The sun climbed higher, and the empty inner courtyard, devoid of a single tree for shade, grew so stiflingly hot that it was nearly impossible to stand.
As time ticked away, only two people remained in the courtyard.
Qin Jiuye wiped the sweat from her face and squinted, stealing a glance at the middle-aged man standing ahead of her.
The man was named Kang Renshou, the head manager of the Hall of Returning Spring and a figure of considerable renown among the many medical clinics in Jiugao City. It was said that the Kang family had practiced medicine for three generations; he himself had once served as a personal physician to the Emperor and still carried a gold gourd bestowed by the imperial hand.
Kang Renshou stroked the gold gourd at his waist, maintaining an air of profound mystery ever since they had entered the courtyard.
Qin Jiuye didn't know if the gourd was actually made of gold, nor did she know what sort of divine elixir he was peddling inside it. What she did know was that Kang Renshou was undeniably wealthy.
She had visited the Hall of Returning Spring before. Their Atractylodes sold for eighty to a hundred coins per tael—more than double the market price—to say nothing of their specialized pills, powders, salves, and tinctures. Their best-selling remedy was the "Returning Light Decoction." The name sounded formidable, but it was essentially a base of Job’s tears water for dispelling dampness, mixed with a few other ingredients. Even so, the city’s wealthy families flocked there, spending a fortune every month to drink the decoction like it was common water.
And what of Guoran Ju? They practically lost money selling life-saving herbs. It truly was a case of the parched dying of thirst while the soaked drowned in the flood.
That said, Kang Renshou’s medical skills were likely decent. He had authored several medical texts in his youth, all of which Qin Jiuye had read. Many of his insights were quite original, though his phrasing was overly dogmatic, revealing a man who was talented but arrogant and headstrong.
Finally, half an incense stick’s time passed. The narrow, carved door creaked open, and the "Divine Physician Guo" from outside the city emerged behind a purple-clad maid. His brow was furrowed. Without a word, he shook his head and departed through the moon gate on the other side.
Qin Jiuye observed this silently, a faint sense of anticipation rising in her heart.
Judging by his demeanor, he hadn't diagnosed anything, nor had he even written a prescription. Though she was seventh in line, she couldn't say she was entirely without a chance.
Having seen off Physician Guo, the purple-clad maid turned her gaze toward them, but she looked past Kang Renshou and straight at Qin Jiuye.
"Manager Qin, please."
Qin Jiuye was startled and felt a bit awkward. "Hasn't Master Kang yet..."
"Master Kang will be the last to consult. Manager Qin, after you."
*The Hall of Returning Spring certainly puts on airs,* Qin Jiuye thought. *Does he have to go last just to seem extraordinary and unique?*
She glanced at the haughty Kang Renshou, knowing she had no room to bargain. Taking a deep breath, she picked up her battered little medicine chest and stepped through the narrow, carved door.
The moment she entered, a wave of dry heat hit her. The heavy scent of burnt incense mixed with spices crawled into her nostrils like tiny insects, boring straight toward her brain.
She let out a loud sneeze and immediately began apologizing.
The maid, Xinyu, didn't even look at her. She walked to a hanging gauze curtain and stopped, lighting half a fresh stick of timed incense.
"Manager Qin may conduct the consultation from here."
Qin Jiuye gave a low acknowledgment. As she lowered her medicine chest, she took the opportunity to carefully survey her surroundings.
The room was sealed far too tightly. Not a breath of wind could enter; even the windows were nailed shut and covered with thick curtains. The only light came from a copper-wire charcoal brazier in the center of the floor, which emitted a faint red glow.
"I am Qin Jiuye of Guoran Ju. May I ask, Second Miss, does your illness prevent you from enduring even a hint of wind?"
There was a silence behind the curtain. A moment later, a weak, melodious voice spoke.
"Yes. Whenever I encounter the wind, I suffer a headache."
Qin Jiuye had treated many people on the brink of death and was all too familiar with the sound of a flickering lamp running out of oil. Su Muhe was indeed a woman of weak constitution, but to say she was gravely ill seemed an exaggeration.
Besides, if she simply couldn't stand the wind, was it necessary to nail the windows and hang heavy curtains?
Qin Jiuye pondered for a moment before asking, "Can you not bear the light either?"
This time, before the voice behind the curtain could answer, the purple-clad maid spoke up.
"The Miss finds it difficult to sleep at night and needs to catch up on her rest during the day. She dislikes any light coming in."
*What kind of strange habit is that?* Qin Jiuye wondered. If one sleeps too much during the day, they naturally won't sleep at night. Furthermore, she had never seen anyone stay in a lightless room from morning till night just to "catch up on sleep."
