Chapter 41: To a Distant Land

Everyone in the room stopped their hands at once, leaving only the sobs the two women couldn’t suppress. The whole family knew they couldn’t blame the physician for this, but they only had this one grandson. Their hearts were filled with both sorrow and pain, and even the grown man was wailing loudly.

Chu Mingxi acted as if she hadn’t heard any of it, avoiding the old man. One hand slowly slipped under the child’s neck to stabilize it, while the other hand found the Hukou acupressure point on the child’s hand and vigorously pressed. The child’s calf kicked wildly, and suddenly he let out a loud “Wah” and began to cry.

Everyone in the room was dumbfounded. Chu Mingxi, unable to turn around easily, shouted coldly, “What are you standing there for? Hurry and bring the bone-setting brace!”

Only then did Qingdai come to her senses. She quickly pulled out the brace they had prepared earlier from the carrying bag, detached the wooden joints, and carefully placed it at the child’s neck and shoulders. Adjusting the position, she secured the mortise and tenon.

Once the child was settled, Chu Mingxi let out a slight breath. She picked up a pen and casually wrote out a prescription. Meanwhile, she instructed everyone, “For the recent period, try your best not to let him move his neck. It’s best if he stays lying like this. Fortunately, the bone isn’t broken, and children heal quickly. In ten days or half a month, he’ll be fine.” Saying this, she looked over the prescription again. “This is for an external poultice. Boil the ingredients and apply it for half an hour or so each day. It will help him recover faster.”

The man stammered as he took it, holding it with both hands, his face flushed bright red. He was apologetic and overjoyed at the same time. The elderly couple next to him, finally grasping the situation, were so happy they were trembling. Only the child’s mother was still shedding tears, soothing her child to keep him from moving, while also sobbing, “My son is saved, my son is saved.”

After paying the consultation fee, the whole family saw them out with endless gratitude. The expressions on their faces truly looked like they were seeing off living Bodhisattvas, stopping just short of kneeling and kowtowing.

A night watchman passed through the alley, the “clack clack clack” signaling the second watch. Sitting in the carriage, Chu Mingxi wearily rubbed the space between her brows. Turning her head, she saw her sister cupping her face, her eyes seeming to sparkle as she stared at her. Chu Mingxi couldn’t help but laugh. “What are you doing?”

“Sister, you are absolutely amazing! You could heal even that!” Chu Mingyu was full of worship and awe, witnessing her sister save someone with her own eyes for the first time. Not waiting for her sister to answer, she raised a small fist and said, “Look at them! They even wanted to hit you just now! I’m so angry!”

She kept chattering away the entire journey. Chu Mingxi leaned against the wall of the carriage, feeling even sleepier than before.

Two days passed. Early in the morning, Yining and Qingdai were attending to the Eldest Young Miss’s toilette in the warm parlor when the sound of firecrackers came from somewhere, wave after wave. The sound drew nearer and was very lively to hear.

Yining, naturally playful, turned her head to look at the window and murmured to herself, “Which family is getting married with such a huge display?”

Chu Mingxi glanced at her through the mirror. Suddenly, she said, “Speaking of which, the two of you are also at the age to be discussing marriage. Do you have anyone in mind?”

The two maids looked at each other, then looked back, shock in both their eyes. Hurriedly, they stepped back in unison and knelt on the ground. “We don’t know where our service has been lacking. We beg the Eldest Young Miss to mete out punishment, but we only beg you not to send us away.” Saying this, they neatly kowtowed with a loud thump.

Chu Mingxi looked at them, truly not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “Get up, quickly. I didn’t say your service was poor.”

The two exchanged bewildered glances, still not daring to rise.

Chu Mingxi sighed and was about to say something more when a young maid outside came to announce another matter.

“Hello, Sister. May I ask if the Eldest Young Miss is in?”

The maid attending outside had her wait and came to report. Only after being summoned did the young maid enter the inner room.

