Lu Tong was unaware of the events happening at the Fan residence.

Early in the morning, not long after Renxin Medical Hall had opened, a customer arrived at the shop.

It was a middle-aged man wearing a square cap, dressed in an old cloth straight robe that had been washed white, with muddy black cloth shoes. From his appearance, he seemed to be an impoverished scholar.

The scholar looked panicked with a pale face, perhaps having run all the way here, appearing breathless.

Yin Zheng was sweeping at the entrance when she saw him. She put down her broom and asked: “Sir, are you here to buy medicine?”

Lu Tong glanced at this person and found his features somewhat familiar. Before she could speak, the scholar had already walked in with a few quick steps, reaching across the counter to grab Lu Tong’s sleeve, pleading desperately: “Doctor, my mother suddenly fell ill. Since yesterday she can’t eat, and now she can’t even speak. Please have mercy and save my mother’s life!”

As he spoke, tears began to fall.

At this time, Du Changqing had not yet arrived, and besides Lu Tong, only A’Cheng and Yin Zheng were in the shop. Yin Zheng hesitated somewhat, since the other party was an unfamiliar man, and Lu Tong was after all a young lady—making house calls alone would be dangerous.

However, A’Cheng on the side recognized the scholar’s face and said quietly after a moment of surprise: “Isn’t this Brother Wu?”

Lu Tong turned to ask: “A’Cheng knows him?”

The young clerk scratched his head: “It’s Brother Wu who lives at the fresh fish market at West Street temple entrance. Master Hu often mentions him.” The child was kind-hearted and couldn’t help feeling pity seeing the scholar’s miserable state, helping to plead with Lu Tong: “Dr. Lu, please just go take a look. When the proprietor comes, I’ll explain to him.”

The scholar stood at the entrance, wanting to come in but not daring to, his eyes red as he begged her: “Doctor…”

Lu Tong said nothing, went into the small courtyard to get her medical box and put it on her back, called Yin Zheng to come along, and said to him: “Let’s go.”

The scholar was stunned for a moment, then immediately thanked her profusely and led the way with his head down. Yin Zheng followed behind, reminding quietly: “Miss, wouldn’t it be better to have Proprietor Du come along?”

Lu Tong had been at Renxin Medical Hall for a long time, and except for treating Young Master Dong, she always stayed in the shop. Du Changqing never let her make house calls alone, saying that as two young women who had been in the capital for a short time, they sometimes didn’t know the area well and might be deceived.

Yin Zheng’s concern was not unreasonable, but Lu Tong only shook her head: “It’s fine.”

She stared at Scholar Wu’s hurried figure ahead, remembering when she had seen this person before.

About a few months ago, not long after Spring Water Life was first made, this scholar had come to Renxin Medical Hall once, scraping together a few taels of silver from a worn bag to buy a dose of Spring Water Life.

That medicinal tea should have been expensive for him. He had hesitated at the shop entrance for a long time, but finally gritted his teeth and bought it, so Lu Tong had a deep impression of him.

As the scholar led the way, he said: “Doctor, my name is Wu Youcai, and I live at the fresh fish market at West Street temple entrance. Last night at midnight, my mother said she felt unwell and her phlegm condition flared up. I rubbed and massaged her and gave her water, but by this morning, she couldn’t eat or drink. I know it’s improper to ask you to make a house call, but only your medical hall on West Street is still open, and I really have no other choice.”

Though his expression was haggard and withered, his speech was still coherent and he remembered to apologize to Lu Tong, appearing to be a person who understood propriety.

Lu Tong replied gently: “It’s alright.”

She was clear that Wu Youcai was not lying.

Ever since Spring Water Life was taken over by the official medicine bureau last time, for unknown reasons, Apricot Grove Hall had not reopened during this period. If Wu Youcai wanted to find a doctor on West Street, he could only come to her.

As they say, when illness strikes, one seeks help desperately, especially when there’s no choice.

Wu Youcai was anxious and walked unsteadily in his haste, stumbling several times. When they reached the end of West Street, went around the temple entrance, and he led them into a fresh fish market.

One side of the fish market had dozens of fish stalls, pervaded with fishy smells and blood. After passing the last fish stall, Lu Tong saw a thatched cottage.

Though this dwelling was very shabby, it had been cleaned very neatly. In the yard enclosed by bamboo fencing, three or four speckled hens wandered freely, pecking at grass seeds on both sides. Seeing visitors arrive, they flapped their wings and fled to one side.

