My Gentle and Pure Sect Leader Husband-Chapter 12 - Day of Wearing a Disguise

Yu Luocha had never seen sarira before, and Yan Hongyin had never actually used it in medicine to treat patients.

The compilation of medicinal materials is a basic skill for every doctor. After Yan Hongyin finished writing, she had a rough idea about the prescription, though this treatment plan was somewhat difficult to explain.

Yan Hongyin turned to look at Yu Luocha, seeing him using a spoon to scoop the light yellow powder from the stone mortar into a small bowl. She decided to ask him, “Ah Yu, if there were three prescriptions – the weakest having no side effects but taking longer to work, the strongest potentially worsening the condition short-term but achieving quick results, and the third being moderate with gentle effects between the two – which would you choose?”

Yan Hongyin didn’t just work for the Jinyiwei; when she was studying medicine, she had actually worked as a traveling physician for some time. Whenever faced with such choices, as long as the patients were conscious, Yan Hongyin would let them make their own decisions.

And when it came to her husband Ah Yu, Yan Hongyin didn’t intend to deprive him of his choice either.

Yu Luocha replied without hesitation. “The strongest one.”

After saying this, he heard no response from Yan Hongyin.

Yu Luocha looked up and saw Yan Hongyin’s expression was confused and surprised.

Yu Luocha immediately realized that his previous reaction wasn’t appropriate for someone like Ah Yu, who had agreed to marry out of fear of death and injury.

His hand gripping the small bowl tightened, his voice becoming somewhat tense as his Adam’s apple bobbed. “I don’t want to live my whole life with this kind of body… Besides, these medicinal materials must have cost you quite a bit of silver. I… I can’t help you with anything, and I’m just being a burden…”

As he spoke, Yu Luocha glanced at Yan Hongyin from the corner of his eye, quickly looking away again, lowering his gaze with a slight, bitter smile.

Yan Hongyin’s gaze suddenly softened.

Most Jinyiwei officers had stern, hard personalities, with female officers being even more independent and unrestrained than their male counterparts. Yan Hongyin, having grown up in the Zhenfu Division, rarely encountered someone as gentle and courteous as Ah Yu, who was like a piece of warm, beautiful jade.

The afternoon sunlight was more dazzling than earlier hours, making the beauty appear even more jade-like, with tender feelings flitting across his features.

Yan Hongyin’s heart stirred, and she walked to Yu Luocha’s side. The two sat shoulder to shoulder on the wide stone steps, their robes overlapping on the ground.

“Then we’ll follow your choice, but during these seven days of medication, Ah Yu must not leave my side. Otherwise, if your condition worsens and there’s no immediate treatment or massage available, though your life won’t be in danger, you’ll be bedridden for the rest of your life, unable to move.”

Yan Hongyin said this with little inflection in her voice, even more matter-of-factly than when she had given Yu Luocha pocket money earlier.

Yu Luocha carefully placed the small bowl of medicine powder aside and asked with slight amusement. “Do you always speak so… directly?”

Yan Hongyin’s eyes flickered, and her voice lowered. “Do you also find it uncomfortable?”

Though she asked this, Yan Hongyin showed no intention of apologizing.

However, Yu Luocha wasn’t actually angry. To be honest, Yan Hongyin’s straightforward way of laying out everything openly made him feel more comfortable.

Sect Leader Yu was someone with an extremely unpredictable temperament, but when he was in a good mood, he wasn’t stingy with speaking truth. “No, it’s quite good.”

Yu Luocha had grown up alone in the Western Regions, and for him, “love them and wish them to live, hate them and wish them to die” wasn’t just a saying.

He glanced at Yan Hongyin beside him, whose eyes had suddenly brightened, and suddenly smiled.

If Yan Hongyin hadn’t met him in such a pathetic state, given this woman’s personality and medical skills, he might have been tempted to simply abduct her to the Luocha Sect.

Didn’t she want backing for her medical practice?

His Luocha Sect could provide protection – it just depended on whether he was willing or not, whether he wanted to or not.

Read 𝓁atest chapters at fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm Only.

Yu Luocha spoke sincerely to Yan Hongyin for the first time. “A doctor like Hongyin makes people feel more at ease.”

Yan Hongyin pressed her lips together in good humor, tried to hold back, couldn’t hold back, but didn’t know what else to say to the person beside her. After hesitating for a while, she simply stood up, laid out some paper, and began selecting and measuring amounts from the dried medicinal materials on the nearby shelf to mix the medicine.

If at first it was just a whim driven by attraction to his beauty, now she was truly starting to like Ah Yu.

