After returning to Luofu, Dan Feng had been in a good mood the whole time.
He and his other three friends tacitly didn't travel together with Jingliu. One dragon, one fox, and two people came together to Lord Imbibitor Lunae's residence.
Dan Feng hurried to take a bath, and after bathing, instructed the clan members to buy ingredients.
Considering his friends' feelings, he specifically instructed that the price of the ingredients must not exceed five digits.
This meal was enjoyed to the fullest by both host and guests.
Oh, except for Jing Yuan, who refused to face reality.
On the battlefield, the Dragon Lord's taste buds had been tormented badly by nutritional fluid. Finally returning to Luofu made things a bit better.
This lifted Dan Feng's mood quite a bit. Even when the dragon masters came over to nag and chatter at him, he didn't get angry. He merely scolded them without using any curse words, almost scaring them into shedding their skins.
The Dragon Lord first listened for a while to the clan members' music, then returned to his room to apply maintenance oil on his scales, and then took out the jade tablet to check his bank balance.
After Dan Feng saw that string of uncountable zeros, and the daily interest alone crushing most people's annual income, he completely reconciled with those dragon masters.
The Dragon Lord thought, 'Fine, I won't scold them today. I'll scold them tomorrow.'
He looked at the time, immediately lit the expensive sleep-aid incense he bought at a high price, and went to bed.
Dan Feng had barely slept for half a system cycle when he was woken up by Jingliu's call.
His previously pleasant mood instantly turned rotten.
Jingliu asked him when he had time and whether he could take someone's pulse.
Dan Feng agreed without hesitation.
What else could he do when in a bad mood? Of course he'd agree to Jingliu.
If even the Swordhead, who can leave psychological shadows on hardened criminals, is actively coming to him, the Alchemy Division's Cauldron Master… it must be a very serious problem.
He just didn't expect that this person would be the Marshal.
The moment he saw Zero in the restaurant, the Dragon Lord's thoughts uncontrollably drifted toward the storybooks Jing Yuan often read.
His income was quite abundant, far wealthier than Jing Yuan the Cloud Knight Lieutenant general, so he often had his attendants purchase popular storybooks from the market to lend to Jing Yuan.
On the surface it was "lending," but in reality, it was gifting.
Dan Feng instantly forgot this matter completely.
Jing Yuan, like Bai Heng, didn't like taking advantage of friends, so he could only put away the storybooks Dan Feng bought in one place.
As for why he didn't return them immediately after reading?
What a joke, buying every storybook on an entire street wouldn't even cost a fraction of Lord Imbibitor Lunae's balance. Why waste the Dragon Lord's time on such trivialities?
Jing Yuan usually waited until a stack piled up before returning them.
Dan Feng, when bored, would read them too.
A pampered Dragon Lord sometimes wanted to experience ordinary people's lives and see their loves and hates.
He couldn't understand the overly abstract plotlines, but since the books sold so well, they must have their reasons.
Dan Feng never imagined, the storybooks were all real.
'Jingliu, you really are the male lead!'
What, if he can't cure the patient, does he also have to shed his skin on the spot?
Should he be thanking you for not dragging him out in the middle of the night?
Dan Feng maintained a cold expression, trying to ask Zero with his eyes, but the other only looked at Jingliu and not at him, so he could only continue waiting.
Zero was puzzled. After sitting down, a guess surfaced in his heart.
Could it be because of the wound Jingliu bit open yesterday?
He glanced at Jingliu beside him and tentatively said, "Jingliu, did you call Dragon Lord here because of last night's wound? You don't need to…"
Jingliu, "…"
Jingliu's expression gradually froze.
'Why did Zero's words sound so strange?'
Dan Feng, "…"
Dan Feng stiffened his face, doing everything possible to control his thoughts from spiraling who-knows-where.
For the moment, he didn't know what to say.
Should Dan Feng feel flattered by the Marshal addressing him as "Dragon Lord"?
Or should he be shocked by the massive information bomb unintentionally exposed? Last night what? What wound?
No but seriously, why drag him, an outsider, into your couple's business?
'Can you two have some boundaries?!'
Seeing that Jingliu and Dan Feng weren't speaking, Zero continued, "It's just a small wound, no need to trouble Dragon Lord."
Dan Feng, "…No need to be so distant. Just call me Dan Feng."
That title sent chills down his spine.
Jingliu finally realized something was off.
Obviously… they only kissed, so why did Zero's words suddenly make it sound ambiguous?
Jingliu didn't want to even attempt guessing Dan Feng's thoughts.
She stared blankly, holding her cup, and ground her teeth, "Dan Feng, take his pulse."
