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The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
Bought in bulk, such disposable sterilized towels would cost no more than twenty yuan at most, but in a hotel the price doubled. Of course, apart from these there were also the free towels the hotel provided—only those were not disposable.
Such towels were provided only for the cleanliness-obsessed and the fastidious; it could hardly be called a forced purchase.
Wei Zhao took one of the sterilized towels. As gauze for bandaging, it would do at a pinch.
He sprinkled the ground herbs onto the girl's wound, and a moan, so faint it was barely audible, escaped her lips—no doubt the medicine stinging the injury. Wei Zhao paid her no mind. What dressing of a wound came without pain?
After applying the medicine, Wei Zhao tore the disposable towel into several pieces and deftly finished bandaging the girl's wound.
"Phew." Wei Zhao let out a breath. Done at last. From the look of things, the girl had only lost too much blood; if the bleeding was stopped now, her chances of surviving were still good.
Of course, assassins generally had tenacious vitality, and Wei Zhao could roughly see that the girl had clawed her life back. Once she woke, she would be a little weak, but otherwise not much the worse.
With the female assassin dealt with, Wei Zhao turned to his own affairs. When he had prepared medicine for the girl earlier, he had been in a hurry and ground only exactly the amount needed, so his own wound was still untended.
All of that had only required grinding, which was nothing much. But the medicine for Yang Huaijun had to be slowly decocted, and the order and timing with which each herb was added followed strict standards that allowed not the slightest error. Otherwise, though the ingredients might be much the same, the potency of the medicine would be greatly reduced, and it would fail to achieve the expected effect.
This was also why Wei Zhao had not given the prescription to Yang Huaijun and instead prepared the medicine for him himself. For one thing, this prescription was not as easy to compound and decoct as the painkiller he had given him before; the earlier painkiller required only that all the herbs listed on the prescription be bought and ground together, whereas decocting was a different matter altogether.
For another, Wei Zhao did not want this prescription to get out. Though he trusted Yang Huaijun, he feared that Yang Huaijun might let something slip without meaning to, for this prescription was enough to cause a sensation in the world of traditional Chinese medicine.
Wei Zhao found a flat spot, set up the alcohol lamp and the earthenware pot from before, and began to decoct the medicine for Yang Huaijun. Though the inn also provided an electric kettle for brewing tea, Chinese medicine was still better decocted over a flame.
Decocting medicine is a tedious, exacting task, but for Wei Zhao, who often wove straw sandals at home, it was nothing at all.
Watching the time on his phone, Wei Zhao deftly put the herbs into the earthenware pot one by one. He did not know how long had passed when he heard a faint stirring from somewhere behind him, not far away.
Had Wei Zhao's hearing not been unusually sharp, he would never have noticed such a tiny sound, focused as he was on the decoction.
Wei Zhao did not turn around. This was the critical moment in the decoction, and he could not afford to be distracted. Holding a few herbs between his fingers, he watched his phone and kept track of the time.
Wei Zhao knew the girl had probably woken up, but he had no time to attend to her just now. If she got up and quietly went on her way, so be it; once she left this room, they would be strangers to each other, and Wei Zhao had no expectation that she would be grateful to him.