If only…

Yan Hongyin’s hand reaching for the medicine paused.

There are no walls that can keep all secrets. After the gold needle sealing acupoints period ends, she must return to the capital to protect His Majesty’s safety. The Zhenfu Division also had many tasks, and any of these – if word leaked out – would put Ah Yu in danger where he would neither be able to live nor die.

Yan Hongyin thought of her siblings who had tried every trick to draw her into the crown prince succession dispute, thought of His Majesty’s contemplative looks when seeing her these past two years, thought of her senior martial brother’s occasional shows of discontent…

A flash of rebellion crossed those clear eyes that were like black pearls.

In His Majesty’s eyes, Yan Hongyin had always been a perfect existence without weaknesses or handles to grab, yet such a person controlled the Great Ming’s largest intelligence network and command of secret guards. In her half-siblings’ eyes, she was a princess without power or influence despite being favored by His Majesty, though her birth mother’s status was humble – everyone wanted to recruit her as their eyes and ears by their father’s side.

And as a woman, in these people’s eyes, the existence of a husband or children would undoubtedly become Yan Hongyin’s greatest weakness to be exploited.

His Majesty was no longer the emperor in his prime years. Now as he aged day by day, fatherly love still remained, but those youthful ambitions had unconsciously become mixed with wariness and suspicion, like an inescapable shadow.

That detailed list of candidates for Princess Quya’s marriage, hidden in the secret compartment of the imperial study, was like a sword hanging overhead.

Perhaps for Yan Hongyin, a truly beloved husband or biological child could greatly ease the emperor’s suspicions about her being out of control, but precisely because she was Yan Hongyin, she would never stoop to letting another person become a sacrifice in power games because of her.

This time she used her established image as a martial arts fanatic to convince His Majesty and her senior martial brother that her purpose in using the gold needle to seal acupoints was only to pursue a higher realm in martial arts, successfully using this to leave the increasingly tense capital city. Now besides advancing her martial arts realm further, what was more important was–

She needed to find a way to end His Majesty’s plans to arrange her marriage.

“Hongyin?”

Yu Luocha’s voice startled Yan Hongyin from her thoughts. She turned around naturally, adding the final portion of licorice to the medicine, and smiled at Yu Luocha. “Ah Yu, want to make a bet?”

“Bet on what?” Yu Luocha was feeling lazy from the sun.

Yan Hongyin grabbed a handful of wolfberries and closed her fist with the back of her hand up, smiling. “Guess if it’s an odd or even number?”

Childish!

Yu Luocha sneered inwardly.

But his waist straightened immediately. He, Yu Luocha, had built the Luocha Sect from nothing, once dominating various gambling houses to make his fortune, and had always had excellent gambling luck.

“Odd,” he took the opportunity to make a request, “If I win, I’ll sleep on the outer side tonight.”

Yan Hongyin thought for a moment – this place was secluded, few people knew about it, it wouldn’t be a problem for Ah Yu to sleep on the outer side. “Alright.”

The jade-white hand turned over and opened, revealing seventeen dark red wolfberries lying quietly in Yan Hongyin’s palm.

Indeed an odd number.

However…

“I was originally thinking, if Ah Yu won, I would change future medicine from liquid to pills, adding more honey to improve the taste.”

Yu Luocha’s face stiffened slightly, suddenly wanting to take back what he had said earlier.

After all, spending a night with eyes closed, what difference did sleeping on the inner side or outer side make compared to that terribly-tasting medicine…

Yan Hongyin saw his expression change and laughed inwardly, speaking softly, “Does Ah Yu want to change his mind?”

Yu Luocha’s expression struggled as he weighed the options repeatedly, suppressing his stirring manly pride to choose the more tangible benefit, and nodded.

“Alright then, I’ll do as you wish. Who can resist when Ah Yu is so beautiful?”

Perhaps because of her emotional stirring at their first meeting, Yan Hongyin found she was always more relaxed around Ah Yu, somewhat like returning to those years before she truly entered the Zhenfu Division, when she was still just a little princess.

She didn’t reject that soft, weak version of herself from back then, and even missed it somewhat.

Yu Luocha breathed a sigh of relief, at least he wouldn’t have to face that strange-tasting medicine.

Yan Hongyin poured seven portions of the mixed medicinal materials from the paper into the medicine grinder, handed the grinding wheel to Yu Luocha, stood up and dusted off her hands, saying lightly. “Then I’ll continue to trouble Ah Yu with the grinding. It’s getting late, I’ll go make lunch.”

Yu Luocha held the grinding wheel, looking suspiciously at Yan Hongyin.

