Ch. 263: Sis, Medicine Time

Mo Fei hid his hand behind his back. "The basement. The stairs are over there."

Old John strode across the workshop, with Toby panting along behind him as far as the doorway. Mo Fei stuffed the catnip into his pocket and followed them down the stairs.

Only at the operating table did Old John stop. He bent down, his hand hovering for a moment before he laid it lightly on Lily's forehead.

"Grandpa's here."

Lily's eyelids twitched and slowly opened. "...Grandpa."

"Don't get up." Old John's voice was low and soft. "Look at you. You didn't rest properly for the opening again, did you? Taking everything on yourself."

"The workers are sick too." She caught her breath. "We're short-handed. It couldn't be helped. I had to do it myself."

Old John opened his mouth, but in the end said nothing more against her.

The workers are sick too... Could Lily have caught it from them? Then Old John, standing this close...

Mo Fei untied his own mask and held it out toward Old John. "It's contagious. Put this on."

Old John glanced at it, then looked back at Lily's face. "You've worn that. Keep it for yourself."

Mo Fei had no choice but to tie the mask back on.

He set the key down beside Lily's hand. "Here's your key back. I picked five Lungclear Herbs and didn't touch the rest."

Then he pulled the plants out of his pocket. "...And this. I picked five of these while I was at it."

【Ding— Congratulations, Host, on completing General Quest: Honest Child】
【Quest reward obtained: 1 EP.】

Lily glanced at them. "It's fine. They grow fast."

Mo Fei let out a breath, shoved the plants back into his pocket, and pointed at the lab bench. "Three Lungclear Herbs went into the medicine. The rest are over there. What should we do with them?"

"You two keep them."

Lily drew a breath, all the way to the bottom, and not a single cough came with it. She looked startled herself.

Old John froze too. His glasses slid to the tip of his nose, and he didn't push them back up. "You... aren't coughing?"

"I've been on medicine for a long time, and I've never breathed this easily." She looked at Victor. "How did you do it?"

Victor set the syringe back in the tray. "If you drink it, very little reaches the lungs. I extracted the useful components from the leaves and prepared them so they can be injected into the blood."

"Into the blood..." Lily repeated quietly. "I've never tried that."

Mo Fei turned to Victor. "How many doses can you make from one plant?"

Victor thought about it. "At the amount I just gave, three to five."

"That many from one plant? Doesn't that mean we can mass-produce it?"
"Mass-produce?"

Old John whirled around and jabbed a finger at Mo Fei's nose. "She's only just opened her eyes, and you want her to grow herbs for your medicine? Pulling an all-nighter last time wasn't enough!?"

"No, no! I won't make her grow anything!"

Old John glared at him, chest heaving a few times, then snorted and turned back to the table.

"Don't count on it yet," Victor said. "This has only been given to her. It hasn't been tried on anyone else."

"And there aren't enough herbs." Lily's voice was barely a whisper, her fingers closing around the key. "I only have a few at my place, and they're hard to find in the wild. To make it, we still have to find where they grow."

"Right, one thing at a time." Mo Fei reached toward the lab bench. "Give me the rest of the medicine. I'll take it to the treatment station. There are plenty of people coughing blood there. It only counts once a doctor has tried it."

Victor picked up the small vial and handed it over. "Remember, it's injected."

Next up is finding herbs... Right, what's the quest after "Honest Child"?

【General Quest: Super Herb Gatherer】
【Objective: Gather fresh medicinal herbs x 100.】
【Reward: 50 EP.】

More picking!? And a super multiplier on top... Wait, 50 EP? That's more than I have on me! Pick them? Of course I'll pick them!

Mo Fei headed for the stairs. As he passed behind Old John, a few words drifted over, low.

"Mo Fei, kid. Thank you."

He looked back. Old John was still watching Lily, and his back hadn't moved at all.

Mo Fei scratched his head and climbed the stairs.

The light outside the window was already slanting.

"That's it for today. I have to go out for a bit." He counted out the day's pay and handed it to Toby, then turned to Mira. "The machine's hooked up. Later on I'll be handing the supplementary card work over to you. Just giving you a heads-up."

