Inside the reception chamber, there were only the patient Zeng Jichuan, Lang Jiuchuan and Jian Lan, and Director Ou who had come to observe.
Lang Jiuchuan first drew out the full case of golden needles and laid them side by side on a clean white cloth. She formed a hand seal and performed a purification incantation over them, then explained to Director Ou as an aside: “Though the needles are all new, many hands have passed over them, and they carry all manner of residual auras. For ordinary needles, one would sterilize them with fire or boiled water before use to achieve cleanliness. The Daoist incantation I use achieves the same effect — there is no need for you to try and learn it. You could not, in any case.”
Director Ou: “…”
Lang Jiuchuan saw that Zeng Jichuan was sitting ramrod-straight and pressed her hand down on his shoulder: “You may relax at your ease. Nothing is wrong. This is merely a small matter of acupuncture needling.”
Zeng Jichuan felt an intangible force press down from his shoulder, pushing his anxiety and fear down with it. He breathed in quietly, and nodded.
“Then we shall begin.” The first of the Eight Methods of Cataract Extraction that Lang Jiuchuan carried out was the Discernment of the Moment — she first laid a cold-water-soaked cloth over his eye area to cleanse it, then used the pads of her fingers to gently press and knead the acupuncture points around his eyes, encouraging the circulation of vital energy and blood, and bringing more life into the eyes.
As she pressed, she was already locating the specific acupoints. Only when she saw a moist luster appear in Zeng Jichuan’s eyes did she take a golden needle from the cotton cloth on the small nearby table — three inches in length — and say: “Sir, I am beginning the Eye Illumination step now.”
Her slender fingertips pinched the golden needle. Fine as a strand of hair it was, the very tip slightly curved at the end. She passed the needle through the flame of a candle to heat it, then quenched it in a bowl of goldthread and licorice root broth set to the side. “Goldthread and licorice root can drain fire and resolve toxicity. Using this as the quenching broth — the golden needle then carries the medicinal properties, and once it enters the eye, it can also clear heat and dry dampness. That makes it superior to plain water.”
Director Ou thought to himself: Why is she explaining this in such thorough detail? Is this… a teaching session? But the moment he thought through the reasoning, he had to admit it was sound. Previously he had only ever used pure spring water to quench his needles; that was indeed inferior to a medicinal broth.
Lang Jiuchuan leaned in slightly, using two fingers to part open his eyelid. A faint luminous glow flickered in her own eyes as she perceived the layer of white-misted membrane covering his dark pupils. She held the needle in her right hand and said: “Do not move. Do not blink.”
She drew the needle slowly toward the boundary between the cornea — the wind wheel, as it was called — and the outer rim of the white of the eye, the needle-tip angled slightly upward, as she began to probe for the underlying root of the opacity.
Zeng Jichuan stiffened for a moment — there was a foreign object in his eye, cool against the surface — and he could feel clearly that needle-tip shifting within his eye, a faint itch, but no pain whatsoever. He set his heart at rest.
Director Ou, standing to the side, had gone rigid through his entire body, even more tense than the one holding the needle. His breath stilled, his chest barely moving. His wrist moved involuntarily in sync with Lang Jiuchuan’s wrist, and he did not dare release even a single breath.
Lang Jiuchuan, however, felt none of his tension. Her hand was extraordinarily steady. The golden needle seemed almost alive between her two fingers, and with a gentle, precise lift at the base of that white-misted opacity, the gray-white lens film separated cleanly from the dark pupil.
Director Ou narrowed his eyes. Had that separation succeeded?
But what came next he could not make sense of at all. Lang Jiuchuan turned her wrist, and a current of energy passed from her wrist through to the tail of the needle, causing the needle’s tail to emit a faint resonant hum, trembling minutely — and in that vibration, the opacity membrane detached entirely. Only then did Lang Jiuchuan withdraw the needle, using its tip to hook the film and draw it out from the eye.
She immersed the golden needle, still hooked through the gray-white film, into the medicinal broth that had been prepared in advance. The moment the film touched the liquid, it dissolved away, merging into the broth and vanishing without a trace.
Director Ou could not help but lean in closer. He looked at the medicinal broth, then looked at Zeng Jichuan, wanting to ask something but not daring to.
Zeng Jichuan was trembling with excitement through his entire body. He blinked, and looked at Director Ou, and gave a nod.