Zero saw this and proactively extended his hand toward Dan Feng.
The man and the dragon exchanged a look. Dan Feng reached out to take his pulse and began shooing people away, "Jingliu, step outside for a moment."
Zero timely spoke, "Can you bring back a cup of milk tea for me?"
Jingliu, thinking Zero and Dan Feng weren't familiar enough for deception, decisively stood up and left to queue for the milk tea.
After she walked far enough, Dan Feng asked, "Your pulse has absolutely no issues. What's going on?"
Zero lowered his eyes, carefully recalling last night's details.
He didn't want to tell outsiders the intimate moments between him and Jingliu.
He chose his words, attributing the wound simply to a bump, then asked, "The Xianzhou people you've seen, how long would an extremely tiny, bleeding wound from bumping into something take to heal?"
Upon hearing this, Dan Feng finally understood why Jingliu called him in the middle of the night.
For Xianzhou people, the wound Zero described was utterly insignificant, most of the time it healed before people even realized it existed.
Looks like his constitution had a big problem.
The Dragon Lord gave Zero a deep look. Instead of answering, he asked, "Does the Marshal know?"
Zero immediately understood the hidden meaning.
He was asking if Hua knew… meaning Dan Feng felt the matter was serious enough to need informing Hua.
So that's how it was.
His healing speed differed from normal Xianzhou people, that was why Jingliu came to Dan Feng.
After sorting out the situation, Zero recalled the details and replied, "I don't know if she knows."
He only remembered praising Hua as smart. Everything else was unknown.
How would he know the details of their interactions?
Dan Feng thought, "I suppose she doesn't know."
If she knew… those subordinates would've already dragged this man to the Vessel of Mediocrity, not allowed him to stay in Luofu.
Considering Zero's special identity, he didn't intend to pry further, and only asked, "Then how should I explain it to Jingliu?"
Zero recalled his strange constitution.
The star god's power only affected him to a limited degree. Likewise, the blessing of Abundance was limited.
In his past life, the debuff "Mara-struck body", besides providing bonuses to the Xianzhou, did it also improve his own constitution?
As for self-healing… since he had a self-locking trait, he truly never paid attention to such irrelevant details.
Maybe because in this life he didn't fall into the Mara-struck body? So Jingliu discovered abnormalities?
Zero looked around but couldn't find any sharp objects, so he took the ordering pen and casually replied, "Just say it's from staying up late."
Who in the Xianzhou doesn't stay up late nowadays? He felt the excuse was perfect.
Dan Feng's mouth twitched.
With his medical professionalism, he simply couldn't utter such an absurd lie.
Please, these are Xianzhou people, how could staying up late affect their healing?
Facing this patient who never follows medical advice, Dan Feng snapped, "Do you think she'll believe that?"
Zero didn't speak. He rolled up his sleeve, removed his glove, snapped off the clip from the pen cap, examined his wrist to find a place with fewer blood vessels, intending to observe the wound carefully.
Dan Feng couldn't figure out the man's thoughts and focused on the main issue.
How should he explain things to Jingliu?
He pondered left and right, recalled a condition matching the symptoms, and was about to pull out his jade tablet to search for more details when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zero holding something sharp, aiming it at his wrist.
The Dragon Lord's expression froze instantly.
Thinking of the Marshal's past antics that sent physicians' blood pressure soaring, he felt his own was rising too.
With a hundred years of medical experience, Dan Feng knew one must be extremely cautious dealing with mental patients.
He didn't act rashly and carefully asked, "…What are you doing? She'll be back soon."
Zero said casually, "She won't. There will be lots of people in line for milk tea around this time."
Dan Feng tried to understand a mental patient's thought process, guessing Zero wanted to cut himself to test his healing.
He cautiously added, "Even for Xianzhou people, wounds on the wrist take a long time to heal."
Hearing that, Zero changed the target from his wrist to his fingertip and easily cut open the skin.
Dan Feng let out a breath, but seeing Zero's eyes, which Rainjade once praised as childlike, he immediately sucked that breath back in.
During the entire process, Zero's brows didn't twitch, his expression didn't change.
As if he hadn't been about to slice open his wrist, but do something entirely mundane.
Dan Feng originally thought Zero's mental state was more stable than in his previous life.
He never expected, the Marshal truly had never changed.
Earlier, Zero had sent Dan Feng a psychological test.
It was Dan Feng's first time seeing something like that. He thought the all-knowing Marshal had discovered some issue he himself didn't know about.
He had planned to take the test seriously later…
Now that he looked at it, how could he be the one with a problem? It was clearly Zero who had the issue.
As for why Zero sent that test… he was probably mocking him.
