Yun Shen had suddenly discovered that not only had he transmigrated, he had also been forced to become the life-sustaining medicine of a ruthless great villain who killed without blinking.
Once again, Yun Shen despaired over his own intelligence. He had known Sui Jian’s name from the beginning, yet somehow he had never connected him to the great villain from the novel.
But thinking carefully, perhaps it was not entirely because he was stupid. According to the current timeline, the great villain should already have been reduced to ashes by the two protagonists. Yet here he sat, whole and alive, calmly listening to other people discuss how he ought to have died, without any reaction at all, as if they were talking about someone else.
So… did Yun Shen still have a chance to get off this pirate ship?
He desperately considered the possibility of escaping from the great villain and discovered that it was practically zero. He immediately wilted like an eggplant struck by frost.
The ginseng spirit was incapable of hiding his feelings. Even the leaves on his head had twisted together. Sui Jian would have had to be blind not to notice. Yet he merely glanced at him and pretended he had seen nothing.
He lowered his eyes slightly, fingertips tapping gently on the table. “Have you had enough to drink?”
Yun Shen had already feared him. Now that he had guessed his identity, that fear multiplied. With a whoosh, he pulled all his roots back and nodded shakily. “I-I’m full.”
Then he buried his entire body in the soil. If the leaves could have been buried too, he would have hidden those as well.
A trace of displeasure flashed through Sui Jian’s eyes, but he ultimately said nothing. He left a spirit bead behind, picked up the flowerpot, and departed.
The cultivators at the neighboring table were still blustering away without restraint, as noisy and irritating as cicadas in summer.
Sui Jian curled his left hand into a fist against his lips and coughed quietly several times before stepping out of the tea stall.
The cultivators who were still delivering grand declarations suddenly discovered that they had somehow been struck with a silencing spell. No matter what they did, they could not undo it. Only then did they realize they might have offended someone without knowing it.
No one knew how they had been silenced. Their mysterious offender had only made them shut their mouths. If that person had wanted their lives instead…
Cold sweat immediately covered them. Their faces turned green as they hurriedly paid for their tea and fled.
.
With more than half the cultivators gone from the city, the inn naturally had plenty of vacancies. That was why Sui Jian had been in no hurry.
After dismissing the inn attendant, Sui Jian immediately closed the door and placed a restriction over the room.
The earthenware pot was set on the windowsill. Afternoon sunlight filtered through the paper window, casting blurry squares of light and shadow across the room.
Although Yun Shen remained buried in the soil, he had been carefully listening to everything outside.
He had no idea what the great villain was doing. After entering the room, Sui Jian had made no sound at all.
Curiosity drove Yun Shen to poke his head out. Afraid Sui Jian would catch him spying, he lowered his leaves and stealthily leaned against the rim of the pot.
The room was not large. Yun Shen’s tiny light-brown eyes spun once and took in everything. The great villain he was looking for had already removed his shoes and was sitting cross-legged on the bed, palms and soles turned upward. Visible currents of air swirled around him. He appeared to be cultivating.
“What are you peeking at?”
“If you want to look, then look openly.”
Caught red-handed, the ginseng spirit smiled awkwardly and ingratiatingly. “N-nothing.”
His palm-shaped leaves drooped. The ginseng spirit hid himself and pretended he was nothing more than an ordinary plant.
Sui Jian focused on meditating and regulating his breathing, paying him no further attention. Yun Shen did not dare poke his head out, but being buried in the soil was unbearably boring, so he began counting his roots one by one.
After counting them back and forth several times, Yun Shen could not take it anymore. He poked his head out again. When he was not caught, his courage gradually grew.
By then, night had fallen. Moonlight poured down, gently kissing his leaves like water.
Although he had already become a spirit, the ginseng still needed sunlight and moonlight just like an ordinary plant. Yun Shen spread out his leaves one by one, trying to expose every leaf to the moonlight.
Sui Jian finished consuming the remaining Foundation-Nourishing Pills and finally repaired a small section of the damage to his divine soul.
