Chapter 23 Suturing Wounds

  The shadow behind Shep gradually faded away, and the crows circling in the air lightly landed on his shoulders, like pets seeing their owner, excitedly rubbing their fluffy heads back and forth on Shep's shoulders.

  Xie Pu lifted his pale and scarred arm, gently stroking the raven's wing. "You didn't bully that kid, did you?"

  "Waaah! Waaah!"

  The crow half-spread its wings with a sense of grievance and jumped up and down excitedly on Shep's shoulders.

  "Alright, got it."

  Xie Pu hastily comforted the crow, "That kid's strength is indeed not great now, but..."

  Xie Pu smiled and didn't continue speaking, instead walking directly to the unconscious Leiga's side, squatting down to carefully examine his injuries.

  A crow stood honestly on Shep's shoulder, curiously staring at its master's every move.

  Xie Pu narrowed his eyes, as if trying to see something inside Le Ga's body. After a long silence, he couldn't help but let out a soft sigh, "Losing the Cang Hu sword might not be a bad thing..."

  After finishing speaking, he carefully lifted Rega's body and carried it on his shoulder in the direction of the Storm Crow Tavern.

  The crow flapped its wings in a hurry and chirped loudly beside Shep's ear, as if it wanted to remind him of something.

  "It's no good."

  Xie Pu shook his head firmly, "Using Shadow Transmission would indeed save a lot of time and effort, but this kid's body is too weak to withstand the pressure of traversing the Balanced Void. It's better to walk."

  "Wow!"

  The crow was quite displeased with this and flew away from Shep's shoulder in a huff, flying higher into the sky.

  Xie Pu smiled faintly and steadily carried Lei Ga, continuing on their way...

  It wasn't until the sky was completely dark that Shep returned to the tavern. He put Lega on the attic bed, and then busied himself alone.

  After some time, Leiga gradually regained consciousness.

  Still alive...

  He struggled to open his eyes, which were swollen and heavy. At first, he could only see a blurry black shadow and flames. His head throbbed with pain, and there was a sharp dull ache on the side of his ribs under his arm. Every breath made the pain worse.

  The crackling of the wood fire in the fireplace echoed, he concentrated hard, and after a while, the world in front of him gradually came into focus.

  Roof, floor, bed, and a crow.

  "Wow!"

  Lei Ga took a sharp breath, and his lungs immediately felt like they were being cut with a knife. He subconsciously reached out to grasp the Cang Hua sword, but suddenly realized that it had been snatched away by Du Dun.

  The raven still stood on his chest, with its eyes askew, staring at him with an evil glare.

  Lei Ga smiled wryly and wanted to speak, but only a low groan came out of his parched throat.

  At this time, the door opened and Xie Pu walked in with a serious face, carrying a bottle of wine and a bundle of needles and threads.

  The raven flew away from Rega's chest and landed on Shep's shoulder, as if to declare the tavern owner's ownership once again.

  "So it was..."

  Lei Ga supported his body with difficulty and said weakly: "You are in cahoots..."

  He should have thought that Xie Pu wouldn't be just a second-rate fighter, and he should have understood why the sign of this tavern was called "Violent Crow".

  Shep ignored Reg's words and roughly shoved the bottle into his hand, as if he were a regular customer who was always running a tab.

  "Drink up."

  Lei Ga's dry, cracked lips urgently needed moisture. He hastily twisted open the bottle cap, and the strong liquor immediately made his nose sour, almost causing him to cough it up. But he couldn't care about that now, and with great effort, he lifted the bottle and swallowed the murky liquid.

  The first sip of liquor burned Rega's wounded mouth like flowing flames, from the tip of his tongue to the root, as if he had been cut by a thousand knives. But the second sip didn't hurt that much, instead bringing a sense of relief after the pain.

  The liquor was very strong, but the effect was almost immediate. Rega gritted his teeth and coughed a few times, and his face immediately regained some color. The wounds on his body didn't hurt as much either.

  "What wine is this?"

  Lei Ga gasped and asked: "Why does the wine have a meaty flavor?"

  "Deer whip wine."

  Xie Pu raised an eyebrow at the messy thick eyebrows, "Lu Bian, you understand? It's a deer's **..."

  He let out a loud "Hua" and vomited everything out, kneeling by the bed and coughing violently.

  Xie Pu snorted, grabbed the wine bottle, and took a big swig himself. He smacked his lips in satisfaction and said to himself, "Young people these days don't understand the benefits of this kind of wine."

  Lei Ga's expression slightly eased up, a pair of black pupils stared tightly at Xie Pu, "What exactly are you?"

  "Have you been beaten silly?"

  Xie Pu put down the wine bottle, wiped his mouth and said matter-of-factly: "I am the one and only boss of the tavern on Crow Ridge."

  Lei Ga pursed his lips, knowing that asking Fa Xie Pu like this would not get him the truth. "Why did you save me? I'm now penniless, and even the Cang Hu sword..." His body began to tremble uncontrollably.

  "Yes, I've said it before, you won't live long."

  Shepard's mouth corners rose with a hint of mystery, "Actually, I didn't save you. You're already dead. The boy who could only rely on the Legendary Sword is dead. As for whether or not you can revive in an entirely new form, that depends on yourself."