“Eldest Young Miss, many people have come to the shop, setting off firecrackers all the way. They say they’re here to present a commemorative plaque.” The young maid curtsied and properly delivered the message.

Chu Mingxi was still seated before the bronze mirror and casually said, “If they’re giving it, let the shopkeeper accept it.”

“But those people say it’s for the ‘Living Bodhisattva’ in our shop,” the young maid said, unable to suppress her laughter first. “Came lots of people, carrying a plaque, beating drums and gongs, and even brought a pig.”

A pig…

The two maids kneeling on the ground had already gotten up. They looked at each other and covered their mouths to giggle.

Chu Mingxi rubbed her forehead, vaguely guessing it was the family of that child from two days ago. She told Qingdai to go out and politely send them away.

The two previous, extremely similar fatal cases remained utterly without clues. Chu Mingxi even personally visited the homes of those two families to inquire, but neither could say anything conclusive.

Shopkeeper Yu worried deeply that he was making a mountain out of a molehill and troubling his Boss to travel all this way for nothing. But Chu Mingxi had him organize all the medical records and case files from the past several years for her to consult carefully, comparing and searching, while also comparing them to similar cases in the ancient medical texts she had brought. The lamp in the warm parlor often burned through the entire night. Whenever Chu Mingyu came over to remonstrate, Chu Mingxi would initially tell her to go rest herself, and later, just silently turn page after page without even an answer.

Days passed like this again. One drizzly afternoon, a young maid, her skirt hem slightly damp, hurried along the covered walkway and reported softly outside the main room. Qingdai listened, had her wait momentarily, and lightly lifted the inner chamber’s door curtain herself.

Chu Mingxi had slept late the night before and took a brief nap after lunch. She had just risen and was sitting at the dressing table, letting her maid do her hair. Seeing Qingdai enter, she glanced at her in the bronze mirror.

Qingdai curtsied and said, “Eldest Young Miss, a woman has come to the front shop. She says she would like to invite you to examine her family’s Young Miss.” Stepping a little closer, she lowered her voice. “Shopkeeper Yu inquired; she says it’s an official’s daughter, and it’s not convenient to have our consulting physician, who is a man, see her.”

“Mm,” Chu Mingxi responded faintly, taking the white jade hairpin from Yining’s hand and fixing her cloud-like hairstyle in the mirror. She rose and said, “Let’s go.”

It was always said, ‘The common people do not contend with officials.’ No matter the place, merchants always had to show respect to officialdom. The Eldest Young Miss had never publicized her identity since arriving in Chen Prefecture. Except for a handful of people at the Imperial Medicine Hall, no outsider knew who she was, or even that she was the Head Proprietor of the Imperial Medicine Hall.

Qingdai pursed her lips, feeling a bit wronged on her mistress’s behalf. A noble Young Mistress of a Marquis Mansion, having to go treat the illnesses of a lowly official’s household.

The Imperial Medicine Hall’s shop was modeled after an official’s residence layout, with offices in the front and living quarters in the back. The front part was the street-facing shop, separated by a second gate and a courtyard, and only behind that were the living quarters for the masters.

The person currently waiting in the shop was a woman in plain cloth attire. Her master was the Deputy County Magistrate of a medium county in Chen Prefecture. This county, nestled among hills and by water, was exceptionally beautiful, thus named Li County. The Deputy County Magistrate was a minor official of the eighth rank, overseeing matters like grain, horses, and household registration for the county. He indeed held an official register.

The woman had set out from the county early that morning and was now quite restless, standing and sitting alternately. Several times she asked the shop assistants about that female physician; the assistants all told her to wait a moment. Wait a moment, wait a moment! She was, after all, from an official’s household! What merchant didn’t give them some face? This medicine shop truly had no manners!

With difficulty, she finally saw someone come out from the back hall. The woman stood up with a “whoosh,” but saw that the visitor, though dressed plainly, possessed an icy yet graceful aura. She couldn’t even recognize the material of the clothes or the hair ornaments — everything was exquisite beyond her knowledge, more so than any lady or miss she had ever seen.

