Chapter 712: Chapter 240 New Year’s Eve_2
"But I don’t have an antidote," Lu Tong looked at her, her voice had an almost imperceptible tremble, "and I can’t make an antidote."
It was her own blood, her own poison, if she couldn’t cure herself, how could she cure Lady Yun’s poison?
Lady Yun glanced at her sideways, "What are you afraid of?" She said with a faint smile, "I was already close to death."
Lu Tong was taken aback,
Gradually, streaks of blood seeped from the corner of Lady Yun’s lips, which she carelessly brushed away.
"After I die, Little Shiqi, remember to burn the medical books and notes in my room and bury them with me, okay? Just bury me together with the previous sixteen," she said.
"Those notes of the Poison Scripture are a waste to leave behind for the world. It’s better for them to leave with me. Luomei Peak is vast, I’m afraid of being alone."
Lu Tong listened in a daze.
She looked at Lu Tong again, her smile cryptic yet tender, "Little Shiqi, you’re truly impressive. I didn’t expect you to last this long on Luomei Peak."
"You’re my last Medicine Man, and also my first disciple. I’m very satisfied with you."
"I am the first life on your hands, Little Shiqi, from today on, you are the same kind of person as me."
She smiled faintly, "Congratulations, you have graduated."
Lu Tong looked at her blankly, feeling a bit of a sting in her eyes, yet they were dry with not a single tear, only somewhat bewildered.
More and more blood oozed from the woman’s lips, she sighed lightly, and slowly closed her eyes.
Lady Yun was dead.
Dead from the poison she had mixed her own blood into.
Lu Tong no longer cried aloud as she had when Wu Yun died; she numbly got up to tidy up Lady Yun’s body and change her clothes. It was then that she saw the scars on Lady Yun’s body.
Large burn scars were on Lady Yun’s body, which shouldn’t have allowed her to live this long considering the injuries at that time. Lu Tong slowly realized that perhaps over the past seven years, or even longer, Lady Yun had been hanging on to life with poison, but drinking poison to quench thirst would eventually come to an end.
That’s why before her death, she wanted to see with her own eyes Lu Tong "graduate."
Flames devoured the thatched cottage where Lady Yun had lived, those carefully collected medical texts and pharmacology turning to ash in the fire. Lu Tong knelt before the grave, and when she was about to carve the epitaph, suddenly stopped.
What exactly was her relationship to Lady Yun?
She had spent a full seven years on Luomei Peak, and Lady Yun had been a part of those years, turning her into someone else. She had hated Lady Yun, had been grateful to her, and on some snowy, cold days, she might have even understood the woman’s loneliness in a fleeting moment.
In the end, she carved the words "Honored Teacher" into the tombstone.
No matter the original intention, all the medical skills and Poison Scripture Pharmacology she possessed were the result of those seven years on Luomei Peak. Lady Yun had taught her many things she hadn’t seen when she was young: a gambler father selling his daughter’s corpse for silver, a worthless son secretly poisoning his bedridden father to unload a burden, a woman willing to spend a lot of gold to save her marriage by having a son, a scholar poisoning his brother for inheritance...
She had seen a lot.
And thus gradually came to understand that things in the world are not entirely bright, the hearts of people are more treacherous than mountains and rivers, more difficult to predict than the heavens. Even as seasons have their times, humans conceal their true faces and emotions.
The truths not understood in the books of youth became clear as she wandered through the markets.
Life taught her patience, taught her to be ruthlessly decisive, taught her to protect herself. That’s why, after returning to Changwu County, she could resolve to boldly head to the capital without looking back.
If she had not been taken away by Lady Yun, maybe when faced with a situation like this, her first reaction would have been like Lu Qian’s, to seek justice from authorities. But she was taken by Lady Yun, and those soups she had unwillingly drunk on Luomei Peak’s nights, the bodies at Mass Burial Mound, the tears and fear, finally transformed her into a different Lu Tong.
She only wanted revenge.
By an odd twist of fate, it seemed to be predestined.
In this mortal world, with its joys and sorrows, rises and falls, Lady Yun had become much more than a simple matter of love and hate for her.
"Actually, I... am very afraid," she murmured softly.
She had killed someone, the first person she had killed, a life taken by her hands. Lady Yun’s words before her death hung over her like a curse, echoing constantly in her mind.
"From today on, you are just like me."
"Congratulations, you have graduated."
She guarded this secret fear, but tonight, she suddenly grew tired of hiding it, allowing herself to be honest in front of the other person.
The long night stretched on, lantern light reflecting off the bright snow, with a faint glimmer of moonlight through the clouds, shining on the two people beneath the tree.
"Don’t be afraid."
A hand reached out, gently cupping her face.
Lu Tong lifted her head, the person before her lowered their gaze, reaching up to wipe away the tear at the corner of her eye.
She belatedly realized, not knowing when, that she had shed tears.