Qin Jiuye was suspicious, but she didn't dwell on it. Su Muhe must have a peculiar ailment; otherwise, it wouldn't be the turn of outside physicians to consult one by one. Moreover, a daughter of a wealthy house might simply be delicate, making a mountain out of a molehill over a slight discomfort.
Steadying herself, she knelt on a prayer mat and carefully opened her medicine chest, pulling out a half-blunt charcoal stick to record her notes.
"I see there is a fire burning in the room. Does the Miss suffer from symptoms of cold aversion?"
"Cold aversion... I wouldn't say that." The voice behind the gauze seemed hesitant, sounding intermittent. "It is just that my hands and feet are often cold. If I am not in a warm place, I feel stiff and clumsy in my movements."
It was normal for young women to have deficiencies in blood and qi, but she wondered if this was the root of the problem.
"What other discomforts does the Miss have? Why not tell me all of them?"
The voice behind the curtain began to speak in a measured tone.
"I often have fevers at night, accompanied by palpitations and night sweats. It improves in the morning, but my head aches terribly as soon as I see light. I took some medicine for a common cold, but it didn't help; instead, it seemed to ruin my appetite. I haven't had much of a desire to eat for several days, and everything I do eat, I vomit back up."
Qin Jiuye fell silent.
Aside from the aversion to light, Su Muhe's other symptoms didn't seem much different from ordinary Heart-Yin deficiency or Qi and Blood insufficiency. But if it were a common minor illness, the Su family's own physicians couldn't possibly be so incompetent as to fail to diagnose or treat it. And judging by the faces of the five old men who had finished their consultations before her, they certainly hadn't figured it out either.
There was another possibility: the Second Miss Su was not telling the whole truth about her symptoms.
She had heard that young people from prestigious families valued their reputations above all else, especially regarding medical matters. They were never willing to let outsiders know the full details, fearing it might leave them open to gossip.
Qin Jiuye had never dealt with such patients. Her usual patients were incredibly sincere, sometimes wishing they could write their symptoms into a book to give her, hoping she could quickly find the root cause and cure them.
*Is she not sick enough, so she thinks the consultation is unimportant? But if that’s the case, why spend so much gold to invite people to see her?*
She was deeply puzzled by the situation but was at a loss for what to do; she certainly couldn't force the issue.
Without taking a pulse, further questioning might yield little. After a moment's thought, she shifted the direction of her inquiry.
"What has the Miss been eating lately?"
The person behind the curtain suddenly went quiet, as if they hadn't expected such a question.
With a hundred taels of gold beckoning from not far away, Qin Jiuye forced herself to push her powers of observation to their limit.
What one ate wasn't a difficult question to answer. The hesitation suggested either she truly hadn't eaten much, or she had eaten something she shouldn't have.
She decided to take the initiative and guide her.
"Have you consumed any food that wasn't fully cooked, or perhaps some ingredients that are not commonly seen?"
Su Muhe still didn't speak, but the purple-clad maid beside the curtain answered.
"No."
Qin Jiuye refused to give up, determined to get to the bottom of it.
"In the past month, has the Miss left the manor? Have you been to the mountains or the countryside?"
The purple-clad maid finally looked at her, a hint of undetectable vigilance in her tone. "Why do you ask this?"
Qin Jiuye quickly lowered her posture, her voice filled with earnestness.
"I have no intention of prying into the Miss's movements. However, as the saying goes, 'illness enters through the mouth.' Many mysterious ailments often begin with the smallest details. The Miss lives in the manor year-round, with her daily life carefully tended to. But if she steps outside, there is a possibility of contact with various external factors. If certain minor details are overlooked, they could plant the seeds of a hidden disease."
After a long pause, the person behind the curtain slowly spoke.
"I have been out of the manor, but I have not left the city, nor have I been to any mountains or villages."
"Then, have you accidentally bumped into anything? For example... accidentally cutting a finger?"
"No."
Qin Jiuye fell into silence once more.
In the four methods of diagnosis—Looking, Listening/Smelling, Asking, and Touching—the "Smelling" part involved not just listening to the breath, but also using the sense of smell to judge the patient's condition.
She hadn't smelled any suspicious odors emitted by a diseased body in this room. However, besides the scent of the timed incense, it seemed someone in the room had used medicinal wine for cleaning a wound. Although the scent was very faint, because the room was airtight, she had noticed it the moment she entered.
Was the injured person Su Muhe? If there had truly been an external injury, why lie about it just now? This consultation was truly frustrating. Before even clashing with the disease, she had to engage in several rounds of mental sparring with people. She didn't know if she was treating a patient or investigating a crime.
