Chapter 125 - Purified By Flames

"Lady Wan," Ao Wen called into the night. "Please bring my father to me," she said, wrenching her saber from Long Ma's chest and using it to help her navigate through the water to a stable portion of the ruins, dragging herself from the water to rest on the old worn stones. "Wu Lin," she shouted to the darkness where the Alchemy Novice waited, prepared to spill an even greater volume of Unquenchable Flame Oil upon the surface of the water if the situation had called for it. "I need your help, I'm going to pass out soon," she explained. 

Neither Wan Yue nor Wu Lin wasted any time in reaching her side, along with Feng Xi, Zhang Bai, and Tang Jin. 

"Wen'er," Ao Yang said weekly, still in shock from his wounds and the spectacle of battle he'd just seen unfold. Looking at the collection of bloody cuts and torn clothing, Ao Yang's heart couldn't help but ache for the daughter who had done so much to rescue him. Still, seeing so many other mighty cultivators present, he couldn't help but resent that she was the only one who seemed injured in any way by the plan they had so clearly executed. Knowing his daughter, he was sure she'd taken on more than her fair share of responsibility and risk for his rescue. "Thank you," he said weekly. The words were entirely inadequate to express what he felt right now but he didn't know how to put any of the rest of it into words. 

"Father, I'm sorry, but it's not over yet," Ao Wen said as she looked at Wu Lin. "Novice Wu, I'm afraid I'm going to have to entrust my father's follow-up care to you… invoking the power that I did comes with its own price and I doubt I'll be strong enough to leave bed for days once I finish here."

"Speak the words Alchemist Ao, what do you need?" Wu Lin asked. Perhaps with a bit more tutoring from Ao Wen, the day when he left his current Master wouldn't be far off. It would never be appropriate to acknowledge Ao Wen as his new Master, their ranks were far too close, but he would always give her the respect due to a senior. 

Ao Wen began reciting recipes, one for a skin cream, another for an elixir, a third for a medicinal paste to be applied to the stump of Ao Yang's severed hand, and a final one to provide deep restorative sleep that would allow his body to focus on healing. "Can you concoct all of those and follow my instructions for administering them?"

"I can," Wu Lin said, scratching his head in confusion. "But two of these are for treatment of severe burns. Your father isn't suffering from any burns…"

"Not yet he isn't," Ao Wen said grimly. "Father, it looks like Long Ma had a backup plan for keeping you hostage if you managed to escape or we rescued you without fighting him. He's poisoned you with Flood Dragon Venom."

"So that's what was in the bucket he plunged the stump of my arm into after he cut off my hand," Ao Yang said, understanding dawning. "Honestly, when he did it, everything went blurry for a while and when I came too, he'd wrapped up my arm to stop the bleeding. I thought whatever was in the bucket that had felt like it was freezing me had been intended to stop me from bleeding out and dying before he could get his hands on you. It never occurred to me that he'd poison me." 

"Thankfully, if there's one thing in this world that I'm better at treating than anyone else, it's Yin-based poisons and Flood Dragon Venom is a deeply Yin poison," she said confidently. "The problem is, I don't have enough time to make you a proper anti-venom. I'll have to purge the poison the same way that Mother taught me to purge Yin Fiend Transformation, only you won't need nearly as many supportive ingredients. I've got one bottle of medicine I'd like you to swallow. It'll help prevent any damage from becoming permanent, but I'm going to be burning away traces of venom all over your body. It's going to hurt. A lot. It's okay if you scream," she added, knowing her father was a proud man who wouldn't admit how much he was suffering no matter how much he ached after a hard day of labor. "Mother used her dragon flames to purge Yin Fiend Transformation sickness from my flesh. I don't have her dragon flames anymore, not really, but I do have the Emerald Flames of a Three-Tailed Phoenix and they're very good at purification."

"Wen'er, I'm confused, your mother…" Ao Wen asked, searching his daughter's face for answers to the questions storming in his heart. 

"Cong Houzi," Ao Wen answered calmly, preparing a series of medicines for her father to take before she treated him. "Swallow this," she commanded, pressing a porcelain bottle into his remaining hand and staring at him until he gulped down the soothing liquid. "She's the Medical Saintess and True Dragon that taught me alchemy. She also adopted me and made me part of her family, though truthfully I was the only one she actually adopted, the others were all fellow disciples. I'll tell you all about her when you wake up. For now," she said, wrapping a bit of leather cord around the hilt of a knife before passing it to him. "Bite down on this. It'll be over soon." 

Working quickly, Ao Wen started at the stump of Ao Wen's left wrist, pouring her emerald flames delicately into his body, cleansing the toxins from his blood, flesh, bone, and tendons as she went. The venom had leached deeply in his arm and his skin blackened and blistered as she worked. Ao Yang had intended to show his daughter that he wasn't as fragile as she thought he was but by the time her emerald flames reached his elbow, heart-wrenching wails of pain ripped from his throat. Still, Ao Wen's face became a mask of indifference, her healer's mind in full control as she forced every bit of heartache to the back of her mind while she worked to spare him as much pain as possible while ensuring that no Flood Dragon venom remained in his body. Finally, after ten minutes of delicate treatment, Ao Yang collapsed in a drooling heap, every ounce of strength wrung from his once mighty body. 

Real healing would take months and he'd be in unbearable pain for the next several weeks. The pain of recovery was precisely why Ao Wen had given Wu Lin a prescription for medicine that would keep Ao Wen asleep most of the day. He wasn't a cultivator to bounce back from this kind of treatment rapidly or to ignore the sensations of his body while dwelling in his inner world. As a mortal, surviving the poison was already a miracle. Getting through what came next would just have to take time. 

Once Ao Yang had been treated, Ao Wen finally released the energies she'd been holding to keep herself on her feet and her own pain at bay. Slumping over her father, she pushed off the rail of the boat to flop down onto the deck in an undignified sprawl. "Xi," she said in a voice as feeble as a mewling kitten's. "I'm always sleeping while you take care of me. Sorry." 

"Shhh," Feng Xi whispered, reaching out to clear wet hair from Ao Wen's face. "You sleep, you've done enough."

"Everyone did more," Ao Wen said, a gentle smile playing at the corner of her mouth. "Without everyone, I'd have died stupidly."

"You sleep," Zhang Bai said, stepping forward from the group. "We'll do the rest."

"Thank you," Ao Wen whispered softly, darkness claiming her vision as energy drained away, pulling her into the quiet peace of her own inner world.