CHAPTER 154: CHAPTER 153: A THOUSAND ARROWS PIERCE THE HEART

With the presence of Fu Lu, Zhu Yu felt somewhat relieved.

On the way to Situ Jing’s tent, they encountered several imperial guards who were not quite clear-headed. The Fu Lu kicked them far away before they could get close, and they couldn’t get up for quite a while.

Fortunately, the closer they got to Situ Jing’s tent, the fewer people there were. It seemed that after being trapped by the confusing smoke, most gathered around the bonfire never left, making the tent area somewhat safer.

Fu Lu rushed into the tent and carefully settled Lu Qing on the floor mat where Situ Jing usually slept in the camp.

Seeing their Prince so severely injured, Fu Lu was extremely anxious. Though he had seen Lu Qing injured before, this was the first time he had been stabbed in the chest by a martial artist of such skill.

But he tried hard not to appear too flustered, fearing that it would worry the Prince’s wife even more. After all, Zhu Yu’s trembling voice earlier was something he heard clearly.

So he took a deep breath, turned around, and was just about to say a few comforting words to Zhu Yu, when he saw that Zhu Yu, who had seemed a bit panicked earlier, now looked serious and composed. She was holding one of the flags from Situ Jing’s tent, weighing the bamboo pole it used as a flagstaff in her hand.

Zhu Yu looked up and saw Fu Lu coming over, immediately handing the bamboo pole to him, "Do me a favor, break off a piece from the top, about a palm’s length, and make sure the cut is smooth!"

Fu Lu dared not hesitate, quickly drawing the knife from his waist and chopping off a section of the bamboo pole cleanly.

Zhu Yu took it and examined it. The bamboo tube was hollow, just as she had hoped.

Without further delay, she knelt beside Lu Qing, unwrapped the temporary bandage Situ Jing had tied around him, removed his outer robe and inner clothing, revealing the bloody wound on his chest.

Situ Jing was indeed a trained fighter, not a novice. His strikes were quick, precise, and fierce, so there was only this one wound on Lu Qing, and it wasn’t large.

Small as it was, it was very deep.

Zhu Yu could not determine whether the sword had injured his internals after piercing in, which was why her heart was in her throat.

Taking a deep breath, she placed one end of the hollow bamboo tube over Lu Qing’s heart, avoiding the wound, and pressed her ear to the other end, holding her breath, trying to filter out the interference from her own heartbeat to find Lu Qing’s heartbeat.

Found it! Lu Qing’s heartbeat still sounded steady and not overly weak.

Zhu Yu’s mind settled, feeling as if she regained some of the strength she had almost lost.

From panic to forced calmness, along the way, she suddenly understood what she hadn’t figured out in the past few months.

Seeing Lu Qing lying lifelessly, with blood soaking his chest, Zhu Yu felt an unprecedented fear.

If Lu Qing died, what would become of her?

She could either remain as Prince Xiaoyao’s widow, staying in Prince Xiaoyao Mansion, living in seclusion, embodying the so-called virtues of women.

Or, be sent back to Shuo Country, ending her days in loneliness at Prince Shuo Mansion, or having Zhu Cheng arrange another suitable marriage for her, to remarry someone else.

These possibilities didn’t exactly contradict her original wish of a carefree life, but any slight connection to them felt like an arrow piercing her heart.

If Lu Qing died, she would be seen by others as a puppet, a vase, an ornament; not as a person of flesh and blood, courage and talent.

Besides Lu Qing, no one else on this earth could witness her at an autopsy without turning pale, regard her not as a monster, appreciate her skills, and even go out of their way to create opportunities for her to showcase her talents.

Zhu Yu found herself in a constant state of discord, neither willing to sit up nor lie down peacefully, quarreling with herself.

Until she saw Lu Qing on the verge of breathlessness, a moment that awakened her with a panic like a hand gripping her heart.

The life she was living now was the life she wanted.

The person she was with now was the most suitable for her.

Zhu Yu had only one thought: by all means, Lu Qing must survive.

"Wake up, wake up..." Zhu Yu leaned down, gently patting Lu Qing’s cheek. She wanted to call his name, but it was not appropriate, "Can you hear my voice?"

Perhaps it was her call or the act of patting his cheek that roused the last bit of his consciousness. Lu Qing’s eyelids fluttered and opened into a slit. Seeing the serious face of Zhu Yu in front of him, his lips moved slightly, as if wanting to smile, but he couldn’t muster the strength for even a smile.

"Chief Historian... you’re too noisy..." his voice was light as a sigh.

But those words inexplicably reassured Zhu Yu a bit.

The fact that he could still tease her was undoubtedly a good sign at this moment.

"Listen to me, I know doing this will cause your wound to hurt, but you must cooperate with me," Zhu Yu whispered in his ear, worried he wouldn’t hear clearly, "Inhale, slowly, as much as you can, I need to see if Situ Jing injured your lung."

Lu Qing heard her, gently inhaling. He had only taken half a breath before the tearing pain from the wound made him cough, causing him to exhale the just-taken-in air.

He tried several more times, finally enduring the sharp pain to complete a deep breath.

Zhu Yu exhaled a bit more easily, quickly signaling him to relax, taking out her always-carried tools. She first carefully applied two jars of flesh-regeneration and hemostatic ointment that Yan Daoxin had given her, diligently spreading it over Lu Qing’s wound, then took the finest curved needle and silk thread.

"Given the limited conditions here, I can’t get any pain relief like Rhododendron, so you’ll have to bear with it while I stitch up the wound," she said in Lu Qing’s ear.

With that, she carefully aligned the skin on either side of Lu Qing’s wound, meticulously stitching together the muscle pierced by the sword before suturing the skin.

During the first layer of stitching, Lu Qing trembled slightly with each prick of the needle into his flesh from the pain.

Zhu Yu gritted her teeth, aligning each stitch neatly and carefully.

She still remembered the crisscross scars on Lu Qing’s body. Though she didn’t know what hardships he endured before, from now on, Zhu Yu didn’t want any more ghastly scars added to his body.

By the time she reached the second layer, Lu Qing no longer flinched from the pain, whether it was because the pain had lessened or he simply had no strength left to react.

Indeed, Yan Daoxin’s ointment was remarkably effective. By the time Zhu Yu finished stitching the wound, the bleeding had largely stopped.

Feeling a bit more relieved at the sight of the no-longer-bleeding wound, Zhu Yu used the clean cotton cloth Fu Lu found to simply cover the wound, then drew a nearby blanket and securely covered Lu Qing with it.

"He’s just lost blood and is prone to chills now, so I’ll stay here to watch over him. You check outside to see how things are going," she said, after finishing up, turning to Fu Lu.