After Discovering The Emperor Was A Woman… - Chapter 4

“Who are you?”

Hearing the rich, magnetic male voice, Liu Jiuning’s admiration for the young woman rose another level.

What an incredible disguise. If Liu Jiuning had not removed the thick layers binding her chest, she never would have believed this person was a woman.

As the stranger’s gaze grew increasingly sharp and dangerous, Liu Jiuning hurriedly explained, “Miss, you’re injured. Don’t move. I’m cleaning your wounds.”

At those words, the woman lying on the ground showed a subtle change in expression. She lowered her gaze to the cloth covering her chest, and her eyes gradually darkened.

She was just about to make a move when she heard the anxious concern in the young girl’s voice.

“Could you let go of me so I can continue cleaning the wound? I brought wound medicine too. You can’t keep bleeding like this!”

Liu Jiuning was genuinely worried.

She had gone to enormous trouble half-carrying and half-dragging this woman across most of the mountain. She did not want her to die now.

Honestly, the woman’s face was so pale she looked as though she had just crawled out of the underworld. Combined with the alarming amount of black blood flowing from her wounds, it made for a terrifying sight.

Remembering that the woman had also been poisoned, Liu Jiuning fumbled through her large pouch with her free hand and pulled out a porcelain bottle engraved with the character “Kong.”

“You seem to have been poisoned. Why don’t you take two antidote pills to suppress it for now?”

As for whether these so-called antidote pills would actually work, Liu Jiuning was not entirely sure.

But this was already a world from a novel. People could fly using qinggong, and wound medicine really could stop bleeding. The antidote pills the old monk had given her should probably work too, right?

The woman on the ground saw the character on the porcelain bottle and slowly released Liu Jiuning’s wrist. She accepted the bottle and discreetly sniffed the pills inside. Only after confirming that they had been made by Master Changkong did she quickly swallow two.

The moment she swallowed them, she began coughing violently.

Her already bloodless face turned deathly pale, and a fierce wave of dizziness overwhelmed her mind.

She swiftly pressed several acupoints on her body before managing to remain conscious.

“Blood… Blood is spraying everywhere!”

More than half of Liu Jiuning’s clothes had been stained black. Her voice trembled, and she even began to wonder whether this young woman had given up on life and intended to kill herself right in front of her.

She had seen something far more horrifying before.

But that had happened during the final moments of her previous life. She had never witnessed anything this gruesome in her current one!

The woman glanced at the panicked, helpless girl before quickly seizing the trembling wrist that held the water gourd.

“It is nothing. Hold it steady,” she said coldly.

The instant she finished speaking, the wound strangely stopped bleeding.

However, the exposed flesh, which had originally been red, rapidly turned black, creating an extremely unsettling sight.

Liu Jiuning stared in amazement at the thoroughly unscientific scene unfolding before her.

This had already exceeded the tiny amount of medical and biological knowledge she had learned in her previous life. As expected of a martial-arts world where people possessed internal energy.

She quietly cleared her throat. After thinking for a moment, she lifted the hem of her trouser leg and untied the dagger strapped to her calf.

“This… This wound has already begun to rot. If it isn’t treated and becomes badly infected, allowing cold and harmful energies into your body, that would be terrible. I once read a medical book that said cutting away the dead flesh with a dagger sterilized over a flame would help it heal faster. Would you like to try?”

Liu Jiuning drew the sharp dagger and wiped it with a cloth. Then she looked at the pale woman with as much confidence as she could muster, waiting for her answer.

There was no alcohol and no sterile equipment, so she could only use fire to disinfect the blade.

In truth, she had no idea whether this would work.

But this was how things were always done in dramas and novels. Besides, the injured person was the one lying on the ground. As the only healthy, energetic person present, Liu Jiuning could not afford to panic.

The woman stared at her with those piercing eyes for a long moment before finally saying, “Do it.”

“Then… then I’ll try. It might hurt a little. If you can’t bear it, you can shout. We’re in the mountains, and there isn’t even a monkey nearby, so no one will hear you. You really don’t need to feel embarrassed. Pain is perfectly normal…”

Liu Jiuning rambled on and on, no longer even aware of what she was saying.

Only after the blade she had held over the flames cooled did she wipe the sweat from her forehead.

“I’m starting now.”

“Mm.”

The woman found the overly nervous girl rather noisy, but did not comment.

Summoning her courage, Liu Jiuning raised her trembling hand and made one cut after another…

“If it hurts, you can cry out.”

Please do not remain completely silent while staring at her with that lifeless expression. It made Liu Jiuning feel as though a dead person had crawled back to demand revenge. It was frightening.

“It is nothing. Continue.”

The woman’s reply remained as brief as ever.

…

Since the injured person had said so herself, Liu Jiuning could only keep cutting away the rotten flesh. She remembered to pass the blade through the fire several more times to disinfect it.

