Please, Don’t Die - Chapter 12

“A strange illness? That’s right up Physician Ying’s alley.” He Qingsheng put away his magical tool and tapped Ying Qujie’s fingers, signaling for him to follow along.

“You’re certainly not shy,” Ying Qujie remarked, bouncing the small wooden puppet in his palm a couple of times.

Shangguan Ding’an hesitated slightly. “Physician Ying, you…” He was afraid the other might refuse.

“No matter. Lead the way,” Ying Qujie nodded in agreement, not wishing to elaborate.

Shangguan Ding’an, well-versed in the ways of officialdom, was naturally astute at reading people. Seeing Ying Qujie’s consent, he tactfully refrained from pressing further and quickly stepped forward to guide them.

Ying Qujie wasn’t much of a talker, and Shangguan Ding’an and Qi Wan, perhaps aware of He Qingsheng’s peculiar existence, also unusually refrained from idle chatter.

Neither Shangguan Ding’an nor Qi Wan could see He Qingsheng’s true form, so for them to hear her speak, she had to expend some of her baleful energy.

Though she was talkative, her baleful energy drained quickly, and she now had to be frugal with it to get by.

At the moment, He Qingsheng’s attention was entirely fixed on Ying Qujie.

After all, he could hear her just fine.

“Physician Ying, didn’t you say I was the first person you ever saved? So, the people of Jimo Town don’t count? Have you never practiced medicine all these years you’ve been studying?”

Ying Qujie looked at the blatant skepticism in He Qingsheng’s eyes “And you still dared to treat people?” and felt a pang of regret for the elixirs he had wasted on her.

“My master only ever allowed me to study, never to practice. To be precise, you were the first I personally treated after leaving the mountain. The people of Jimo hadn’t yet reached the point where I needed to personally administer medicine.”

His tone turned resentful. “The medicine I fed you, even the least of it took me three years to refine.” And yet, you still died.

He Qingsheng caught the implication and grinned. “Ah, Physician Ying, you’re so kind-hearted. It’s not like I wanted to die, what else could I do?”

“Indeed. But my master’s dying wish was that if anyone died by my hand, I was to cease practicing medicine henceforth.”

And since descending the mountain to practice, he hadn’t even treated many people yet.

Though Shangguan Ding’an and Qi Wan had been confused earlier, they quickly grasped the meaning behind Ying Qujie’s words now:

“Physician Ying, that’s hardly fair. If a physician does their utmost to save someone but still fails, that’s simply the patient’s fate. How can that justify forbidding the physician from practicing? If so, wouldn’t future patients suffer unjustly?”

“Exactly! If Physician Ying were to stop practicing now, think of all the years spent mastering your craft, such talent would go to waste.”

Qi Wan nodded in agreement. The two of them were terrified Ying Qujie might change his mind on the spot.

“My master’s meaning was precisely this: if there exists someone in this world I cannot save, then from that moment on, all others must be left to their fates. I must not alter their destinies.” Ying Qujie’s expression was calm, as though he were merely recounting an inconsequential tale.

But to forbid a physician, trained since childhood, from practicing medicine simply because they failed to save one life, the deeper meaning behind it surely couldn’t be explained so lightly in just a few words.

Shangguan Ding’an rubbed his nose.

Silence. The carriage once again sank into an awkward atmosphere.

The wheels jolted violently over an uneven stone ridge. From the inertia, the little wooden puppet tilted sideways, its head lightly bumping against Ying Qujie’s wrist.

“Alright, since when have you been so obedient?” He Qingsheng propped herself up with her wooden fingers, clumsily settling back into Ying Qujie’s hands. Her intuition told her that if Ying Qujie truly had no intention of saving anyone, he would never have boarded this carriage.

Ying Qujie’s master had a flawed teaching method, even in his final moments pushing his disciple toward inner demons. Fortunately, Ying Qujie was just a mortal, so it wouldn’t have any greater consequences.

After all, the wood demon Ming Shu was a classic example of obsession breeding inner demons, nearly extinguishing all life across thousands of miles.

He Qingsheng glanced at the lines on Ying Qujie’s palm, long and unbroken, without any forks or branches, clearly the markings of a long-lived, fortunate man. Mortals had short lifespans, and longevity was already a rare blessing. Losing interest, He Qingsheng averted her gaze. “If you want to save them but still have reservations, just treat me as a living person. It makes no difference anyway.”

