“Mom, are you alright?” Su Xiaoxue immediately asked after hearing her mother cough. She remembered that her mother was just fine when she left the house earlier that morning. She was puzzled as to why her mother suddenly started coughing.

“It’s no big deal. My chest just feels rather tight.” Song Ruiping dismissively waved and said, “Give Yao a call and tell him to be careful. Guo Zhenghe is one hell of a schemer.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Su Xiaoxue quickly called Wang Yao.

“What? He looked for you in Jing?” Wang Yao was rather shocked to hear that Guo Zhenghe still refused to let up. His enmity toward that young man from the Guo family instantly deepened.

Some people were so obnoxious and did not know when to give up.

“Yeah, and he came to my place as well,” Su Xiaoxue said.

“He was at your place?” Wang Yao asked. “Did you find something off about him?”

“Something off? Well, I felt that he had a weird aura about him. Oh, his face didn’t look right.” Su Xiaoxue recalled the encounter with Guo Zhenghe in detail. Guo Zhenghe’s face had looked different from normal people. He looked as if he had gone out of his way to put on makeup.

Song Ruiping, who was next to her, began coughing again.

“Is Auntie by your side?” Wang Yao asked. “What is happening to her? Is she feeling unwell?”

“She is feeling some tightness in her chest, but she was fine this morning,” Su Xiaoxue said.

“If she was fine in the morning, did she begin feeling sick after Guo Zhenghe came to your place?” Wang Yao anxiously asked.

“It seems so.” Song Ruiping thought about it and found that what Wang Yao asked was correct.

He was in the house for less than 10 minutes and didn’t say anything important. It was mostly just small talk. However, she smelled something rather weird and began feeling unwell after he left.

“Alright, I’ll head there right away,” Wang Yao said. “Tell Auntie to not go outside at all.”

“What’s wrong?” Su Xiaoxue asked.

“I’ll tell you about it later.”

Wang Yao was worried that Guo Zhenghe had brought something poisonous he acquired from Miao Xihe to Su Xiaoxue’s place. If that was the case, the entire household was in danger.

He called Zhong Liuchuan and Jia Zizai to get things back home settled with them.

“Keep an eye out in this place. Zizai, keep your eyes peeled for any signs of Guo Zhenghe. He’s dangerous.”

“I know, Master,” Jia Zizia replied. “You can count on us.”

“Alright, you guys be careful. Use the Prolongation Pills I gave you guys if the situation demands it. They could save your lives.”

“Will do.”

After settling things back home, he told his parents that he was going to visit Xiaoxue in Jing. His parents did not ask any questions and simply told him to be careful. They even told him there was no need to rush back to the village. This was a good chance for him to stay in Jing and spend more time with Su Xiaoxue.

Wang Yao booked the next flight to Jing. He arrived at her home that night.

By the time he got there, Song Ruiping was already bedridden from severe tightness in her chest. She kept coughing. Blood was seen as well. Chen Zhouchuan was by her side. Su Xiaoxue was very restless.

“You’re here!”

“Let’s check your mother out.” Wang Yao immediately began to diagnosis her.

“She is poisoned.”

“Poison? From Guo Zhenghe?”

“It was most likely him,” Wang Yao said. “Let’s put that aside for the moment and focus on treatment for Auntie.”

The treatment was easy.

He used half a leaf of Antidote Herb and half a leaf of Sedge with Guiyuan to adjust the effects.

After gulping down a bowl of medicine, it only took 30 minutes for it to work.

She no longer coughed, and her chest no longer felt tight.

“Feeling better now, Auntie?”

“A lot better.” Song Ruiping breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you for rushing all the way here.”

“Don’t mention it,” Wang Yao said. “Just lie down and rest. I’ll prepare more medicine for you. It’s for strengthening your body.”

“Sure.”

All of them left the bedroom.

“Will my Mom be OK?” Su Xiaoxue asked.

“She’s fine,” Wang Yao said, comforting her. “The poisoning was not deep. I’m here, so no worries.”

“I never thought that young man from the Guo family would do something like this,” Chen Zhouchuan said. “What was he after?”

Wang Yao thought about it and said, “He may not be doing this on purpose.”

Anyone with even the slightest bit of sense would not have done something like that. Song Ruiping got sick right after he left. That identified him as the obvious suspect. Furthermore, the Su family was not an ordinary one. Showing up to harm one of them was a blatant act of provocation. Anyone with any brains at all would not have done something like that.

