Chapter 12.5

When I returned, Liang Ji was still standing in the same spot, looking in my direction.

People were coming and going around him, bustling and crowded. Yet his spot alone seemed as if isolated by an invisible barrier.

“Why didn’t you go apply medicine?”

His injured arm had stopped bleeding, but there was a pool of blood on the ground.

“Didn’t you ask me to wait for you?”

His gaze fell on my torn clothes. “Did you and Little General Ji spar… fight again?”

I shook my head. “We cleared up some things.”

He gave an “En.” I took him to his room, applied medicine for him, and bandaged it freshly. “As a doctor, yet not cherishing your own body. You deserve to drink a month of Coptis root soup.”

He smiled. Watching him smile, I couldn’t help but hook the corners of my mouth as well.

“Where do you plan to go in the future? Will you continue your travels?”

I didn’t have the courage to confess my feelings. I was afraid of restricting his freedom, but I cared too much, so I could only probe indirectly.

He didn’t answer me immediately, instead falling silent.

“It’s fine if you don’t want to say.”

Staying any longer felt dull. I stood up to leave, but he pulled me back and sat me down beside him. “I haven’t told you about my background.”

I looked at him. Meeting my gaze, he began his tale.

“There was a plague in the town where I lived. My mother passed away because of it. My father then became a wandering doctor, taking me with him to travel the lands, treating illnesses and saving people. He also visited famous doctors everywhere to collect cures for all sorts of rare and intractable diseases, compiling them into a book called the *Priceless Prescription* (Qianjin Fang). After he passed away, I inherited his unfulfilled wish.”

“So that’s how it is.”

My heart sank little by little. “So the *Priceless Prescription*… is still incomplete?”

“…Not yet.”

I lowered my head, clutching my tattered wedding dress. “You must have encountered many hardships over the years. It hasn’t been easy for you.”

Since he had already endured so many hardships, I absolutely couldn’t let his efforts fall short of success.

But I, too, had the common people I wanted to protect.

I bid him farewell at Mount Yan. This time, I was the first to mount my horse, and I never looked back.

After returning to the capital, Huang Yue greatly praised the eradication of the bandits. She praised me for venturing deep into the tiger’s den, declaring I deserved the highest merit, and asked what I wanted.

Looking back on the scenes of my past in the capital, I made a request to Huang Yue. “This subject beseeches Your Majesty to transfer me to garrison the border.”

The court was in an uproar, but Huang Yue issued the transfer order. After court, Ji Wenmu blocked my path. “Is it because of me?”

“No.”

It was just that I suddenly realized people shouldn’t be idle. When idle, one can’t help but overthink.

Fighting at the border for eight years, although I liked Ji Wenmu, I had more important things bearing down on my heart, so the depression was lessened.

If I stayed in the capital all the time, confined to my manor, whatever I looked at would inexplicably sprout a second silhouette beside it.

“Having stayed there for so long, I’m not very used to life in the capital anymore. I want to go back.”

I punched his shoulder. “If you have free time, come visit me at the border.”

Naturally, I couldn’t escape a round of nagging from Aunt Ji, who claimed I was just finding her annoying and resenting her for finding me a husband.

Complaints aside, she constantly ran to my manor, not missing a single item she packed for me.

On the day before I left the capital, I wandered around the East Lake all day. At night, I ate another bowl of wontons at the wonton stall.

When I returned to the manor, a person stood under the lantern, lean and tall.

I slowly slowed my pace, unsure if this figure was real, or if it was just another phantom.

But the figure stepped forward, arriving right in front of me. His eyes were watery and bright even in the night, hooking my gaze and my very soul.

“A’min, I think I need your help.”

My thoughts were somewhat sluggish. I blankly asked in return, “W-What help?”

“Since childhood, my luck has been good. Everyone I met treated me with kindness, and every difficulty I encountered was turned from danger to safety. The only true hardships occurred twice, and they trouble me to this day.”

He sighed, lowering his eyes. “The first was when you mounted your horse and left at the city gate. The second was watching you leave at Mount Yan.”

“I thought to myself, I’ve seen countless incurable diseases, but now that this illness has struck me, I am completely helpless on my own and can only seek your aid.”

I suppressed my trembling. “I’m not a doctor. I don’t know how to cure illnesses.”

He laughed softly. “I don’t need you to know how to cure illnesses. You yourself are the *Priceless Prescription*.”

I understood his meaning, and naturally, I was happy. But I was terribly afraid of restricting him.

“I have to go garrison Mobei (the Northern Desert). If you come with me, you won’t be able to travel.”

He raised his hand and pulled me into his embrace. “That’s even better. I haven’t been to Mobei yet. A’min can take me to see it.”

“You won’t regret this?”

“I have already regretted it twice. I came on this journey specifically so that I will have no regrets from now on.”

(End)