TWWDS - Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Diners complained, "Your uncle always sets you to work, yet refuses to hire more people."

"If you ask me, you might as well split with your uncle and have him give you half the restaurant. Then you could open a shop of your own and be your own boss. Wouldn't that be better than doing menial work for someone else?"

The young girl from the Cai family had always been sharp-tongued and quick-witted, but she had only just finished mourning her mother and was in a foul mood. For a moment, she lowered her head in submission. The diners exchanged two sheepish chuckles and stopped teasing her, returning to their earlier conversation.

Another diner said frankly, "Lately, there have been many people falling ill outside the city. Many others have not returned from beyond the walls, leaving the shops short of staff."

The earlier speaker shook their head, clearly far from persuaded. "It is hardly that bad."

"No one knows whether any of those doctors who fly here and there will come to Gaofang Prefecture to practice this year."

"Though we long for them, they may not appear once in several years."

"If not, ask at an escort agency. I hear they have excellent physicians too, though they mostly treat traumatic injuries."

Listening to the two diners, Chao Qingxiu guessed that the "doctors who fly here and there" they meant were probably people from the martial world.

Even though she had not yet entered the martial world herself, it was reassuring to learn that its people took such a close interest in advances in medicine.

As the host, Master Xu had been urging the diners to eat more. Chao Qingxiu, however, had only just eaten and had little appetite. After eating two bowls of rice by way of courtesy, she rose and prepared to take her leave. "I appreciate your kindness, Master Xu, and ought not refuse, but I have some chores at home and cannot stay any longer."

Young Master Xu quickly said, "Then I shall have a carriage called for you."

Chao Qingxiu shook her head. "It is barely a short walk away. Calling a carriage would be more trouble than it is worth."

She went down to the Cai Restaurant. As she stepped outside, she suddenly saw someone dressed like a shop assistant urging a young woman out the door.

The young woman wore a plain hemp dress, making it clear that she came from a modest household. The corners of her eyes were slightly red.

The shop assistant said, "Take your wages and be off. It is not that the shop is unwilling to keep you employed. Someone in your family is ill. If you carried the epidemic into the shop and infected everyone else, what then?"

The young woman said nothing in reply. She inclined her body in a bow, lowered her head, and started to leave.

Master Xu walked Chao Qingxiu out. Naturally softhearted, and having successfully found his younger sister that day, he was even more eager to help someone else. At the sight before him, he immediately pulled a purse from his robe, ready to ease the young woman's financial hardship.

At that moment, the young woman covered her mouth and nose with her sleeve, moved into a corner, and coughed twice. People nearby noticed her condition and instinctively stepped back.

Someone nearby muttered, fear threading through their voice, "Could it really be an epidemic!"

Both the imperial court and the martial world maintained many medical professionals, and physicians would occasionally go out to provide free consultations. Yet for ordinary people, falling ill remained a matter that could have grave consequences. Every year, many died from nothing more than a common cold, let alone an epidemic.

Chao Qingxiu was not especially worried. It was not because the bleak realities of food, clothing, housing, and employment after her transmigration had left her eager to treat life and death alike. The main reason was that inner strength lent her some resistance to disease. Of everyone present, she was the least likely to be affected.

Seeing that the bystanders had begun to panic, Chao Qingxiu temporarily unequipped Qingxin Formula from her equipment slot and equipped Medical Arts instead. Then she said to the young woman, "Would you give me your hand, please, so I can examine your pulse?"

The young woman had not wanted anyone else to come near her. On hearing the word "pulse," she hesitated briefly before carefully extending her hand.

Chao Qingxiu supported the girl's wrist with one hand and pressed the three wrist-pulse positions with the other. She examined the right pulse and then the left before asking the girl to open her mouth and inspect her tongue coating. "The pulse is slightly floating, and the tongue coating is faintly white. It is a wind-cold illness."

Since crossing over, Chao Qingxiu had already solved two cases before the public, giving her words a natural air of authority. The watching crowd was unconsciously reassured.

Someone asked, "What should be done?"

Even without Medical Arts equipped, Chao Qingxiu could answer easily. "The girl's symptoms are very mild. Boil some water with scallion whites and ginger. Drink it for two days and bring on a sweat, and she should recover."

The young woman thanked her, then earnestly asked, "I live beside Qingbo Street. Could you call at my home as well, Doctor, and see my sister?"

Qingbo Street lay on Chao Qingxiu's way home, so she nodded. Earlier, Master Xu had already had the sense to call a carriage to take the two of them home.

The young woman said carefully, "My name is Li Yi, and my elder sister is Li Yao. How may I address you, Doctor?"

Chao Qingxiu replied, "My family name is Chao, and my given name is Qingxiu. I am not a doctor, only someone who has read a few pages of medical texts."

She was telling the truth. There was no need to mention that she had read those few pages only that day; doing so would merely have lowered the patient's confidence in her.

