Chapter 17: Poisoned

Qingyun gently laid the damp cloth over Yueli’s burning forehead. Watching the slight easing of her brows at the touch of coolness, Qingyun’s hands did not stop moving.

Her mind sank into her consciousness as she swiftly opened the system shop interface.

Her gaze swept rapidly through the pill category, passing over those expensive medicinal pills meant for cultivation, until it finally locked onto an entry labeled 【Clear Spirit Pill (Common Grade)】.

Exchange price: 20 Spirit Source.

She did not hesitate much. With a shift of thought, she chose to exchange for it.

Her 【Spirit Source Reserve】dropped from 76 points to 56.

At the same time, a pale green pill the size of a longan, smooth in color and giving off a faint fragrance of herbs and grass, appeared out of thin air in the palm of her other hand.

This Clear Spirit Pill was not a cultivation pill, and it offered no help at all in increasing one’s cultivation.

It had only two effects: calming the mind and gently nourishing the meridians.

It was one of the most basic common medicinal pills used for conditioning the body.

Why choose this, if Yueli merely had a fever?

Because Qingyun had discovered something strange. The reason was not simply that Yueli had caught a chill and developed a high fever.

Just now, while wiping her down to reduce the fever, Qingyun had subconsciously circulated that wisp of spiritual qi she had only just introduced into her body. Through the contact at her fingertips, she made the roughest possible probe into Yueli’s physical condition.

And the moment she did, her heart sank heavily.

Yueli’s illness was absolutely not as simple as having caught a chill.

Her body radiated an extreme kind of weakness from deep within.

This weakness was not the ordinary frailty that followed illness. It was a kind of near-fundamental debility.

Her meridians were abnormally thin and fragile, as though they would snap at the slightest touch. Her heart beat slowly and weakly, while her qi and blood moved sluggishly and with obstruction.

Her entire body resembled a decaying pavilion whose foundations had long since been hollowed out, barely preserving an outward appearance of wholeness.

What frightened Qingyun even more was that at the moment her spiritual qi made contact, an extremely subtle yet profoundly unpleasant chill and stagnation fed back along that thread of spiritual qi.

With her current cultivation and knowledge, she could not judge exactly what it was. But combined with all the abnormalities displayed by Yueli’s body, a dreadful guess rose in her heart—

Poison.

And not poison that had been introduced only today.

This toxin had likely lurked within her body for a very long time, wearing away at her vitality day after day and gnawing steadily at her foundation until her body had been ruined to this extent.

Judging from her present constitution, if nothing changed, she likely would not live past the age of twenty.

“Damn it... what exactly was going on with Yueli in the original story?”

Qingyun knitted her brows tightly and tried to dig through the chaotic fragments of memory from her former life.

To her sorrow, she discovered that aside from a few vague labels—“Yueli is the heroine,” “she will stand at the summit with the male lead in the future,” “she once bathed the Bai Residence in blood”—everything else was blank. The details, especially of her early years and bodily condition, were nothing but emptiness.

But there was one thing she could now almost certainly conclude.

The root of the future blood-deep hatred between Yueli and the Bai family was very likely buried within this poison, which was slowly eating away at her life day after day.

Who had done it?

Who in a great household could poison a young miss over such a long period of time without being discovered?

Qingyun’s thoughts raced.

Though she had only just arrived, she could already tell that this Eldest Young Miss lived an extremely closed-off life, with almost no contact with the outside world.

The food? It was delivered each day by Huzi...

Huzi? That dark, honest-looking boy?

No. Her intuition told her that was unlikely.

Huzi was only the one who carried the meals. If the problem truly lay in the food, then too many hands would have touched it. That would make discovery easier, and it would also make it difficult to target Yueli alone.

“I am afraid... the problem still lies with her ‘family.’”

Qingyun’s expression turned faintly strange as her thoughts flashed to Master Bai, who was said to have ignored Yueli completely and had even deprived her of the Bai surname.

A tiger would not eat its own cubs?

In a great household like this, for the sake of profit, power, or some unspeakable secret, what could people not do?

A chill rose along her spine.

“Forget it. Without solid proof, there is no use spinning wild guesses.”

She shook her head and forcibly calmed herself.

To speak honestly, she did not want to be drawn into this terrifying vortex, which so clearly involved family secrets and perhaps even the plotting of a child’s death.

All she wanted was to cultivate quietly, gather strength, and seek a chance to leave—or at the very least, gain enough power to protect herself.

By the logic of such stories, the future male lead would appear eventually. When that time came, he would naturally find a way to help Yueli remove the poison and take revenge.

Why should she go out of her way and invite a fatal disaster upon herself?

Exchanging for this Clear Spirit Pill would simply count as doing what little she could for someone living under the same roof, and indulging that tiny bit of sympathy she had not yet lost.

At least it might spare Yueli some suffering for the moment.

As for removing the poison?

That was not something Qingyun ought to worry about, nor something she even could worry about.

With that thought, she steadied herself.

Carefully, she helped Yueli sit up and let her lean into the crook of her arm.

Yueli’s consciousness was muddled. She only instinctively nestled against that support, which carried a faint coolness.

Qingyun brought the pill to her lips and coaxed softly, “Young Miss, open your mouth. You will feel better after taking this.”

Perhaps the high fever had stripped away her wariness. Or perhaps the natural scent of herbs rising from the pill soothed her.

Yueli parted her dry lips slightly.

Seizing the chance, Qingyun fed the pill into her mouth and followed it with a small spoonful of warm water.

The pill melted the instant it entered, turning into a gentle warm current that slid down her throat.

Once all that was done, Qingyun gently laid Yueli back down and tucked the blanket securely around her.

Seeing that Yueli’s breathing seemed a little steadier under the effect of the pill, and that the tight knot in her brow had loosened somewhat, Qingyun felt that she had already done all that could reasonably be expected of her.

She picked up the basin of water, took the oil lamp, and turned to leave this place of trouble, intending to return to her own little corner of the world and continue cultivating.

The time lost tonight would have to be made up tomorrow.

But just as she was about to step out the door—

A burning hot yet surprisingly forceful little hand suddenly shot out from the bedside and seized the wrist of the hand with which she carried the basin!

That hand was very thin, the fingers slender. From how hard they gripped, the knuckles had turned pale. It was damp with the sweat of illness and blazing with feverish heat, yet it clung to her with desperate strength, as though grasping the last piece of driftwood in a flood.

At the same time, an indistinct murmur came from the bed, thick with dependence and panic:

“Mother... do not... do not leave Lier... all right...?”

Qingyun’s whole body stiffened, and her step froze in place.

The force and heat of that hand at her wrist, together with that helpless plea, were like a fine needle piercing clean through the defenses she had only just managed to build up.