Chapter 72: Triggered by a Melon Seed 2/2

“You said that he is poisoned? Poison of Bitter Marrow, what is that?” Yuwen Yao asked.

Liu Xiao Li stunned and replied in reflex, “Poison of Bitter Marrow is Poison of Bitter Marrow. What else can it be.”

Yuwen Yao frowned, “explain it properly!”

Liu Xiao Li dislikes this person, and even more so with the current tone of this person. He pouted and agilely dodged to escape from his grasp. Once he scuttled far enough, he turned back and stuck out his tongue towards the irritating man before running away.

Yuwen Yao wanted to give chase but Yan Pei stopped him, “forget it.”

Yuwen Yao’s pupils sank, “Poison of Bitter Marrow…… Isn’t your illness from birth? Why is it linked to poison?”

“He is just a child. May not be accurate.”

“No, this child obviously know something.” Yuwen Yao said. He ignored Yan Pei and chased behind.

Yan Pei sighed. He looked at the distant figure of Yuwen Yao slowly disappearing. Suddenly, he felt pain in his whole body. His face paled and his body fell onto the couch.

After he collapsed, his limbs immediately curled like usual. He curled himself like a ball as his fingers drenched in a cold sweat, clenching tightly on his sleeves. Following on, he forcefully bore the intense pain that travelled through his body one after another.

It has been eighteen years and every day and night was like this. The children from other families could walk after ten months, talk after one-year-old; the first word they spoke was either father or mother. Him, he could speak at eight months old; and his first word is “pain”.

Ever since he was born, has there been a day where he was not in pain?

The bones in his whole body are burning, his limbs are numbed, his head is rumbling with thorns. At first, it acted up once every two to three days. After that, it was every day. And now, it would act up seven to eight times even though efforts of suppressing it.

This illness has stolen his health, and almost his life.

When he was young, he still had hoped to recover one day. But now, all he looks forward to is his death.

At least after he died, he no longer needs to tolerate such torture, such as bone scraping and soul breaking pain.

Yan Pei’s pain triggers at an irregular time. Ran Zi was not around and no one was around to serve him. But even if there was someone around, it is useless. There is no way to alleviate this pain and he could only depend on himself to tolerate it. Was there a time when he did not bear it all by himself?

But he knew that the duration of the pain is not long; only a quarter of an hour or fastest, just a stick of incense.
(TN: To maintain the originality of the novel, I have decided to use “a stick of incense” to describe 5 mins. Because I feel that it is going to be weird if Yan Pei, a character from olden china, uses modern time language)

He curled himself even tighter and bit his lips firmly. His lips bled from his bite but compared to the bone shredding pain that he is suffering now, it is nothing and negligible.

“Acted up already?” a gentle and soft voice spoke next to his ears.

Did Ran Zi come back?

Yan Pei lifted his eyelids and raised his eyes but met with a hazy face of a child.

Qiu Er?

He stunned a while and immediately remembered; Qiu Er is missing without a sign of life.

Is it a hallucination? Probably it is a hallucination. Sometimes when he is in intense pain, he would hallucinate.

Liu Xiao Li looked at this young man who was suffering from excruciating pain. He turned to Zhen Zhu at his side, “that evil man is outside looking for us. We cannot return to the front hall. If dad knows that I caused trouble, he definitely would beat my buttocks. Let’s return a little later.”

“Caw.” Zhen Zhu softly cried, as if it was saying, “he will hit me too, let’s return a little later”.

Liu Xiao Li nodded and pointed at the man on the couch, “his illness is acting up again. Do you think I should save him? He is together with that evil man, I don’t want to save him. But if I ignore it, it would not be ethical for a physician. Plus, he looks like he is in real pain. Poison of Bitter Marrow; bone-crushing and soul breaking pain. It is as if every bone are as hot as a fire, as frozen as ice, crushed and hammered…… Everyone has two-hundred-and-six bones and he would feel that on every bone. After all these, how unbearable would he be.”

“Caw.” Zhen Zhu rubbed his ears.

Liu Xiao Li sighed, “I am just too soft-hearted.”