Chapter 4

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

The rooster in the village crowed, and a rising sun slowly ascended.

Li Zian woke up, drenched in sweat, but this time the sweat was not as murky as before, and the smell was much weaker.

"This means the impurities and toxins in my body are decreasing. This Great Laziness Qi Cultivation Technique is truly miraculous and effective. I need to practice it more," Li Zian thought to himself.

However, so-called cultivation was essentially just sleeping.

He wasn't lazy, but the Great Laziness Portable Furnace seemed to be shaping him into a lazy person.

Li Zian took a shower, prepared breakfast, and before Lin Shengnu finished eating, he shouldered his basket and took a small hoe to go up the mountain.

Sichuan is humid, suitable for plant growth, and the mountains and forests are home to a variety of plants, including medicinal herbs and food ingredients. With the "Fangshi's Auxiliary Brain" of the Great Laziness Portable Furnace, Li Zian felt like he was walking in his own vegetable garden, familiar with the herbs and ingredients.

In half a day, Li Zian's basket was full, containing over twenty types of herbs for making ointments, as well as various food ingredients like mushrooms, leaves, flowers, and vines.

Unconsciously, it was nearly noon.

Li Zian didn't rest, shouldered his basket, and hurried down the mountain to return home.

He had to go back and prepare lunch for Lin Shengnu.

Sometimes he felt that he, as a赘婿 (a man who marries into his wife's family), was just a hired laborer for the Yu family, working when there was work to do and serving people when there wasn't.

This wasn't the life he wanted.

"Once Yu Meilin comes back, I'll talk to her. Either she stays home to take care of her grandmother, and I go out to work and earn money, or we get a divorce," Li Zian thought to himself.

Four years ago, his mother was seriously ill, and he didn't have the money to get her hospitalized, so he married into the Yu family. Over these four years, he had taken care of Lin Shengnu, working hard and without complaint, and he felt he had paid his debt.

Yu Meilin only came home once a year and wouldn't even hold his hand. The villagers mocked him, saying he was a freeloader and even suggested his wife was selling herself outside. As a man, how could he bear this?

He had always harbored a faint hope that Yu Meilin would stay and live a simple life with him, but she disappointed him time and time again. Was such a marriage worth maintaining?

He had inherited Ji Da's secret techniques and could pursue a better life.

"Ah—ah—"

A sudden scream came from above.

Li Zian looked up and saw a woman with a parachute rapidly descending towards the hillside. Her parachute seemed to have malfunctioned and was uncontrollable.

Li Zian was stunned.

Swish!

The woman crashed through the treetops and fell out of sight.

Li Zian ran towards where the woman had fallen.

The woman lay motionless at the base of a large pine tree, her face and body covered in scratches from the branches, and blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. It was unclear whether she was dead or alive.

Li Zian hurried over, intending to check if she was still breathing.

The woman suddenly opened her eyes and gasped, "Call... call an ambulance..."

Li Zian instinctively took out his phone, but there was no signal in the mountains. Even if there were, an ambulance wouldn't be able to reach her here.

"Miss, don't be afraid. You'll be fine. I'll go down the mountain to get help. Just hold on, I'll be back soon," Li Zian said, and he started to run.

"Don't leave... me..." The woman fainted before she could finish her sentence.

Li Zian was at a loss, unsure of what to do.

He had suggested going down the mountain for help without really thinking it through. Who in the village could help with such a situation? Even if the ambulance reached the village, it would be too late by the time he brought the medical team up here.

What should he do?

A series of secret formulas flashed through Li Zian's mind, and he stopped at one in particular. It was an ointment for treating internal injuries called the Great Laziness Body Ointment.

The Great Laziness Body Ointment required only three herbs: Eucommia, Notoginseng, and Spreading Houttuynia. These were common herbs, and he had some in his basket. He also needed clay and furnace blood. Clay was abundant, and he had a hoe to dig it up. However, the furnace blood stumped him; he had never heard of such a herb.

As he thought, a light bulb went off in his head: "Furnace, furnace... the Great Laziness Portable Furnace is on me. I am the furnace. Furnace blood, my blood is the furnace blood!"

With all five ingredients ready, time was of the essence. Li Zian decided to take the risk and try it.

He used the hoe to dig a pit large enough to fit the woman, and then dug a small hearth underneath it. He selected some fine clay from the excavated soil, crushed the three herbs with a stone, mixed them together, and then used a small knife to cut his palm, mixing his blood with water from his water bottle to form a large ball of mud paste.

