Although Su Daqiang and his group had been driven away, Su Jinxiu knew it was only temporary.
If she did not quickly earn money and escape, then once those terrible relatives recovered their senses—or once Huo Chen’s enemies found them—they would both be finished.
And worst of all—
They were starving.
One bottle of glucose solution was enough to keep her from fainting, but her stomach was growling louder than an opera singer on stage.
“Husband.”
Su Jinxiu looked at Huo Chen’s complexion, which was no longer as pale as before. Her eyes rolled slightly as an idea formed in her mind.
“I think although your leg injury is serious, you can’t just lie around all day. You need to promote blood circulation. Books say moderate activity helps bone healing.”
She spoke complete nonsense with a perfectly serious expression.
Leaning against the bedhead, Huo Chen looked at her with an amused half-smile.
“So?”
“So, let’s go into the mountains!” Su Jinxiu finally revealed her true intention. “There are lots of medicinal herbs in the back mountain. I’ll gather some to sell and maybe find some wild game to nourish your body. You can stay beside me and… keep watch?”
In truth, she had her eyes on Huo Chen’s combat ability.
Even though the tyrant was currently heavily injured, a starving camel was still bigger than a horse. If Su Daqiang had really attacked earlier, one stone shard from Huo Chen probably would have sliced open his carotid artery.
Bringing him along was basically equivalent to carrying a free top-tier bodyguard and radar system.
Huo Chen looked deeply at her.
This woman was clearly greedy for money and terrified of death, yet she insisted on dressing it up in righteous words.
Still, he also needed to understand the surrounding terrain. If assassins caught up to him, familiarity with the environment could mean survival.
“Fine,” he replied concisely.
…
Half an hour later.
Su Jinxiu found a broken wooden board and fashioned a crude wheelchair out of it—really just a plank with two half-rotten logs attached underneath. Panting heavily, she pushed Huo Chen up the mountain.
The forest was dense, sunlight filtering through layers of leaves into scattered fragments of gold.
While using her scanning ability to search for valuable herbs, Su Jinxiu also had to keep an eye on the demanding tyrant beside her.
【Ding—Wild notoginseng discovered. Estimated age: three years. Estimated value: fifty copper coins.】
【Ding—One paris polyphylla discovered. Estimated age: five years. Estimated value: one hundred copper coins.】
Though the profits were small, Su Jinxiu dug enthusiastically.
No matter how tiny a mosquito’s leg was, it was still meat.
Huo Chen sat on the broken wooden board, casually playing with two stones he had picked up somewhere. His expression seemed lazy, but his gaze was sharp as an eagle’s, observing every movement in the forest.
Suddenly, Su Jinxiu froze.
She had reached toward a stalk of dendrobium growing from a crack in the rocks, completely unaware that above her, a brightly colored triangular-headed venomous snake was silently lowering itself from a branch, tongue flickering. It was less than half a foot from her neck.
In that instant, the chilling sensation of being targeted by a top predator made her entire body stiffen.
As a doctor, she knew exactly how deadly that snake’s venom was.
One bite in this ancient world without antivenom, and she could start writing her will immediately.
“Hiss—”
The snake suddenly shot forward!
Whoosh!
A sharp sound cut through the air.
Su Jinxiu only felt a powerful gust brush past her ear, followed immediately by a dull thud.
The venomous snake’s head was pierced straight through by a stone. Like a rotten rope, it dropped beside her feet with a smack, its body still writhing violently.
Su Jinxiu jumped three feet into the air in terror, her face pale white.
She spun around abruptly and saw Huo Chen still sitting in the exact same posture as before, as though he had not been the one who threw the stone at all. His expression remained indifferent to an outrageous degree.
“Husband!”
This time, Su Jinxiu’s legs truly went weak. She rushed over, grabbed his thigh, and started wailing dramatically.
“You’re incredible! That accuracy! That power! Even a god descending to earth wouldn’t be any more impressive! If not for you, I’d already be dead today! Wuwuwu…”
Huo Chen’s brows twitched violently from her exaggerated praise, and even the tips of his ears faintly warmed.
“Shut up,” he said awkwardly while turning his head aside. “You’re noisy.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll shut up.”
Su Jinxiu immediately obeyed, though her sparkling eyes remained full of admiration.
(Actually, she was just excited about securing a golden thigh to rely on.)
Just as the two prepared to continue deeper into the mountains, a burst of chaotic shouting and groaning suddenly came from a nearby part of the forest.