The moment he opened his eyes, his gaze landed precisely on the ginseng spirit on the windowsill, bathed in silver moonlight, where a new bud had begun to form.
Sui Jian looked away and brushed a hand over his robe.
The ginseng spirit seemed to be cultivating far too quickly…
After absorbing enough moonlight, Yun Shen felt like a kitten intoxicated by catnip. His whole body went soft with pleasure, his spirit so light he felt as though he might ascend to heaven in the next second.
Unfortunately, before he could enjoy the happiness for more than a few seconds, the great villain’s deep, slightly hoarse voice drifted into his ears.
“Ugly thing. You said keeping you would be useful, but several days have passed and you have yet to show any value. Instead, I have to wait on you.”
Ugly… ugly thing!?
The deeply wounded ginseng spirit nearly burst into tears, but under the great villain’s threatening gaze he forcibly held them back.
He pouted in grievance, daring only to curse silently in his heart.
Great villain! Great demon! You even insult people! No wonder the two protagonists stabbed straight through you!
“I may need to reassess whether there is any point in keeping you.”
The great villain added the sentence coolly. Yun Shen immediately lost all desire to curse. He scrambled out of the flowerpot with roots and leaves flying in every direction, promising frantically, “I really am useful! Wait! I’m coming right now!”
The entire ginseng spirit, roots and leaves included, was only twenty or thirty centimeters long. The windowsill stood about a meter and a half above the floor. Yun Shen had been planning to jump straight down, but after leaning over to look, he shakily withdrew the root he had extended over the edge.
That was so high. Would he be flattened if he jumped?
“I’m still waiting for you to prove yourself.”
Sui Jian had already straightened his clothes and sat in the armchair on the left. His knuckles tapped the tabletop rhythmically, producing dull sounds.
Tap, tap, tap. To Yun Shen’s ears, each one sounded like a death knell.
He swallowed. He truly did not dare jump, so in the end he hooked his roots into a crack in the vermilion pillar beside the window and slowly worked his way down.
The tea table in the main room held the usual tea set. A heat-retaining kettle inlaid with firestone was filled with boiling water.
The ginseng spirit reached the floor and immediately ran over on his short little legs, but the tea table was also far too high for him to reach.
He struggled for ages without managing to climb up and nearly snapped one of his roots.
Sui Jian could no longer stand watching and gave a derisive laugh. “Stupid. Don’t you know how to use the chair beside it?”
Yun Shen, who had never once thought he could climb onto the chair first and then onto the table: “…”
So what if he was stupid? Damn it!
The ginseng spirit huffed and puffed for quite some time before finally climbing up. He lovingly stroked his ginseng roots, picking among them for ages, unwilling to pull off any of them.
These roots had only grown a little thicker after all his painstaking cultivation. Pulling one off just like that made his heart ache.
At last, he chose one and ruthlessly pulled it free. Just as he was about to toss it into the bubbling hot water, Sui Jian suddenly said, “Try throwing it in directly and see what happens.”
Yun Shen froze with the root suspended over the kettle. Three parts confused and seven parts afraid, he turned toward Sui Jian. “I-is there a problem?”
Sui Jian glanced toward the earthenware pot on the windowsill. “You just pulled yourself out of the soil.”
Yun Shen belatedly understood and flushed across his ugly little face.
Putting a ginseng root straight into tea without even washing it really was a bit too natural and earthy. He could not blame the great villain for being disgusted.
He immediately smiled ingratiatingly. “I’ll wash it clean right now!”
The inside of the firestone-inlaid kettle was scorching, but the exterior remained unaffected. It took the ginseng spirit an enormous amount of effort to pour out a cup of hot water. Then he broke the root into little sections and scrubbed them in the cup, grimacing as the water scalded him.
By the time Yun Shen finally finished washing the root at his dawdling pace, a quarter of an hour had passed. The great villain was clearly getting impatient; even the rhythm of his tapping fingers had accelerated.
Yun Shen did not dare waste another second. He was terrified that the next thing boiled in hot water might be himself.
