The Artist, Nurse Edition

Yujia ended up eating two of the sweet buns and filling herself with that. Zixu did tell her before he fainted that he preferred eating salty foods, so it would be best to leave the salty buns for him. 

By the time that she finished the second bun, she was also feeling quite full, so Yujia cleaned her hands, observed the area where she was burnt, then poured herself a cup of tea, carefully drinking the contents.

After all that, the servant boy finally returned, holding a neatly tied paper package filled with herbs. 

Yujia looked at this. If she wanted to be the reason for why Zixu recovered, it would be better if she was more involved in his process of recovery than the little amount of actions she took so far. But honestly, she couldn't quite think of a decent excuse to stay any longer than she did now. 

The servant did think that she was only here because she was waiting for him to buy her burn ointment. Otherwise, Yujia, as what the servant perceived to be a simple acquaintance of his young master, should have no reason to stay behind for Yu Zixu.

However, when the servant handed her the ointment in a tiny canister, he heard someone calling out for him from outside the courtyard. He hurried out, and a few moments later, when he returned, he had an unpleasant expression on his face. His eyebrows were tightly knitted in worry and his jaw was tight. 

Yujia asked out of pure curiosity, "What happened?" 

The servant replied, "Oh, Noble, I just… heard that… my little sister— she has always been ill— and she became more sick…" 

"Oh." 

Yujia paused. This was not good news to hear. Yu Zixu was sick, and now so was the younger sister of this servant. She also doubted that the servant would even receive this news unless something bad had seriously happened to his sister. It seemed like they needed his presence. Otherwise, they wouldn't send a message into the villa. 

Yet at the same time, she couldn't help but think that this was the perfect opportunity for her. Yuija felt bad for part of her thoughts coming up with this idea. She quickly covered up her guilt with the argument that she was being reasonable and resourceful here. 

So, she nodded at the servant, "You should go take care of your little sister. Check up on her, at the very least."

"But I can't…" the boy muttered, "I'm the only servant that Young Master allows in his room. All the other servants can at most, step foot in his yard, but only for basic chores. If I leave, then Young Master won't have anyone else to take care of him…"

How peculiar was that? Yujia had her suspicions about Zixu enjoying the solitude when she noticed that there were no servants in his courtyard. She attributed this to his desire to not be disturbed while studying before, but it just seemed like Zixu valued his privacy overall, even on normal days. 

Nevertheless, this was all to her benefit as well. 

Yujia gave an encouraging smile to the servant, urging, "You should still go. I'll take care of Noble Yu. Like the doctor said, it's nothing serious. Your little sister, on the other hand…"

"But Noble—" the servant continued with reluctance. 

"I owe your young master a favor," Yujia decided to reveal, "so I might as well pay it off now. Don't worry, I'll be careful with him. Also, it seems like your young master has a lot of books that I've been wanting to read, so it's a good opportunity for me."

"If that's the case, then…"

She waved her hand. "Go. Just go." 

"Then Noble, I'll send the medicine to the kitchens to have it prepared— just make sure Young Master is fine— if anything too serious happens, do call a servant—"

"Definitely."

The servant bowed deeply with gratitude. Yujia only felt more guilt layer on her. It seemed like the servant perceived her actions as pure kindness from the heart, but in reality, it was more like for her own selfish reasons. He didn't seem to perceive her genuine reasons for why she wanted to stay as her true motives, but rather excuses to get him to be willing to go visit his sister. 

Because of this, she swiftly told the servant to rise and urged him to leave. 

A moment later, Yujia found herself alone with Zixu again. But at least this time, she had something to do with herself other than just waiting around. 

She opened the canister of burn ointment, dipping the tip of her finger in it and smoothing it out over her skin. Whatever herbs used to make it had a cooling effect, since it did help her scalded skin feel better. It was a similar feeling as to when she dipped her hand into cool water. The ointment did have a strong herbal scent to it, but Yujia was able to ignore the scent soon enough. 

Once she was finished with her self-treatment, Yujia went back to Zixu's side, checking if he was okay. He was still sound asleep. To keep herself occupied still, Yujia went to her desk and straightened a few of the books. Zixu, who was usually an organized person from what she had seen of him, actually had a messy desk this time. Books and a few scrolls were thrown all over, some of them opened, some of them closed, and some of them even folded. 

Yujia simply straightened and stacked the books and scrolls and papers up. She also cleaned out a brush that he had been using to write with earlier but forgot to rinse. 

Now that this part was neatened up, Yujia decided to head over to the kitchens to check on the medicine the servant had sent over to be cooked.

…

Yujia found her way to the kitchens with some help from a passing servant. At the kitchens, she watched the finishing preparation of the medicine being cooked to liquid form. This procedure was one she was quite familiar with, considering that she had seen Hui'er do it in the Fourth Miss's courtyard quite a few times. Depending on the extracted medicine, a varying amount of time would be needed to prepare it. Hui'er used to spend hours on some special ones. 

At the thought of Hui'er, Yujia's heart couldn't help but twinge a bit. After everything she had seen with the personal servants, such as the servant boy of Zixu or even Yunhe's personal servants, she missed the companionship of Hui'er. Whenever she became bored, at times, she would often think about Hui'er. It was wonderful to have someone she could talk to. Above all, Hui'er was the only person who knew the complete truth about Yujia.

But Yujia dismissed those feelings soon enough, keeping herself busy with the task of how to help Zixu recover. 

The medicine finished cooking. A maid scooped up a large amount into a bowl, putting it on a tray and handing it to Yujia. 

"This is it," she noted, "And thank you so much, Noble, for doing this."

It hit Yujia that they must've thought of her as somewhat unordinary. Not many nobles would be out there taking care of people. Maybe, in the eyes of an outsider, it would seem like there was something more to the relationship between her and Zixu. Maybe it would seem much more scandalous to outsiders since Yujia was also under the identity of a male.  

Thus, Yujia made it clear, "No problem. I am only repaying a favor."

…

She returned to Zixu's courtyard, finding him still asleep, to no surprise. 

Yujia sat the tray down on the nearby table, holding her unburnt hand over the bowl and feeling the drifts of steam curl around her fingertips. The medicine was definitely burning, as it just came out of the stove. The extraction of this liquid concoction only took about half an hour, which was certainly on the quicker side of things. 

Zixu was still asleep. She considered waking him up to feed him the medicine, but it felt like he needed sleep more right now. Besides, the medicine was a little too hot for consumption, so she might as well wait for it to cool before giving it to him. 

She let the medicine cool on the table and took a seat back by Zixu's side. Her hand reached out to move the damp cloth on his head, and to take his general temperature again, though she knew that the chances of his fever being gone were unlikely. It just worried her that his forehead burnt so much, especially because it seemed like more than the usual temperature of a fever. She hoped that it would go down soon.

Except, when she reached out to move the cloth, mumbles escaping Zixu's mouth startled her. 

Her hand froze, attention focusing on what Zixu was saying. He spoke in such a low voice that his words came out in barely more than a whisper, somewhat slurred as well. She wouldn't have noticed if she wasn't so close to him.

Yet amongst his mumbles, Yujia managed to catch on a few of them. 

"Mother… no… don't go…"