Chapter 723 — The Most Charismatic
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Di Yiyue turned this way and that before the mirror several times, and could not help feeling her heart bloom with delight. "Truly a great master, a great hand," she praised. "Not a single flaw to be seen!"
"Wait a moment!"
Shen Mu hastily stopped her. "Don't move! When Sister smiles, there are the tiniest little wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Let me smooth them out for you."
Di Yiyue at once held perfectly still. Shen Mu leaned in, and from his fingertips burst fine runes that roused the skin at the corners of her eyes, smoothing the wrinkles flat and leaving the skin at the corners of her phoenix eyes delicate, fair, and tender.
Di Yiyue blinked, raised the mirror, and looked several more times. She smiled at her reflection and found that the little wrinkles at the corners of her eyes were indeed gone. She was delighted.
"Sister is truly beautiful," Shen Mu praised.
Di Yiyue was beside herself with joy, and a little bashful besides.
"Fake-medicine seller, it isn't the alchemist's trade that's about to be out of work."
Kui Sou came up beside the Alchemist, twitched his ears, and said, "It's you who's about to be out of work. From now on you can only sell fake medicine. You won't be able to live off your face anymore."
The Alchemist sighed and smiled a bitter smile. "Teach a disciple and starve the master. Shen'er is about to become number one under heaven. Luckily the little fellow is muddle-headed and has no passion for romance; otherwise, with that mouth of his, who knows how many love affairs he'd stir up."
Kui Sou said with perfect composure, "It's because we taught him well. Keep your mouth sweet, but women are all fox-spirits. The boy remembers that. So although his mouth is very sweet, he's on his guard against every woman. And so he won't repeat your mistakes."
The Alchemist steadied the bronze mask on his face and said in a low voice, "Shen'er isn't young anymore. Teaching him this way, will it ruin the boy's lifelong prospects? What if he's on guard against all women and doesn't dare go further with any girl? What then?"
Kui Sou said no more.
The Alchemist asked again, and still Kui Sou said nothing.
The Alchemist laughed in exasperation. "Your ears have grown back already, so stop playing deaf and dumb! I'm asking you a question. Think of something quickly, or I'll poison you deaf!"
Helpless, Kui Sou said, "I don't know either. What I taught him was that a fair maiden is a gentleman's worthy match; what you taught him was that all women are fox-spirits. Even the books of the sages never said what to do in a case like this. How about you mix up some medicine and make him go into heat?"
The Alchemist said proudly, "As my disciple, he'd need medicine to go into heat? That would be far too great a disgrace to my face as the Jade-Faced Poison King. Besides, his medical skill is no inferior to mine. Whatever poison I gave him, he could neutralize. Had I known, I'd have held something back..."
...
When the common folk of Li Zhou woke, each was somewhat dazed, wholly unaware of what had happened that night, and could only take it that they had dozed off in a muddle. Some people of supernatural power did vaguely guess that something great had happened the night before, but as to what exactly, they had no way of guessing.
Still, many eerie things had happened among the villages and neighbors. Someone would wake from sleep with their nature utterly changed, saying they were not a woman but a man from such-and-such a place, who had woken to find himself turned into a woman.
When people of supernatural power among the neighbors questioned them, the person could describe clearly where their home was and who was in their household. They went to investigate, and in the place described there indeed was such a person, only that person kept crying out that they were not a man but a woman, that they had entered the wrong body, and so on.
Such cases numbered in the thousands, and the uproar was tremendous.