Chapter 142 – He will be your poison.

Palace door before the eleventh hour under the key, Su Yan took out the Western pocket watch to see, just seven o’clock.

He couldn’t make it in time, so he could only spend a night in the East Palace, but firmly refused the Prince’s unreasonable request to sleep in the same hall, intending to go to the side hall next to him.

The prince did not force himself, but held his red cloth-like face, sat cross-legged on the Luohan couch to reminisce again and again, and from time to time hehehe laughed twice.

Su Yan slanted a glance at him in shame and contempt and walked away.

Outside the palace, in the inner city, Huang Hua Fang’s Su Mansion, Jing Hongchou and Xiao Bei and Xiao Jing waited for an hour with a full table of food and wine, waiting for a chamberlain who sent a message, saying that Lord Su had stayed overnight in the East Palace and wouldn’t be coming back for the night.

Su Xiaojing pouted her lips: ”Staying at the East Palace again. How much does our lord get into the eyes of the young master, always not letting him go back to bed. The month or two before leaving the capital, it’s easy not to have to go to the palace as an official, but the result is that the young master directly killed to find people at home, but scared me to death!”

Su Xiaobei glared at him, “Still have the nerve to say that! If it wasn’t for your bald mouth that night, luring the Crown Prince to His Excellency’s outer mansion, fortunately it didn’t cause any trouble, otherwise even if His Excellency doesn’t skin you, I’m going to smack you hard.”

The outer mansion? Jing Hongchu’s pupils shrunk violently, his palms unconsciously clenching the hilt of his sword. Lord Su kept an outside house? Who was it, male or female, how did he not know?

…… It is normal not to know. Whether Lord Su is keeping a concubine or marrying a wife, is it necessary to inform him? But it’s just a guard. Jokingly called “concubine” only, still really take themselves as the adult family members? Jing Hong chased the corners of his mouth tightly pursed.

Su Xiaojing was sweating, ”Brother Bei, don’t say anything! Accompanying a king is like accompanying a tiger, I know. I won’t dare to talk nonsense in front of Little Master in the future.”

Jing Hongchou suddenly got up and said, “You two eat, I’ll go practice my sword.”

“Brother Chase, it’s not too late to practice your sword after eating.” Su Xiaobei called out to him.

Su Xiaojing concurred, “Yeah, aren’t you hungry? I’m starving flat.”

“Not hungry.” After Jing Hongchou finished speaking, he walked out of the flower hall with his sword and went to the snowy open space in the backyard.

Slowly pulling out the sword gifted to him by his lord, the black and white intertwined patterns on it seemed to flow endlessly under the moonlight and snow color. Jing Hongchu stroked his hand over the blade of the sword and spat out two words in a low voice: “Oath-“

The sword light steeply cut through the snowy night, and the cold aura shot out in all directions, just like exploding an ethereal nebula.

Jing Hong chased after practicing his sword all night.

–

Riverhan’s cold aura drifted away, and the star’s shadow seemed to be near his head, “You’re just about to wither away, but there’s still salvation to be had.”

A strong will to live welled up in Altan’s heart and he pleaded, “Old Witch save me ……”

The old shaman stretched out his drumstick and used the end of the bone wheel to ruffle his robe, exposing the divine tree tattoo on his abdomen. Originally diaphanous black, parts of the tattoo’s branches had once been dyed maroon by Suyan’s blood, and now the red color had faded so much that it was barely visible.

“When the blood color completely disappears, and you haven’t come here yet, you won’t be saved. You are a lucky boy, and this divine tree tattoo is your life preserver.”

The old shaman said, moving over to a stone mortar a few paces away, placing a fistful of dark brown fruit into it and beginning to pound it hard with a stone pestle.

“It was an elder of the clan, who tattooed it for me.” Alltan said with a strained voice, “He said the tattoo, would protect me, from the evil blade malady.”

The old shaman picked a sliver of dark brown mucus from a stone mortar and said, “The dye for the tattoo, with this added, can cure all kinds of poisons. Poisons that are too strange and strong to be detoxified for a while can also hang on to you for a short time until you find where the sacred tree is in time.”

“Thanks to the sacred tree, thanks to the shaman. Old Witch, have you seen my companions, the ones who sent me here?”

“Only one.”

“Where is he?”

“Froze to death. Unfortunately, it was too close for me to save him.” The old shaman lifted the cloth and showed Altan his lower . Body.

He had no lower . . body, cut off flush from the thighs, and fastened himself to a board fitted with rollers, which could only be slid a short distance.

Altan was silent. He felt a wave of deep sadness, mentally mourning for his companion and praying for the old witch.

The old shaman, as if used to it, did not show any sadness, but continued to pound the medicine with all his might, duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh. After a long time, he pulled out the hole plug at the bottom of the mortar, and drew out the juice into a skull bowl.

In an unusually serious tone, he said to Altan, “You’ve got to think this through.”

“Thinking through what ……”

“In order to get rid of the remaining poison in your body, I’m going to coat your entire body with the juice pounded out of the fruit of the divine tree. Then you will fall into a false death, like a hibernating chrysalis.”

“Fake death? How long will I sleep?”

“Depending on how quickly your body recovers, maybe two or three months, maybe two or three years.”