It seemed practice truly did make perfect.

Toward the end, her hands no longer trembled, and she did not even dare breathe heavily. Just like that, she cleaned every wound on the young woman’s body, large and small, while the woman endured the entire process without making a sound.

Liu Jiuning might not know much else, but the woman before her was genuinely formidable!

There was only one mouthful of water left in the gourd. Liu Jiuning had originally planned to drink it and soothe her tight, nervous throat, but when she saw the woman’s pale, dry, cracked lips, she quickly held the gourd out.

“Drink some water to keep your strength up. It’s clean—I boiled it and only filled the gourd this morning.”

The woman shook her head and pushed it back toward Liu Jiuning.

Liu Jiuning did not insist. The injured woman looked like the strong, independent sort. Since she did not want it, Liu Jiuning would drink it herself.

She drained it in one swallow, though it did little to help.

Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she felt the chill from her wet clothes and said, “Miss—cough, I mean, young lady—we should dry our clothes. Otherwise, the cold might seep into our bodies, and that would be troublesome.”

The woman did not refuse. Most of her clothes had already been removed, so there was little point in putting them back on while they were still wet.

Liu Jiuning stripped down to her dudou and hung her clothes from branches beside the fire. When she turned around, she saw the woman who had been on the verge of death only moments ago sitting halfway upright, attempting to bind her chest again.

…

Liu Jiuning hurried over.

“Miss, the cloth hasn’t dried yet!”

“Sir.”

“Huh?”

Liu Jiuning looked confused. Why was the woman suddenly calling her “sir”? She was clearly a girl. Were her little face and small figure not obvious enough?

“Call me ‘sir.’”

The woman gave Liu Jiuning a cold glance.

…

“All right, sir.”

Liu Jiuning did not know what else to say.

As long as the woman was happy, it made no difference whether she was called miss, young lady, or sir.

Seeing the woman’s faintly trembling hands, Liu Jiuning took the binding cloth directly from her.

“I’ll help you. Wait a moment. I’ll tear away the dirty parts and dry it again so the sickness—so the infection doesn’t spread.”

Viruses and bacteria could break out from the slightest contact.

She had already saved the woman, so she might as well see her good deed through to the end!

The woman said nothing. She merely released the binding cloth she had been gripping tightly, which Liu Jiuning took as silent consent.

It was rather strange.

This young woman had an exceptionally commanding presence.

Even sitting there with her upper body bare, she carried herself with astonishing boldness and showed none of the bashfulness usually expected from a woman.

Perhaps women of the martial world were simply like this?

Liu Jiuning soon finished drying the long, thick chest binding. She did not want to leave the handsome young woman exposed for too long.

She wrapped the cloth tightly around the woman’s chest again, covering the wounds as well to prevent them from reopening.

Only after finishing did Liu Jiuning finally sit beside the fire to rest.

“Who knows how long this rain will last? I’ve truly had terrible luck today. No wonder the old monk told me to watch my step. Maybe he foresaw that something unlucky would happen to me.”

Liu Jiuning could not help muttering.

The cave was empty and desolate. Even with another person beside her, the woman gave off the aura of a vengeful ghost who had come to collect a life.

Liu Jiuning poked at the fire with a branch.

“When the rain stops, I don’t even know whether I’ll be able to find the path back up the mountain. I stopped leaving markers halfway through. And Miss—cough, Sir—you need to replace these bandages with clean cloth soon. Otherwise, harmful energies will enter your body before long. Have you heard of the temple on the mountain? The Imperial Preceptor lives there. I heard he knows a great deal about medicine. Once the rain stops, let’s go there…”

An unknown amount of time passed before their clothes finally dried.

Liu Jiuning felt as though she had used up every word she would ever speak in this lifetime. Had the female “sir” not occasionally responded with a perfunctory “mm,” Liu Jiuning might have suspected she was alone in the cave.

She first handed the dried clothes to the injured woman. After her enthusiastic offer to help the woman dress was rejected, Liu Jiuning began putting on her own clothes.

By the time she was fully dressed, the fire was nearly extinguished.

She had no choice but to gather more scattered twigs and dry leaves from the cave floor. While she was enthusiastically picking them up near the wall, several heavy thuds suddenly sounded behind her.

Startled, Liu Jiuning spun around.

“We arrived too late to rescue Your Majesty. We beg Your Majesty to punish us.”

A vast group of people dressed in black had dropped to their knees before the fully clothed woman.

Only Liu Jiuning remained standing.

Countless gazes immediately turned toward her.

Among them was someone she knew far too well.

Her eldest brother.

In that instant, Liu Jiuning’s mind went blank.

Her legs weakened. Supporting herself against the wall, she slowly sank to her knees as well.