Perhaps people in this era were generally modest in their speech. Li Yi simply took Chao Qingxiu's disclaimer as an expression of courtesy.

Rent around Qingbo Street was not high, and even commoners with ordinary earnings could scrape by there. The two Li sisters had once earned more than two hundred copper coins a day, but a single illness had drained all their savings and left them in debt to the medicine shop.

Great Xia had many physicians, but most were concentrated in the Capital Region. Even ordinary prefectures had official medicine bureaus. In Gaofang Prefecture, for example, the city had only about fifteen physicians, along with the Kangning Infirmary, a facility specifically intended to house the sick. Yet the city had a total population of around forty thousand and also had to provide support to nearby small counties. Whenever too many people within the city fell ill, it was easily overwhelmed.

Households with some savings could also hire a physician from a private medicine shop to make a house call. Unfortunately, those house calls were expensive, the physicians' skills varied, and they might fail to cure the illness.

The mule cart stopped before Li Yi's home.

Chao Qingxiu took a look and saw that the modest dwelling had little floor space and was somewhat damp. The moment she stepped inside, she caught an unpleasant odor in the air.

With conditions as they were, Chao Qingxiu covered her nose and mouth with a cloth for the time being, using it as a makeshift mask.

Ahead lay a single room, divided into a sitting room and a bedroom. Against the wall stood a bed platform made from rough planks, with straw, poultry feathers, and old hemp cloth spread across it.

A young woman who bore a two-thirds resemblance to Li Yi, her complexion sallow, lay listlessly upon the bed. When Li Yi saw her, she hurried over, briefly told her sister what had happened, and introduced her. "Elder Sister, this is Doctor Chao."

Chao Qingxiu, the detective-to-be, had just been promoted to doctor. She nodded at the patient, studied Li Yao's complexion, and formed a rough idea of her condition. Then she said, "The air inside is stale. Open the window first and let it circulate before we go on."

Both Li sisters were wearing unlined robes. Li Yi hesitated and asked, "The weather is cold. What if my sister catches a draft?"

Chao Qingxiu shook her head. "A little wind will do no harm now." She then asked Li Yao to extend her hand and took her pulse.

After taking her pulse, Medical Arts had promptly supplied a diagnosis. The patient had contracted wind-cold as well. The unseasonable weather, her poor living conditions, and the limited quality of her medical care had not allowed the illness to clear. Instead, it had grown worse by degrees until it damaged her lung meridians.

She had managed to hold on until now only because she was young and robust, and accustomed to hard labor.

Chao Qingxiu asked, "What medicine has your sister been taking?"

Herbs at the official medicine bureau were mostly inexpensive. Li Yi had been there to buy medicine before, and there was still one packet from today's purchase that remained unused. She brought it out for Chao Qingxiu to inspect.

Chao Qingxiu examined the contents of the packet, lifted several pieces, gently rubbed them between her fingers until they separated, and smelled them.

The packet contained platycodon root, licorice root, and Chinese skullcap root. There was little adulteration; at most, some withered grass had been mixed in. Yet the herbs had a murky, stale scent, and most had rotted inside. Poor storage had clearly robbed them of their medicinal properties.

Li Yi said quietly, "I was thinking of going to the medicine shop to buy some more, but the roads outside are blocked this year, and the shop's herbs may not be any better than these."

Chao Qingxiu nodded slightly.

In a prefecture as large as Gaofang, medicinal ingredients that met proper standards could, of course, be found. The trouble was their price. Such medicines cost far more than the two Li sisters could afford.

Chao Qingxiu's expression had not changed. When she had taken Li Yao's pulse, Medical Arts had produced a treatment plan. Alongside several formulas for her symptoms, it included using internal power to clear the patient's lung meridians.

Li Yi asked carefully, "How is my sister?"

Chao Qingxiu replied, "She has wind-cold too; her illness has simply gone untreated for longer." Then she said to Li Yi, "Go boil some hot water and make scallion and ginger soup. Give your sister a bowl, and have one yourself."

Having given her instructions, she promptly unequipped Medical Arts and equipped Qingxin Formula once more. The internal art Chao Qingxiu practiced was rooted in the Taoist tradition and was notably balanced and harmonious, so channeling a little of it into another person's meridians would cause no harm.

After switching skills, Chao Qingxiu had Li Yao raise her hand once more and took her pulse again.

She remembered the motions for taking a pulse and placed her fingers with convincing precision, carefully sensing the rate and strength of each beat. At the same time, she silently told herself, Remember, this is the pulse of severe wind-cold.

She committed the reading to memory twice, then reopened the earlier packet and carefully memorized the current condition and quality of its ingredients.

Perhaps, in not too long, she would forget all this information.

Perhaps through constant repetition, she would truly come to understand some medical principles.

Chao Qingxiu did not realize that, at that very moment, in the [Mastered Abilities] field of the Detective System's Personal Panel, the color of the Medical Arts entry, which had dimmed after being unequipped from the Skill Slot, had brightened almost imperceptibly.

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