The instant Zuo Yan saw the black blood drawn out by the gold needles, his first thought was that someone had poisoned Bai Ning. What else could make a person’s blood turn black?
Lang Jiuchuan turned her head, saw the expression on his face, and immediately knew what he was thinking. She said, “It is a toxin, but not a case of poisoning. Her meridians have been chronically stagnated for years, and along with them, her qi and blood have grown obstructed and stagnant. So when a high fever flares, it draws up accumulated toxic heat, which surges into the organs — that is what compelled her to cough up blood. What I did just now was administer acupuncture to open and activate her meridians and guide the toxic heat out. Without that, relying on herbal decoctions alone would have been insufficient to dispel the fever. Do not overthink it.”
The tension in Zuo Yan’s expression eased somewhat. “Then how is my wife’s condition now?”
Lang Jiuchuan glanced at the perspiration beginning to bead on Bai Shi’s forehead and said, “The high fever has already begun to recede. Rest assured — my needlework does not do anything unnecessary.”
At one side, the estate physician felt a twinge of embarrassment. He glanced at her, then couldn’t resist taking the lady’s pulse himself — and indeed, Lady Zuo’s hand was no longer as scalding hot as before. He quietly marveled to himself. That was fast.
Lang Jiuchuan looked at Bai Shi’s face, which even in unconscious sleep was creased with a furrowed brow, as though enduring some form of suffering, and said, “Her constitution is frail and difficult to nourish and restore. You mentioned that she was not this frail when she was still in her maiden home — but from her pulse, I can tell that the deficiency was already present from before birth.”
“That is indeed so. She has always been of weak constitution, though not to this extreme — not as she is now, liable to be knocked over by a breeze.” Zuo Yan frowned. “Before our marriage, although her health was delicate, she was still able to move about freely — merely frailer than the average robust woman. After our marriage, however, she fell ill every few days, and her condition has been declining steadily.”
There was a faint bitterness in his voice as he said this.
If not for such frailty, they would not have gone ten years of marriage still without a child. The truth was they did not dare try — and every physician had said her body could not endure the hardship of carrying a pregnancy.
He dared not gamble on it.
Lang Jiuchuan requested all the prescriptions that various physicians had written for Bai Shi over the years and went through them carefully. When she came across a prescription bearing Chief Physician Ou’s signature, she studied it with particular deliberation, as well as the medicines being taken during the current period — she even examined the dregs.
Seeing her thoroughness, Zuo Yan felt somewhat reassured. A skilled physician would never be arrogant and careless. For someone as young as Lang Jiuchuan to be so meticulous — she must have some real ability.
He then recalled what had happened in the courtyard, and couldn’t help but look at her with a measure of awe. She had spoken of an obstinate minor ghost — could it be that a soul-collecting ghost runner had already arrived?
Zuo Yan’s heart clenched. The moment that possibility occurred to him, he felt a tearing, wrenching pain.
“The Lady’s fever has come down.” The nanny attending to Bai Shi called out in startled delight. She was holding a cloth, wiping the sweat from Bai Shi’s brow.
Zuo Yan was also filled with relief. Seeing that his wife’s flushed cheeks had faded, leaving her face all the paler and all the more pitiable, his heart constricted.
“It has been Chief Physician Ou seeing to your wife’s condition all along, I take it? All the prescriptions are centered on nourishment and recuperation — gradual warming and supplementing.” Lang Jiuchuan said, “I see that the other physicians have likewise prescribed predominantly restorative formulas.”
Zuo Yan nodded. “Is there a problem?”
“No — all are treating the deficiency condition, with careful and meticulous nourishment. Her constitution is very weak. The prenatal deficiency is one contributing factor, and in her youth she must also have suffered a rather severe illness — though she managed to survive it. But that illness dealt further damage to her foundational constitution.” Lang Jiuchuan continued, “To put it plainly: some people may appear capable of walking and moving about, yet in truth their five organs and six viscera are all hollow and depleted, their vital energy insufficient. For a person to be in robust health, the yin and yang of the five organs and six viscera must be in harmony, and the qi and blood must be full and sufficient to nourish them. But that is not the case with her. Her meridians are stagnated, her qi and blood obstructed, and she is unable to generate vital energy.”
The estate physician nodded repeatedly. That was precisely the reasoning.
