Peerless Beauty – Chapter 2

Sick

You’re sick!

“No,” Jian Qing released her hand and retorted coldly, “I don’t have any disease that can be transmitted through blood.”

You are mentally sick!

Her stomach churned as Lu Yinxi glared at her fiercely. She raised her left hand to cover her mouth, trying hard to suppress the urge to gag. She wiped her lips vigorously, and soon, the back of her hand was stained with bright red blood.

Jian Qing opened the first aid kit, sat on the other side of the sofa, and silently examined the wound on her left palm under the light.

From the base of the thumb to the lower transverse crease of the palm below the little finger, there was a diagonal wound about 5cm long. The edges of the wound were clean, and there was active bleeding, but the flexion and movement of the five fingers were not restricted.

The two biggest fears with a sharp knife-induced palm laceration are: first, nerve and tendon rupture, which would require a local anesthesia surgery for repair; second, infection with Clostridium tetani causing tetanus.

During the confrontation just now, when she reached out to grab the knife, Lu Yinxi almost instantly let go, allowing the knife to be snatched away, so the cut on the left palm wasn’t particularly deep.

The knife had been soaked in alcohol for disinfection, so there was no need to worry about tetanus infection.

Stopping the bleeding, debriding, and stitching up the wound to avoid infection would suffice.

Stopping the bleeding and debriding the wound wasn’t difficult; the trouble was that her left hand was injured, making it inconvenient to perform the stitching with just her right hand.

The wound was 5cm long; if not stitched, it would easily bleed repeatedly, heal slowly, and be prone to infection.

After cleaning her left palm with povidone-iodine and saline, Jian Qing searched through the first aid kit but couldn’t find any skin staples or medical glue to substitute for sutures. She had to bandage it first to prevent the wound from being exposed to the air for too long.

Lu Yinxi, seeing her skilled and professional movements, like she had practiced hundreds of times, finally remembered that this person was a doctor.

An oncologist.

(LP: Oncologists are doctors who diagnose and treat cancer. They often act as the main healthcare provider for someone with cancer.)

Just like the former Lu Yinxi, in the same specialty.

Noticing her gaze, Jian Qing turned to look at her.

Their eyes met, and Lu Yinxi gritted her teeth and snorted coldly, turning her head away to avoid eye contact, looking instead at the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room.

The floor-to-ceiling windows were tightly covered with black curtains, letting in no light at all.

The spacious living room felt like an airtight cage.

Five minutes ago, after a slap, Lu Yinxi finally remembered why the name “Jian Qing” sounded familiar.

She had read it in a novel.

Last night, the moon was bright and the stars sparse. Beside the bright moon, there were two unusually bright stars.

The news reported that it was a rare celestial phenomenon, double stars accompanying the moon—Venus, Jupiter, and the moon appearing in the night sky simultaneously.

She had moved a computer to the balcony, sitting outside, watching the moon and stars while handling work emails.

Advertisements occasionally popped up in the lower right corner of the computer, and she closed them repeatedly, but one novel promotion wouldn’t close no matter what she did.

Helpless, she clicked on it and found it was a modern romance novel. The male lead was a cardiothoracic surgeon, the female lead was an actress in the entertainment industry, and the book’s title was 《Starlight on the Blade’s Edge》.

Lu Yinxi was an actress who had also studied two years in medical school. Both the medical and entertainment fields were familiar to her, so she couldn’t help but look at it. She found that there was a supporting female character with the same name as hers.

Having the same name was one thing, but the character’s family background, appearance, and hobbies were almost exactly like hers, and it even wrote about her being kept by a woman.

It was utterly ridiculous.

Lu Yinxi skimmed through a few pages, swiped to the back, and found that the previously aloof and indifferent patron had somehow turned into a ruthless villain.

She quickly searched for her ending and saw that the later version of “Lu Yinxi” repeatedly betrayed her patron. In a fit of anger, the patron imprisoned her in a villa. Unable to bear it any longer, she chose to commit suicide and was eventually buried under a plum tree as fertilizer.

The identical name was too much of a coincidence. After skimming the novel, Lu Yinxi wanted to close the webpage but couldn’t get the mouse to respond after several clicks.

It seemed like the webpage was stuck, so she closed the laptop lid to force it off, took a shower, and went to bed.

Who knew that after waking up, she would find herself in this strange world, becoming a canary that would eventually be buried under a plum tree by this aloof and beautiful woman.

Lu Yinxi withdrew her gaze, hugged her knees, curled up in the corner of the sofa, her eyes reddening as she grew increasingly desperate.

Jian Qing followed Lu Yinxi’s gaze to the floor-to-ceiling windows for a few seconds.

She packed up the first aid kit with one hand, and when she was about to put it back, she noticed the bloodstains on the back of Lu Yinxi’s hand. She opened the kit again, took out a packet of sterile gauze and some hand sanitizer gel, and walked over to her.

Lu Yinxi turned her head away, ignoring her.

Seeing her goodwill rejected, Jian Qing said nothing, placing the items on the coffee table. She then took Lu Yinxi’s left hand with her right.

“Don’t touch me!”

Lu Yinxi instinctively tried to pull away but was held tightly.

In a panic, she grabbed Jian Qing’s injured left hand, squeezing the wound hard, trying to hurt her into letting go.