“Ow… there’s too much blood…”
“Hurry! Carry him down the mountain to find a doctor!”
“There’s no time! At this rate, he’ll die before reaching town!”
Su Jinxiu’s ears twitched.
An injured patient?
To her, that was basically walking merit points.
Without another word, she pushed Huo Chen straight toward the commotion. The ride was so bumpy Huo Chen nearly flew off the wooden board, his face darkening instantly.
This woman had been terrified moments ago, but the instant she heard someone was injured, she became energized like she had been injected with stimulants.
When they arrived, several hunters were gathered around a blood-covered man.
The man’s thigh had been ripped open by a wild boar’s tusk, blood spraying out endlessly. His face had already turned grayish white, and he was clearly on the verge of shock.
“Move aside!”
Su Jinxiu shouted loudly, and somehow her commanding presence stunned the panicked hunters into silence.
She rushed in and immediately assessed the injury.
Femoral artery damage.
“If you don’t want him to die, then shut up and step back!”
Ignoring the filth, Su Jinxiu dropped to her knees and pressed both thumbs precisely against the injured man’s groin area at the top of the thigh.
“Anyone who doesn’t want him to die, shut up and step back!”
Ignoring the dirt on the ground, Su Jinxiu knelt immediately and pressed both thumbs precisely against the injured man’s groin area at the root of his thigh.
The blood that had been spurting out instantly slowed, until only a slight trickle remained.
The hunters around them were dumbfounded.
What kind of sorcery was this? One press and the bleeding stopped?
“Who has clean cloth? And strong liquor!” Su Jinxiu shouted without turning back.
“Yes! We do!”
With everyone’s cooperation, Su Jinxiu used the silver needles she carried with her—actually the same set she had used earlier to scare Su Daqiang—and swiftly sealed several major acupoints around the wound. Combined with hemostatic powder secretly taken from her medical space, she forcibly dragged the man back from death’s door.
Half an hour later, the injured man’s breathing had stabilized, and the bleeding had completely stopped.
The hunters’ gazes toward Su Jinxiu had already changed from curiosity to reverence, as if they were looking at a living bodhisattva.
“A divine doctor! Madam Su, your skills are even better than the old physician from Huichun Hall in town!”
The lead hunter was so grateful he nearly burst into tears. He insisted on giving her a freshly caught wild rabbit along with a string of copper coins.
“This is our thanks. Please, you must accept it!”
Su Jinxiu did not refuse. Smiling happily, she accepted them.
“Saving one life is worth more than building a seven-story pagoda. You’re all too kind.”
After the hunters finally left with endless thanks, Su Jinxiu weighed the copper coins in her hand and looked at the fat rabbit with delight.
There would be meat for dinner tonight!
But when she turned around, she found Huo Chen staring at her with deep, unreadable eyes.
“You know how to stop bleeding, identify acupoints, and even treat fatal injuries.” Huo Chen’s voice was soft, yet carried an undeniable pressure. “Su Jinxiu, a peasant woman who has supposedly never left the village—where did you learn these skills?”
Su Jinxiu’s heart pounded wildly.
As expected, this tyrant was not easy to fool.
She took a deep breath, quickly putting on her usual expression of affection and innocence. Walking over to Huo Chen, she crouched down and looked up at him.
“Husband, if I told you an immortal old deity taught me in my dreams, would you believe me?”
Huo Chen let out a cold laugh, clearly unconvinced.
Su Jinxiu sighed softly, her eyes becoming distant.
“Actually… it was because of you.”
“Me?”
“Ever since I brought you home and saw how badly injured you were, I couldn’t sleep from worry. So I started reading the discarded medical books from the barefoot doctor at the village entrance. I studied them day and night. Even when I couldn’t understand them, I memorized them by force.”
She reached out and gently held Huo Chen’s rough, calloused hands.
“When I was saving that hunter just now, all I could think about was you. I kept wondering… if my medical skills were better, maybe my husband wouldn’t have to suffer so much.”
Seven parts truth, three parts lies.
The truth was that she really did want to heal him—for the sake of staying alive. The lie was where those medical skills came from.
Huo Chen looked into her eyes, which seemed to contain countless stars. Even though he knew this woman rarely spoke honestly, at that moment, a crack still formed in the hardened shell around his heart.
No one had ever fought so hard just to make him “suffer a little less.”
Those people only wanted him dead—or wanted to use the blade in his hand.
After a long silence, he withdrew his hand and avoided her gaze.
“Let’s go home.”
Although his voice remained cold, the sharp pressure from before had softened considerably.