With his back to Sui Jian, he dumped all the pieces of ginseng root into the kettle at once.
The small segments rolled in the boiling water. The clear liquid gradually turned golden, and the distinctive fragrance of ginseng spread through the small room, growing richer and richer.
With considerable malice, Yun Shen thought to himself: I hope I nourish you to death, you bastard! That’s what you get for insulting me. Hmph!
“Is it still not ready?”
At some point, Sui Jian had come to stand behind him, looking down from above.
Guilty thoughts in his heart, Yun Shen jumped in fright and almost toppled off the table. Fortunately, he steadied himself, though his whole body still trembled.
He said uncertainly, “It should be ready, I think?”
Across both his lives, this was the first time he had ever made ginseng tea. Asking him that question was far too difficult for a ginseng spirit.
Perhaps knowing that he should not expect too much from Yun Shen’s intelligence, Sui Jian merely asked once and did not make things harder for him. Once the tea was brewed, he did not order Yun Shen to wash cups or pour it either.
The ginseng roots dissolved completely into the brewed tea. When poured into a cup, the liquid was golden and fragrant with medicine. A shallow sip made saliva gather pleasantly in the mouth.
Sui Jian raised his brows slightly. He had expected medicinal bitterness and had not anticipated that it would actually taste sweet.
“Well? Does it taste all right?”
Yun Shen had to care about the answer. His future quality of life depended on it.
His ability to cling to life depended entirely on these roots.
The ginseng spirit stared at him expectantly, his whole body practically displaying three enormous words: Hurry and praise me. Sui Jian pursed his lips. In the end, he did not strike another blow to the other party and instead offered the evaluation, “Acceptable.”
The ginseng spirit’s leaves trembled happily with a rustling sound.
After one cup of ginseng tea, Sui Jian’s deathly pale complexion gained a trace of color. Yun Shen, now exceedingly attentive, immediately refilled his cup.
Sui Jian glanced at him. Yun Shen rubbed his roots together ingratiatingly. “Please drink.”
Drink it and recover quickly, then release me back into nature.
In Yun Shen’s mind, he could already see the wonderful future in which he returned to Mother Earth. But the great villain did not immediately drink. Instead, he slowly rubbed the rim of the cup with his thumb and said, “You want me to drink this badly?”
“You aren’t secretly plotting something, are you?”
Yun Shen shook his head in horror. “How could I possibly!”
No one wanted the great villain to recover more than he did. How could he possibly scheme against him? Besides…
“Even if I wanted to do something bad, I’d need to have the ability first.”
Sui Jian laughed. “You’ve convinced me.”
The ginseng spirit, who felt insulted in every possible way: “…”
Sui Jian dismissed his suspicions and finally deigned to drink another cup. Yun Shen wanted to pour the rest of the ginseng tea in for him as well, only to see Sui Jian suddenly clutch his chest and spit out a mouthful of black blood. The faint color that had returned to his face instantly turned ashen.
“You actually… dared deceive me…”
Sui Jian’s voice was weak, but his gaze looked as though he wanted to flay Yun Shen alive.
The sudden development left Yun Shen completely dumbfounded. Before he could defend himself, the great villain spat out another mouthful of stagnant blood and fell completely unconscious.
“Hey… are you all right?”
Terrified, Yun Shen shakily checked Sui Jian’s breathing. He was still alive. The boulder hanging over Yun Shen’s heart immediately dropped.
Thank goodness he was not dead. Yun Shen had not killed anyone.
He sighed in relief, then became worried again. He did not know how to save people. What was he supposed to do?
Yun Shen knew very well that he was unreliable. He decided that the practical thing was to run out, find the inn attendant, and summon a healer. But as he prepared to climb off the table, the corner of his eye caught the pitch-black night outside the window.
He stopped, and a sentence flashed through his mind—dark night, high wind, perfect weather for murder.
The ginseng spirit’s tiny eyes lit up like two ten-thousand-watt bulbs.
With such a perfect opportunity placed in front of him, it would be an offense against heaven not to do something!
