Just in time, she also wanted to meet that legendary old hunter who had retired due to injury and was known for his eccentric personality. It was said that he was very well-informed about news from Yunzhou.
The wind deep in the mountains carried a faint, murderous chill.
Chen Zui followed behind Chen Laosan, stepping unevenly on the thick layer of decaying leaves. The forest was eerily silent—no birdsong at all—only the heavy breathing of father and daughter.
“Xiao Liu, we’re almost at the area where that old hunter usually stays.” Chen Laosan stopped, wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, and pointed at a chaotic field of jagged rocks ahead. “But that man is strange… he usually doesn’t meet people…”
Before he could finish, Chen Zui’s small nose suddenly twitched twice.
In the air, besides the stench of rotting leaves, there was also a strong, fresh metallic smell.
Blood.
Human blood.
“Dad, over there!” Chen Zui pointed to a bush on the right side of the rocky area. There was a clear dragging mark, and the leaves were stained with glaring red blood.
Chen Laosan’s heart tightened. He gripped his woodcutting knife and carefully moved forward with his daughter.
They pushed aside the bushes.
A man in coarse hemp clothing, covered in blood, was leaning against a large boulder. His face was pale as paper, his lips a deathly gray-purple. His chest rose and fell weakly—more air leaving than entering.
It was Uncle Qin.
His right thigh was a mangled mess, as if a wild beast had torn away a large chunk of flesh, exposing bone. Blood gushed out like an open faucet, soaking the ground beneath him into a dark red mud.
“Old Qin!”
Chen Laosan cried out. His knife clattered to the ground. Though he was a farmer, he had never seen such a horrific injury before. His legs went weak; he reached out instinctively to cover the wound but didn’t dare touch it, frozen in panic.
“It’s over… the bleeding won’t stop… he’s going to die…” Chen Laosan’s voice trembled with fear.
But Chen Zui remained calm, as if she were an outsider.
She quickly scanned the wound.
The femoral artery was damaged. If the bleeding continued for five more minutes, not even a god could save him.
“Dad! Your belt—take it off!”
Her childish but commanding shout jolted Chen Laosan.
“What?”
“Your belt! Hurry!”
Chen Zui rushed forward and grabbed his waistband.
Chen Laosan instinctively untied his rope belt.
Chen Zui snatched it and immediately knelt beside Uncle Qin. She did not touch the wound directly. Instead, she wrapped the belt around the area about three inches above the injury, quickly looping it twice and tying a slip knot.
Then she picked up a sturdy short wooden stick, inserted it into the knot, and began twisting it tightly.
One turn. Two turns.
As the belt tightened, the violent bleeding visibly slowed, becoming a seep instead of a spray.
“Dad! Get water! Clean water to wash the wound! Hurry!” she shouted without turning back.
Chen Laosan, completely panicked, obeyed without question. He grabbed two empty bamboo tubes and stumbled toward the nearby stream.
After sending her father away, Chen Zui’s expression sharpened.
She focused inward and accessed her space.
She took out a bottle of highly concentrated spiritual spring water she had prepared long ago, along with a bottle of Yunnan Baiyao powder and two strong antibiotics. She quickly crushed the pills between stones and mixed them into the powder.
By now, Uncle Qin had fallen into shock from blood loss, his eyes closed.
Chen Zui opened the bottle and poured the spiritual spring water generously over the gruesome wound.
Sss—.
The water touched the torn flesh, not causing convulsions of pain, but instead forming a cooling layer that quickly stopped the remaining seepage. Even the blackened necrotic tissue seemed to regain a faint trace of vitality.
She evenly sprinkled the mixed medicinal powder over the wound, then tore a clean piece of his clothing and expertly bandaged it with pressure.
Only then did she sit back, breathing heavily and wiping sweat from her forehead.
A three-year-old body was still too weak for this level of emergency treatment.
“Water… water’s here!” Chen Laosan returned breathlessly, holding bamboo tubes filled with water.