As if struck by a thought, she chuckled at her own words. “Well, I’m a living person who’s slightly dead.”

The tassels of the carriage curtain swayed, brushing lightly against his ear.

It tickled.

Ying Qujie slowly laughed.

Shangguan Ding’an and Qi Wan exchanged puzzled glances, unsure of what was happening, but Ying Qujie’s expression was relaxed and gentle, his mood seemingly not too bad.

“Then should we still…?” Qi Wan was abruptly muffled by Shanguan Ding’an’s hand.

If Physician Ying didn’t refuse, that meant he agreed! Shanguan Ding’an’s eyes practically staged an entire drama, but Qi Wan still wore a bewildered “Huh?” expression.

He Qingsheng found it unbearable to watch. “How much longer until we arrive?”

“Senior, approximately another quarter-hour.”

He Qingsheng nodded to acknowledge the answer, idly playing with the little wooden puppet’s fingers.

The wood demon Ming Shu must have had little patience when carving this puppet, just three wooden sticks connected to form rudimentary hands capable of holding objects. Compared to the intricate craftsmanship of wood-carved humans, down to the fingerprints, it was worlds apart.

In truth, the puppet’s silhouette somewhat resembled Ming Shu’s original form in the illusion, but she hadn’t bothered to finish carving her own likeness.

She would never have imagined that within this crude little figure lay the last vestiges of the consciousness she had sought, the consciousness of Yun Shuiqing.

When the baleful aura retrieved the puppet, He Qingsheng had already realized it had become completely lifeless.

She hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but looking back now, it seemed Ming Shu had been unaware of its existence.

What an ironic twist of fate.

…

The carriage stopped outside a cave entrance on the outskirts of town.

Three girls were tightly bound to three trees, guarded by a group of Qianlong Guards. Several middle-aged men dressed in coarse peasant clothing knelt nearby under restraint.

As Shanguan Ding’an stepped out of the carriage, they immediately began wailing.

“Your Honor, we’ve been wronged! These are our own daughters and sisters! If not for the evil cult’s instigation, how could we have committed such foolish acts?”

“Yes, Your Honor, we were momentarily led astray.” The man in the middle took the lead, and the others followed, kowtowing frantically to Shanguan Ding’an.

“Your Honor, you live in luxury and comfort, unaware that our land in Jimo is already scarce. Without rain, our entire families will starve! Besides, if sacrificing a few could truly bring rain, wouldn’t it benefit all the people here?”

“Exactly! We’d remember them, enshrine them in our family records, and erect memorial tablets for them!”

Ying Qujie raised an eyebrow.

He Qingsheng let out a cold laugh. “Why don’t you offer yourselves as sacrifices to me instead? Whether it’s rain, wealth, power, or status, I can make it happen for your families and neighbors right away. I’m sure your sisters and daughters will remember your great kindness and erect monuments in your honor.”

“Ghost!”

“There’s a ghost!”

The men stared in terror at the wooden puppet in Ying Qujie’s hand, which was emitting a woman’s voice. So frightened that they forgot even to kowtow, they scrambled to flee, only to be roughly shoved back into place by the Qianlong Guards.

“How is it that when I can grant wishes, I’m suddenly a ghost in your eyes?”

He Qingsheng’s voice was icy and merciless. At her rhetorical question, the more timid among the men rolled their eyes and fainted dead away.

Truly worthy of Senior He! If the timing weren’t so inappropriate, Qi Wan might have kowtowed to the little puppet herself.

With a slight lift of his chin, Shangguan Ding’an signaled one of the Qianlong Guards, who stepped forward and slapped the leader of the men. “It’s been raining intermittently in Jimo since yesterday. When we found you, you were still trying to push these girls into the cave. A moment later, and we wouldn’t have been able to save them. And now you dare to spout nonsense in front of His Excellency!”

The men trembled like sieves, not daring to utter another word.

“According to the laws of Su Dynasty, those who force living sacrifices are to be executed in the same manner,” Shangguan Ding’an said, shaking his head.

People feared sacrificial rituals, yet they firmly believed such rites could bring them boundless benefits.

Of course, as long as they themselves weren’t the ones being sacrificed.

But could demonic arts and dark sorcery truly solve their problems?

Shangguan Ding’an didn’t think so.