Wang Yao’s diagnosis was that she was merely poisoned, not cursed. That was probably a side effect caused by Guo Zhenghe ridding his body of those bugs using Miao Xihe’s blood. That was what made Su Xiaoxue feel weird about him. He was also a man with medicine in his blood, technically speaking. However, said medicine was actually poison.

“One way or another, he was the one who caused all of this, and he didn’t come here with good intentions to begin with,” Su Xiaoxue coldly said.

She originally had a good impression of Guo Zhenghe, which was later reduced to being just average. Her impression further dropped to become a bad one, and she felt disgusted by the man. Now, she resented and hated him.

“Someone like that deserves to be punished.” Those were heavy words coming from someone like Su Xiaoxue.

“Punishment?” Wang Yao asked. “I reckon he’s suffering said punishment as we speak.”

Miao Xihe’s blood could not be ingested without repercussions.

He talked with Su Xiaoxue for a bit before cooking the Regather Soup. He had brought ample herbs with him on the trip. They were all stored in the slots of the system. By the time he was done, it was late at night. Su Xiaoxue stayed by his side the whole time. He checked Su Xiaoxue for a bit after giving the medicine to Song Ruiping. After confirming that there were no problems with her, they went to their respective rooms and called it a night. It was the first time he had spent the night at her place.

The next day, Song Ruiping was up early in the morning. She felt fine and relieved. She strolled the compound before going back to the house to make breakfast.

Wang Yao got up rather early as well.

“How are you feeling, Auntie?” he asked.

“A lot better,” Song Ruiping replied with a smile. “My chest no longer feels tight. I don’t feel any pain in my body anymore either.”

“Come, I’ve made you guys breakfast.”

Su Xiaoxue called down from upstairs, “Breakfast? Smells good!”

“Come down quick and eat it,” Song Ruiping replied.

Wang Yao did not rush to eat breakfast. Instead, he performed a simple checkup on Song Ruiping. After confirming that she was fine, he ate breakfast with the mother and daughter.

“Eat more, mom.” Su Xiaoxue peeled an egg boiled in tea for her mother.

“Thanks, Daughter. You eat more too.”

After they were done with breakfast, Wang Yao accompanied Su Xiaoxue on her way to school. Song Ruiping was the only person left in the house. After a while, Chu Lian arrived.

“Madam.”

“That kid from the Guo family has really gone too far,” Song Ruiping said with a serious expression.

Regardless if he had been doing so deliberately or not, the fact that he was the one who got her sick remained. It was an act of provocation. Coming to her place just to provoke them was not something she was able to stomach.

“What would you like to do?” Chu Lian asked.

“Have someone keep a close eye on him,” Song Ruiping said. “I’d like to see what else he is capable of.”

“Yes, Madam.”

Su Xianghua came home for a bit that morning.

“A rough trip, I take it?” Song Ruiping asked.

After washing his face, Su Xianghua said, “It was not too bad. I’ve gotten used to it.”

“Yao came last night.”

“Is that so? Tell him to come over at noon. It’s been a while since I last saw him,” Su Xianghua said. Considering his position at work, he was on a very tight schedule. There were many matters that he had to attend to whether he liked it or not. His time slots were all filled with work.

“Do you know why he came here?” Song Ruiping asked.

“Why?” Su Xianghua was rather stunned by that question.

“He was here because of me,” Song Ruiping said.

“You?” Su Xianghua asked in shock. “What happened to you? Did you got sick?”

“I was nearly poisoned to death,” Song Ruiping said. “If it hadn’t been for Yao coming here in the nick of time, I figure you’d be seeing me elsewhere.”

“What the hell happened?” Su Xianghua’s expression turned severe. He knew what his wife was like. She would not have joked about something like that.

Song Ruiping told him what happened the day before in detail.

“This is outrageous!” Su Xianghua shouted.

“Yao definitely is still holding something back. I’ll talk to him later.”

“Sure.”

Su Xiaoxue and Wang Yao were having a great time at Yenching University. They went back to her place at noon for a bit because her father was home.

After lunch, Su Xianghua told Wang Yao to come to his study. The two men talked for quite a long time. Wang Yao told just about everything he was able to recall about the matter, from the very beginning to what happened most recently, to Su Xianghua. He held almost nothing back. He, however, omitted the happenings at the southern mountain as best he could.

“He killed someone?” Su Xianghua asked.

“I have no proof, but I couldn’t think of anyone out to do that but him,” Wang Yao replied.