Dan Feng was speechless inside.
He, Lord Imbibitor Lunae, the Dragon Lord of the Vidyadhara, was being suspected of having mental issues by someone with actual mental issues.
Absurd. Too absurd.
Dan Feng didn't forget the purpose of Zero's act. He stared at the bleeding fingertip and concluded, "It is indeed much slower than other Xianzhou people."
Zero understood. He grabbed a napkin from the table to press the bleeding finger, then took out his Patrol Token to leave the restaurant enough money to cover the pen.
He used the pen to mark the dishes Jingliu liked on the menu, handed it to Dan Feng, and lifted his chin slightly,
"Order."
Just as Zero said, by the time the wound fully healed and the waiter served the first dish, Jingliu finally returned with the milk tea.
Zero took the cup Jingliu handed him and softly thanked her.
Jingliu turned to ask Dan Feng, "How is he?"
Dan Feng glanced at Zero, who was fully focused on the dishes and unresponsive. Then he delivered the script he prepared in advance.
He said Zero suffered from a clotting-function disorder, an extremely rare condition. It had little impact on the body and needed no treatment.
Jingliu listened intently, not willing to miss a single word.
She didn't understand medicine, so after noticing the issue yesterday, she immediately thought of her friend Dan Feng.
She hadn't expected her friend's medical skill to be this superb, to detect such a rare condition with only a pulse check.
Jingliu asked, "What should he be careful of?"
Dan Feng paused and said, "Just avoid getting injured."
Jingliu pursued further, "What about diet?"
Dan Feng, too busy stopping Zero from cutting his wrist to look up more information, could only give the general advice suitable for most patients.
"Eat more fruit."
Jingliu nodded. She looked at Zero quietly drinking his milk tea, and softly asked, "You… is it because of this condition that you don't care about your own body?"
Zero put down the milk tea, smiled, and said, "It's not a big deal. Compared to you, to Lord Imbibitor Lunae, and the Cloud Knights risking their lives to protect the Xianzhou, this little wound of mine, what does it even count as?"
Jingliu's gaze wavered slightly, but she didn't speak.
Dan Feng slowly picked up some food and thought, 'No wonder he's the Marshal.'
Zero, considering Jingliu's feelings, didn't act too intimate with his lover in front of Dan Feng.
He slowly stretched out his hand under the table, covering the back of Jingliu's hand, then turned his head to look straight at her, "Precisely because there are heroes like you and Lord Imbibitor Lunae that I, and the other Xianzhou people, can live in peace."
"But compared to being a hero, I'd rather you and the other Cloud Knights no longer have to leave your homes because of war, no longer have to rush to the front lines. I hope you can spend more time seeing the peace you all created with your own hands."
Jingliu was silent for a long time. Nothing showed on her face as she urged Zero to eat.
Under the table, she turned her wrist and interlaced her fingers with his.
Dan Feng treated himself as mute. As long as no one called him by name, he absolutely would not speak.
After finishing this meal, he paid the bill decisively and left.
After Dan Feng left, Jingliu withdrew the hand she had never let go of while eating, and said unhurriedly, "What's wrong? This time you're not asking?"
Zero thought for a moment and honestly said, "If I'm holding your hand, then I won't ask."
Jingliu, "…"
'Just holding hands?'
Last night, when Jingliu noticed the problem, she had let out some angry words for a moment and urged Zero to leave.
She hadn't expected that he would leave the moment she told him to.
It seemed that, when facing Zero, she needed to make her words clearer.
Jingliu stayed silent for a while, turned her face aside to avoid Zero's gaze, and said softly, "When it's only the two of us, you don't have to ask anymore."
Then she recalled Zero's utterly terrible communication skills, afraid that his head would conjure up some strange new idea again.
Jingliu's ear tips turned bright red. She stood up, turning her back toward Zero.
In an extremely soft tone, she added two more words.
"…As you wish."
Zero selectively ignored the first half of her sentence and only took in the last two words.
His eyes lit up. He stood up and leaned forward, quietly asking Jingliu,
"Really everything as I wish?"
Jingliu gave the tiniest little nod.
Zero seemed thoughtful. "I understand."
He stepped forward on his own, gently squeezed Jingliu's hand, and said with a smile, "Something came up suddenly, so I'll go first."
Jingliu, "…"
She wanted to ask, 'What is it that you "understood" again?'
Jingliu took a deep breath.
'Forget it, Zero is still young. Whatever he ends up doing is normal.'
Speaking of which, how is the interrogation of the Ten-Lords Commission's high-level criminal going?
Since she had nothing to do, she might as well go help her colleagues.
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