Chapter 4

11

Spring Tidings Clinic opened before the Dragon Boat Festival.

We set off no firecrackers. Fresh mugwort stood by the entrance, and neighborhood women could come in for a bowl of cooling drink.

Our first patient was a widow who sold tofu.

She had suffered abdominal pain for half a year. Before, facing male physicians, she couldn't explain properly and only collected pain medicine.

Father saw other patients in the front hall.

I took her behind a screen and asked carefully.

Only then did I learn that since childbirth, her bleeding had never properly stopped. Recently, she often felt dizzy too.

I used acupuncture for the pain, prescribed inexpensive, readily available medicine, and told her she must return if the bleeding hadn't stopped by the day after next.

She searched herself and gathered only a handful of copper coins.

Following clinic rules, I took half and entered the rest in the free-medicine account.

Xie Tingheng sat in the accounts room, recording every item clearly.

That afternoon, when there were fewer patients, he brought food.

“Physician Sang, they've changed the waiting-number board twice.”

“How many left?”

“Let your father see them first. You've been sitting here so long you haven't even drunk properly.”

He put chopsticks in my hand.

“Physicians must obey medical instructions too.”

I looked up.

“Whose?”

“Your patient Xie Tingheng's. If my attending physician exhausts herself, who will be responsible for the rest of my life?”

His color was good now. Even after working so long, he wasn't breathless.

I still caught the flaw.

“You're responsible for the rest of your own life.”

“Then I'll be responsible for reminding you to eat. You'll be responsible for eating on time.”

I stopped arguing and ate.

The mugwort in the corner had been replaced several times.

The clinic still earned little, but its name gradually spread.

An embroiderer with years of painful periods came only when she could no longer stand straight.

A woman with leakage after childbirth could barely raise her head as she entered.

A girl who felt a lump in her breast came secretly on her own because her family thought she was making a fuss.

There were many illnesses I couldn't cure.

For difficult cases, I consulted Father and Imperial Physician Zhang.

When a specialist was needed, I said so plainly.

When care would take time, I didn't promise a cure from one dose.

Gradually, Spring Tidings gained a reputation.

Mingzheng really had memorized the Verse on Medicinal Properties.

She helped on her days off.

With a good memory and quick hands, she was especially skilled at coaxing children afraid of medicine.

Jiang Yunrou brought women from the household for checkups.

They waited in the front hall and paid every coin.

Xie Huaiyue didn't understand consultations, so he helped source northern herbs. At settlement time, he was more exacting than my accountant.

Old Madam Xie came least often.

But she did the most useful thing.

At gatherings of familiar households, she said plainly that there was no shame in women consulting a woman physician.

Concealing illness and refusing treatment was what brought needless suffering.

Thanks to that remark, many women who had worried about status dared to come.

At first, I had feared the Xies treated me well only because I could cure Xie Tingheng.

Later, I understood.

Protecting my clinic also meant taking the life I wanted seriously.

As summer grew hotter, he stopped his daily medicine.

He still needed to avoid chills and care for himself. Seasonal changes might bring a few days of coughing.

But his pulse was balanced and strong. His eating and sleeping were no different from anyone else's.

After consultation, Zhang wrote at the end of the ten-year case record:

“The longstanding illness is resolved. Maintain careful self-care.”

Jiang Yunrou hugged the record and cried for a long time.

Xie Huaiyue paced the drill ground and returned with red eyes.

Mingzheng was most direct. She flung herself onto her brother's back and insisted he carry her.

He really did lift her and walk steadily across the courtyard.

Watching them laugh, my nose stung.

He put his sister down and came straight to me.

Stopping before me, he held out his hand.

“Physician Sang, ready for inspection?”

I placed three fingers on his wrist.

The pulse was steady and strong, beating against my fingertips.

The child pulled from icy water ten years before had finally passed through his long winter.

I withdrew my hand and deliberately found fault.

“Barely acceptable.”

“Then may I ask for your hand at the Sang household tomorrow?”

“Depends how you behave.”

His whole face brightened.

Summer sunlight filled the courtyard. Cicadas sang behind him.

For the first time, I clearly saw what he was like in health.

Very handsome, as it turned out.

12

Xie Tingheng's proposal was far more formal than our first wedding.

When he came to the Sang clinic, he brought no ceremonial procession.

Only his daily log, an agreement on household expenses after marriage, and a reply from the Ministry of Works.

The log clearly recorded recent pulses, meals, and follow-up dates.

The household agreement stated that my medical fees, property, and dowry would remain under my management.

If we had children, we would care for them together. Neither family's elders could hurry us.

