The promise of slow wear for the rest of your life

It took Situ Yan almost half a month from the moment he started to knead the stubborn stone into powder, to carving out a resembling finished stone carving.

Compared with the progress of practicing boxing and swordsmanship, it is not a bit slower.

When the wood carved in his hands gradually revealed its shape, the Gully State, which was rumored to be in danger of drought this year, was already close at hand.

Qiugu State is located in the west of Dongyue State, and the terrain in the territory is relatively complex. The east is mostly hilly, the south is mostly mountainous basins, the north is full of mountains, and only the west is plains.

The plain in the west is named Xiping County, and it belongs to Pingxi Wang Fan, one of the late emperor's relatives.

According to legend, the Pingxi Palace is located in Pingcheng, the border city on the west side of Xiping County.

The western border of Xiping County is also the western border of Dongyue Kingdom. It borders Hu and He, which are struggling to survive in the cracks. It is known as the western fortress of Dongyue Kingdom.

According to the rumors, the prefecture and county that has not had rain for more than three months and is sure to suffer from drought this year is the vassal land of King Pingxi, Xiping County of Qiuhe Prefecture.

Arnold and his party came from the east, crossed the hills and bypassed the mountains, and it took more than a month before they arrived in Xiping County.

At this time, Situ Yan had already learned more than ten kinds of boxing and sword skills, and he was able to freely retract and release the internal force transformed by the medicinal power in his body, and carved a decent wood carving with it, which was a great achievement.

For the people in Xiping County, mid-September in previous years usually means that a good harvest is imminent.

However, not this year.

Not to mention a bumper harvest, even those who have no harvest can be found everywhere.

Arnold and his party walked along the way, and what they saw most was the scene of dead crops. Even in the few good fields close to the water source of the river and convenient for irrigation, there were many dead crops.

In the few surviving crop fields, the crops growing in them also look like they are short of water and fertilizer. The grains produced are all shriveled, and the yield per mu has shrunk by at least two-thirds compared with previous years.

Although the people who have lived here for generations have not been short of food and food to the point of changing their children, they are not far away.

Along the way, Arnold and his party have seen many villagers who are sallow and emaciated, and can only eat rice bran, grass roots, and tree bark to satisfy their hunger every day.

From the moment they entered Xiping County, the speed of the donkey cart slowed down.

Correspondingly, Arnold also hung up the medical banner.

It's a pity that although the words "free clinic" are clearly written on the medical flag hung this time, there are still very few people who stop the road to seek medical treatment.

However, although there are few people seeking medical treatment, there are quite a lot of people blocking the road and robbing people.

Those robbers were mostly desperate civilians, a mob composed of them.

When encountering such robbers, Arnold basically sent them away with money.

Fortunately, most of these robbers were not greedy, and if they were given a little money to buy food for them, they would be content to let the three of them go.

For the rare serious robbers or greedy people, Arnold not only refused to give them a penny, but even left them to Situ Yan to practice.

At the beginning, Situ Yan's strikes were neither serious nor serious, often seriously injuring people.

As a doctor, Arnold couldn't do nothing but heal those who were seriously injured, leave the wound medicine and leave.

Afterwards, Situ Yan achieved great power and was able to freely retract and release his internal energy, and this kind of situation never happened again.

Even so, by the time they reached Pingcheng, the amount of wound medicine in the big medicine box that Anol was carrying was almost exhausted.

So that after the three of them entered the city, the first thing to do was not to find an inn where they could stay, but to go to the pharmacy in the city to replenish the medicinal materials first.

Maybe it was because it was getting late, or maybe it was because there was no profit in this place. When they found the most famous inn in the city to stay, the business of the inn seemed to be very bleak.

There are very few guests in the lobby, not a single merchant, only a few three or two guests, and they are all Jiang Hu people with swords and swords.

The shopkeeper looked sleepy and asked them how many rooms they wanted.

Arnold made the decision and asked for three upper rooms.

These three upper rooms are connected together and are all located on the second floor of the inn.

When the three of them followed the second brother upstairs, Anol lowered his volume slightly, and said to the two people beside him: "After such a long journey, you must all be tired. Tonight, you should have a good night's rest. Tomorrow I'm afraid I'm busy again."

Cong Yan nodded silently.

Situ Yan tilted his head and asked him, "What are Brother Si Xian's plans for tomorrow?"

Anuoer looked back calmly, curved his lips and said with a smile: "I heard that the king of Pingxi has recently ordered the government office in the city to open a warehouse to release grain, and set up a shed outside the city to give porridge to the victims.

"I'm going to set up a free clinic for a few days near the porridge shed set up by the government tomorrow, and provide free medical consultations and medicines for the victims, so as to do my best. This matter requires the help of the two of you."

Situ Yan was shocked, but he didn't show anything on his face, he just paused, cupped his hands and said to him: "Brother Si Xian is righteous, Chang Hua admires him!"

Anol hurriedly stretched out his hand to help him up: "Brother Si Yan is absurd. Nuo is ashamed."

When there are outsiders, in order to prevent people from revealing their identity, Arnold will only call the pseudonym written on the forged identity document that Situ Yan took.

