. There were no debts of gratitude between us, I just wanted to be kind to him at that time, that’s all.”

“What about now?”

Qi Yue paused for a moment, then said after a while, “Haven’t thought about it.”

Qu Wei laughed.

“Looks like you have really let go, brother is happy for you.”

“What are you happy about? It’s not your concern anyway.” Qi Yue gave him a glare.

Qu Wei gave a sheepish smile.

“So what, can’t this brother change his role?”

“You can dream, go ahead and dream.”

“Okay okay, I’ll stop talking,” Qu Wei begged for mercy. “Sister, I never talked to you about my family, right?”

“Not interested.”

Qu Wei’s face fell and he pointed at the wide-mouth bottle containing the insects.

“Don’t you want to know how this thing ended up in my head?”

“Does it have to do with your family background?”

“Yeah.”

Qi Yue sat down on another chair across a small table and looked at the insects.

“Then go ahead and tell me.”

The coating had already broken, and the bottle was teeming with dense spots of black and white.

Qi Yue, who used to have trypophobia, seemed completely unfazed.

She thought, getting heartbroken and deadening your emotions has its perks; after cutting off some feelings, a person can become stronger.

Qu Wei narrated a story with a voice that was intended to be light-hearted, but seemed rather exaggerated.

The Grand Tutor of the Capital City had a strong penchant for beauties among the commoners in his early years.

He was benevolent and generous, sowing his seeds in many places, which resulted in a slew of sons and daughters.

By unofficial counts, the Grand Tutor had more children than the Emperor.

To conceal the truth, the Grand Tutor acknowledged these abandoned commoner sons as his adopted sons and placed them in significant roles at the Imperial Court.

The daughters were recognized as adopted daughters, either sent to the palace to vie for favor or married off to princes and nobles as concubines or wives.

But there was one person and his mother who were exceptions.

After the Grand Tutor’s men came knocking, his mother took him and fled.

This strong-willed woman would rather wander the streets and beg for a living than surrender her son.

In the end, she was hacked to death by the Grand Tutor’s men and her remains thrown into a valley to feed the wolves.

The boy watched his mother die a horrible death, and hatred took root in his heart.

The second year after returning to the Lin Residence, someone falsely accused him of planning to kill the Grand Tutor.

He was suspected by the Grand Tutor himself, and so he was thrown into the Snake and Insect Pit, suffering bites for seven continuous days.

But he survived in the end, although he often suffered severe headaches afterward.

The Grand Tutor, because he passed the test, did not trouble him too much and found him a doctor, but the headaches were never cured.

Later on, he heard about Huang Zai’an’s whereabouts and came to the Northern Ridge, where he stayed for over a decade.

Qi Yue listened silently, then fluttered her eyelids.

“Just say it was you, why go ‘that child, that person…'”

“Isn’t that just for narrative effect?”

“What effect, exactly? So, did you really try to kill the Grand Tutor?”

“I did,” Qu Wei sighed, “I should have prepared more thoroughly before taking action.”

“No wonder, so you’ve been brainless since you were young.”

“You’re my sister, can’t you leave a little room in your words?”

“If I gave you room, where would I stand?”

“You…”