allonlinenovel Chapter 543
Chapter 543
A late spring breeze, carrying damp air, swept across the cobblestone path, causing the hems of Dongfang Wan'er and Ye Jiuchen's blue robes to flutter in the wind. As they carried their ochre-colored medicine chests toward the misty mountains, they were constantly stopped by villagers rushing towards them—some clutched blood-soaked cloths seeking treatment for knife wounds, some farm women helped coughing old men asking for remedies for coughs, and even the old woman squatting at the village entrance shelling beans followed them, asking how to cure her grandson's indigestion. It wasn't until the sun was setting that they reached the thatched hut halfway up the mountain, covered in creeping fig trees.
In the sunlight filtering through the thatched roof, an old woman was soothing an infant with her trembling, withered arms. Tears streamed down her deeply wrinkled face, and the baby in her arms, swaddled, had a feverish face, its tiny fists clenched tightly, its cries fading like a kite with a broken string. Dongfang Wan'er rushed over, her knees crunching over a few tender yellow wildflowers as she knelt down. Her fingertips had barely touched the baby's burning forehead when a silver needle slipped from her sleeve and fell into her palm: "The pulse is bluish-purple across the three gates; it's a severe case of acute infantile convulsions." Upon hearing this, Ye Jiuchen immediately untied his medicine chest. The bamboo sieve tapped crisply on the stone table as he quickly sorted through the perilla and uncaria, the silver bracelet on his wrist swaying gently with the movement, scattering tiny silver fragments in the twilight.
A mountain breeze tinkled the copper bells on the eaves, and just as bubbles began to rise in the medicine pot, Dongfang Wan'er suddenly frowned—the medicine, prepared according to the prescription, could reduce the fever, but it couldn't suppress the rattling in the baby's throat. She abruptly lifted the hidden compartment at the bottom of the medicine box, revealing several jade bottles sealed with wax. Inside were dark red powders extracted from the bodies of the northern ice silkworms, known as "Snow Silkworm Sand." This medicine required the morning dew at dawn to be decocted and was remarkably effective against infantile convulsions and phlegm-heat. Just as she uncorked the bottles, dark clouds rolled across the sky, large raindrops pounded against the windowpanes, and a gust of wind swept fallen leaves into the room, nearly knocking the medicine pot over.
Ye Jiuchen raised his hand to stop the old woman who was about to get up and close the window, his gaze passing over the flickering candlelight to Dongfang Wan'er. He saw that her temples were already damp with cold sweat, her fingertips tracing the jade bottle, hesitant—the Snow Silkworm Sand was extremely cold in nature, and the slightest carelessness in dosage would harm the infant's vital energy. Just then, a ball of eerie blue light suddenly rose from the depths of the mountains, piercing through the rain and reaching the thatched hut. Golden threads seemed to flow within the light, and the indistinct silhouettes beside the campfire could be vaguely seen. The infant suddenly let out a weak whimper, its small body wriggling towards the light.
"To the summit." Dongfang Wan'er decisively tucked the medicine bottle into her sleeve. Ye Jiuchen had already taken off his outer robe and wrapped it around the baby. The veins of the embroidered ginkgo leaves on the inner lining of his blue robe still held the grass seeds he had picked up while gathering herbs the day before. As the two rushed into the rain, the mountain wind whipped raindrops against their faces. Dongfang Wan'er protected the medicine box in her arms, her black hair quickly sticking to her cheeks. Ye Jiuchen used his wide sleeves to shield the baby's face, his boots splashing water like shattered jade as they stepped through puddles. A distant, eerie blue light flickered, like a pearl suspended in the rain, guiding them across slippery moss and around fallen dead trees. The copper clasp of the medicine box clinked against their chests, the sound echoing their rapid heartbeats.
When they finally stumbled to the mountain platform, the sight before them took their breath away: seven bonfires arranged in the shape of the Big Dipper, their flames strangely transparent. Floating within the fires was a crystal coffin half a person's height, within which lay a young girl dressed in ancient attire, her long hair cascading like an ink waterfall, a vermilion birthmark on her brow strikingly prominent in the eerie light. Even more strangely, twelve jade bottles floated beside the girl, the liquid within changing color with the flickering flames, one of them gleaming with the same dark red luster as snow silkworm cinnabar. Suddenly, the infant let out a clear cry, its tiny finger pointing towards the crystal coffin. Dongfang Wan'er noticed a sliver of light from the girl's fingertip sinking into the infant's brow, and its intense fever visibly subsided.
Ye Jiuchen bent down and brushed aside the baby's hair, revealing that the previously bluish-purple veins had turned pale red: "This is... the inheritance of an ancient medical immortal?" Before he finished speaking, the easternmost campfire suddenly burst into flames three feet high, and twelve jade bottles spun simultaneously, the medicinal liquid within transforming into streams of light and flowing into Dongfang Wan'er's medicine chest. As the last drop of dark red liquid dissolved into the snow silkworm excrement, the torrential rain abruptly stopped, and dawn broke in the east. The baby smiled in the old woman's arms, and the distant village echoed with the crowing of roosters. The thin mist among the mountains was tinged honey-colored by the morning light, as if the extraordinary encounter had been nothing more than a dream tinged with the fragrance of medicine.
