Though the clouds had parted and the light returned, Lang Jiuchuan could not truly relax. She spent only a short while regulating her breath and swallowing a few medicinal pills before going to assess the condition of Bai Maoxing and his wife. This matter was not yet finished.
The room was in utter disarray, and a smell difficult to put into words hung in the air, revolting to the senses. Lang Jiuchuan glanced sideways at Yice. “Do you know the Rite of Purification?”
Yice gave a nod.
“You pocketed Steward Huang’s payment just now, didn’t you? You take money, you do the work — this room’s foul energy is yours to clear.” Lang Jiuchuan had no compunction about putting him to use.
Yice: “……”
He looked at the filth pervading the room, then looked at the husband and wife, and his brow furrowed. “You just expended spiritual energy. Your vital force hasn’t recovered yet. You’d better not touch them for now — let the servants come in and tidy things up first.”
With that, he turned and walked out briskly.
Lang Jiuchuan raised an eyebrow and watched his retreating figure. This person is peculiar.
She went to Madam Bai and found her clothing already in tatters and disarray. She retrieved a large outer garment from the clothes rack at the foot of the bed and draped it over her. Then she noticed Madam Bai’s right arm twisted grotesquely backward, and reached over to feel it — dislocated, knocked out of joint.
Lang Jiuchuan brought both hands to bear. With a sharp crack, she set the dislocated arm bone back into place.
When Yice re-entered the room, he found Lang Jiuchuan calmly and without any change of expression resetting someone’s bone — a sight that made him purse his lips. He directed Jian Lan and Steward Huang, who had followed him in, to step forward and assist, while he moved to one side, gathered what he needed, and began performing the rite to expel the foul energy.
Steward Huang and Jian Lan, both still pale as sheets, went forward. When Steward Huang caught sight of the top of Bai Maoxing’s head, he let out a strangled cry and reached a trembling hand under his master’s nose.
Faint — but there was breath.
He exhaled in relief. He wanted to move his master, yet could not figure out how to go about it, and looked instinctively to Lang Jiuchuan.
The courtyard outside had just a moment ago been so thick with yin energy that none of them had dared approach. It was only when Yice came out to call them in that they had ventured inside.
Now, looking at the scene before them, the horror of it confirmed everything they had feared.
Lang Jiuchuan and Jian Lan moved Madam Bai back onto the bed. Lang Jiuchuan placed two fingers against her wrist, and her brow furrowed, then slowly released. She let out a faint sigh.
She turned and went to Bai Maoxing’s side next. He looked little better than his wife. The fleshy growth with its infant face had vanished from his head, but the scalp where he had been clawing was a raw, mangled ruin, laid nearly to the bone. His pulse…
Lang Jiuchuan read his pulse, then studied his complexion, and shook her head again. His vital essence had been depleted and his foundational energy severely damaged. To restore it would require time and medicine — neither could be stopped. To bring him back to even a semblance of decent health would be a great achievement; expecting anything more would be out of the question.
Madam Bai was the same. The yin-fetus vengeful spirit had drained her blood essence almost entirely.
The yin-fetus vengeful spirit had fed upon the father’s vital essence and energy from within the male host, and on the mother’s blood essence from within the female host — nourishing its own soul on this sustenance. Once all five organs had formed and become complete, it would have broken free from the body, emerging as a yin-fetus, and become a savage, grievance-laden ghost infant.
“Master — our lord can still recover, can’t he?” Steward Huang asked in a trembling voice.
“He won’t die,” Lang Jiuchuan said. “But to return to the vitality he had before, to live to a ripe old age — that is unlikely.”
Steward Huang froze.
Lang Jiuchuan had him settle Bai Maoxing on the daybed in the room, then took the bundle Jian Lan had been carrying, opened it, and rummaged through until she found a jade vial labeled Foundation Consolidation and Vital Energy Restoration. She tipped out two pills from it for each of them and administered them.
Next, she retrieved paper and brush and wrote out a prescription first for Bai Maoxing’s head wound — this one was for external application and could not be delayed — for the internal restoration of his constitution, she would need to think further. She handed the external prescription to Steward Huang and told him to have someone fill it without delay.
“Miss!” Jian Lan’s voice came from behind her, filled with alarm.