Wu Youcai, not minding Lu Tong and her companion behind him, rushed into the house calling: “Mother!”

Lu Tong and Yin Zheng followed him inside.

The simple room was filled with various miscellaneous items on all sides. On the stove by the door sat a medicine pot containing dark brown medicinal soup that had already gone cold.

On the bed by the window, half of a thin cotton quilt had fallen to the ground, which Wu Youcai was picking up to tuck around the person on the bed. Lu Tong walked closer and saw an old woman lying in the middle of the bed with her eyes tightly closed, gaunt as a skeleton with grayish skin, lifeless as dead wood.

Wu Youcai choked up: “Dr. Lu, this is my mother. Please save her!”

Lu Tong reached out to feel the woman’s pulse, and her heart sank.

This woman was already at death’s door.

“Dr. Lu, my mother…”

Lu Tong put down her medical box: “Don’t speak. Open the window, bring the oil lamp closer, and step back.”

Wu Youcai didn’t dare speak and placed the oil lamp beside the bed, standing far away in the corner.

Lu Tong called Yin Zheng over to help support the woman, first pried open her teeth, and poured some hot water into her mouth. After pouring about half a bowl, the woman coughed twice and seemed to be waking up. Wu Youcai’s face showed joy.

Lu Tong opened her medical box, took out golden needles from the velvet cloth, and sat by the bed to carefully perform acupuncture on the old woman.

Time passed without pause, but Lu Tong’s movements seemed especially slow in Wu Youcai’s eyes.

The scholar stood far away, his hands clenched tightly, his bloodshot eyes fixed on Lu Tong’s movements, sweat constantly rolling down his forehead.

After an unknown amount of time, when the sunlight outside had moved from the front of the house to the back, and the cicadas’ calls in the trees grew deeper, Lu Tong finally withdrew her hand and removed the last golden needle.

The old woman on the bed looked somewhat better, her eyelids seemed to flutter, as if she was about to wake up.

“Mother—”

Wu Youcai’s face showed mixed sorrow and joy as he rushed to the bedside, wiping tears while calling to his mother.

His heart was filled with complex emotions. He had thought his mother would surely face more misfortune than fortune today, never expecting such a miraculous recovery. In worldly matters, the greatest happiness is perhaps losing and then regaining, a false alarm.

Behind him were the woman’s moans and Wu Youcai’s quiet weeping. Lu Tong stood up, leaving this tear-inducing scene to the mother and son behind her.

Yin Zheng’s heart had been tightly suspended, but now it finally settled, and she sighed in relief. While helping Lu Tong pack up the medical box on the table, she smiled: “Today was truly dangerous. Fortunately, Miss’s medical skills are excellent and saved the person. Otherwise, seeing such a scene would have been heartbreaking.”

The sight of this mother and son depending on each other, struggling to survive, naturally evoked sympathy.

Lu Tong was also somewhat moved. After finishing packing the medical box and turning around, her gaze swept past something and she suddenly froze.

There were many books piled in the corner.

This dwelling was extremely simple, practically bare-walled. Besides a bed and a cracked table with two lame wooden stools, there were only piled pots, bowls, and miscellaneous items. Those items were also old and worn, either rusty or chipped. If Du Changqing saw them, he would surely throw them out as refuse.

However, in this empty broken house, all the corners were filled with books. Stack upon stack piled together, like tall steep mountains, amazing to behold.

A scholar…

Lu Tong stared at those book mountains in the corners, her expression somewhat strange.

This was a scholar’s house.

She was so absorbed in looking that she didn’t notice Wu Youcai approaching until the scholar’s voice awakened her: “Dr. Lu?”

Lu Tong looked up. Wu Youcai stood before her, his gaze somewhat nervous.

Lu Tong turned to look. The old woman had completely awakened, but her expression was dazed and she still looked very weak. Yin Zheng was feeding her water to moisten her mouth.

She withdrew her gaze and said to Wu Youcai: “Let’s go outside to talk.”

The room was very small. Once outside, it became much brighter. The speckled hens, still unaware that their master had just experienced a brush with death, were leisurely nesting in the haystack sunbathing.

Wu Youcai looked at Lu Tong, half grateful and half hesitant: “Dr. Lu…”

“You want to ask about your mother’s condition?”

