Chapter 16: Falling Ill

The dead of night made the secluded courtyard feel even lonelier.

Inside the side room, Qingyun sat cross-legged on the hard wooden bed, her mind calm as she once again attempted to draw qi into her body.

Compared with the awkwardness and difficulty of the night before, this time she was clearly much more practiced.

Her breathing was long and steady, her thoughts focused, and her awareness of the sparse pale green and blue spiritual qi in the air had grown somewhat clearer.

The process of guiding that spiritual qi into her body was still slow, but the resistance had lessened considerably, and her efficiency had improved.

So this is the advantage of having good spirit root aptitude?

A trace of understanding passed through Qingyun’s mind.

No wonder all those immortal cultivation novels placed so much importance on spirit root aptitude.

When the starting point itself differed, the difficulty and speed of cultivation truly were worlds apart.

It seemed that her “one in ten thousand” mutated dual spirit root was not an empty claim. At the very least, when it came to sensing and absorbing spiritual qi, she genuinely possessed a natural advantage.

A faint joy rose in her heart.

At this rate, perhaps it would not be long before she could stabilize her state of drawing qi into the body and formally step into the first level of the Qi Refining Realm?

However, that state of focused cultivation did not last long.

From the direction of the outer hall came an extremely faint, yet unusually clear, sound.

“Cough... cough, cough, cough...”

It was the sound of someone suppressing a cough.

The owner of the voice was clearly doing everything possible to keep the frail sound from carrying beyond the room. But in the silence of the night—especially to Qingyun, whose senses seemed to have sharpened slightly after drawing qi into her body—that sound was exceptionally distinct.

It was Yueli.

That girl... why has she started coughing? She was perfectly fine at supper.

Qingyun frowned, a thread of doubt flashing through her heart.

Instinctively, she wanted to pretend she had heard nothing and continue cultivating.

After all, had that Eldest Young Miss not worn that distant, prickly expression all day? Why should she go out of her way only to be rejected again?

Yet for some reason, the image of Yueli sitting alone in the pavilion during the day, wrapped in her fox-fur cloak, thin and slight, along with that awkward sentence—“You do not need to do any other work”—suddenly surfaced in her mind.

“Tch...”

Qingyun clicked her tongue irritably, and all thought of cultivation scattered completely.

In the end, she still could not bring herself to ignore it entirely.

Perhaps it was that bit of conscience in her that had not yet been worn away. Perhaps it was an early investment in light of the girl’s future “fearsome reputation.”

Or perhaps she simply could not turn a blind eye to a child who sounded genuinely ill.

She was not entirely sure herself.

Halting her cultivation, she quickly put on her outer clothes, picked up the dim oil lamp from the table, pushed open the door of the side room, and hurried toward Yueli’s door.

The closer she got, the clearer and more urgent the coughing became, enough to make one’s heart tighten.

It was no longer the sound of a suppressed light cough. It had turned hoarse and painful, each burst heavy and stifled.

“Cough! Cough, cough, cough—!”

Qingyun hesitated no longer and raised her hand to knock on the door. “Young Miss? Are you all right?”

“I’m not—mmph—!”

A short cry came from inside, followed at once by the muffled sound of someone forcibly holding back another fit of coughing, along with the rustle of struggling movement. It sounded as though Yueli wanted to respond, only to have the illness choke the words back.

“Young Miss, I am coming in.”

When no proper reply came for some time, Qingyun’s heart sank further, and she pushed open the door without waiting any longer.

The yellow glow of the oil lamp drove back the darkness at the doorway and illuminated the scene inside.

Yueli was curled up on the bed, her tiny body wrapped tightly in the quilt, yet still shivering uncontrollably.

Her silver-white hair lay scattered messily across the pillow. Her originally porcelain-pale little face was now flushed with an unnatural red, while her lips had almost lost all color.

Her eyes were squeezed shut, her brows knotted in pain, and every cough made her frail body heave violently.

Hearing the door open and footsteps approach, she managed with difficulty to pry her eyes open a sliver. In the dimness, those golden eyes had lost their focus, looking vacant and fragile.

Qingyun’s heart dropped sharply.

This was no simple chill!

She hurried to the bedside, no longer caring about the distinction between mistress and servant, and directly reached out to feel Yueli’s forehead.

The skin beneath her fingers was burning hot, so hot it startled her.

“Hiss—so hot!” Qingyun snatched her hand back, her brows knitting even tighter. “She really has a fever, and it is this severe!”

She is this sick, and she still insisted she was fine? Truly, she would rather suffer than yield even a little.

“Ah, a dignified Eldest Young Miss of the Bai family...” Qingyun let out a sigh, her tone full of helplessness and a trace of urgency she did not even realize had entered it.

It was already deep into the night. Going to the dispensary to fetch a physician or medicine was simply impossible now.

This remote courtyard rarely showed even an extra shadow by day; at this hour, there was no hope of finding help at all.

She dared not delay. First, she carefully set the oil lamp on the low cabinet beside the bed, steadying the light.

Then she quickly went to the outer room, ladled half a basin of cool water from the water jar, and hurried into the kitchen.

Fortunately, there were still embers left in the little stove. With practiced hands, she added a few thin sticks of firewood, blew them alight, and set a kettle over the fire.

During the brief wait for the water to heat, she returned to the bedside. Looking at Yueli’s little face, twisted in pain from the fever and coughing, that lingering irritation she had felt during the day because of the girl’s awkward behavior had already vanished like smoke, leaving behind nothing but pure worry.

The water soon warmed enough. Qingyun mixed a basin of water at a suitable temperature, carried it back inside, and set it down by the bed.

She wrung out a clean cloth and folded it neatly.

“Young Miss, please bear with it for a moment. Let me wipe your face first and help bring the fever down.”

Speaking softly, she gently laid the warm cloth across Yueli’s burning forehead.

“Mm...”

Yueli let out a vague murmur. The sudden coolness seemed to give her a little relief, and the tight knot between her brows eased slightly.

Qingyun changed to another cloth and carefully wiped down Yueli’s neck and arms, helping lower her fever.

From time to time, cool droplets fell and made faint dripping sounds in the silent room.

Half-conscious, Yueli forced her heavy eyelids open.

Her vision was blurred. All she could make out was a hazy figure seated by the bed, bending over and busily tending to her.

The lamplight spread around that figure in a warm halo. Her movements were gentle, and she brought with her a coolness that made one feel strangely safe.

In her daze, a warm image buried deep in Yueli’s heart, one that had almost faded with time, overlapped with the scene before her eyes.

Her dry, cracked lips moved slightly. In a voice as faint as a thread, full of a child’s dependence and frailty in a dream, she mumbled two words:

“Mother... is that you?”

Qingyun’s hand, still wringing out the cloth, suddenly stopped.

She lowered her head and looked at the girl lying on the bed. Those golden eyes, usually filled with distance and wariness, were now only half-open and utterly unfocused, holding nothing but the confusion and longing burned out by the high fever.

Qingyun was silent for a moment. She did not answer. She merely wrung out the cloth again until it was cooler, then gently laid it once more across Yueli’s forehead.

It seemed... she really was quite badly ill. She was already speaking nonsense.