"Aside from the symptoms mentioned, does the Miss truly have no other abnormalities?"
The person behind the gauze paused again, finally speaking as if having made a decision.
"Sometimes... sometimes I feel thirsty. I dislike hearing noisy sounds, and my mood becomes irritable. When the illness flares up..."
Before the voice could finish, Xinyu, who had been standing to the side, suddenly interrupted.
"It is because of the spring dryness these past few days, and the Miss has been cooped up in the room for too long. That is why she feels this way."
Qin Jiuye wanted to press further, but Xinyu had already stepped behind her, adopting a posture to see her out.
"The time for half an incense stick is up. Manager Qin, please."
The incense ash on the stand had piled up, yet the burning stick clearly had an inch left.
Qin Jiuye said nothing. As she stood up, she stole a glance toward the gauze curtain.
It was quiet behind the curtain. Beneath the hanging bead screen, she could vaguely see a pair of small, exquisite embroidered shoes. The seed pearls on the toes were stained with fine soil and grass—hardly the look of someone who hadn't left their room in a long time.
Withdrawing her gaze, she secretly shook her head.
There was indeed something strange about this dark room. But what that strangeness was, she couldn't say.
*Forget it. They set the rules. If the person involved isn't worried, why should a hired hand like me be anxious?*
"I trouble Sister Xinyu to lead the way."
***
The winding corridor was narrow and long, with no windows on either side and no roof beams visible above. it was like a dark river of the underworld carved out of the bustling city. Those in the river could not see out, and those outside could not see the shadows gliding within.
The walls on both sides were thin but hard. Faint, chaotic sounds of people drifted through—at one moment the hawking of the rice shop, at another the clamor of guests drinking in restaurants and teahouses, and then the playful complaints of courtesans in the backyards of the pleasure district preparing to receive guests. These sounds gradually faded, eventually giving way to a dead silence, leaving only the sound of the heartbeat and breathing of the person moving through the secret passage.
Old Chen’s footsteps suddenly vanished in the darkness. Li Qiao took a few more steps forward and found that the narrow path had reached its end. He paused, feeling around his surroundings, and discovered a hidden ladder set low.
He didn't rush to follow but instead carefully pushed aside the panel blocking the ladder.
A red glow filtered up from below, vaguely the color of firelight.
Low voices of conversation rose. Li Qiao carefully approached the gap in the panel and looked down.
It was a room with no visible windows and almost no furniture. In the center sat a massive brazier filled with glowing golden-thread charcoal. The high heat of the fire distorted the surrounding air, and the firelight cast a shimmering ring of light onto the old wooden floorboards, while the four corners of the room remained shrouded in darkness.
It was truly strange for someone to light such a fierce charcoal fire in the fourth or fifth month of the year.
Old Chen was kneeling on one knee at the edge of that ring of light. His posture no longer held any of his usual lazy or despondent air; he was performing the "forehead-touching salute" used by assassins in the martial world when reporting back.
"Young Master, I have brought the item."
As he spoke, he took a small wooden box from the tattered bag tied with a scale weight at his waist and held it respectfully above his head.
A moment later, a hand suddenly reached out from the darkness and gently took the box.
"I have troubled you, Mr. Chen."
A somewhat familiar male voice spoke softly.
The speaker sounded weary, or perhaps weak from illness; in any case, the voice was somewhat intermittent.
But Li Qiao recognized it nonetheless.
It was the voice that had echoed on the Qingping Road on that rainy night.
As if to confirm his thoughts, the voice suddenly became clear in the next instant. It seemed to take shape, piercing through the room and the panel before him, entering his ears without missing a single word.
"A reunion after a long parting. Why does the gentleman dwell upon the rafters?"
---
| Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| 回春堂 | Hall of Returning Spring | A famous medical clinic. |
| 康仁寿 | Kang Renshou | Head manager of the Hall of Returning Spring. |
| 金葫芦 | Gold Gourd | An imperial gift carried by Kang Renshou. |
| 回光汤 | Returning Light Decoction | A popular but simple remedy sold at the Hall of Returning Spring. |
| 苏沐禾 | Su Muhe | The Second Miss of the Su family, the patient. |
| 心俞 | Xinyu | A maid serving the Su family. |
| 望闻问切 | Looking, Listening/Smelling, Asking, and Touching | The four traditional methods of Chinese medical diagnosis. |
| 扶额礼 | Forehead-touching salute | A specific respectful salute used by martial artists or assassins. |
| 金丝炭 | Golden-thread charcoal | A high-quality, clean-burning charcoal. |