“Yes.”

Lu Tong was silent for a moment before speaking: “Your mother’s illness is severe, her pulse is weak and feeble. You’ve already consulted other doctors before and surely know—it’s just a matter of passing time.”

She didn’t deceive Wu Youcai. Such hopeless comfort would only deepen the other party’s pain in the end.

Lies ultimately cannot change reality.

Wu Youcai had been happy for less than a moment when his eyes immediately reddened again, tears falling: “Dr. Lu also has no solution?”

Lu Tong shook her head.

She was just a doctor, not an immortal. Moreover, saving lives was actually not her specialty.

“She has at most three months.” Lu Tong said: “Take good care of her.”

Wu Youcai stood in place for a long time before wiping away his tears and responding.

Lu Tong returned to the house and wrote several prescriptions for Wu Youcai to have filled for the woman to drink. Though these medicines couldn’t cure the illness, they could make the woman’s remaining months more comfortable.

When leaving, Lu Tong had Yin Zheng secretly leave Wu Youcai’s consultation fee on the table.

The fish stalls with their fishy odor gradually grew more distant behind them. Yin Zheng and Lu Tong walked in silence all the way without speaking. When they returned to the medical hall, Du Changqing was lounging in a chair eating black dates. Seeing the two return, he immediately sprang up from his chair.

When Du Changqing arrived at the medical hall today and found Lu Tong and Yin Zheng absent, he thought they had decided to quit and fled with their belongings overnight. Only after A’Cheng explained the situation did he refrain from reporting to the authorities.

He asked Lu Tong: “A’Cheng said you went to see Scholar Wu’s mother. How was it? Everything alright?”

Yin Zheng answered: “The situation was quite critical at the time. Miss managed to save the person, but…”

But for someone terminally ill, it was ultimately just counting days until death.

After hearing Yin Zheng’s account, Du Changqing also sighed, his gaze showing sympathy.

Seeing him like this, Lu Tong asked: “You know Wu Youcai?”

“Everyone on West Street knows him.” Du Changqing waved his hand. “Scholar Wu from the fresh fish market, West Street’s famous filial son.”

Lu Tong thought for a moment and said: “I saw many books in his room. Is he planning to take the imperial examinations?”

“What planning to take them—he takes them every time.” Speaking of Wu Youcai, Du Changqing’s tone held unclear emotions, whether regret or something else. “Unfortunately, his luck is bad. Back then, everyone around was certain that with his talent, he might even become the top scholar, but who knew that after all these years he still hasn’t passed.”

Du Changqing couldn’t help but curse fate again: “This damn world, why won’t it open its eyes?” After saying this, he turned and saw that Lu Tong had already lifted the felt curtain and entered the inner courtyard, immediately pointing at the curtain in frustration: “Why do you always leave before people finish talking!”

Yin Zheng shushed him: “Miss is also tired from making the house call today. Let her rest.”

Only then did Du Changqing give up.

In the inner courtyard, Lu Tong entered the room and put away her medical box, sitting down at the table by the window.

Paper and brush were laid out on the table by the window. Since it was daytime, no lamp was lit. The blue-green copper lamp cast in the shape of a lotus leaf looked like a newly bloomed lotus flower, graceful and moving.

In Scholar Wu’s thatched cottage at the fresh fish market, there had also been such a copper-cast lotus lamp.

Lu Tong’s heart stirred slightly.

Scholars often kept such lotus lamps lit on their desks—antique and elegant, symbolizing the hope of future success. Many years ago, Lu Qian’s desk had also had such a lamp.

In those days in Changwu County, Lu Qian would often study by lamplight on spring nights. Mother, fearing he would be hungry, would bring him honey cakes at night. Lu Tong would secretly slip in while her parents weren’t paying attention, climb onto her brother’s desk, and righteously claim the plate of honey cakes for herself, making Lu Qian whisper angrily: “Hey!”

She would sit on Lu Qian’s desk with her legs dangling and swinging in mid-air, righteously accusing: “Who told you to secretly have midnight snacks behind our backs.”

“Who’s having midnight snacks?”

“Then what are you doing?”

“Reading.”

“What books need to be read at night?” Lu Tong stuffed honey cakes in her mouth while casually picking up the lotus lamp on the desk to examine it. “What a waste of lamp oil.”

