Months had passed.
Zhao Shuning suddenly found herself so close to Yan Ruyu.
She wasn't quite used to it.
Naturally, she was caught off guard.
"Master, why aren't you saying anything?"
Yan Ruyu pushed Zhao Shuning away and asked, "Do you act like this with all men?"
Zhao Shuning was at a loss for words.
She said faintly, "If that's what you think, then so be it."
After saying that,
she folded her arms and walked to the lakeside with a rather dejected look, then sat down.
Seeing Zhao Shuning so dejected,
Yan Ruyu stepped forward and asked, "What's wrong with you?"
Zhao Shuning buried her head between her legs.
She said in a low voice, "It's nothing. I'm just a bit scared."
"Scared of what?"
Scared of what? Scared that she would never see that person again in the future, scared that she couldn't go back. Now that she was sick and couldn't find the cause, she always suffered from sudden angina.
Zhao Shuning even worried that before she could find the way back, her life might end here.
"Master, do you believe that there will be someone in this world who likes you more than anything else?"
Yan Ruyu stood facing the lake.
He replied faintly, "I don't believe it."
"You don't believe it now, but you will in the future."
The girl in front of him seemed strange. She buried her face between her legs and talked to him in a low voice.
"Luo Qiu, are you—all right?"
"Master, I'm scared."
"You—"
There was a sob in Zhao Shuning's voice.
"I'm afraid I can never go back. I'm afraid I'll never see you again. I'm even more afraid of what you'll do without me."
Yan Ruyu reached out his hand.
He wanted to help Zhao Shuning up.
But Zhao Shuning showed no intention of getting up.
Her body seemed to be trembling.
"Look up and look at me."
Zhao Shuning shook her head desperately, and her body trembled even more violently.
"What on earth is wrong with you?"
Yan Ruyu forcefully reached out and pulled Zhao Shuning up.
Only then did he notice that the front of the woman's clothes was already stained with blood, and there was still a continuous stream of fresh blood oozing from her mouth.
"How could this be?"
Yan Ruyu quickly picked Zhao Shuning up horizontally.
With a sudden movement, he disappeared by the lake.
He placed Zhao Shuning in a cave and used a night pearl to make the whole cave extremely bright.
There was still blood oozing from Zhao Shuning's mouth.
She didn't know what was wrong with herself.
She had run out cheerfully. She knew that her master was waiting for her outside, so she was in a good mood when she came out.
However,
when she only saw his back,
the feeling of chest tightness and pain became even stronger.
She endured it forcefully and greeted Yan Ruyu with a smile.
But later, the pain in her chest became so severe that she had no choice but to bury her head between her legs, not wanting Yan Ruyu to notice her abnormality.
What followed was even worse.
The pain in her chest turned into a fishy taste in her throat.
She tried her best to hold it back.
But the fresh blood still flowed down the corner of her lips.
After Yan Ruyu laid Zhao Shuning flat, he began to refine pills with divine fire. He put his spiritual power into Zhao Shuning's body.
When he opened his eyes again,
there was a hint of anger in his eyes.
Zhao Shuning had been poisoned by a Gu.
Moreover, it wasn't just one Gu.
This kind of Gu poison was extremely difficult to refine. Without the strength of a ninth-rank alchemist, it was absolutely impossible to refine it successfully.
Who on earth had she offended to incur such revenge?
Once the Gu poison entered the blood vessels, there was only one way left for her.
Zhao Shuning had fainted from the pain several times. When she woke up this time, she saw Yan Ruyu in front of her.
It seemed as if she had returned to a long time ago.
She was lying in bed, and Yan Ruyu was taking good care of her.
"You're awake."
Although there was some concern hidden in his tone, it still sounded so cold.
Zhao Shuning's consciousness finally woke up completely.
Now she hadn't returned to her own world yet.
Now she was still Luo Feiyan.
"Master."
"You've been poisoned by a Gu. Do you know that?"
Gu poison?
Zhao Shuning struggled to sit up from the bed.
It seemed as if she had thought of something.
With a pale face, she asked weakly, "What kind of Gu?"
"Golden Silkworm Gu."
"Golden Silkworm Gu? It shouldn't be a big deal. I can crack it."
"You can crack it?" Yan Ruyu's tone was a bit serious. He then said, "What if this Golden Silkworm Gu is combined with a medicine curse?"
Zhao Shuning was stunned.
She had never heard of a medicine curse.
"Master?"
"I'll try my best to help you."
But Zhao Shuning knew that if her master could solve it, he wouldn't have shown such an expression.
She didn't know what a medicine curse was.
She only knew that since even her master was so on guard, this medicine curse must not be an ordinary poison.
However, what if she really couldn't save her own life? Anyway, everyone would die one day. It was just that she couldn't let go of too many people.
"Master, I'm fine—"
Yan Ruyu said, "You should have a good rest first. I'll go to the mountain stream to see if there are any spiritual herbs that can temporarily suppress the medicine curse."
"Okay."
Zhao Shuning was surprisingly obedient.
She lay down obediently.
The pain in her chest started again.
But she knew that she couldn't let her master worry about her anymore.
Yan Ruyu went into the mountain stream and had been looking for the spiritual herbs that could suppress the Gu poison and the medicine curse.
If it was just the Golden Silkworm Gu, any alchemist above the eighth rank could solve it.
But this time was different.
The Golden Silkworm Gu was just a trigger. The following medicine curse was the real deadly one. It would quietly dissolve all the pills refined by alchemists, leaving the Golden Silkworm Gu without any enemies.
Once the Golden Silkworm Gu had no enemies, it would reproduce crazily.
The Golden Silkworm Gu fed on human flesh and blood. At first, it was in a dormant stage, so the person who was poisoned by it wouldn't notice.
But later, after it woke up, it would start to reproduce.
It would start to devour the person's blood vessels.
It was different from the bone-eating worm, but it was the ancestor of the bone-eating worm.
Normally, the Golden Silkworm Gu could be forced out with internal strength. But with the addition of the medicine curse, everything was messed up.
Under the protection of the medicine curse, the Golden Silkworm Gu would become more and more unscrupulous.
In the end, the body that contained the Golden Silkworm Gu would surely become extremely mutilated. When the Golden Silkworm Gu broke out of the body, it would also be the time of its death.
"Who on earth did she offend?"
No matter who she had offended, he would do his best to save her.
Because Yan Ruyu found that
seeing her in pain and hearing her dejected voice, his own emotions seemed to be affected.
He didn't know if he had developed different feelings for his disciple now, but he knew that what he had to do now was to do his best to crack this inhumane forbidden witchcraft of Gu.
Only after she survived could he consider the future.