  "But, the legendary sword..."

  "If a person is legendary, even if you hold a butcher knife in your hand, you can still intimidate the world, but if only the sword is legendary, what's the use of carefully guarding it?"

  Lei Ga silently stared at Xie Pu, and for a long time did not speak again.

  What Shep said was right, if a person is legendary, everything in his hands will be legendary. If a person is not legendary, even if he holds the sword of legend, he can only live in fear and trepidation. But... without the Azure Swallow Sword, how can one become a true legendary figure? Moreover, the significance of the Azure Swallow Sword to him goes far beyond that of a legendary weapon.

  Xie Pu reached out and lifted up Le Ga's tattered clothes, poking his chest with a wrinkled finger, and clicked his tongue against his teeth.

  "You're too thin, just skin and bones, it's not easy to sew together like this."

  He turned his head to the crow on his shoulder and said: "Caw, go fetch a pail of clean water."

  "Wow!"

  The crow spread its wings and flew away, but soon returned with a bucket of water held in its iron hook-like claws, gently placing it beside Shep without spilling a single drop.

  "This bird is really fierce."

  Lei Ga couldn't help but praise. He had already witnessed the crow's attacking power, and he didn't expect that it could also do such mundane chores as fetching water.

  "Wow!"

  The crow heard the praise and proudly raised its head.

  "Could it be a fourth-grade savage beast?"

  Four-starred beast is equivalent to the strength of eight-starred Dou Qi, and Leiga thinks that since Crow can defeat Douton, his strength should be at least four-starred. However, the higher the level of the beast, the heavier the hostility towards humans, like the relationship between Crow and Xie Pu, which is extremely rare.

  Xie Pu wiped the wound on Le Ga's body with clear water, and said lightly: "What fourth or fifth rank, oh, it was something I picked up ten years ago, and it can't be considered a fierce beast at all."

  Lei Ga's eyes widened in shock as he blinked repeatedly, "You trained it?"

  If Shep can train an ordinary nestling to defeat a Seventh-Rank Warrior, he can certainly train him! That way, he can retake the Azure Sword!

  Shep saw the excitement in Lega's eyes, gave a dry laugh, and deliberately avoided Lega's topic, instead stuffing a wooden stick into his mouth.

  "Bite down, when sewing up the wound later, don't yell like a little girl."

  Lei Ga spat out the wooden stick and said stubbornly: "I won't call."

  After wiping away the congealed blood, a crisscross of long and straight lacerations were exposed. Xiè Pǔ picked up a fine thread, skillfully threading it through the small needle hole, preparing to suture.

  "Wait a minute—"

  Lega suddenly said: "These things... bed, wine, cleaning, sewing, all of these, about how much money will they need?"

  "How can we talk about money at this time?"

  Xie Pu seemed to be suppressing a smile, his serious expression on the verge of collapse. "Cough cough, lie down quickly, or I won't care about you."

  Lei Ga lay back on the bed board with a worried heart. Xie Pu pinched the needle and quickly shuttled it in and out of the torn wound.

  His movements were extremely precise, with a strange gentleness, each stitch neither too much nor too little, just right. Lai Ga tightly clenched his teeth, patiently waiting for the suturing to end. Suddenly, a strange thought popped into his mind, if Xie Pu's skilled hands were used to kill someone, it would be...

  "Alright."

  Ten minutes later, Shepu let out a long sigh, cut off the suture thread, wiped his bloody hands, and sat down on the chair with a thud. He grabbed the wine bottle and took a big gulp, his face showing an exhausted expression.

  "It's really old age, this kind of thing, in the past I was..." He suddenly realized something and hurriedly covered his mouth with the wine bottle again.

  "Boss, you must have saved many people before." Lai Ga said lightly.

  "Me? Save people?"

  Xie Pu burst out laughing, as if he had just heard a ridiculously funny joke.

  Lei's mouth corners hooked up a hint of an extremely difficult-to-detect smile, "Otherwise, you would have killed many people."

  Shep's smile froze on his face as he suddenly realized that Lega's previous sentence was a trap, waiting for him to jump in. He immediately waved his hand, "What rescue and kill? I said, I'm just an inn owner."

  "If I'm not mistaken, the scar on your arm is caused by high-level magic—"

  Ley decided to take a gamble, he paused for a moment before continuing: "Someone who can go up against a magician, how could they possibly be just an ordinary tavern owner?"

  Shepard subconsciously shrunk his shoulders and then shrugged, "It's because when I was young, I sneaked a peek at a female magician taking a bath, and she caught me."

  Lei Ga didn't bother to thank She Pu for the explanation, and directly said: "You can train a fourth-grade savage beast, but the fighting energy you show is only second-rate. So, you must be using some special technique to hide your true fighting energy fluctuations—"

  "He took a deep breath and concluded: 'You are an assassin.'"

  "Wow!"

  The raven on Shep's shoulder let out a loud caw, as if preparing to attack.

  Lei Ga smiled lightly, "It seems I wasn't wrong, your crow has betrayed you."

  Xie Pu gave the crow a sideways glance, sighed, and scratched the back of his head. "Kid, if you're thinking of welching on the deal..."

  "Boss, train me."

  Lei looked at Xie Pu with a calm face and said firmly: "I must take back the Cang Huan sword."