Lang Jiuchuan turned — and caught the scent of fresh blood, sharp and overpowering. Her expression shifted rapidly. She moved in an instant, and saw that the bed beneath Madam Bai was already soaked red. Her breathing, too, had grown increasingly faint.
She reached to lift the covers, then remembered there were still others in the room. She turned — and found Yice walking toward her. She let the hemline fall and said in a cold voice, “Out.”
Yice stopped. He did not understand the reason for her cold look, but he had already caught the smell of blood, and with one glance at Madam Bai, his face went ashen. He understood. He stepped quickly back toward the inner room’s doorway and said, “I’ll be right outside the door. Call out if you need anything.”
Lang Jiuchuan watched until he had gone, then had Jian Lan help remove Madam Bai’s clothing. She herself retrieved her kit of gold needles, and out of the corner of her eye caught sight of the blood seeping steadily out from Madam Bai’s body. Her expression grew cold and intent. She selected several needles and drove them swiftly home.
A rupture before delivery. The fetus within has dissolved into blood and ruined flesh.
Lang Jiuchuan needled with one hand and dictated to Jian Lan with the other, having her write down a prescription for expelling the remains of the fetal tissue. She then called out for Yice to send someone to have the decoction prepared and boiled at once — the decayed tissue had to be expelled as quickly as possible. If the bleeding continued unchecked, Madam Bai’s life would be in danger.
Jian Lan had been panic-stricken when Madam Bai suddenly went into hemorrhagic collapse, terrified the woman might die before her eyes. Yet when she saw her mistress working with split attention, steady and composed, she too could not help but calm herself.
Only — her mistress’s complexion looked truly terrible. Those lips had not a drop of color, little better than the paper-white face of Madam Bai lying on the bed.
Jian Lan looked at her with both awe and heartache. Did she have to push herself this far?
The gold needles had sealed the acupoints and stanched the bleeding for now. But Lang Jiuchuan’s face had gone as white as a ghost. She swallowed a few more medicinal pills as though they were sweets, her hands trembling slightly as she caught her breath.
The payment for this visit — she would charge well for it. No — this was what she deserved.
She needed to think about how to recover the spiritual energy she had spent.
Lang Jiuchuan left the gold needles in Madam Bai’s body for the time being. When Yice arrived with the decoction for expelling the fetal tissue, he brought with him the maidservants and older women attendants who served Madam Bai — they had been hit by the yin energy when they fled and had been dazed and disoriented ever since, but Yice had already given them talismans, and they were now able to function.
Ignoring the two or three maidservants and attendants staring at her in fright, Lang Jiuchuan took the medicine and smelled it first. Satisfied that it was correct, she had Jian Lan prop Madam Bai up and administered the decoction.
When the entire bowl was down, the aching, dragging pain in Madam Bai’s lower abdomen was enough to rouse her from unconsciousness. Yet she was unable to cry out in any sharp way — she simply lay there, eyes unfocused and expression blank, as though her spirit had left her. She had been broken so completely that her mind had shattered.
Lang Jiuchuan watched as the decayed fetal membrane began to be expelled from her body. Rather than having Jian Lan handle it, she directed the older attendant to see to it.
When a basin of bloody fluid was brought out, she saw it — the bluish-purple fetal membrane mixed within the blood and tissue, still carrying the remnant yin energy and killing malice of the vengeful spirit.
Lang Jiuchuan quietly recited a sutra of passage for the dead, then struck a talisman into the basin to dispel the lingering evil energy.
On the bed, once Madam Bai’s bleeding had gradually subsided and the maidservants and attendants had brought clean water and tidied things up once more, Lang Jiuchuan went back to remove the needles.
Madam Bai’s eyes were still wide and fixed, with almost no sign of life within them.
Lang Jiuchuan placed the gold needles at the acupoints again, and as she needled, she began to recite the Heart-Purifying and Spirit-Calming Incantation — the words clear, measured, gentle, like warm water flowing over something cold and numb, seeping into the frozen reaches of body and soul.
“The Great Celestial Star responds and transforms without cease. Drive away all evil, bind all malign spirits — protect life and guard the body. May wisdom be bright and clear, may the heart and spirit rest in peace. May the three souls endure eternally, may the seven earthly spirits never fall…”
The whites of Madam Bai’s eyes shifted slowly. She turned her head. When she saw a pair of clear, bright dark eyes looking back at her, she broke into heaving, wailing sobs.