✓ | DAWN OF US | Four (6 Underground)

➳ NINE

心血来潮
(xīn xuè lái cháo)
spur of the moment; on a whim

FOUR CRADLED YVETTE TO HIS BODY, TUCKING HER IN HIS ARMS. They hurried back in the car as soon as Yvette had went limp in his arms, trying to squeeze inside the small, cramped vehicle.

"We need a Hospital o-or a place Five can perform a surgery," Four stammered, trying to apply pressure on the bullet wound at the side of her body.

"On it," Three said, slamming his foot down on the gas as the car lurched forward.

Yvette woke up with a startling gasp, eyes unfocused as she blindly reached an arm out to her bag.

"Zero, talk to me," Four said. "What do you need?"

"We're taking you somewhere Five can patch you up," Two said from the backseat.

"No," Yvette rasped out, wheezing in pain. "Take — me — to — Zhi Ruo." She hissed when her hand swiped against her wound instead.

     "Let me," Four said, opening her bag for her and taking out her tablet she used rather frequently. "Here."

     Yvette groaned again, vertigo hitting her. Her hand felt heavy as she struggled to type the address for them to follow. "Zhi Ruo," she said again, her breaths coming short as she neared unconsciousness again.

     Seven yanked the device from her hand and said, "Zero, tell me the name again and I'll find it for you — I'm sure it's here somewhere."

     "Wang Zhi Ruo," was the last thing she said before she fainted once again.

THE HOUSE OF THE HEALER, HONG KONG

     There was the smell of moxa burning nearby, and an herb Yvette recognized to be salvia. Her entire body felt heavy when she was roused to wake — eyes still shut close yet her senses alive enough. Her wound felt patched over — as though someone had crushed the leaves of a salvia plant and smothered it on her wound for healing.

There were people talking somewhere around her — questions thrown curiously as a familiar older woman answered back in a heavily accented voice.

"What's that you put on her bullet wound?" Five asked.

"Salvia," replied the older woman, her voice strong despite the years that grayed her hair.

"And this — this thing you're burning?" One asked, unsure of what exactly to call it.

"It's called moxibustion," Yvette spoke up, cracking an eye open to find her team all cramped inside the little house, leaning against the wall or table with grime still streaking across their clothes and face. "It improves the flow of Qi in the body."

"Jiang Ying Yue," said the healer, approaching the young woman whose eyes now shifted over to her. It's been a while since Yvette has heard someone call her by her Chinese name.

"Wang yijia," Yvette greeted her politely and formally by her title as Healer Wang, bowing slightly with difficulty. "I'm sorry for barging in so suddenly, I wouldn't have come to you if it wasn't an emergency." The healer only spoke in Mandarin Chinese, Yvette remembered this detail from so many years ago.

Zhi Ruo was perhaps nearly a hundred years old, hair streaked with silver and white that was pulled back into a bun to reveal sharp brown eyes and thin lips. She smiled kindly at Yvette — someone she's always doted on whenever she'd get treatment and massages after every kung fu and taekwondo class.