What had been gray-white pupils in his eyes were now fully restored to clear black, bright and unclouded as they had once been. His gaze instinctively chased after the one who had performed the needling, and he could see plainly the fine, downy hair on her face.
It had worked.
Lang Jiuchuan turned and said: “Do not get agitated. There is still one more eye.”
Zeng Jichuan suppressed his excitement, clasped his hands together in a bow of gratitude, then breathed in steadily to gather himself.
With one eye complete, the needle went into the second eye even faster — one could call it swift, precise, and decisive. By the time Lang Jiuchuan dropped all the golden needles into the medicinal broth, a thin layer of perspiration had formed on her brow. She kneaded her wrist and quietly circulated her vital energy to restore herself, while Jian Lan used a clean cloth to wipe the fine beads of sweat from her forehead.
In truth, a procedure as small as this golden needle cataract extraction should not have left her wrist aching — the trouble was that her hand tendons had snapped and not yet been fully reconnected. She was sustaining everything through spiritual energy alone, and with her focus split between maintaining that and performing the extraction, it had become somewhat taxing.
Fortunately, this procedure was now complete.
“Has the chrysanthemum seed broth been brought? Both the external wash and the internal dose,” Lang Jiuchuan said to Jian Lan with a nod.
Jian Lan relayed the instruction outside, and shortly after, a household servant brought the medicinal broth, along with an eye-rinse vessel — fashioned from a porcelain tube, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, with a pump head at the end, designed so that pressing it would send water flowing, convenient for rinsing.
Lang Jiuchuan first had Zeng Jichuan drink a full bowl, then picked up the rinse vessel filled with the chrysanthemum seed broth and rinsed both his eyes, saying: “For the next three days, rinse both eyes once in the morning when you wake, and once again before sleep. Avoid wind, fire, and dust. For these few days, cover your eyes with a length of gauze cloth — you may remove it after three days.”
Zeng Jichuan agreed. The cool medicinal broth rinsed over his eyes; he blotted the rivulets away with a clean cotton cloth, and his eyelashes trembled faintly as he opened his eyes.
Director Ou came close and looked. The eyes that had been clouded with gray-white film were now clear — a blue-tinged luminescence moved within them, moist and brilliant, not a trace of white mist remaining. It was as though light itself had been refined and poured into the depths of his eyes, crystalline and radiant.
To part the clouds and behold the moon — this is what they mean.
Director Ou could scarcely believe it. He looked at Lang Jiuchuan — even her breathing had barely shifted, and yet with movements so steady and so swift, she had completed a procedure of such extreme precision and pressure.
Formidable, the young who come after us.
In his excitement, Director Ou clasped his hands toward Lang Jiuchuan in admiration: “The wave that comes behind drives the wave before it — young Daoist Friend, your medical arts are superb. This old man is filled with respect.”
“It is merely a small cataract extraction. You are far too generous in your praise,” Lang Jiuchuan deflected, and took out a vial of prepared medicinal pills, passing them to Zeng Jichuan. “These are Bright-Eye Rehmannia Pills. Take one pill after each meal every day, and once the course is finished, your eyes will be fully restored.”
She paused, then continued: “The tonic prescription I wrote for you earlier may also be continued. But since you suffered an injury in the past that damaged your vital foundation, and your original energy is difficult to fully replenish, I would suggest incorporating the Daoist Eight-Piece Brocade exercises into your daily routine. They cultivate Yang energy and strengthen the constitution — when Yang energy is sufficient, blood energy is sufficient, and the body remains in good health.”
Zeng Jichuan gave an eager sound of assent. He gazed, with greedy delight, at the sunlight and scenery through the window — seen with these eyes of his, not the yin-yang eyes, with none of those terrifying things leaping suddenly into view.
Yet after looking for a while, he still felt a faint sting in his eyes, and drew his gaze back inward.
“You have only just had the extraction — do not look into strong light for too long. All things must follow the principle of gradual progress,” Lang Jiuchuan advised, and had Jian Lan bring the gauze cloth to cover his eyes.
Zeng Jichuan rose to his feet and bowed toward her: “Young Daoist Friend, your skills are truly extraordinary — this old man owes you a bow.”
The remaining detailed steps I will spare from elaborating — in looking up the source material I also came across techniques for excising pterygium from the eye, and the surgical instrument illustrations made my eyelids twitch. Traditional Chinese medicine truly is profound and vast.