Even the wood demon had eventually come to believe, through gradual influence, that dark magic was responsible for Jimo Town’s later prosperity. But the real reason was this:

Twenty years ago, in mid-August of the fifth year of Yuanchu, the founding emperor of the Su Dynasty incorporated Jimo Town into the empire’s territory. Massive construction projects were undertaken to divert waterways, and over three years, the flooding of the Jimo River was brought under control. Jimo’s prosperity also stemmed from the emperor’s decision to establish the key trade route between north and south at this mountainous crossroads.

The founding emperor of Su rose from humble beginnings, believing firmly in human agency, and thus despised demonic arts and dark sorcery. This tradition had been well preserved to this day. Shangguan Ding’an had come to Jimo precisely to devise a plan for channeling water and alleviating the drought.

Who would have thought that after all this effort, they’d circled back to dark sacrificial rituals?

Upon hearing the phrase “executed in the same manner,” the middle-aged men stopped crying for their fathers and wailing for their mothers. Instead, they spilled everything to Shangguan Ding’an like beans from a bamboo tube, lamenting the horrors of the sacrificial cave and hoping their confessions might earn them leniency.

For a moment, the scene grew clamorously chaotic.

“We’ll deal with them later,” Ying Qujie said, tapping the little puppet’s head before walking toward the tree.

The girls’ limbs were tightly bound, their wrists rubbed raw, yet they thrashed wildly as if oblivious to pain. Fine beads of blood seeped from their necks and faces, and their fingernails were caked with flesh, self-inflicted wounds from their desperate clawing.

But aside from the scratches and bloodstains, their skin showed no other signs of disease or abnormality.

Were it not for their vacant stares, they would have seemed no different from ordinary people.

This didn’t resemble soul loss. Ying Qujie had never seen symptoms like these before.

“Ah, another illness the little physician hasn’t encountered,” He Qingsheng teased, standing up with a smirk. She caught a whiff of something that attracted malevolent energy. “You couldn’t cure Mianrihui poison, and now you’re stumped again, aren’t you?”

“What’s Mianrihui?” Ying Qujie ignored her sarcasm.

“It was the herb you picked. I thought you weren’t poisoned because you knew how to cure it, but turns out you had no idea?”

“Mianrihui? Golden Yaoguang. You died from Golden Yaoguang’s poison?” Ying Qujie was puzzled. “But Golden Yaoguang isn’t poisonous.”

He Qingsheng: ?

So, this damn flower discriminates?

Whatever, she was already dead.

Endure… endure for a moment, only to grow angrier the more she thought about it. To think her illustrious reputation would end in such an ignoble death.

No, He Qingsheng gritted her teeth, deciding that once she finished her revenge, she would go back and uproot that entire flower field.

Her mood was foul now, and the way she looked at the girls grew increasingly brazen.

Ying Qujie sensed trouble and tried to pull He Qingsheng back.

But in the next moment, she recklessly enveloped the girls in a shroud of baleful energy. Instantly, the pungent stench of scorched flesh filled the mountain forest.

Ying Qujie reached out to grasp the crimson energy, urgency in his voice. “He Qingsheng!”

Dark clouds gathered overhead. He had a vague suspicion that the heavenly lightning had already taken notice of her. If she lost control and went on a killing spree now, she would be struck down on the spot.

“You care about me that much?” The little wooden puppet leisurely settled back into his palm, utterly unhurried and completely at ease. Her voice carried the languid satisfaction of someone who had eaten their fill. “It’s handled. I’m going to sleep for a bit.”

With that, her head lolled to the side, and she fell still.

The white jade pendant had been stuffed inside the hollow belly of the puppet. Ying Qujie knew she must have returned to it.

He checked the pulses of the girls, there were no abnormalities. Their frenzied states had also calmed.

Ying Qujie’s expression turned odd. He had wronged the ghost woman again.

Amid his guilt, a new worry surfaced. When she had devoured creatures like the Feiyi, the Tuan fish, or even the drought demon, she had never mentioned needing to rest. Whatever was inside these girls couldn’t possibly be on the same level as those fiends, yet she said she needed to sleep.

Could she be sick?

Do ghosts even get sick? Ying Qujie had no idea.

But given all the strange things she had consumed, maybe it was possible.

The more he thought about it, the more it made sense.

Which led to the next question: Can ghosts even be treated?