007: The most honorable man in the Imperial City is a Taoist?_1

Oh my god!

What kind of spirit had she bound herself to!

It even eats people! And to think it had just deceived her by claiming to be a decent spirit!

[Of course not!] Little Baba was quite agitated as he said, [My lord, the Yin Family are not omnivores! How could they possibly eat people!]

"That's good to hear," Mu Qingli sighed in relief, then she flattened the cattails on both sides and walked over to kick a leg, which then moved.

Um.

It was a live one.

Not dead.

Could this be the same person she had saved in her past life?

The most esteemed man in the Imperial City that Mu Lanke had spoken of?

Mu Qingli slightly frowned; something did not seem quite right.

She clearly remembered the man from her former life reeking of alcohol and clamoring to hang himself.

This time, this man had clearly sustained external injuries.

Mu Qingli bent down slightly and gently turned the man over, only to see that he had grown a full beard. The beard was so thick that it almost covered his original appearance, yet his skin was quite pale, almost as light as Mu Qingli's hand, with a high and straight nose.

He was dressed in a very common flaxen robe, which, considering his attire, made him look somewhat like a practitioner from the nearby Hua Mountain's Taoist Temple.

Of course, if it weren't for the thick beard, he would look even more like a practitioner.

Looking at him now, um... he looked more like a bandit.

His actual age was completely indiscernible.

Looking at this bearded face, Mu Qingli cupped her chin and frowned slightly. Were the Taoists these days so unrestrained and wild?

"Wake up," Mu Qingli said as she gently patted his face.

The man's face was pale, his lips devoid of color, and his breathing was very weak, having already fallen into a coma.

In these wild mountains and ridges, if left unattended, he would face nothing but death.

Without delay, Mu Qingli turned the man's body back over and laid him down properly, then proceeded to tear open the clothes on his body.

Once his clothes were ripped, the wounds on the man's body were fully exposed.

There were more than a dozen wounds of various sizes on his body, fortunately none of them fatal. His lapse into unconsciousness was due to a chronic ailment he had.

This ailment was an incurable disease.

There were several days each month when he suffered from the disease, each occasion leaving him feeling worse than death, with excruciating pain.

At this moment, it was precisely the time when his disease flared up.

In the eyes of others, this might be an incurable disease, but in Mu Qingli's hands, it was merely a trifle, curable with a single herbal medicine.

Mu Qingli's lips curved slightly as she patted the man's face, "Big Beard, consider yourself lucky to have met me. But let's settle this first; in case you die from my treatment, you can't blame me!" After all, every treatment carried certain risks.

The man gave no response, with his eyes tightly closed.

"If you don't answer, I'll take it as you agree," she said.

Mu Qingli first found an herb that stopped bleeding and reduced inflammation, chewed it in her mouth to crush it, and then applied it to the man's wounds. Given the limited conditions on the mountain, Mu Qingli reluctantly tore off the hem of her T-shirt and wrapped the man's wounds.

Lucky for her, her T-shirt was long enough that, once she tucked the hem into her jeans, nothing seemed amiss.

With the external injuries all treated, the next step was to address the stubborn illness inside him.

Mu Qingli was familiar with the mountain and remembered having seen an herb nearby that was specifically used to treat this kind of illness.

Wondering if it was still available this season, she stood up and searched the surrounding area.

Before long, Mu Qingli spotted the familiar herb and her lips curled slightly, "Big Beard, count your lucky stars!"

After finding the herbs, Mu Qingli squatted beside the man, examined the herbs, and then looked at the man, her expression showing difficulty.

Because the antidote had to be taken orally.

That meant she needed to chew it up and then feed it to the man...

However, Mu Qingli only hesitated for a brief moment.

Quickly, she chewed the antidote, pried open Big Beard's mouth, and crammed all of it into his mouth.

Grandmother used to say there's no distinction of gender in front of a doctor.

Indeed, Mu Qingli had learned all her medical skills by following her grandmother.

In Mu Qingli's eyes, her grandmother was a legendary figure. Though uneducated, she was smart, self-taught many characters, was reasonable, and she was also a Spiritualist and a doctor of traditional medicine.

Both traditional medicine and spiritualist techniques were passed down through her grandmother's ancestors.

At thirty-five, grandmother had become a widow, and in those years of scarcity, she remained so for fifty-eight years. As a woman on her own, she raised seven sons and one daughter to adulthood, married them off, and saw them have children—a feat many women nowadays couldn't achieve, but grandmother did.

Anyone with a headache, a cold, or a perplexing illness within ten miles would come to grandmother.

Mu Qingli remembered that the day before grandmother passed away, there was still a long queue of patients waiting for her.

But in her previous life, she hadn't made good use of the skills her grandmother had taught her.

This life, she was determined not to let her grandmother down.

"Master, Yin Family is starving..." came the weak voice of Little Baba from her wrist.

Mu Qingli snapped back to the present, glanced at Big Beard on the ground, and frowned, "You, still want to eat people?"

"Of course not!" Little Baba immediately retorted, "I've told you Yin Family is not an omnivore!"

Mu Qingli raised an eyebrow slightly, "Then what do you want to eat?"

"Money!" Little Baba's eyes gleamed, "Master, that Big Beard has a lot of money on him, Yin Family wants to eat."

Then, Little Baba added, "Without money, Yin Family will starve to death, and Master, you will die with me!"

The last sentence carried a hint of schadenfreude.

Starving led to eating money!

What kind of absurd setting was this? Mu Qingli suddenly remembered that when she was reborn, Little Baba seemed to have mentioned this to her.

Mu Qingli slightly arched her eyebrow, indeed, during the time she was treating Big Beard, she had noticed a black wallet in his pocket.

After all, she had saved his life and even cured his incurable disease.

Taking some money shouldn't be too excessive, right?

With that thought, Mu Qingli bent down and took the wallet out of his pocket.

There wasn't much cash in the wallet, just over a dozen bills.

Seeing the red bills, Little Baba's eyes sparkled with excitement, "Money! So much money! Yin Family wants to eat!"

After thinking, Mu Qingli took out thirteen bills and left him with two.

While putting the wallet back in his pocket, Mu Qingli said, "I saved your life and took your money, we're even now, with no debts between us."

At this point, though Big Beard's complexion was gradually regaining its rosy hue and his breathing was becoming more stable, he remained unconscious and unresponsive to Mu Qingli's words.

"How do you want to eat it?" Roasted or stewed?

Mu Qingli communicated with Little Baba through her thoughts.

Little Baba, who was currently licking its lips contentedly with a craving unfulfilled look, said, "Master, Yin Family has already finished eating."

It was then that Mu Qingli realized that the banknotes she had just been holding had vanished without a trace.

"When did you eat them?" Mu Qingli was surprised; it had happened in an instant, and she hadn't noticed at all.

"Just now," Little Baba explained, "Master, it's like this: as long as you agree with the money I eat, it will be marked, and I can eat it whenever I wish."