Chronology of a Hundred Herbs

CHAPTER 05: Painter Wu Ming I

”Let me look at your eyes.” The painter’s voice was slightly hoarse. His hand lightly traced the corner of Hua Rong Yue’s eyes. 

The owner of this shop was called Wu Ming. He wasn’t in the best health, and one of his legs was lame. 

Hua Rong Yue felt a little puzzled and stranged out. This Wu Ming person had been staring at her eyes for a long time now. And he’d even touched the corner of her eyes. This had her very uncomfortable. Shortly, he lowered his head and continued with his writing and drawing. Hua Rong Yue couldn’t say anything else about it. 

Even though this shop was situated along a dilapidated street, it wasn’t as worn down as it’s exterior appeared. In fact, the moment they opened the door and entered, it felt as though they’d stepped into a different realm. The interior was incredibly clean. 

Hallucinations kept flashing before her eyes, criss-crossing in and out of the reality before her. She gradually understood the situation after looking through a series of comparisons. This place wasn’t as simple as it seemed. And even had a place in Yi Ling Long’s memories. 

Holding the cup of tea the shop owner gave her, Hua Rong Yue slowly closed her eyes and started pulling up Yi Ling Ling’s memories. Even though this was a shop that sold paintings, it was actually… really a place that just sold paintings. But the tools used to paint were not as simple as it seemed. 

The owner was a person called Wu Ming, a frail looking, and pale-faced man. His fingernails were raven, they were as black as his hair. To a person that had not experienced the jianghu like Physician Qi, he could easily get away with a simple lie — that he’d painted his nails black. However Hua Rong Yue knew that the black colour was actually the original colour of his nails. 

After a person became Mad, he or she would experience certain changes to their appearance. Some people’s hair would turn white in a single night, others would spot a pair of blood red eyes, as though dyed in blood. 

— this was the situation with the shop owner’s nails as well. His nails were black, and trimmed with a nice curve; it looked as though he had coated it with black nail polish. In fact, that was how he’d explained to Physician Qi — that he had painted it black with some kind of “colouring”, and didn’t even bother hiding his nails. 

The first time Hua Rong Yue saw it, she was flabbergasted. How unbridled. 

The shop sold all kinds of “colouring” that could help a Maniac cover up evidence of their Madness. In Yi Ling Long’s previous life, she had visited this place before. 

There were a lot of colourings suitable to be used on one’s body. Hua Rong Yue looked at the countless bottles. All kinds of colours could be found. The shop owner was indeed a very outstanding painter, or more specifically, body painter? 

Wu Ming said that he wanted to give them a painting in return for the medicine and the physician visit. Physician Qi said that he’d drawn him too many times, so let’s skip him this time. Wu Ming glanced at Hua Rong Yue and said: “Why not I paint for the person beside you this time.”

Hua Rong Yue shook her hands, but Wu Ming was strangely persistent.  ♢ CHRONOLOGY OF A HUNDRED HERBS, CHAPTER 05 is hosted at ZHANLANN.COM ♢ 

Wu Ming’s painting was not something that he could finish in a short amount of time, and so he told them to come back to pick it up another time. Wu Ming was of a thin built. Topped with his pale complexion, just watching him move around the shop would leave one feeling tired on his behalf. 

He looked at Hua Rong Yue’s eyes, and suddenly asked out of the blue, “do you like red?”

“Red? It’s alright.” Hua Rong Yue said. 

“What do you think about this kind of red?” As Wu Ming spoke, he produced an old and worn out book from a book rack. A few dried flowers were pressed within the pages. The flower was red, and appeared darker than it usually would be as a result of its dried nature. 

The scene before her suddenly shifted. She stood at the same place, with the same perspective, Wu Ming was dressed almost exactly the same. The only things that were different was probably the placement of some of the other things in the shop. 

He dug around at the rack behind him for a long time, before he produced as small, red jade vial. Even though the Wu Ming then had been dressed almost identically, but the moment he turned around to face Yi Ling Long, his eyes seemed to reflect a red similar to the colour of the vial. His eyes looked as though they were glowing, making the him in her hallucination out to appear a little more dangerous than in reality. 

“I’d originally thought that you wouldn’t end up like this. Didn’t expect it to be worse than what I’d imagine.” He said slowly, “I’m really saddened to see you like this.”

Before Hua Rong Hua could analyse what Wu Ming had said, she raised her elbow uncontrollably. At the corner of her eyes, she noticed that attire on “herself”. Just a single glance was headache-inducing enough.

It was a… vividly saturated attire…

This was probably what Yi Ling Long wore when she came down to this shop then. And the reason Hua Rong Yue managed to see was because this attire was very big, and very extravagent and over the top. All Yi Ling Long did in the hallucination was to wave aside her sleeve, but this action itself was enough for Hua Rong Yue to notice the vibrant red of her robes, as well as the large purple flowers, large blue flowers, large green leaves and the other rainbow coloured butterflies that decorated the robe…

Err… even though Yi Ling Long had already gone Mad by the time she visited Wu Ming, this was still not an attire any normal person would dare walk around in.

“Cut your nonsense.”

T/N: the foreshadowing… oh my…