He froze when he saw it.
The bleeding had stopped. The wound was tightly and neatly bandaged.
“This… the bleeding stopped?” he asked in disbelief.
Chen Zui handed him the remaining half bottle of “medicine powder” (actually just ordinary ash mixed with herbs, used as a cover story).
“A white-bearded old grandfather in my dreams taught me,” she said, blinking innocently. “He said it’s a method to stop bleeding. Dad, give Uncle Qin some water.”
Chen Laosan now completely believed in that “immortal old man.” He quickly lifted Uncle Qin and fed him water.
Chen Zui secretly added a drop of spiritual spring water into it.
As the water went down, Uncle Qin’s eyelids trembled. A hoarse groan escaped his throat.
Slowly, he opened his eyes.
The first thing he felt wasn’t pain, but a warm current flowing through his body. The leg he had thought was doomed even felt faintly itchy.
“Old San?” his voice was rough like sand.
“Old Qin! You’re awake! You scared me to death!” Chen Laosan was almost in tears. “It’s all thanks to Xiao Liu—she stopped your bleeding!”
Uncle Qin turned his head and looked at the little girl sitting on the rock, slightly exhausted.
Three years old?
She saved his life?
As someone who lived on the edge of death, he knew exactly how fatal that injury had been. A black bear had torn into him—his artery should have meant certain death. Yet now, the wound felt strangely cool and alive.
And that faint medicinal scent he had smelled while unconscious…
He sat up slowly, eyes narrowing as he examined the carefully tied bandage.
That knot was professional—far beyond what a rural man or a three-year-old child should be capable of.
“Little girl,” he said, studying her intently, “what medicine did you use?”
Chen Zui met his gaze calmly.
“Wild herbs from the mountain. A white-bearded old grandfather taught me how to mix them,” she said, lifting the remaining herb residue.
Uncle Qin looked at the ordinary herbs, then at her unusually deep eyes.
He didn’t expose her.
Some experts in this world chose not to reveal themselves. But this life-saving favor was real.
“I, Qin Tieshan, owe the Chen family a life.”
He took out a sheathed dagger from his chest—his lifelong companion—and handed it to her.
“From today on, within these ten miles, just say the word. I, Qin Tieshan, will go through fire and water without hesitation.”
Chen Laosan was about to refuse, but Chen Zui reached out and accepted it.
That was exactly what she wanted.
“Uncle Qin, no need for mountains of fire or seas of knives,” she said sweetly, hanging the dagger at her waist. “I just want to ask you for information sometimes. Don’t get annoyed with me.”
Qin Tieshan burst out laughing. The movement tugged at his wound, making him wince in pain, but the gloom in his eyes was gone.
“Good! Straightforward! I like straightforward people!”
Chen Laosan scratched his head as he watched the two of them. Somehow, his daughter’s aura felt even stronger than the old hunter’s.
“Dad, Uncle Qin is badly injured and can’t walk,” Chen Zui said, pointing toward the mountain path. “We need to make a stretcher and carry him down.”
“Alright! Dad’s strong!” Chen Laosan immediately went to cut branches.
Watching her father work, Chen Zui lightly touched the dagger at her waist.
With Qin Tieshan’s connection, the mysterious Yunzhou intelligence network had just opened a crack.
But they didn’t know that while father and daughter were saving someone in the mountains, trouble was already brewing back at their thatched cottage.
Aunt Zhang, the eldest uncle’s wife, had not gotten any meat and was itching with frustration. She remembered the strange aroma from the pancakes Chen Dayi had made two days ago, and her eyes rolled with greed.
“Dabao, you’re clever,” she said in a low voice, calling over her eldest son, Chen Dabao, who had once been thrown into a mud pit by Chen Zui.
“When they go into the mountains, go squat under the window of their kitchen.”
Her eyes gleamed with calculation.
“Find out what exactly that little brat is putting in those pancakes. If we get that recipe, our branch of the family will be able to get rich too!”