Chapter 879: Chapter 879 Poisonous Options
Xiang looked between the two glaring women and decided he really didn’t want to deal with that. On the other hand, there were some things that needed to be dealt with less they be lead to a potentially fatal incident with the poison. Yang might want salt rubbed in her wounds, an understandable if perhaps naive viewpoint. However it seemed to Xiang they were both forgetting about the fact they needed large amounts of water to wash it all away. So Xiang decided to err on the side of pragmatism.
“Ok you two, that’s enough,” said Xiang forcefully but quietly, just enough that if they really wanted to, ignoring him was on the table, but he was certainly heard. Apparently it was enough though because they both turned towards him with questions in their eyes, “Kat, I understand that Yang is refusing what might be life saving treatment. I’m glad you seem to accept that she can make that choice,
“Yang,” the word hung in the air for a few moments, “I understand that you don’t want additional, and possibly needless pain inflicted upon you. I’m not even going to say that the additional chance to survive is worth the pay you would likely experience because of the salt. It is not my choice to make, it is yours, and I’m going to respect that. What I do want you to know is that I will be using what little salt stores we have on myself, or perhaps more accurately I’ll be asking Kat to do it. For me, no amount of pain is too much for a chance to continue to live.
“I do not say this as a criticism, mainly an observation, but I’d like to point out that you are a cultivator. Pain is in our nature and the path to immortality is long and thorny. It will not be a painless path and the vast majority of people fall short in some way. It is only the truly rare individual that can reach the apex and a sacrifice of a short few moments of time against the chance to reach the top... no matter how small... well... I see that as a very easy gamble for someone already walking on the cultivation path,”
Yang looked rather stunned. Like she’d been slapped in the face with a fish despite no sea food being in sight. Both insulting, confusing, embarrassing and just generally absurd. Despite this, Xiang’s words did seem to resonate with Yang and she pointedly took her gaze elsewhere. Xiang wasn’t wrong. She didn’t want to admit it, and perhaps she simply wouldn’t... but the truth of his words rung throughout her sole and they would not live.
Xiang either didn’t notice, or didn’t want to apply quite so much pressure to Yang’s mindset at the moment. Well, that or perhaps it was even less altruistic. They only had so much salt after all. “Now, with that being said we have a choice to make... and Kat seeing as you have repeatedly stated you do not mind, or do not care about our directional choices... and this one seems to disproportionally affect Yang and I, I can just assume you’ll leave things up to us yes?”
“Barring anything particularly noteworthy yes, I don’t really see why I’d need to or want to contradict you, but I suppose to answer with complete honesty I should mention the odd chance I do correct you,” said Kat trying to be overly verbose, speaking with soft words and glaring at Yang.
.....
Xiang just nodded, apparently ignoring that as well. “Now, the way I see it we have two choices, well we have three but that one isn’t really a great idea. That’s to follow the road towards Xuena, but the poison needs dealing with and just following the road will get us nowhere because as I see it, the biggest issue we currently have is finding enough water to wash our potential wounds.
“I see two ways to go about that, we can either cut across wild territory and try to head for a small mountain, that’s really more of a hill with delusions of grandeur. According to this map there is a river that springs forth their and just based on its height it has to be an underground spring. That would give us essentially an endless supply of water, it’s right on the way towards Xuena, but that’s all we’ll have there water.
“The other option we have, is to follow the road and turn left instead of right, away from Xuena and towards the largest town, that’s really more of a small city in the area. It certainly has well or some other water source for the population, but we may not be able to acquire enough of it to continually wash down two people. We may need to reuse the same few buckets of water, which is likely a bad idea for our health, yours especially Yang if you want avoid the salt.
“The benefit though, is that we can almost certainly find an apothecary with experience in this sort of poisoning. Not that I don’t trust Palo but he had nothing better to offer then to try and life through it. We are cultivators though, and while we don’t have a lot of funds, we have some, perhaps enough for something that could heal us. As cultivators we can accept more toxic pills in the name of healing and we have more money then mortals,
“Then again... if this poison really was made by a sadist... it was perhaps never intended to be lethal, simply as painful and inconvenient as possible, they could have instead focused on making it basically incurable outside simply enduring the effects. It’s not even that unlikely based on what Kat has said about it.” Xiang paused for a moment to consider what was just said, “Right... yeah... in fact I think the more important question is if it retained that property after turning into the bog. I think the answer is probably yes knowing my luck... but maybe not...”
Xiang shrugged and let the silence hang for a few moments after that. He didn’t really know how to continue so he waited for questions or comments and found he wasn’t really receiving any. Apparently what he’d said was clear enough... but he really did what Yang to comment. That was sort of the whole point of asking, and trying to get Kat to O.K. whatever decision they made. It made it clear to Yang these were decisions she could make.
He really had no interest in getting into argument with her, not when his vision was already starting to blur somewhat. If they really started going at it, the chances they collapsed before the argument was done happened to be MUCH too high for his liking. So his ‘options’ were placed squarely on Yang’s shoulder. No argument then, right? Except apparently Yang didn’t want to say anything.
So with a suppressed sigh, Xiang asked, “So what do you think Yang? I’m not really happy about what’s going to happen, and I don’t really see one idea as being much better then the others, but what do you think?”
Well that was the question wasn’t it? Yang didn’t really know what to think. Screaming herself horse in a city full of people to hear her wailing was exceptionally low down on her priority list. The idea of trying to wash poison of her legs with poisoned water was even further down, so really that should rule out the city already... but on the other hand sleeping on the ground and camping by a water source until her legs burst open into poison sores didn’t sound fund either.
She’d have to recover afterwards as well, even if with a cultivators physique that could be reduced a significant amount she’d still need to spend days practically glued to the dirt or stone she’d collapsed on after passing out. That wasn’t even to mention the chance for a healer. She loved Xuena and knew that girl could work miracles...
But even for miracle workers... some things just weren’t possible without using ingredients you needed another few miracles to find. Yang wasn’t exactly feeling blessed right now, and miracles seemed to be in short supply. She’d gotten poisoned just from walking through a swamp for crying out loud. Not ideal. Not ideal at all.
So Yang let out a long hiss, like a kettle once it had reached a boil. “I’m really not happy about this either Xiang... these options both sound terrible. What I would like is Xuena here to diagnose me... but I can’t get that. So... so tell me how out of the way this water source is?”
“Not far at all. I won’t say it’s a perfect diagonal towards Xuena... but we’re still quite a long way away, and really if we headed for that way in any case we’d be faster circling the mountain and passing the stream anyway... I think...” answered Xiang.
Yang nodded, “The water then, we’ll go to the water,”
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