Altan was stunned, “I …… won’t starve to death?”

The old shaman showed a smile that was worse than a cry, “Your heartbeat will become very slow, and the blood flow in your body will be like a smooth prairie river, and you can go without food for a few days …… Of course, during that time, I will feed you a little bit of tree fruits and broth. But I’m old and have a bad memory, so I’ll have to wait until I remember. I hope you survive it.”

Altan smiled bitterly, “You have to stay up even if you can’t. If not, the toxicity will soon kick in. I can feel the fire between my organs still burning.”

“That’s not all I’m asking you to think about.” The old shaman tapped his heart with a drumstick, “You may become a different person.”

“–what?”

“The medicinal properties of the Fruit of the God Tree will cure your poison, and will also change your disposition. A brave person may become weak, a righteous person may become vile, a gentle person may become tyrannical – can you accept such a risk?”

Allertan opened his mouth without answering.

The old shaman shook his head, “I know, it’s hard.”

He struck the grasping drum with his drumsticks and sang another divine song in a man’s voice: “Summon the spirit of the self, holler, holler, holler. May all the blessed auspiciousness that is sought be realized, as desired ……”

Alertan was silent, considering whether to die as himself or live as another.

“I ……” he hesitated, “What is called risk is not a certainty, is it?”

The old shaman shifted from a long chant to a short drumbeat without answering. The thumping of the drums urged him on like a nervous heartbeat.

Altan didn’t hesitate too long before making up his mind, “If you want to hunt a wild wolf, you have to risk being bitten through by the wolf’s teeth. If you want to capture a falcon, you have to risk being torn apart by its claws and beak. If you want to survive from a desperate situation, how can you not need to take risks? Old Witch, I’m willing to accept that. And I’m sure that no matter how much it changes, I, Altan, will still be Altan!”

The old shaman pounded down the last heavy drumbeat, once again wearing an ugly smile.

“More than that. Your tattoo seeped into another man’s blood. I suppose the person who gave you the tattoo cautioned you.”

Altan recalls, “Yes, no one else could touch the tattoo, except parents and …… partners.”

“So that person must become your mate. Within three years of your revival, if you do not obtain that person’s body and mind, and if you do not both kneel before the divine tree and make a wish for union, you will suffer the backlash of the tattoo.

“That man’s blood will become your deadly, insoluble poison.

“You will die.”

Alertan’s eyes widened in shock. He slowly raised his arm, on which was wrapped a light green hair band. After going through the wind, snow and dust, the hairband had long since turned gray, and the leaf-shaped jade pendant at the end had fallen off to the last piece.

Will Su Yan …… agree? Will they be able to reunite in the three years after he wakes up? In the face of the Prince of the Northern Desert, who is likely to have a drastic change of temperament, will Su Yan, who is an official of the Great Ming, be willing to be married to him with his body and soul?

It’s too far out of reach! It’s harder than holding onto your temperament under the power of the drug ……

Alertan shook his head involuntarily, trying to recall the knitted brows and smile of the young man from the Central Plains, hoping to catch the slightest hint of another look at himself.

But he was very sorry to find that, compared to the strong feelings he had for Su Yan, Su Yan seemed to him even good feelings can not be called, only as a Ping Shui met, is still a good friend. And this “friend” word, or on the premise of harmless to the country.

He always remembered Su Yan’s joke that was full of warnings:

“Nowadays, when even a horse-trading youth in Valar can recite poems describing our capital city, your ministry will not also have the idea of knocking on the queue, will it?”

At that time, he wanted to say, “I only have a yearning for Daming, and have no intention of aggression. But he swallowed his words – is that really the case? In addition to admiration, there is no ambition to possess?

Allertan let out a long breath.

The old shaman asked, “Think it over?”

Altan nodded, “I want to live, even if I don’t know how long I’ll live. Perhaps three years from now will be the time of my death, but at least I have tried and fought for it. The poplar is still rooted in the desert, the eagle is still nesting in the cliff, and I am a man, how can I retreat without a fight!”

The old shaman nodded and reached into the bowl of his skull, scooping up a dark brown, semi-solid ointment and applying it to the tattoo on his abdomen, then smearing it up and down.

After this bowl of ointment was used up, he pounded it three more times before he was able to apply it all over Altan’s body.

Alertan was unclothed and wrapped in a clay figure by the ointment that was gradually drying and hardening. After the old shaman had stripped him of his robes and removed all the gold ornaments from his body, he tried to proceed to remove the hair bands that were wrapped around his arms, but Alertan insisted on keeping them.

“You’ll have a few rings of color on your arms that are different from the rest of your skin, like molting snakes, and it’s ugly.” The old shaman reminded him.

Altan didn’t mind, “I don’t care, I’m keeping it.”

Since he said so, the old shaman stopped persuading him and beat the drum and sang the divine song while watching him gradually lose consciousness.

The drumming suddenly stops again, and the old shaman scratches his dirt-covered ears, muttering to himself, “Oh, I’m so old, I forgot to mention that there’s a risk – you might forget something, someone from your past. And maybe that includes the man who gave you the hairband.”

“Alas ……” sang the old shaman with a long sigh, “You are the lord of the earth’s wilderness, and have grown ten thousand strong hearts.”

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