On the journey from the capital to Jiangnan, Yan Hongyin had prepared enough food in the carriage, so Yu Luocha didn’t know if she was skilled at cooking, but given how she could brew medicine into such a taste…

Yan Hongyin also didn’t know if she was good at cooking, but fortunately she had prepared in advance – the recipe was on the chopping board in the back kitchen.

Faced with her beautiful husband’s hesitant expression, Yan Hongyin said calmly and confidently, “It’s just cooking, what’s so difficult about it?”

......

Three hours later.

Lunch had become dinner.

Yu Luocha silently looked at the two black and red dishes placed before him.

Yan Hongyin coughed dryly, trying to save face. “The taste is quite good, I tried it earlier, absolutely no problem.”

Yu Luocha didn’t want to eat.

But the understanding and gentle Ah Yu shouldn’t refuse this meal personally cooked by his newlywed wife.

Picking up his chopsticks with difficulty, Yu Luocha picked up a piece of strangely black-permeated fish meat and put it in his mouth, as if facing a great enemy.

Hmm?

His brow relaxed, and Yu Luocha was surprised.

Although the appearance was indeed not good, the taste was actually acceptable, at least it was edible.

“How is it?” There was a hint of pride at the corners of Yan Hongyin’s eyes.

Yu Luocha’s chopsticks hovered over the red mass in the other dish, raising a question: “This dish is…?”

“Oh, that earlier one was braised fish, this is stir-fried goose eggs.” Due to her inexperience in cooking, Yan Hongyin had only managed to make two dishes in over two hours.

Yu Luocha didn’t ask where the rice was; the burning smell wafting from the kitchen was enough to make him avoid that question.

“Stir-fried eggs… why are they red?” Even with the previous fish dish as preparation, Yu Luocha still couldn’t bring himself to use his chopsticks on this plate of bright red stir-fried eggs.

“Your body isn’t well, and you’re taking medicine, so both dishes are medicinal cuisine. It’s just that when cooking, the medicinal ingredients and food ingredients may have had some mixing…”

Yan Hongyin’s explanation got quieter and quieter, then she silently picked up some red stir-fried goose egg with her chopsticks and put it in her own mouth, indicating there was absolutely no problem with the taste, it just didn’t look very good.

Yu Luocha: “…”

Thinking of those strange-tasting but extremely effective medicines, Yu Luocha felt he indeed couldn’t question Yan Hongyin’s medical skills. Just considering it as something for quick recovery, he gritted his teeth and ate most of the two medicinal dishes under Yan Hongyin’s satisfied gaze.

......

That night.

A stealthy shadow flashed outside the bamboo grove.

Threads of moonlight broke through the cold, deep darkness, illuminating the mutilated corpse hanging on the fence.

A black-clothed person quietly lurked in the bamboo grove, but didn’t see anyone come out to check the disturbance as expected.

With a creak, the door was finally pulled open from inside, and a figure rushed out urgently and unsteadily.

Before the black-clothed person could create a noise to lure the person to the fence, they saw that figure head straight to the back courtyard at high speed without a sideways glance.

The black-clothed person: “…..”

After waiting patiently for over a quarter hour, that figure finally appeared again in the courtyard.

The black-clothed person immediately seized the opportunity to throw stones hitting the bamboo fence.

Yu Luocha’s eyes sharpened.

Who?!

But just as he took a step forward, his abdomen began violently cramping again with a sinking sensation.

Yu Luocha leaned against the wall, feeling his vision darken, his waist and legs growing weak.

Just then, another figure stealthily stumbled out from inside, heading straight for the medicine shelf and precisely grabbing several medicinal ingredients, only to turn around and see the man with a gloomy expression behind them.

Yan Hongyin: “……”

Yu Luocha: “……”

Having cooked two dishes with fierce aftereffects, Yan Hongyin silently handed the medicinal ingredients to Yu Luocha, admitting fault. “Medicine to help with gas, shall we… brew some together?”

No longer intending to let Yan Hongyin near the kitchen again, Yu Luocha took the medicine and turned to slowly make his way to the back kitchen with difficulty.

—As he turned, he inconspicuously glanced in the direction of the black-clothed person.

Behind him, Yan Hongyin looked in the direction where the blood smell was coming from, her eyes cold, but she just silently followed Yu Luocha’s footsteps, reaching out to support her beautiful husband who was unsteady on his feet.

The autumn wind was desolate. The black-clothed person had disappeared from the bamboo grove, leaving only the mutilated corpse outside the courtyard fence dripping thick blood, staining the green bamboo and seeping into the soft soil.