Chapter 58: The Scent of a Woman's Perfume

After some casual conversation, Li Guhe turned to the main topic. “When I checked Elder Zhou’s pulse just now, I found it floating and tight, a clear sign of cold syndrome. Why did you diagnose it as a case of ‘Yin evil’ invading the body? I’ve never encountered this before,” he said.

In fact, ‘Yin evil’ entering the body and cold syndrome share many similarities. If the Yin energy is not too severe, simply keeping away from sources of Yin and treating it as a cold syndrome can gradually cure it. Thus, sometimes when encountering disputes over Yin energy, it’s merely regarded as a more serious cold syndrome—an ordinary physician would never notice the difference.

However, Elder Zhou’s condition was quite serious. Li Guhe’s use of the ‘Mountain-Burning Fire’ technique provoked the Yin energy hidden within the old man’s body, which is why things turned out that way.

“My sect’s founding ancestor was the Realized One Miao Ying. Besides medical skills, he also had some knowledge of Taoist arts,” Lu Feng explained.

Li Guhe was suddenly enlightened. Others might not know who Realized One Miao Ying was, but as an experienced physician, he certainly did—Miao Ying was none other than the Medicine King, Sun Simiao.

He quickly cupped his hands in respect. “So that’s how it is. My apologies—I didn’t realize I was in the presence of the Medicine King’s descendant.”

“You’re too kind, Master Li,” Lu Feng replied with a courteous gesture.

Li Guhe’s attitude was extremely respectful. For a renowned master of traditional medicine, this was a rare thing indeed, which showed just how revered the Medicine King was in the eyes of all physicians.

...

They chatted all the way until the car finally stopped at Li Guhe’s residence. Only then did he get out, inviting Lu Feng to meet again another day.

After taking a slightly longer route to drop Li Guhe home, the car returned to the Su family villa.

Sitting in the front passenger seat, Su Dao’an listened to Lu Feng and Li Guhe’s conversation, and his faith in Lu Feng grew stronger. At first, he had only trusted Lu Feng’s medical skills out of respect for his master’s reputation. But now, hearing Lu Feng discuss medicine so confidently with a grand master of traditional Chinese medicine, he realized this was not a matter of mere cleverness—it took true learning.

When they arrived at the Su family home, Lu Feng saw someone near the gate feeding the qilin with a sausage. From a distance, he couldn’t tell if it was Su Muyu or Su Muqing.

The twin sisters looked exactly alike, and only if one of them was angry could you tell them apart at a glance.

“Hurry and eat!”

“Are you going to eat or not?”

“If you don’t, I’ll stew you!”

Hearing the loud voice from afar, Lu Feng immediately knew it was Su Muqing. Su Muyu would never be so fierce.

Su Muqing waved the sausage in front of the qilin, but the qilin ignored her completely.

As soon as Lu Feng entered the gate, the qilin suddenly leaped up, nearly knocking Su Muqing over, and dashed to Lu Feng’s side, circling around him excitedly.

“You stupid dog! After all those sausages I’ve fed you, you still prefer this villain!” Su Muqing scolded the qilin angrily.

“Nonsense! The qilin and I grew up together on the mountain. Did you think a few sausages could break our bond?” Lu Feng teased her with a laugh.

“Then you can go without dinner tonight!” Su Muqing huffed, vowing to punish the qilin.

Su Dao’an watched his carefree younger daughter, shook his head helplessly, and went inside.

As Lu Feng passed by Su Muqing, she sniffed the air and exclaimed in surprise, “Old Su, where have you taken this scoundrel? Don’t tell me you two went looking for women! Why do you smell of perfume? Ugh… that’s gross. Old Su, if you want to find me and my sister a stepmother, we don’t mind, but this isn’t the way to do it.”

“What nonsense are you spouting?!” Su Dao’an was so exasperated that veins popped on his forehead.

Lu Feng sniffed his own clothes and, sure enough, caught a hint of perfume. After a moment’s thought, he realized it must have rubbed off while he was in Zhou Fuqu’s room earlier.

He decided not to explain—after all, the more you try to clarify such things, the more suspicious it looks. Best to just pretend he hadn’t heard anything.

But Su Muqing wasn’t about to let it go. She ran upstairs to whisper to her sister, “Sis, I smelled perfume on that scoundrel. He must have been up to no good—you can’t trust him anymore.”

Su Muyu rapped her sister lightly on the forehead and said, “Dad took Senior Brother to treat someone today. Maybe the patient was a woman. Picking up a bit of perfume while taking a pulse isn’t so strange, is it?”

“Hmph! And you’re still defending him,” Su Muqing pouted in anger.

Though Su Muyu didn’t believe Lu Feng would do anything inappropriate, when she came downstairs, she couldn’t resist moving closer to him and sniffing for herself.

She had a keen sense of smell and immediately recognized the perfume—it was a new brand with a note of iris, unmistakable to those who knew. It was quite expensive, and most women couldn’t afford it, so she was even more certain her sister was imagining things.

Seeing Su Muyu come close and sniff him, Lu Feng realized what she was doing and said, “I’m going to wash up.”

“That scoundrel is trying to destroy the evidence,” Su Muqing said, popping a large jujube into her mouth and chewing noisily.

Lu Feng nearly stumbled into the bathroom door.

The two sisters burst into laughter.

...

On Friday, Chen Lan had to work late and had asked Lu Feng two days in advance to pick Xiaoxiao up from kindergarten and look after her for a couple of hours.

After Chen Lan’s job stabilized, she enrolled Xiaoxiao back in kindergarten, in the senior class, with partial day care, so someone had to pick her up every day.

At five o’clock on Friday afternoon, Lu Feng arrived at the kindergarten gate.

The entrance was already crowded with parents and guardians, with all sorts of vehicles parked nearby—mainly electric scooters, lined up all the way to the door.

When the bell rang, the gate was opened, and the teachers led the children out to meet their families. The whole entrance became lively and bustling with chatter.

Wearing a light yellow dress, carrying her familiar little backpack, and sporting a cap with wings, Xiaoxiao walked out, spotted Lu Feng, and ran to throw herself into his arms.

“Daddy!” she shouted loudly, giving him a big kiss on the cheek.

Lu Feng was stunned—this wasn’t the right way to address him.

After shouting, Xiaoxiao pouted and pleaded softly, her eyes full of innocent appeal. “Big brother, can I call you daddy for just one minute? Just one minute, please?”

Lu Feng didn’t know what had gotten into her, but since it didn’t really matter, he agreed.

Immediately, Xiaoxiao hugged his neck happily, turning to her little friends and proclaiming, “Hmph! My daddy came to pick me up—I wasn’t lying!”

A chubby little boy pointed at Lu Feng and said, “That’s your dad? Liar! My brother is older than him.”

Lu Feng instantly realized that Xiaoxiao must have been teased at school. He decided to help her out. “Hey, chubby, that’s because your brother aged too quickly. Ever heard of ‘frozen age’? You kids don’t know anything. With the way you look now, in ten years you’ll probably look older than me!”

The chubby boy immediately burst into tears, turned back to his mother, and pointed at Lu Feng, sobbing, “He said I don’t know anything!”

Seeing the plump woman the boy dragged over, Lu Feng thought to himself, I didn’t bully your kid—don’t make a scene now!

But the woman, seeing Lu Feng’s imposing air, decided not to cause trouble. Instead, she scolded her son, “You’re only three—of course you don’t know anything!”