The ministry's reply had taken longest.

After submitting his proposal for northern grain transport, he had been summoned for questions several times and recalculated materials using the dimensions of an existing granary.

The officials thought it feasible.

They assigned him to follow the Construction Office in renovating an old granary outside the city.

It was only trial work, hardly illustrious.

But practical.

Father read every page.

“What if you fall ill again?”

“First, consult a physician and follow instructions. Do what I can for myself.”

“Zhiwei is my wife and a physician. She has patients of her own. Curing me doesn't oblige her to spend her whole life revolving around me.”

“What if the clinic keeps her too busy for your household's social duties?”

“If she wants to go, she may. If she doesn't, I'll go. We're marrying a daughter-in-law, not hiring an account-keeping steward.”

“What if people laugh at you for fearing your wife?”

“If they'll drink ten years of bitter medicine for me, I might consider their opinions.”

Father laughed.

His long-stern face finally softened.

He pushed the papers back.

“My agreement is useless. Ask Zhiwei yourself.”

I had listened from behind the screen.

Only then did I step out.

Seeing me, Xie Tingheng looked even more nervous than on the night of fever and difficult breathing.

He took a newly written marriage document from his sleeve and offered it with both hands.

“Sang Zhiwei, at our first wedding, I couldn't even walk to the main hall for the rites. You walked more than half that road alone.”

“This time, I can come myself.”

I accepted and opened it.

There were no grand vows invoking mountains and seas.

He said he would respect my wishes and treasure my abilities.

In illness, we would care for each other.

In ordinary life, we would discuss matters together.

After reading, I took the old divorce agreement from my sleeve.

His face briefly paled.

Before him, I tore it in two.

Then I placed the halves together and tore them again.

“Our old accounts are settled,” I said.

“Xie Tingheng, this time, I'm willing.”

Father coughed loudly, reminding us an elder was still present.

Xie Tingheng's ears turned red, but his eyes shone astonishingly.

He bowed deeply to Father again.

Leaving, he walked as though on air and almost struck the doorframe.

I called after him.

“Come back.”

He turned at once.

“What is it?”

I folded the new document and placed it in his hand.

“Keep it safe. And watch where you're walking. Being cured doesn't make you immune to collisions.”

He tucked it close and nodded solemnly.

The divorce agreement had never borne my signature, so the original marriage document naturally remained valid.

Our so-called second marriage merely completed the ceremony we hadn't properly performed together.

We set the date for when the osmanthus would begin to bloom.

Jiang Yunrou asked how grand I wanted it.

Only family and friends as witnesses, I said.

Xie Huaiyue declared everything would be simple, then immediately had the entire front courtyard's walls repainted.

Old Madam Xie brought out ruby jewelry from the bottom of her chest, insisting the color suited me.

Mingzheng volunteered to embroider the veil.

Within days, a pair of mandarin ducks defeated her, and she had to ask a professional embroiderer to rescue it.

Xie Tingheng was busiest.

He went to the ministry by day and collected me from the clinic in the evening.

At first, he couldn't stand long in the granary yard and had to lie down to recover at home.

Later, he could follow the craftsmen around the whole building. A light tan appeared on his face.

He proposed damp-proofing beneath the floor and raising the grain sacks off the ground.

Nothing elaborate.

After the rainy season, the spoiled grain was indeed much reduced.

On receiving his first month's salary, he bought fish and red-bean cakes and handed me the rest.

I took half and gave it back.

“Keep it.”

“Food and lodging are provided at home.”

“You can buy books, invite colleagues to dinner, or save private spending money.”

He thought, then asked seriously, “Can private spending money buy gifts for my wife?”

“Once spent, it isn't savings.”

“Then I'd better give it to my wife.”

His circular reasoning left me speechless.

I opened a separate little account for him, labeled “Xie Tingheng's Personal Use.”

The first entry was a packet of osmanthus sweets.

That packet was sitting beside my hand.

13

On an auspicious day, with the first hint of osmanthus in the air, we performed the wedding rites again.

This time, Xie Tingheng didn't take a sedan.

He walked from Tingxue Courtyard to the main hall in dark red wedding robes, his steps unhurried.

His parents sat in the seats of honor, their eyes red from the moment he entered.

Father had come too. Beside him rested a wooden box my late mother had left.

First, we bowed to Heaven and Earth.

Second, to our elders.

As we bowed to each other, I saw the hem of his robe through the red veil and suddenly remembered our wedding night half a year earlier.

He had been pale and thin, each cough seeming enough to break him.

I had drawn aside the heavy curtains, opened the window, and told him he wouldn't die with me there.

