The King's Mate - Part 2: Yaoshi

Chapter 25

Once Hua Cheng was done re-adjusting and bracing his gege's bones, he carefully picked him up, and brought him over to the bathtub that had indeed been drained in the meantime.

Hua Cheng toed his boots off and stepped into the empty bathtub in order to place his gege in it as gently as he could, taking care not to accidentally bang that precious head against the stone. When he'd made sure his gege was lying in a comfortable position, he double checked the braces and bones, to make sure that everything was still in place. Then, he placed two fingers on Xie Lian's forehead and created a seal. It was one YanLi had taught him in the very beginning, and apparently it was one that huli jing used frequently in order to make their offspring sleep through the night. Therefore, it was proven to be incredibly safe and Hua Cheng could rest assured it wouldn't cause any harm to his gege. The only thing the seal did was to have him see some beautiful dreams, and ensure he wouldn't wake up until his body was in much less pain.

When he was done, the crease between his gege's eyebrows seemed to have eased a little, which made Hua Cheng feel rather relieved. He then created a butterfly to watch over his gege before he went back to the laboratory. He needed to hurry up because he didn't want his gege to get cold, even if he was still unconscious and couldn't really feel anything. He certainly didn't need to put any more strain on his body.

Hua Cheng and YanLi had spent over half a year researching an antidote to the demonic poison, and while they had indeed managed to find one method that actually worked, it was one that was rather intrusive and had magic at its basis, not natural medicine, like Hua Cheng would have preferred. If Hua Cheng had the option, he'd rather have his gege not come into contact with any of this magic bullshit whatsoever, but unfortunately, Hua Cheng didn't have an option now. Maybe he would find another solution eventually, but he didn't have the luxury of time, and he refused to use his gege for an experiment.

But it took time for the magical antidote to take effect, and the execution consisted of four steps. Luckily, he had most of what he needed here, though the one thing that was missing, was the most crucial part of the medicine.

Thus, Hua Cheng made another impromptu appearance in his throne room, and ordered the guards to send people out to gather as much jiaogulan as they could find within the next three hours, but at least two baskets. He was aware that it was an incredibly tall order, given how rare the immortality herb was, but that wasn't Hua Cheng's problem. They'd just have to figure something out.

While the immortality herb was essentially unknown outside the barrier, its existence was common knowledge to the inhabitants of Yaoshi. After all, it was commonly used to treat all sorts of ailments demons could have. Which was why it was so rare nowadays; it simply had been used too much and it needed years to grow into the herb that was actually useful for medicinal purposes.

However, Hua Cheng had been the first to try and infuse it with spiritual energy, turning it into something much more valuable. He'd discovered that, in combination with certain other, more common herbs, and when high enough doses got absorbed by human skin, it could reverse the effects of the demonic poison and even repel it from the body completely. Of course, there also needed to be treatment from inside the body, but Hua Cheng had found that a certain five-leaf ginseng tea was enough to ensure the safety of a human's organs from the poison.

The humans Hua Cheng had tested on had been forced to drink the concoction three times a day, and some of them had developed a bit of a weak bladder as a result, so Hua Cheng decided to cautiously try and have his gege drink four cups of it instead, hoping that would be enough to eliminate any such side effects. There shouldn't be any negative reactions to the tea itself, though he could only hope that his gege wouldn't respond too badly to the herbal mixture he was soon going to take a bath in.