The bandaged palm started bleeding again, and the sharp pain radiated through Jian Qing’s hand. She remained silent, not letting go, only furrowing her brows.

Seeing the blood, Lu Yinxi turned pale, stopped struggling, and stared blankly at the person in front of her.

Does this person not feel pain?

Seeing her calm down, Jian Qing took a deep breath, then picked up the gauze soaked with sanitizer gel and wiped the bloodstains off the back of her hand.

The strong smell of alcohol wafted into her nose.

A familiar yet long-lost scent.

Lu Yinxi felt somewhat dazed.

After a while, a warm touch brushed against the corner of her lips.

Jian Qing began to wipe the bloodstains from the corner of her lips with gauze soaked in warm water.

Her movements were gentle, her gaze focused and serious, as if she were meticulously cleaning a delicate piece of sculpture.

Lu Yinxi seemed to come to her senses, pressing down on her hand, eyes red, saying, “I’ll do it myself, don’t bully me.”

Jian Qing’s movements paused.

Her left palm and cheek still hurt badly…

Who exactly was bullying whom?

She didn’t say anything, handed the clean gauze to Lu Yinxi, and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, throwing the dirty gauze into a trash can lined with a yellow garbage bag.

After wiping off the bloodstains, Lu Yinxi lifted her wrist to wipe her tears, then looked at the blood-stained gauze in her hand. After hesitating for a few seconds, she also walked over and threw the gauze into the trash can.

Yellow garbage bags are generally used for medical waste.

Jian Qing stood by the floor-to-ceiling window and tapped the electronic screen on the wall.

The curtains automatically parted to both sides, and moonlight poured in, flooding the room with brightness.

Lu Yinxi looked up.

Outside the window, the moon was bright and the stars were sparse. Beside the bright moon, there were only two exceptionally bright stars.

She turned her head again to look at Jian Qing on the right.

Jian Qing stood quietly in the moonlight, her profile like jade, her spine straight as a pine, her demeanor as cold as snow, beautiful like a spirit that absorbed the essence of the sun and moon.

Is this person a block of ice on a high mountain that became sentient?

Cold enough to freeze someone to death.

Jian Qing sensed Lu Yinxi’s gaze and turned her head to look at her.

They stared at each other in silence.

Seeing the clear, swollen slap mark up close, Lu Yinxi felt a bit embarrassed, avoided eye contact, and looked out the window.

Outside was a garden with many plum trees, each red plum blossom like rouge, standing proudly on the branches. The branches held a few patches of thin snow, the red and white contrasting beautifully.

In the scenery of flowers and moon, Lu Yinxi had no heart to appreciate it. She took a step back, intending to leave, but her left wrist was entwined by a touch that was as cold and delicate as a viper.

Jian Qing grabbed Lu Yinxi’s wrist, not letting her go.

Her wrist was firmly held, and Lu Yinxi couldn’t break free.

She remembered this person’s vengeful nature and felt a bit afraid, stumbling as she tried to explain, “Dr. Jian, it was wrong of me to slap you, but I only took the knife for self-defense. You were the one who tried to grab it; I didn’t intend to hurt you. Besides, you were the one who insulted my character first… and you, you even stripped my clothes without a word…”

Jian Qing remained silent, blocking Lu Yinxi, her intact right hand gripping her left wrist, pressing it against the floor-to-ceiling window, lowering her gaze to coldly and indifferently scrutinize her.

“Speak properly… don’t get so close…” The tip of her nose was filled with the unique cold fragrance of the woman, and the air around seemed to thin out. Lu Yinxi couldn’t help but take half a step back, her back pressed tightly against the floor-to-ceiling window.

Jian Qing took a step closer, her dark eyes staring straight at her, as if trying to see through her outer shell to her inner soul.

With one retreat and one advance, the two were even closer, body against body, nose to nose, their breaths mingling and intertwining.

In the moonlight, their shadows on the ground were tightly pressed together, like a pair of inseparable lovers.

After staring for a moment, Jian Qing slightly turned her head, her red lips moving: “I remember you being right-handed. When did you become left-handed?”

The warm breath brushed against her ear, and Lu Yinxi’s heart pounded fiercely, her back involuntarily tensing.

How could she argue this?

She was indeed left-handed. Many of her actions earlier were subconsciously done with her left hand.

But the “Lu Yinxi” in the book wasn’t.

The character in the book was created based on her but wasn’t entirely her.

She thought of the memory loss excuse often used in TV dramas after time travel, but without severe brain trauma or psychological stimulus, pretending to have sudden amnesia in front of a doctor was like showing off one’s skills before an expert.

Moreover, amnesia wouldn’t cause someone to suddenly switch from being right-handed to left-handed.

“I’ve always been…” Her palm was covered in a thin layer of sweat, and Lu Yinxi half-truthfully explained, “I was afraid you’d discriminate against me, so I pretended to be normal. Tonight was the first time we’ve spent so much time together, and I was so nervous I forgot to hide it…”

She decided to take a gamble.

At this point, they had only met a few times, and tonight was the longest they had spent together.

She was betting that Jian Qing and she weren’t that familiar with each other.

“You use your right hand very naturally; you’re not pretending.” Jian Qing looked at her, her gaze cold, “Tell the truth.”

---

---