The young man laughed in exasperation and snatched the copper lamp back: “What do you understand? This is called ‘blue lamp and yellow scrolls accompanying the long night,’ ‘urgently urging lamp fire toward achievement and fame’!”

Urgently urging lamp fire toward achievement and fame…

Lu Tong lowered her eyes.

The Wu Youcai she had seen today was a scholar who had taken the examinations multiple times.

If Lu Qian were still alive, he should also have reached the age to take examinations and pursue achievement and fame.

Father had always been strict. Over these years, the books piled up in their home should also have left no room to move, like Wu Youcai’s place. The lamp fire on the Lu family’s desk in Changwu County would only have burned longer than those spring nights of years past.

But Lu Qian was already dead.

He had died in the Zhao Prison of the capital’s Criminal Justice Department.

Lu Tong couldn’t help but clench her palms.

Yin Zheng had helped her inquire—death row inmates at the Criminal Justice Department were the same as elsewhere. After execution, if they had family who paid silver, the remains could be claimed by family. Those without family were taken to the back mountain at the foot of Wangchun Mountain and hastily buried.

Lu Tong had later gone to that burial ground at the foot of Wangchun Mountain. Wild grass grew everywhere, with human bones gnawed by wild beasts scattered about. A faint smell of blood could be detected, and several wild dogs stood far behind the burial mounds, tilting their heads to watch her.

Standing in that wasteland, she felt all the blood in her body suddenly turn cold, unable to accept that the graceful and bright young man in her memory had finally been laid to rest in such muddy ground, buried together with countless dead prisoners and severed limbs.

She couldn’t even distinguish which of these countless burial mounds contained Lu Qian’s remains.

He had died so alone.

The cicadas’ calls in the courtyard became empty and desolate in her ears. The summer afternoon sunlight came fiercely, charging and crashing across people’s faces, ice-cold without a trace of warmth, like a suffocating nightmare.

Until a voice came from nearby, roughly tearing open a gap in this stagnant dreamscape—

“Dr. Lu, Dr. Lu?” A’Cheng stood at the felt curtain between the courtyard and the shop, calling loudly.

Lu Tong turned around in confusion, her eyes still holding unretracted bewilderment.

Yin Zheng, who was washing her hands in the courtyard, walked over and lifted the felt curtain, letting A’Cheng come in to speak: “What’s wrong?”

“Someone in the shop wants to buy medicinal tea. The medicinal tea displayed on the outside counter is sold out. Proprietor Du wants you to bring some more from the storeroom.”

The “storeroom” was the courtyard’s kitchen. Lu Tong sometimes made extra medicinal tea in advance and stored it in boxes to avoid temporary shortages.

Yin Zheng agreed and, as usual, asked: “Which household is it recorded under?”

Recently, Lu Tong had them keep a register, recording the names of all customers who came to buy medicinal tea. Du Changqing had said this was too troublesome, but Lu Tong insisted on doing it this way.

Hearing this, the young clerk’s face lit up with joy: “This time it’s a big shot—they say they’re from Detail Judge Fan Zhenglian’s residence at the Court of Judicial Review, and they’re waiting outside the shop right now!”

Yin Zheng’s steps toward the kitchen paused.

Lu Tong also suddenly looked up.

The Summer Viewing Banquet was still some time away. Even if Madam Dong was willing to help mention it at the banquet, it would take quite a while for Fan Zhenglian’s wife Zhao to take the bait.

She had prepared to wait patiently, never expecting that perhaps heaven, seeing the Lu family’s misery, would let this good news arrive early.

A’Cheng didn’t notice the two women’s strange reaction, still excited in his heart. Detail Judge Fan Zhenglian of the Court of Judicial Review—that was the “Judge Fan” praised by everyone in the capital! Who could have imagined that people from Judge Fan’s residence would come seeking their humble medical hall’s medicine? If word got out, all the merchants on West Street would be envious!

The young clerk talked for a while, and when Lu Tong still didn’t respond, he belatedly sensed something was wrong: “Miss Lu?”

“No need to get any.”

A’Cheng was startled and instinctively looked at Lu Tong.

The woman stood at the table, gazing at the bronze night lamp at the table’s corner, thinking of something unknown, her gaze seeming to flash with fleeting sorrow.

After a long time, she finally spoke.

“Tell the Fan family that the medicinal tea is sold out. There’s no stock.”