Savage Wolf, Lotus Heart [Never Let You Go, Again: Book 4]

33: Help Diligently, Love Silently

"Father."

"Sizhui," Lan Wangji turned around to find Lan Sizhui standing at the bedside with the book from the Forbidden Section in his hand. He handed the book to his father and looked down at the pale and blue Lan Hao. Blue and white blended all over his skin, just like his robes. But the blue was so dark, and the white so pallid, they sent shivers down Sizhui's spine.

"Father... why... why this book?"

"Wen Ning asked," was all Lan Wangji could say. He 'Mn'-ed to Wen Ning and handed him the book.

Wen Ning flipped through the pages and frowned. "Senior Yuanhua... which one?"

Lan Yuanhua, seated on the stool beside the bed with Lan Hao's limp — and by now, aubergine — wrist on his lap, took the book and skimmed through it. "Here," he tapped a page and handed it back. "I remember going through this book with Qiren once."

"Senior remembers this from one glance?" Wen Ning asked with wide eyes.

"No, but I won't forget Qiren's look of utter disgust when he read that part," he smirked and turned back to dabbing Hao's head with a damp towel.

"Senior Yuanhua, has he been poisoned?"

"Yes, Sizhui. The vines used had been poisonous. See the purple hand? There seems to have been thorns in the vine. See these little dots?"

"Oh, thorn wounds. Good thing it didn't get his neck," Sizhui sighed with relief, sweat beading on his features out of fear.

"True, would have ended him on the spot. I've suppressed his blood flow from here," he pointed to a tight cloth suffocatingly wrapped around Lan Hao's upper arm. "The poison's reached all the way there, can't let it reach the heart."

"So the book, does it contain the cure?"

"No," Lan Yuanhua shook his head.

"Then...?!"

"Ah so that's how you do it?" Wen Ning nodded and then his head shot up in shock. "What!"

"Wen Qionglin..."

"But... Senior... this... impossible!"

Lan Sizhui hurried to his side and peeped over his shoulder at the notes he had turned to. "Wen Shushu, what's relocating a joint?"

Wen Ning pursed his lips and gulped. "It's... when a joint is sometimes out of place, dislocated, this is how you fix it. There are gentler ways but this is the surest... Senior, it's too risky."

"A-Hao's wrist is dislocated?" Sizhui asked them.

"Yes, Sizhui. But not as simple as you may think. You see, look here," Yuanhua pulled Sizhui down to his level by the shoulder and pointed to Lan Hao's purple wrist. "See this line?"

A streak of black-blue floated down the purple skin. "Radial artery? Clearly it's been infected with the poison."

"Precisely. And as it is now, the artery's weak. I can feel a pulse at his neck but not at his hand–"

"Because you've blocked the blood flow."

"Yes. But the thing is, I didn't feel a pulse in his hand even before that."

"We did," Wen Ning anxiously corrected. "Just that it was... terribly weak..."

"Barely there," Lan Wangji nodded.

"Ah?" Sizhui's eyes widened in horror. "No, no, no, impossible... you mean the artery might be damaged? Under the pressure of what that woman's vines did?"