Dongfang Wan'er gently stroked the newly added jade bottle in the medicine box, her fingertips touching the two characters "Xuanhu" engraved on the bottom of the bottle. Suddenly, she heard Ye Jiuchen chuckle: "It seems that we've cured more than just one baby on this trip up the mountain." He raised his hand to brush the grass from her hair, his gaze fixed on the rising sun. The mountain breeze swept across their overlapping shadows, carrying the fragrance of the medicine from the medicine box into the smoke rising from the chimneys of countless homes.
As summer arrived, the copper bells on the eaves jingled like shattered jade in the gentle breeze. Dongfang Wan'er sat on a bamboo chair, adjusting newly made honey pills, her fingertips tinged with the pungent scents of frankincense and myrrh. Ye Jiuchen, meanwhile, was bent over his desk copying medical records, his wolf-hair brush drawing the powerful characters "悬壶济世" (Hanging a gourd to save the world) on the Xuan paper. Since their serendipitous encounter in the mountains, the twelve jade bottles in their medicine chest had never been empty. Whenever they treated a serious illness, fragments of ancient prescriptions corresponding to the ailment would appear in the bottles. Under the moonlight, the characters would reveal pale golden veins, like a guide from a medical sage across millennia.
At noon that day, the two were drying medicinal herbs under the old locust tree when a messenger, covered in dust, stumbled into the courtyard, handing them a parchment scroll stamped with the golden seal of a neighboring country. As Ye Jiuchen unfolded it and examined it closely, Dongfang Wan'er noticed his fingertips trembling slightly—the scroll described a strange disease that had decimated nine out of ten houses in the neighboring country. The patients first developed purple spots on their hands and feet, then coughed up blood incessantly, and finally died from bleeding from all seven orifices. Even the imperial physicians claimed it was the work of a "plague demon." The cicadas' chirping suddenly became shrill. Dongfang Wan'er reached out and pressed down on his hand holding the scroll, her gaze falling on the faded red string on his wrist—a gift from the child she had rescued in the refugee village last year, now trembling slightly with his rapid heartbeat.
Three days later, when the two men set foot on the neighboring country's soil carrying their medicine chests, it was late afternoon, a time of continuous rain. Paper money floated on the moat, and the city guards, wearing masks painted with exorcising talismans, knelt down upon seeing the "Medicine" flag on their medicine chests: "Living Bodhisattva, save us!" The cobblestone streets were covered with lime-painted talismans, and the air was thick with the smell of mugwort, yet it couldn't mask the stench of decay. Following their guide through deserted streets, they suddenly saw a boy with purple spots covering his face curled up in a street corner, scratching his bleeding skin with his fingernails, his throat emitting wheezing sounds like a broken bellows.
"Save him first." Before Dongfang Wan'er finished speaking, she was already kneeling in the muddy water. Ye Jiuchen quickly opened an oil-paper umbrella to shield the boy's head. The engraving of "Deep Spring in the Apricot Grove" on the umbrella ribs gleamed in the rain. She unbuttoned the boy's clothes and saw that the purple spots on his chest had formed a spider web. When she pressed her fingertips against his pulse, she felt that the pulse was as weak as a thread. "Heart failure, liver and spleen damage..." she murmured to herself. Suddenly, she remembered the ancient prescription for "leprosy entering the collaterals" written on the scroll in the jade bottle. She hurriedly took out the jade bottle engraved with "Suspended Pot". The powder poured out had a pearly luster and turned into a pale golden liquid when it came into contact with water.
At midnight, the two were brewing the third batch of medicine in the makeshift clinic. Flames licked at the earthenware pot in the stove. Ye Jiuchen added pine branches to the fire, sparks flying onto his rolled-up sleeves, revealing new purple spots on his forearms—the result of accidentally picking up the plague during medicine trials. Dongfang Wan'er was about to scold him when she saw him hide his stained arm behind his back, tapping his knuckles on the tattered scroll of "Treatise on Plague" on the table: "Look at this record of 'plague entering through the mouth and nose,' is it related to the worm-like creatures we found in the patients' sputum and blood today?" The candle suddenly flickered and popped. Looking at the bloodshot eyes in his gaze, she ultimately simply pushed the warmed ginseng tea towards him.
Seven days later, as the first rays of dawn swept across the city walls, Dongfang Wan'er stood before the clinic, holding a newly prepared "Evil-Expelling Powder" in her hands. This medicine was a combination of the "Clearing Meridian Pill" from the jade bottle with Isatis root and honeysuckle from the present world, and a medicinal guide refined by Ye Jiuchen using his own blood essence. Looking at the long line of patients lining the street, she suddenly recalled the flowing light from the crystal coffin girl's fingertips in the mountains, now infusing the tea of everyone with the aroma of the medicine.