Chapter 723 Cause and Effect
Wang Jianguo gritted his teeth and gently lifted Yang Huaixi's arm. The stench of rancid blood mixed with the fragrance of the remaining herbs hit him in the face, reminding him of the old man's focused look when he boiled the medicine in the past.
When the cloth strip was entangled, the unconscious Yang Huaixi suddenly let out a muffled groan, which startled Dou'er so much that he rushed back and held the other end of the cloth strip with trembling hands.
The shadows of the three people overlapped and swayed in the moonlight, just like candles swaying in the wind and rain.
When he finally helped the person sit steadily on the wooden chair, Wang Jianguo noticed that Dou'er's calf was still bleeding.
The girl just shook her head, staring at the alley entrance, as if the thugs might turn back at any time:
"Leave me alone... Gotta get out of here."
The night wind blew up her messy hair, revealing the purple pinch marks on her neck, which glowed strangely in the moonlight.
The night was like thick ink, wrapping the courtyard tightly. Only a dim lantern was swaying in the wind, and its light and shadow danced on Yang Huaixi's distorted face.
Wang Jianguo squatted down and saw that Zhang Huaixi's left eye was swollen completely closed, and the torn wound at the corner of his mouth was covered with dark brown blood scab.
The coarse cloth covering his ribs was soaked with blood, rising and falling slightly with his weak breathing, and each gasp was accompanied by a muddy sound in his chest.
His eyes swept over the back of Yang Huaixi's hand covered with whip marks. The criss-crossing scars were still oozing blood, mixed with the scattered herbs and broken medicine jars on the ground. The air was filled with the pungent smell of blood and the bitterness of herbs.
Wang Jianguo's Adam's apple rolled, he suppressed the anger in his heart, and spoke as softly as possible:
"Dou'er, go get him some water."
Dou'er, who was about sixteen or seventeen years old, was still shaking all over. There were traces of tears on her pretty face, and dirt and blood stains were embedded in the cracks between her fingernails.
He stared at Yang Huaixi's miserable appearance, his lips trembling and unable to speak. He woke up as if from a dream after hearing the order. He nodded hurriedly, staggered when he turned around, and almost bumped into the crooked wooden frame beside him.
He stumbled into the house, the wooden door creaked open and then slammed shut, startling a few sparrows under the eaves.
When the footsteps gradually faded away, Wang Jianguo reached out and gently felt Yang Huaixi's pulse. His heart couldn't help but tighten when his fingertips touched the weak and disordered beat.
He leaned close to Yang Huaixi's ear and asked in a low voice:
"Brother Yang, what's going on? How did you offend them?"
The lantern suddenly shook violently, and the candlelight flickered. Tears welled up in Yang Huaixi's sunken eye sockets. His cracked lips moved, but only let out a faint whimper.
Wang Jianguo took out a handkerchief from his arms, dipped it in the rain water in the puddle on the ground, and carefully wiped the blood off Yang Huaixi's face.
The cold touch seemed to make Yang Huaixi regain some consciousness. He turned his neck with difficulty and looked at Wang Jianguo with his only remaining right eye, his eyes full of fear and despair:
"They...they said I was selling fake medicine..."
Before he could finish his words, he suddenly had a violent coughing fit. Blood flowed out from the corner of his mouth and dripped onto the back of Wang Jianguo's hand, scalding him and making him tremble all over.
From afar came the sound of the night watchman's clapperboard, three long and two short, which was particularly clear in the silent night.
Wang Jianguo clenched his fists and dug his nails deep into his palms. He knew that this was definitely not a matter of fake medicine.
The Black Tiger Gang was clearly using this as an excuse to completely eradicate Yang Huaixi, the "thorn" who had established a foothold in the black market.
He looked into the house, but there was still no sound of Dou'er getting water. He felt uneasy and was secretly thinking about how to escape from the tiger's mouth with the big and small ones.
Yang Huaixi leaned on the broken back of a chair, and spoke every word as if he had used up all his strength.
His chest heaved violently, his blood-stained clothes trembled with his breathing, his left eye was swollen into a purple lump, and his right eye was cloudy and bloodshot. His distracted gaze finally focused on Wang Jianguo's face.
The night wind swept across the courtyard, picking up the broken medicine grinder and scattered angelica fragments in the corner, and swirled between the two people with the smell of blood.
"That day..."
Yang Huaixi's cracked lips trembled as he licked the scabbed wound with the tip of his tongue, causing him to twitch slightly in pain.
"It was raining at the entrance of the alley, and it was very cold and damp. The man was wearing a wide-brimmed hat and his collar was turned up high, revealing only half of his grayish face."
He suddenly started coughing violently, and dark red blood foam oozed out from between his fingers.
"He asked for thirty golden gun pellets right away, his voice was as hoarse as sandpaper grinding rust. I've been in this black market for twenty years, and I knew he was a stranger at first glance, so how could I dare to sell him so easily?"
Wang Jianguo squatted down, reached out to hold the old man's trembling shoulders, and felt his bony shoulder blades hitting his palms.
Dou'er had been standing by with a half-bowl of water in her hand. Her knuckles had turned white from the cold of the bowl and tears were still welling up in her eyes.
When Yang Huaixi took the bowl, blood oozed from the marks left by the hemp rope on his wrist, spreading out into thin strands of red in the clear water.
"But the silver dollars he took out..."
Yang Huaixi tilted his head back and drank half a bowl of water, his Adam's apple rolling violently.
"That pile of silver dollars was taller than my medicine box, and the edges were polished to a shine. I thought, maybe he really is the steward of some wealthy family..."
His voice stopped abruptly, and he suddenly grabbed Wang Jianguo's wrist tightly, his nails almost digging into the flesh.
"At noon the next day, the Black Tiger Gang kicked down the door! They said someone had taken my medicine and died suddenly, and that I was murdering people for money!"
Dou'er suddenly let out a suppressed sob, and the porcelain bowl in her hand shook, creating ripples.
Wang Jianguo felt the warmth in Yang Huaixi's palm was slipping away, and the old man's body was shaking like a dead leaf in the night wind.
"Blame me, it's all my fault..."
Yang Huaixi murmured to himself, turbid tears mixed with blood slid into the corners of his mouth.
"The medicine was clearly prepared according to the old prescription, and I even added wolfberry and deer antler..."
"Brother Yang, don't think about this for now."
Wang Jianguo interrupted him and saw out of the corner of his eye a large bruise on the old man's lower back, shaped like a leather boot mark.
“The first thing is to get out of here.”
He was about to say something else when Yang Huaixi suddenly grabbed his collar, his skinny fingers causing the fabric to tear:
"Brother Jianguo, what is your relationship with them? Those beasts are always cruel and ruthless, how could they let us go so easily?"
There was a scream of a wild cat outside the courtyard, startling Dou'er so much that the porcelain bowl in her hand fell to the ground with a clang. The moonlight poured in through the broken window frame, casting a spider-web-like shadow on Yang Huaixi's face.
The night wind swept through the courtyard, carrying the stench of the sewage ditch at the end of the alley. Wang Jianguo squatted in front of Yang Huaixi, and the moonlight cast a deep shadow between his tired brows.
He reached out and tucked Yang Huaixi's hanging hair behind her ear. His fingertips touched the ear that was stained with blood scabs, and his Adam's apple rolled heavily.
Hearing Yang Huaixi's question, he was silent at first, then shook his head helplessly, his movements so slow that it seemed as if even his neck was filled with lead.