The woman was stunned. Not daring to act presumptuously, she obediently curtsied and explained her purpose in detail.

It was, in fact, the young lady of the house who had fallen suddenly ill some days ago. They had sought medical advice and tried countless treatments, but she never got better. The Magistrate’s wife was so worried she wept day and night. Coincidentally, a maternal aunt came to visit the patient and heard about a lively event in the Peaceful Ease Prefecture, and thus learned that a highly skilled female physician had come to the Imperial Medicine Hall here. She urgently ordered them to come and fetch her at once.

“It truly is a serious illness. Our Young Miss…” The woman spoke while looking apprehensively at the several assistants around, as if she had a private matter difficult to disclose, and also feared the female physician would refuse to go because of the distance. She was between a rock and a hard place.

Chu Mingxi nodded her head. Yining knowingly went to the carriage house to arrange things.

Not long after, a shop assistant ran over saying the carriage was ready. The woman, wanting to show off, quickly said her master had already prepared a carriage. It was spacious and could easily seat two.

So saying, she fixed her eyes straight on Qingdai, signaling for her to hand over the medical kit.

Qingdai held back a laugh and followed the Eldest Young Miss out without even a sideways glance. Very displeased, the woman huffily also walked out, only to see a magnificent, large carriage stopped at the entrance. In front was a high-headed horse, snorting loudly, its nose higher than her own head.

The woman was gaping in astonishment!

The coachman came over from behind to hold the horse. Several maids clustered around, helped the Eldest Young Miss and Qingdai into the carriage, then stood together neatly with their hands demurely in front of them by the carriage.

The carriage had already traveled far away before the woman finally came back to her senses as if waking from a dream. She hastily scrambled onto the plain blue cloth carriage she came in. The driver flicked the whip in front, the mule let out a long “ee-haw,” raised its hooves to follow the carriage ahead, and clip-clopped away.

Sitting in the carriage, the woman patted her chest. What exactly was the background of this female physician? Even among the high officials and nobles of the Peaceful Ease Prefecture, such a splendid carriage was rare to see.

Li County was neither close nor far from the prefectural city. It was already past noon; she didn’t know if they could make it back tonight.

As Qingdai pondered this, she got a backrest cushion for the Eldest Young Miss. In the days after accompanying the two masters on this trip, the trusted maids had gradually returned to their old forms of address, saving them the need to explain anything by calling her “Young Mistress.”

Chu Mingxi didn’t care about these trifles and didn’t scold them.

The carriage traveled for most of an hour before just barely leaving the Peaceful Ease Prefecture. The road gradually grew bumpy. Chu Mingxi was still reading a book. Qingdai softly remonstrated a few times. Chu Mingxi rubbed her brow, handed the book over, and Qingdai carefully packed it away.

Considering the mule cart following behind, the coachman couldn’t drive the horse too fast. With still some distance to go, master and servant each leaned against the carriage walls to rest. Sleeping was impossible, but they could at least close their eyes and rest a while.

After a long time, the sound of galloping horses came swiftly from the other end of the road. A squad of riders was approaching rapidly. The experienced coachman slowed the carriage and moved aside to yield. And so, in that state between sleep and wakefulness, Chu Mingxi suddenly heard a clear shout from outside: “Hyah!”

Chu Mingxi was startled. She quickly had the coachman stop. Qingdai was still puzzled, but Chu Mingxi had already pushed open the carriage door with one hand, grabbed the door frame with the other, and craned her neck anxiously towards the horse squad that had brushed past them.

The hoofbeats pounded in rapid succession. That squad was already far away, leaving behind only a vista of vigorous silhouettes, indistinguishable in the swirling dust.

Chu Mingxi watched for a moment, released the carriage door, and sat back inside. That brief, clear shout was impossible to identify with certainty.

So why was there a tiny bit of disappointment?