Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 589 Do You Hope It’s a Sickness?

The door of the room was closed tightly. A bitter smell of medicine filled the cold sea water in the deep winter. Although she was wrapped in a thick blanket, the young girl still felt her hands and feet frozen, her blood stagnated, and even her breathing was like gasping in the ice and snow, stained with coarse ice. Although she had never seen snow, she had only seen descriptions of it in books, because the Azure Sea Mirror would not snow, and the wind and snow would only rage and roar in the northern region thousands of miles away.

She curled up, hugged her knees, and sat on the sofa by the fireplace, ignoring the sky blue stone that was emitting a faint light in the lamp, and stared quietly at the ceiling above her head. The stone material was a little gray, and it blended with the faint light emitted by the wall lamp, immediately blending into an ink-like dark paint color, like a shadow crawling in the corner, creepy. But it was actually the traces of ancient abyssal rock formed by years of seawater erosion. Not to mention that it was only the most common and ordinary building material in the deep sea world, even the translucent fluorite and seastone, known as the "precious jade of God", might not be able to resist the power of time.

This year there are more shadows than last year, and last year there were more shadows than the year before. Soon, perhaps the entire ceiling will be covered with shadows. The girl's eyes did not change at all, still so quiet and focused, as if she was staring at something in her life that could not be missed. At the same time, she counted silently in her heart: one, two, three, four... fifty-seven, fifty-eight...

When she counted to the hundredth weak heartbeat, there was a knock on the door of the room on time. Then, the person knocking on the door did not wait for her to respond, but gently pushed the door open with his foot, and walked in with a pot of potion in both hands - yes, it was a pot, and it was freshly boiled, with steam rising as if it was going to dry up the nearby sea water.

The young girl who just entered the room was slightly older than the girl sitting by the fireplace. She put the iron pot in her hand on the table with a grunt. The moment she let go, it made a low roar. The girl frowned slightly, and finally withdrew her gaze from the ceiling. She looked down and found that the potion in the pot was a suspicious dark purple, bubbling with large and small bubbles, and there were many suspicious materials floating in the pot: grass roots, seaweed, shells, and even animal viscera.

Although young, Lorena, who was precocious, couldn't help but sigh: "What kind of medicine is this?"

"My mother asked the chief elder of the Balo fishman tribe for the secret recipe." Galene chuckled, "According to the chief elder, it can cure any disease. He became an elder by relying on this secret. Over the past few decades, he has cured thousands of people in the tribe. My mother accepted his secret recipe and also rewarded him with 100 seahorses and 20 sets of cavalry armor."

How many have not been cured?
This thought flashed through Lorena's mind, but she didn't ask. She thought about it carefully, and her expression gradually became strange: If I remember correctly, the Balor fishman tribe still retains the primitive tribal system, right? Not only does it have no cultural heritage, but most of the tribe members are barbarians with uncivilized intelligence, and have always been despised by other deep-sea aliens. Lorena didn't mean to discriminate, but can this tribe that doesn't even have the concept of herbal medicine and basic care really offer any reliable secret recipes?
She asked, "What are the ingredients of the prescription?"

Galene looked at her sister sympathetically: "The bile and gallbladder of the sea worm."

She paused here, picked up a teaspoon from the side, scooped a spoonful from the pot, and drank it elegantly like tea. Then her face immediately wrinkled like a bitter gourd, and she squeezed out a sentence with difficulty: "It's just a little bitter."

"It's not hard." After recovering from the bitter taste of the medicine, although the tip of her tongue was still numb, Lorena smiled and said to her sister, "I just need to take the medicine. The ones who are really hard-working are mother, Sandro, and my sister. After all, you have been working hard for my illness."

When Galena thought about having to finish all the potion, she felt bad for her. She reached out her hand, patted her sister's shoulder, and said sincerely, "Thank you for your hard work, Lorena."

From the skin to the blood to the internal organs, everything is bitter. The bitterest gallbladder and bile are said to be so bitter that even meat-eating marine animals vomit. The pot of medicine in front of Lorena has been specially processed to remove a lot of the bitterness. Even so, the girl's tongue tip is still astringent and her entire taste buds feel numb, which is extremely uncomfortable.

"It's okay." Galene patted her shoulder and said, "If you really don't want to drink it, just pour it out secretly. I won't tell mother."

The sea worm is known as the most unpopular creature in the deep sea, and there is only one reason for it: it is very bitter.

"..."

"Wouldn't the reward my mother gave me be wasted?" Rolena smiled and shook her head. "Besides, the sea worm is not a poison. Even if this pot of medicine can't cure my disease, it won't cause any problems. It's just that -"

"That's true, but taking medicine is also very tiring, and besides..."

Galene suddenly stopped, wanting to say something but stopping herself.

Rorona knew what she wanted to say. Besides, up to now, the prescriptions that her mother, Lord Sandro, and other subjects who were concerned about the Second Princess's condition had obtained from ancient books, secret texts, and hearsay were actually ineffective.

The illness of the girl in front of him seemed to be incurable by artificial means. The simplest cold and fever could not be cured; lung and heart diseases involving body organs and blood could not be cured either; one could only wait for them to heal naturally. There were even stone skin disease and crystal graying disease, which were almost equivalent to a death sentence for other mirror elves. The former would cause the mirror elves to be unable to absorb oxygen in the seawater through the pores on the surface of the body, gradually suffocating to death; while the latter would cause their origin stones to gradually dim and crack, directly losing the qualification to live in the sea. When these two diseases first appeared in Rolena, almost everyone pessimistically believed that the Second Princess was incurable, but in the end, they also healed naturally with the passage of time.

This is incredible. When will Stoneskin and Crystal Ash Disease be cured naturally? If they were, they would not be considered terminal illnesses by the Mirror Elves, leaving countless excellent doctors helpless.

But this kind of miracle really happened to Lorena.

This made many people start to think, is it because of her weak constitution that has never improved since she was born that the Second Princess was troubled by the disease, or is it another more special factor? For example...

"curse."

Galene suddenly spoke up. She sat on the chair next to her sister, separated from her by the pot of suspicious medicinal soup that was constantly bubbling with dark purple bubbles. Her voice was a little low: "I heard that Mother and Sandro have gradually determined that what is troubling you is not a disease, but some kind of evil curse, which is why it cannot be cured by ordinary methods. So recently, they have been asking the clerks of the royal court and the book keepers in the library who are responsible for the safekeeping of the classics to look through the records left over from ancient times and try to find a way to break the curse. Perhaps it will be more effective than simple drug treatment."

After hearing this, Rorona was silent for a while and whispered, "Is that so?"

"What's wrong, Lorena?" Galene looked back at her sister and said, "You don't look very happy?"

But this is clearly a good thing, right?
At least, when all methods of treating the disease have been tried and none of them have worked, changing your thinking is a good option.

"Unhappy?" Rorona shook her head slowly: "No. I'm not unhappy."

"Don't give me that." Galene reached out her hand, pinched her cheek, and snorted twice: "I am your sister, do you think you can hide it from me? Tell me why you are unhappy! If you don't tell me, I will..."

"Just what?"

"Just tickle you!"

"Ah, haha, no, don't do that, sister, ha... I'm telling you."

Only then did Galene retract her sinful little hands, as if she had done nothing, and waited for her sister's explanation.

Rorona looked up at the dull gray ceiling and said softly, "Because I don't like that."

"what?"

　Give me some meow
　　
　
(End of this chapter)