“Because her constitution is weak, even taking medicine is like pouring water into the ocean — she lacks the capacity to absorb the essence of the decoctions, and naturally cannot nourish herself through them either. To say something blunt: her body is too deficient to accept supplementation — no matter how fine the things she consumes, they do nothing for her. It is only because she was born into wealth and entered a marquis’s estate, waited on by servants and fed no end of precious supplements, and has been so tenderly sheltered from any hardship — that is the only reason she has managed to live to this day.” Lang Jiuchuan swept her gaze across the room’s furnishings. The estate of the Duke of Founding Glory — nothing in it was anything less than refined and precious.
Zuo Yan frowned. Was it truly that serious?
“And even with such careful and tender nurturing, she is merely being kept alive — she cannot last long. I can see that cold qi has accumulated and stagnated in her uterus. It would seem that the grave illness she suffered in youth involved exposure to severe cold?”
Zuo Yan nodded. “When she was twelve years old, she jumped into a cold lake to save me and was struck through with cold.”
Lang Jiuchuan raised an eyebrow. “A frail maiden saving a hero? She didn’t know her own limits.”
Zuo Yan’s face went green. The others in the room also looked rather uncomfortable.
Lang Jiuchuan cleared her throat, rubbed her chin, and said, “My apologies — I have a rather blunt way of speaking. I meant no offense. But for someone with her constitution, she ought to have put herself first. Jumping into a lake to save someone — that was asking for her own ruin. A cold lake — is that the perennially frigid cold-spring lake at the Guanghan Palace? No wonder cold qi has accumulated and stagnated in her uterus. Cold spring water entering the uterus, lingering and unable to disperse — I expect that from that point on, every time her monthly cycle came, she suffered pain so severe she wished she were dead. Under such circumstances, bearing and rearing children is completely out of the question.”
She shook her head as she said this.
An already frail body, further injured by external harm at its very root — what difference was there between that and seeking out one’s own death?
To save another’s life, one ought at least to have a clear reckoning of one’s own capabilities. To risk one’s life recklessly — what did one hope to gain?
Was this what they called true love?
She didn’t understand it.
Zuo Yan noticed her gaze drifting back and forth between him and his wife, and couldn’t help but explain: “It wasn’t what you’re imagining. We have been childhood sweethearts. Doctor — can my wife’s condition be treated or not?”
“Rather than call it an illness, it would be more accurate to call it a weak constitution that is difficult to restore. She is not ill — her body is simply too feeble.” Lang Jiuchuan rubbed the Dizhong at her waist and said, “But this condition of frailty — even if it cannot be improved — ought not to be getting progressively worse from treatment, either. Something here is strange.”
She had looked through all the prescriptions, and in truth they were all quite fitting for Bai Shi’s recuperation. Even if they couldn’t restore her to the health of a normal person, her condition should not have deteriorated to the point of being barely alive on a thread.
Lang Jiuchuan thought for a moment, then dismissed the estate physician, sent away most of the servant women and maids, leaving only one nanny to assist, while Zuo Yan was asked to stand behind the screen — from there, he could see any movement on her side, while also avoiding any awkwardness of impropriety.
She had the nanny remove Bai Shi’s outer garments and began a thorough examination from her head downward — her fingers moving over the scalp, checking inch by inch, then to the neck, down along the body, not missing even the toenails.
Nothing. Had she been mistaken — was it not a parasite curse after all?
Lang Jiuchuan was quiet for a moment, then formed a hand seal with one hand, drawing her spiritual energy to the Heavenly Eye, while her other hand rested on Bai Shi’s wrist pulse. She focused her gaze into the woman’s meridians.
That single look made Lang Jiuchuan’s brow twitch.
Running along Bai Shi’s wrist meridian was a black line that extended toward the heart meridian — an unsettling sight, like a black serpent. She cautiously guided a thread of spiritual energy into Bai Shi’s meridian — and the instant her spiritual energy made contact with that black line, it reacted as though it had sensed a threat. It surged rapidly upward and simultaneously lunged back at Lang Jiuchuan.
The collision between the two forces sent Bai Shi into agony. She cried out sharply and convulsed, her whole body shaking violently.
Lang Jiuchuan withdrew her force. To Zuo Yan, who came rushing over with a face full of alarm, she said gravely: “Your honored wife is indeed not ill. The reason she is so frail and cannot be restored — is because she has been cursed.”