Chapter 262: Chapter 110: A Guest in Wind and Snow_3
The handkerchief was of a woman’s style, a light blue one embroidered with hibiscus branches. Women’s personal handkerchiefs often carry the scent of fragrant powders or are perfumed, yet this one merely had a faint herbal aroma, identical to the austere medicinal fragrance on Lu Tong.
Pei Yunmeng grasped the handkerchief and wiped the wound on his shoulder with the back of his hand.
The bloodstains were wiped off bit by bit, revealing the fierce wound. Lu Tong could see it clearly: the arrow wound stretched diagonally upwards—he must have been struck in the back.
After cleaning his wound, Pei Yunmeng set down the handkerchief and picked up the medicine bottle to sprinkle the powder on his shoulder. With one hand less convenient to use, half the powder fell on the wound and the rest on the floor.
Leaning against the table’s edge, Lu Tong watched his actions with a cold eye before suddenly speaking up, "Wasteful extravagance."
Pei Yunmeng: "..."
Feeling both irritated and amused, he said, "Doctor Lu, although we can hardly call each other friends, we are at least acquainted."
"Treating an injured person this way isn’t very nice."
Outside the window, the wind and snow grew heavier. The frigid wind opened the window even further, and a layer of white frost began accumulating on the eaves. Through the weak glow of the lantern, one could see the heavy snow dancing throughout the courtyard.
Under the flickering lamp in the room, the figure beneath the window was hazy. A snowflake drifted in through the crack in the window, landing on a tied-up lock of hair and quickly vanishing from sight.
Lu Tong stood up and walked behind Pei Yunmeng, taking the medicine bottle from his hands.
Pei Yunmeng was startled.
Lu Tong calmly said, "Medical herbs are expensive, if you keep wasting them, you’ll have to pay fifty taels more to buy another bottle."
The ingredients in the medicine Pei Yunmeng held were not precious, but they were quite troublesome to make.
She always couldn’t stand to see others waste medicine.
Upon hearing this, Pei Yunmeng didn’t say anything. He simply turned his head and smiled, "Thank you, Doctor Lu."
Lu Tong stood behind Pei Yunmeng. His shoulders were broad, and the military garment he wore outlined an impressively handsome figure. His skin, unlike that of the frail and pale scholars, seemed conditioned from years of martial training—firm with a balanced muscular texture, exuding strength.
Lu Tong placed one hand on his shoulder.
Pei Yunmeng’s body tensed slightly.
The next moment, Lu Tong lifted her hand, and with a "rip," she tore a large piece from the already torn black garment, along with the flesh that had stuck to it because of the blood.
Pei Yunmeng drew in a sharp breath.
"It’s just a minor injury," said Lu Tong as she picked up the medicine bottle and evenly sprinkled it over his wound, "Why overreact, Marshal?"
Pei Yunmeng looked back, frowning at Lu Tong, "Is Doctor Lu settling personal scores?"
"Why would I?" Lu Tong replied as she put the stopper back in the bottle and placed it in Pei Yunmeng’s palm, smiling slightly, "Applying medicine can be painful. Lord Pei, don’t eschew treatment over fear of discomfort."
Pei Yunmeng stared at her for a long while, then after a moment, with a self-deprecating nod, he said, "Alright, Doctor Lu has the final say."
Lu Tong’s eyes flickered slightly.
She had deliberately been heavy-handed to cause Pei Yunmeng pain, yet he was still able to converse with her amiably. His temperance was indeed first-rate.
The wound needed to be bandaged after applying the medicine. Lu Tong cut some white silk for bandaging from the medical box and went behind Pei Yunmeng to wrap the bandages for him.
Pei Yunmeng seemed reluctant to have overly intimate contact with others, intentionally or unintentionally maintaining a slight distance. However, Lu Tong had no such concerns, reaching her hand around Pei Yunmeng’s shoulder and arm from behind to skillfully wrap the bandage.
Speaking of which, the wound on Pei Yunmeng’s shoulder wasn’t too deep, but there was another ferocious scar from a knife wound below the shoulder on his back, likely an old injury. Both the new and the old injuries together must have been hard to endure, but throughout the night, Pei Yunmeng hadn’t shown the slightest hint of pain.
Perhaps such injuries were trivial to him, or perhaps, he simply had the tolerance for it.
After trimming the edge of the bandaged white silk, Lu Tong casually asked, "Have you had an old injury here?"
Pei Yunmeng paused before answering, "Yes."
Lu Tong glanced at the old knife scar. It was very deep. She didn’t know who had sewn it up for him, but the stitching was a mess, just like her clumsy needlework as a child—hammer and tongs, crooked and uneven, branded on Pei Yunmeng’s back like a comical dark-red ink stain.
She said, "It looks as though an enemy sewed it for you."
The stitching was so bad it seemed deliberately done.
On hearing this, Pei Yunmeng seemed to remember something. The dimples by his lips became more pronounced as he smiled, "You could say that. The doctor was a young girl, new to medicine, certainly not as good as you, but with a vengeful heart as strong as yours."
The oil lamp on the table was nearly spent. Lu Tong stood up to fetch another from the cabinet. While she poured in the oil, she asked, "What did you do to make her want revenge on you?"
Pei Yunmeng thought for a moment, "It wasn’t much, a few years ago I was being chased down and wounded in Su Nan; I hid in a pile of corpses behind the execution ground. There, I encountered a Little Thief who was stealing corpses."
"She saved me and treated my wounds, though somewhat reluctantly."
Lu Tong started, oil pouring over her hand as she forgot to strike a flame to light it.
In an instant, memories rushed in like a lightning bolt tearing through layers of snow, and distant images surfaced before her, illuminating the whirling snowflakes around her.
Pei Yunmeng, however, was unaware and glanced out the window.
In the snowy night of Shengjing, the faint light of a lamp by the window made the heavy snow falling outside seem endless, the eaves and ground adorned in frosted silver, blanketing the world in a desolate chill.
His voice was as light and quiet as the snow.
"On the day I met her, it was also snowing."
As if to punctuate his words, the whooshing snowflakes flew in through the window gap to the table, specks of frost falling into the lantern, casting a ripple tinged with a cold aura.
He turned toward Lu Tong and spoke with a smile.
"That was a heavy snow in Su Nan, rare to see in ten years."
Lu Tong abruptly raised her eyes.
In an instant, snowflakes covered the wick, and the last bit of light wobbled.
The candlelight went out.