The Cultivation Patriarch Became the Marquis's Wife - Chapter 2

Three years ago, the former Marquis of Pingyang had returned to his ancestral home to pay respects. Someone had torn out his heart in the wilderness.

In the age when I cultivated, beasts and demons had roamed everywhere. A heart-eating monster would have been nothing unusual.

But a thousand years later, spiritual qi was thin. Even cultivators were rare, and it was harder still for beasts to gain sentience.

“Perhaps a wild animal did it.”

“Impossible.”

At the mention of the past, Xiao Jingyao clenched his fists. Pain and a trace of terror crossed his face.

“More than a hundred people accompanied him. Every one of them lay in a pool of blood, their bodies torn open. Some had their hearts ripped out. Others had been devoured until only bones remained.

“Fortunately, Mother felt unwell that day and did not go. But Father…”

His throat closed, and he fell silent.

This mortal might have been discourteous and repeatedly offended me, but if a demon truly was at work, I could not stand aside. Such things were my responsibility.

“Where is your ancestral home?”

“Jiangnan,” Xiao Jingyao said bitterly. “The very same town as your family. And you still claim it has nothing to do with you?”

I gave the heart in my hand a little squeeze.

“If I were a demon, I could crush this right now. Why would I stand here listening to your nonsense?”

Xiao Jingyao froze.

“Th-that does make a certain amount of sense.”

I withdrew my fingers and smoothed the wound on his chest closed as I went.

“We return to Jiangnan in two days. I will inspect your ancestral graves with you.”

With that, I removed the heavy phoenix coronet, shed my wedding robes, and rose to extinguish the candles.

The heavenly lightning had savaged my cultivation and severed countless meridians. I needed to meditate and recover at once.

Xiao Jingyao began howling again.

“Woman, why are you putting out the lights? Do you mean to take advantage of me again? A gentleman may be killed, but he will not suffer disgrace!”

How noisy.

I touched two fingers to his lips and cast a silencing spell.

Xiao Jingyao went still. He looked at my fingers, and his handsome face turned scarlet.

Before he could indulge in further coyness, a commotion rose outside.

“Stop! You cannot go in!” That was Xiaomei’s anxious voice.

“Oh, Miss Xiaomei, have mercy! This old servant has no choice!”

The woman wailing outside was Nanny Zhang, the concubine Jiang Sirou’s attendant.

“My lord, Lady Jiang’s heart hurts terribly. Please come and see her! She has always been frail, and after today’s exertion, I fear she may not survive!”

Xiao Jingyao leaped up and hurried for the door. At the threshold, he abruptly stopped and pointed to his mouth, grunting at me to lift the spell.

“Are you a physician?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Then what use are you?”

I opened the door. “This venerable one knows a little medicine. I will examine her in your place.”

Crimson candles and scarlet silk adorned Orchid Court. It was even more festive than the main residence.

Jiang Sirou sat on the bed in full phoenix coronet and wedding robes, one hand lightly pressed to her chest. Her skin was snowy, her lips red, and tears glimmered in her bright eyes. Her beauty made me shiver.

I strode across the threshold, took her slender wrist, and asked with concern, “What is wrong?”

Jiang Sirou stiffened. She peered anxiously past me.

“His lordship…”

I concentrated on her pulse. My brow gradually furrowed.

Her unease deepened, and she snatched back her hand.

“It is only a minor complaint. I am ashamed to have disturbed my lady’s rest.”

“Minor? You were born with an incomplete heart meridian. You should be resting quietly, but lately you have been consumed by worry. Both your qi and blood are depleted. If you leave this untreated, the damage may become permanent.”

Jiang Sirou stared at me.

She had pretended to be ill and discovered that she was genuinely sick.

“What troubles you?” I asked. “Have you encountered some difficulty?”

Nanny Zhang dropped to her knees.

“My lady is right. Three years ago, evil descended upon the Jiang family, and everyone was killed. My young mistress survived only because she had gone to cultivate in seclusion at a Daoist temple.

“Ever since then, she has been weighed down by grief and weeps every day. My lady, do you know how she might be cured? Please save her!”

More evil?

There was evil in Jiangnan and evil in the capital. How suspicious.

I helped Nanny Zhang up and handed her one of the bottles of pills I had refined long ago.

“This is the only bottle I have left, but it will suffice for a mortal heart ailment. Dissolve one pill in warm water each day.”

Nanny Zhang thanked me with delight. Then a shout rang out behind us.

“Wait!”

Xiao Jingyao had followed, unable to leave Jiang Sirou alone. He snatched the bottle away.

“I have never heard that the Shen family’s daughter studied medicine. Shen Qianhe, you have behaved like a madwoman all night. Who knows what you put in this bottle?

“Besides, I have summoned every famous physician I could find for Sirou, and not one could cure her. Yet you claim a few pills will do it? Absurd! Utterly preposterous!”

Tsk.

I had gathered these spirit herbs from cultivation’s most sacred ground, used a supreme-grade cauldron forged by a clan of master artificers, and personally refined them for forty-nine days. This was an immortal-grade medicine.

It could revive a corpse that had only just stopped breathing, let alone cure one paltry heart complaint.

Mortals truly knew nothing.

I tipped a pill into Xiao Jingyao’s mouth, gripped his jaw, and forced him to swallow.

“Taste it. Let us see whether you die.”

He clutched his throat and coughed violently, but the medicine had melted the instant it touched his tongue and already flowed through his organs.

Red-faced and convinced his end had come, he pointed a trembling finger at me.

“You—you vicious woman…”

His words abruptly stopped. The medicine spread through him. Weariness vanished, his body became wonderfully light, and even his strength increased.

Xiao Jingyao stared at me in astonishment. For a moment, he seemed tempted to fight me again and avenge his earlier humiliation.

I raised a brow. “Well?”

He coughed into his fist. “It is… good medicine.”

I returned the bottle to Jiang Sirou.

“Keep it safe. Your health comes first.”

She looked at me with a complicated expression and curtsied.

“Thank you, my lady.”