Then, I had thought only of saving Father. Everything I did was carefully calculated.

I hadn't calculated falling for this man who kept his decency even in illness and, once given hope, took living seriously.

After the rites, he led me back with the red wedding silk.

The heavy curtains had long since been replaced with airy gauze.

The window stood open. The night breeze brought osmanthus from the courtyard.

The calming incense burner was in storage.

Wedding wine stood on the table beside my favorite red-bean cakes.

He lifted the veil and sat beside me.

“Physician Sang, any medical instructions today?”

“Yes.” I looked at him. “One cup of wedding wine. I haven't tested your tolerance. No greed.”

“As you command.”

His answer was earnest.

Beneath our sleeves, he gently took my hand.

I didn't withdraw it.

We had investigated a case together and kept watch through the hardest nights of illness.

We had argued over profit shares until the tea went cold, then returned to our separate tasks.

He liked sweets. When medicine was too bitter, a small crease appeared between his brows.

When tired, he rubbed his knuckles.

When he couldn't win an argument, he invoked “a patient's right to decide.”

I wouldn't let anyone interrupt consultations.

When troubled, I reorganized the medicine cupboard.

When truly angry, even red-bean cakes might not help.

Neither of us had deliberately memorized these small things.

Looking back, we had become familiar without noticing when.

After the wedding wine, he took a wooden box from beneath the pillow.

I asked warily, “Another divorce agreement?”

“I wouldn't dare.”

He quickly opened it.

Inside was a blank casebook.

On its cover: Notes for a Long Life.

The first page bore the date and one line:

No illness today. Married the woman I love. Heart beating slightly fast.

I took a brush and wrote beside it:

Normal. No medicine required.

He smiled and put the book away.

The red candles burned halfway down.

Outside, osmanthus fell onto the steps.

That night, there was no coughing and no bitter medicine smell.

The distant watch drums reached the residence very softly.

Warm light filled the room. Even the breeze seemed to linger.

14

Some time after the wedding, Spring Tidings opened another branch in the south of the city.

Mingzheng became Father's apprentice.

She learned to identify herbs by day and still had to face my questions at night.

She complained, but with patients she was more patient than anyone.

Jiang Yunrou often brought prepared herbal pouches to distribute to poor women.

Old Madam Xie was elderly, and her legs sometimes ached.

After acupuncture, she always stayed in the waiting room a little longer to talk with new patients.

Xie Huaiyue was least suited to entering the clinic.

His voice was so loud that merely standing in the doorway stopped children crying.

Later, he sourced northern herbs for us, occasionally sending a chest of excellent astragalus with repeated instructions to pay the market price.

Xie Tingheng was eventually promoted to a ministry section head.

He never discarded his daily log.

The first pages seriously recorded riverside granary inspections and mountain herb-gathering with me.

Farther on, I found:

Greedily ate a bowl of shaved ice. Wife prescribed ginger soup as punishment.

I added:

Repeat offense: a whole bowl.

Beside me, he wrote:

Willing to share it with my wife.

I raised a hand to pinch his cheek.

Laughing, he dodged and drew me into his arms.

Those arms, once so thin I could see the wrist bones clearly, now held me steadily.

His chest was warm. His heartbeat was strong.

He still coughed sometimes.

At the turn of autumn and winter, I adjusted his prescription in advance.

He knew to dress warmly and sleep early.

If unwell, he took leave and rested.

He neither forced himself onward nor treated illness as shameful.

The Ningyuan household no longer erupted over a single cough.

Care and concern had become ordinary parts of life.

When the apricot flowers bloomed again, I finished with the last patient just as Xie Tingheng arrived.

He had hurried from the ministry and hadn't changed his official robe.

In his hand were freshly baked red-bean cakes.

An ordinary blue-curtained carriage waited outside, holding my medical chest and his half-finished granary plans.

I locked the clinic and put the day's new case record into the chest.

Evening light stretched down the street.

The wind carried the clinic's herbal scent into the smells of neighboring kitchens.

Across the road, a Sang clinic assistant took down the curtain.

The little bronze bell beneath our eaves sounded softly.

Xie Tingheng waited by the apricot tree, his shoulders straight, no shadow of longstanding illness remaining in his expression.

I went to him and naturally took his hand.

His palm was warm and dry. His pulse was steady.

We followed the long street home.

Behind us, the clinic lamps had been lit.

Ahead, dinner was ready at the residence.

An apricot petal fell onto my medical chest.

I didn't brush it away.

The carriage waited at the end of the street.

Our family was waiting for us to come home and eat.