He removed the woman's parachute and unzipped her jacket. She didn't react, allowing him to do as he pleased. Her jacket opened, revealing smooth, delicate skin, like fresh snow in spring.

Although Li Zian had been married for four years, he had never been intimate with his wife. Now, he had to undress a woman, and the touch, sight, and smell of her body made him feel both embarrassed and tense.

But he had to continue.

He steeled himself and removed her shoes and pants, leaving her in just her underwear. If he wanted the best treatment, he should remove the last bit of fabric, but he didn't dare to do it.

The woman lay before him, with a slender waist and long legs, her face delicate and beautiful. Perhaps due to her love of exercise, her abdomen had a slight muscle tone, blending strength and beauty perfectly.

Li Zian didn't know where to look. He took a deep breath, suppressing the heat in his body: "I'm not taking advantage of you; I'm trying to save you."

He applied the Great Laziness Body Ointment to her body, carefully checking for any broken bones. Fortunately, she had no fractures, but the impact must have caused internal injuries.

A few minutes later, the woman, once white, was now covered in black ointment.

He carefully lifted her and placed her in the pit, then gathered some dry branches and leaves, placing them in the hearth and lighting them. This step was crucial, as the ointment needed to be heated to take effect. The final step in the Great Laziness Body Ointment's formula was to place the injured person in the mud pit and heat it with a fire.

Perhaps the ancient sage Ji Da from the Western Zhou Dynasty got the idea from beggar's chicken, inventing the Great Laziness Body Ointment after being inspired by it.

The fire burned the soil, and a wisp of smoke rose from the forest.

As the pit heated up, the ointment on the woman's body dried and cracked in many places. One crack was particularly noticeable, but Li Zian didn't dare to look at it.

He controlled the fire, occasionally reaching into the pit to check the temperature. This was his first time using the Great Laziness Body Ointment, and he was nervous, afraid of accidentally cooking the woman. If that happened, she would truly become beggar's chicken.

After a while, the woman let out a muffled groan and slowly regained consciousness.

Li Zian asked excitedly, "How do you feel?"

The woman opened her eyes, still a bit dazed, and didn't speak to Li Zian. As her consciousness returned, she suddenly felt the warmth under her back and saw that she was lying in a pit, with a young man burning a fire to heat her. She screamed, "Ah—"

Li Zian was startled by her sudden scream and dropped the dry leaves he was holding.

The woman sat up, but the movement caused her pain, and she cried out.

Li Zian said, "Lie down quickly. I'm treating your injuries."

The woman looked at Li Zian warily, her voice trembling, "Who treats injuries like this... What do you want to do?"

Li Zian said, "I'm a fangshi, an ancient fangshi medical technique. You remember falling from the sky, right? You were seriously injured. There's no signal here, and doctors can't come. I had to find a way to save you. Do you feel better now?"

The woman was slightly stunned and recalled the events. The young man before her was the one she had seen before she fainted. Her body was covered in mud ointment, which had a faint herbal scent, and she indeed felt much better. She also saw Li Zian's basket, filled with herbs.

"You... are a fangshi?" The woman's emotions stabilized a bit.

Li Zian nodded.

"You don't look like one," she said.

Li Zian smiled, "What do you think a fangshi should look like?"

She thought for a moment but couldn't come up with an image. Everyone knew about Taoists, but fangshis had disappeared after the Qing Dynasty's literary inquisitions. Suddenly, a young herbalist told her he was a fangshi, and she realized she had no clear image of what a fangshi should look like.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"My name is Li Zian. I live in the Moon Village at the foot of the mountain," Li Zian said. "Lie down quickly. The ointment is very precious. If you sit up, it won't work. Lie down, and I'll add more wood to the fire."

She hesitated but slowly lay down.

Her figure was graceful and elegant.

Li Zian wanted to help her, but with her wearing so little, he felt it was inappropriate.

"My name is Mu Chuntao," she said.

Li Zian was taken aback.

He suddenly remembered the divination he had done the night before: "Even a dead fish can turn over, and after hardship comes happiness, and the peach blossoms bloom."

His heart skipped a beat. Could the peach blossoms in the divination be her?

Mu Chuntao smiled, "You said you were going to light the fire. Why are you staring at me?"

"Oh, light the fire..." Li Zian lowered his head to light the fire, but his peripheral vision caught a glimpse of the cracks in the mud shell.

He also felt a fire burning within himself.