"Yan" and "Yan" are homophonic, and Situ Yan didn't feel too uncomfortable when he heard it.

He said: "Anuoer, if you don't mind, you can call me "Changhua". I am about the same age as you, but I am not as broad-minded as you, and my righteousness is so small. I really dare not call you brother anymore."

This was the first time that Situ Yan called him by his name so intimately since the two met.

Although this "er" is not the same as "er", the pronunciation is the same, and there is not much difference in sound.

Arnold couldn't help being stunned for a moment, and after returning to his senses in a blink of an eye, he said kindly: "Changhua is overwhelmed."

While the two were talking, the second brother led them to the door of the three connected empty rooms.

"Three guest officers, we've arrived in rooms No. [-], [-], and [-]." After opening the doors one by one, the second brother raised his hand and handed the keys to the three of them as he spoke.

Arnold took the three keys from him, and distributed one to Situ Yan and Cong Yan, and said with a final word: "Changhua lives in Room [-], I live in Room [-], and Cong Yan lives in Room [-]."

Cong Yan had no objection: "Good master."

Situ Yan also had no objection: "It's up to you."

Seeing that they had allocated the room, the younger brother said in a timely manner: "There is free hot tea and warm water in the store, do you want any of the guests?"

Anol looked back at the younger brother with a low eyebrow and pleasing eyes, raised his eyebrows and asked, "No meals?"

The second elder brother smiled and said: "I only need the guest officials to spend some extra money. Now that the food price in the city remains high, and the price of vegetables is even higher, the small shop is really unable to provide free meals. I hope the guest officials will be happy."

Arnold took out a piece of silver from his sleeve ostentatiously, and handed it to him: "That's fine too. There's plenty of tea, meals, and warm water. Send some to each of our rooms."

The little second brother immediately beamed with joy, took the money, nodded and bowed and said: "Okay, please wait a moment for the three guest officers, the little one will bring you tea, food and warm water right away."

After Xiaoer left, Anol, Situ Yan and Cong Yan went into their respective rooms.

Not long after, there was a knock on the door of Room No. [-] in Tianzi.

Inside the room, Situ Yan asked to come in, wondering how the second brother was so fast, when he raised his eyes, he saw that it was not the second brother but Arnold who entered the door.

Seeing Anol enter the door, he smiled and said to him: "Changhua, I almost forgot to remind you that it's time to change your makeup."

Situ Yan was slightly taken aback: "Changing clothes?"

"It's makeup." Arnold raised the rouge powder box in his hand to him, and said, "The color-preserving potion you put on your face can last for more than a month at most. It will be invalid in two or three days."

Situ Yan suddenly realized, and subconsciously raised his hand to touch the corner of his eye with a scarlet mole.

He hadn't thought of staying away from this person for the time being, so in order to avoid arousing suspicion, he naturally never asked why the tear mole couldn't be washed away.

Situ Yan also guessed that this tear mole may be painted with some kind of special rouge that cannot be washed away with water, but he never thought that the key is not the rouge used to draw the tear mole, but the smearing of the tear mole afterwards. Color preservation "potion".

Medicine should be another name for potion, Situ Yan thought so.

Seeing his pensive expression, Arnold didn't give much explanation, just led him to sit down in front of the bronze mirror, then opened the rouge powder box, took out a small porcelain bottle from it, and poured out some color-preserving potion residues. The effect of decolorization agent, soaked silk handkerchief.

"This is a color-removing potion. After you wipe it, the color-preserving potion and makeup on your face will be removed."

Arnold said while covering Situ Yan's face with a handkerchief.

First the eyebrows, then the ends of the eyes.

Situ Yan closed his eyes in a daze and let him move.

The distance between the two was too close, so that when Anol spoke, all the hot air he exhaled was poured into his ears.

Before this, Situ Yan had never been so close to a person when his consciousness was clear, but now it was so sudden, he couldn't help feeling a little dazed.

This also directly led to what Arnold said later, but he didn't listen to a word.

It wasn't until Situ Yan was patted on the shoulder that he came back to his senses, and heard Anol say: "Okay, Changhua, you can open your eyes now."

Situ Yan followed his words.

The face reflected in the bronze mirror, except for the lighter red color at the end of the eyes, making his face a little tougher than before, the overall look is almost the same as before.

The crimson mole of tears still exists, even its position has not changed at all, and the shape of the eyebrows is still the sword eyebrows flying obliquely into the temples.

Except for these three places, Arnold has not moved any other parts.

Situ Yan also didn't know until this time that the rosy color on his cheeks and lips was not a dress, but a normal expression of his own sufficient energy and blood.

This also allowed him to fully understand how advanced Arnold's medical skills really are.

Situ Yan flicked the thin red color at the end of his eyes, and said in admiration: "This kind of disguise is enough to confuse the real with the fake. It's really miraculous."

Arnold smiled and said: "That's right, this is the ultimate makeup technique that I have learned for a long time, and the effect will naturally not be bad."

I still remember that the reason why he learned these things at the beginning was because he felt that just daubing some cosmetics on his face would make people feel as if he had changed his face, which was very magical.

At that time, he never imagined that this technology, combined with the rouge and color-preserving potion made from lacquer fruit, would play a huge role in the future.