Faraway Wanderers

Chapter 13. Exposed

Zhou Zishu abruptly stopped walking and sized up the four cave entrances with a frown. “There’s water and wind in here, the chances for someone to poison us are low,” He said.

He wouldn’t call himself an expert in medicine-related matters, but the current Emperor during his years as Crown Prince used to be acquainted with a young shaman from South Xinjiang1 who was held hostage at the capital. The shaman was following orders from the Shaman Valley to use the pugilist scene in Zhong Yuan2 as test subject for their medicine, and most of the South Xinjiang-originated remedies and poisons which were unheard of at that time were brought here by him.

Zhou Zishu might not possess an intensive knowledge, but he had seen enough to know that there had yet to exist a poison that could cause hallucination for this long.

Wen Kexing nodded, “So someone has used divination to find ways to trap us here—do you know anything about it?”

Zhou Zishu replied calmly, “The stuffs about three directions, eight trigrams and six jias3?”

“You must’ve studied a lot of things, even this…” Wen Kexing said in surprise.

Zhou Zishu was nonplussed. “Of course I don’t, that’s all I know about it.” He decided to sit down as walking further was an impossible feat. While leaning back onto the wall, he carelessly let the wound graze the surface. He shivered and slightly grimaced, unable to process the fact that a mere wild beast could agonize him to this state; but such was the life of being seen as a nuisance everywhere he went.

Wen Kexing thought about how he at least knew what “three directions and eight trigrams” actually was and felt a sense of intellectual superiority; but after he remembered that Zhou Zishu sold himself for two silvers, the superiority fell flat. So he sat down beside the injured man, tilting his head to look at the wound, somewhat delighted at the other’s misfortune, “Serves you right for treating a monster like a little girl.”

Zhou Zishu closed his eyes to recuperate, paying no attention to him.

Wen Kexing silently stood up, walked away and returned after a while. Zhou Zishu felt a spike of coldness on his shoulder, and he opened his eyes to Wen Kexing using a soaked piece of cloth to wash the wound.

On instinct, Zhou Zishu avoided the touch, but Wen Kexing held back his shoulder, “Don’t move.”

Zhou Zishu asked with a pained face, “Where did you get the water from?”

“The river.” Wen Kexing replied. After some thinking, he added, “It’s running water, really clean.”

Zhou Zishu felt his hair stand on end. He knew it was running water, so drinking from it was no problem, much less using it to treat injuries; but he couldn’t stop thinking about those underwater creatures roaming around under there.

Sharp-eyed Wen Kexing happily teased the other after noticing the goosebumps, “Can you really be disgusted when you look like a ragged beggar yourself? Come on, stop acting like a maiden.”

Zhou Zishu knew the other had a point; nevertheless, he glanced at the other’s handkerchief witheringly. The fragrance from it—a gentle and elegant smell of beauty products—attacked his nostrils, and at the corner was a small but exquisitely embroidered orchid. The size was a bit too big and it looked too plain for a maiden to use, but if this was a man’s… what kind of person would carry this on them?