"Y-yes!" Mira answered.

"Also, if you're coughing hard these next few days, don't come in." Toby had barely opened his mouth when Mo Fei gave him a look. "Same goes if you've stood in the smoke."

Once the two had finished up and left, he returned TampTamp, who was still rolling belly-up in the shredded leaves, to its Spirit Phial and stepped onto the mobile device.

---

The straw mats at the treatment station stretched all the way to the door.

Mo Fei found Guy and held the vial up in front of him.

"This is medicine made from Lungclear Herb. Drinking it does nothing; it has to be injected into the blood. Someone at my place had an old injury and caught this sickness. She coughed until she passed out, and one shot steadied her. Try it on a patient?"

Guy pulled the stopper, sniffed, and looked up at him. "Who made it?"

That guy wears a mask just to see patients. Better not give a name.

"A friend. Doesn't like meeting people."

Guy stared at him for a moment, snorted, and walked over to a straw mat. The man on it was curled up coughing, his palm smeared red. Guy gave him an injection and pressed his fingers to the side of the man's neck.

After a good while, the coughing thinned and the bowed back slowly relaxed.

"Works, right?"

"Too early to say." Guy lifted the man's eyelid. "The cough's suppressed, but we need to see how long it holds and whether he still coughs blood."

Mo Fei looked toward the middle of the treatment station. The infection-control device was still running, and the people on the mats around it were still coughing.

"Does that device work on this new sickness?"

"The ones with fever and swelling get better once they're in range." Guy tilted his chin at the row of coughers. "But for dry coughs and coughing up blood, it doesn't do much."

So it can't stop it. I'll have to report back to Miss Flora...

His gaze fell back to the vial. "Do you know where Lungclear Herb grows?"

"If I knew, would this damn place be out of medicine?"

Is it really that hard to find... Right, Phoebe might know, but to make her talk, I'd have to break the curse first.

Outside the station, he lit the speaking rune.

"Miss Flora, I've checked the infection-control device. It still works on the old illness, but it can't stop the new one."

The line went quiet for a moment.

"If you've checked, then bring me a fix. This young lady doesn't want bad news."

Mo Fei sighed. "Got it. I'll think of something."

He stepped onto the footboard and hurried back to the workshop.

---

The moment he pushed the workshop door open, Mo Fei froze.

In the pile of shredded leaves on the floor, a ball of black fur lay belly-up, four legs in the air, nose buried in the leaves and rubbing nonstop.

"...Phoebe?"

Her tail flicked once. She ignored him.

Sis, where did your witch dignity go?

He shook his head and went downstairs to check on Lily first.

The operating table was empty. Victor sat by the lab bench, writing.

"Where's Lily?"

"Her grandfather took her. Said he'd look after her himself."

"Can she hold up?"

"If she couldn't, I wouldn't have let him take her."

Mo Fei returned to the first floor. Phoebe was still lying there, burying her face deeper in the leaves.

Does she really love catnip this much?

He pictured Phoebe in human form, sprawled out just like this, and burst out laughing.

If she's still like this once she's human again, that'd be hilarious... Oh, right, she said before that this herb loosened the curse.

Mo Fei's hand slid into his pocket and touched the soft bunch of herbs.

What if I add catnip to the curse-breaking potion? It might work.

He dug out the herbs left over from last time and put them in the pot.

The herbs slowly melted into a dark green mass. After only a few turns, it reached the point where it always started to turn black, and he hurriedly dropped the catnip in.

The dark green mass wobbled, then steadily kept turning.

【Transmutation of “Curse-Breaking Potion” succeeded. Proficiency +2. Current proficiency: 9/666.】

...It worked? All those explosions, and the missing piece was this bunch of herbs?!

He poured a little onto a saucer and set it in front of the black cat.

"Sis, medicine time."

The black cat lifted her head out of the leaves, nose twitching twice, and lapped up a few mouthfuls.

Her ears twitched.

Every hair on her body stood up, one by one, and black smoke seeped from the tips, spreading outward in ring after ring.

Mo Fei backed away half a step.

"What, this time it's not going to be the cat that blows up, is it?"