Chapter 11: The Baby Has Died in the Womb

The manager laughed.
“You really are amusing. Of course it’s wild! Apart from the emperor’s hunting grounds, I’ve never heard of anyone keeping forest musk deer.”
“Then how can you offer only ten wen? Doesn’t your conscience trouble you?” Zuo Shaoyang demanded, his face flushed.
With a chuckle, the manager turned to the long bank of medicine cabinets and opened a drawer. He took out several musk pods and slapped them down on the counter.
“There. If you’ll pay twelve wen apiece, Master Zuo, you can have the lot!”
Zuo Shaoyang stared. They certainly looked like musk pods. He picked one up and examined it closely. There was no mistake. He inspected the others; every one was genuine.
“Twelve… twelve wen each? Really?”
“Yes. Take them all, and I’ll let you have them for eleven. That’s our wholesale price. To tell you the truth, we usually buy musk for nine wen, and we pay about as much as any medicine shop in Hezhou. Since you’ve come in person, naturally we ought to show you some consideration. That’s why I offered ten. Anyone else would get nine!”
Zuo Shaoyang was dumbfounded. Musk worth a hundred thousand yuan in the modern world was worth only fifty yuan here in the Tang dynasty!
He understood, of course, that there was no question of protecting wildlife in this age. With so few people, human activity had little impact on the natural world, and wild animals were far more plentiful than in modern times. The girl had managed to catch a forest musk deer while gathering firewood. That alone suggested they were common here—perhaps scarcely rarer than rabbits.
Even so, he had never imagined the difference in price could be so great.
What he did not know was that, besides the abundance of wildlife, the early Tang suffered an acute shortage of everyday necessities. Apart from rice, prices were extremely low. Ten wen for a musk pod was already a good price.
It fell so far short of his expectations that he had no heart even to bargain. When the girl had sold him the musk, he had thought he was taking advantage of her. In fact, she had simply charged a fair price. Presumably, that was what she would have received if she had brought it into town herself. Since he wanted it, she had sold it to him for the same amount.
Her price bore out the manager’s explanation. Unpleasant as the man was, he had not been lying.
Zuo Shaoyang felt utterly dispirited. He had expected the musk to pay off his parents’ debt. What was he to do now?
He tucked the pod back inside his jacket and walked out of Huimin Hall. Standing at the entrance, he let the cold wind sweep over him. He had no idea what to do next.
He had thought his advanced knowledge would make success easy in the Tang dynasty. Fame, wealth, a comfortable life—all ought to have been within his reach. This cheaply bought musk was supposed to have earned him his first fortune.
Instead, he had lost his very first battle, and lost it humiliatingly.
Now he understood that making money here was not nearly as easy as he had imagined. People in the past were no fools. They were no less intelligent than he was.
Still, one failure would not make him give up.
What should he try next?
What could he do that people in the Tang dynasty could not? Make glass? Cement? Guns and cannon? Cars?
All useful things—but although he knew what they were, he had no idea how to make any of them.
The only skill he had ever truly mastered was medicine: all that knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine he had crammed into his head through years of hard study at university.
Medicine!
His spirits lifted.
People in this age were skilled in medicine, certainly. But his own knowledge benefited from more than a thousand years of further development. He knew the theories, methods, prescriptions and practical experience of great physicians who had lived after the Tang. Above all, he had studied the achievements of modern medicine that combined Chinese and Western approaches.
Surely that put him ahead of even the most celebrated physician in this dynasty!
With that knowledge, he ought to be able to make something of himself.
Hope rose in him again. Then he remembered how few patients came to Guizhi Hall, and his confidence faltered.
He could hardly roam the streets grabbing people and asking whether they needed treatment. If he told them he came from the modern world and could cure illnesses beyond the abilities of Tang physicians, they would probably have him dragged off to the magistrate as a lunatic.
As he stood outside the shop, swinging between hope and worry, a clatter of hurried footsteps reached him.
A group of people was approaching in a panic. They carried a woman on a door taken from its hinges. Her belly was swollen high, and she was moaning weakly. Beside her, a man kept trying to reassure her.
“Hold on! We’re almost at Huimin Hall!”
Zuo Shaoyang quickly stepped aside.
The elderly man leading the group waved frantically, lifted the curtain and shouted into the shop.
“Make way! Please, make way! Doctor! Doctor Ni! Help us! Please save my daughter-in-law!”
The group hurried inside. In the light of the large red lanterns above the entrance, Zuo Shaoyang saw a trail of fresh blood on the stone paving.
His heart sank. The woman’s prospects looked grim.
Several assistants rushed over and helped carry her into a side room. A white-bearded old man emerged from farther inside the shop and hurried in after them. He was probably Doctor Ni.
Zuo Shaoyang followed into the hall.
The waiting patients were craning their necks towards the side room, but its door had already closed. Nothing could be seen. Only the woman’s feeble groans and the man’s anxious calls came through.
The patients whispered among themselves. Several older women shook their heads.
“Looks like a difficult labour.”
“It does. Look at all that blood on the floor. I’m afraid she’s haemorrhaging.”
“Can she survive that? Such a young woman, too. What a pity.”
“Don’t say that. Doctor Ni is a very fine physician. He’ll surely save her.”
“Perhaps, but even a physician can’t save someone whose time has come. And looking at her…”
In the confusion, no one paid Zuo Shaoyang any attention. He edged over to the window, hoping to hear the physician’s diagnosis. But with the women all talking at once, he could make out nothing.
He raised a finger to his lips.
“Shh. They’re trying to save her in there. Please keep quiet and let the doctor work.”
An assistant from Huimin Hall also bowed repeatedly to the patients.
“Yes, please, everyone. Let’s have some quiet. Thank you, thank you!”
Soon the hall fell silent.
There were several physicians at Huimin Hall, and the others continued their consultations. With the chatter gone, Zuo Shaoyang could finally hear what was being said in the side room.
An elderly voice sighed.
“You’ve brought her too late. The baby has already died in the womb.”
“What? My child…!”
A chorus of weeping broke out.
“Stop crying!” the old physician said. “I must find a way to deliver the dead baby. Otherwise, the mother may die as well!”
The crying grew louder. Everyone begged him to give her medicine at once.
After a little while, the physician came out. He went to a table, picked up a brush and wrote a prescription. Handing it to an assistant, he ordered the medicine prepared and decocted immediately.
From the room, the woman’s groans grew fainter.
Zuo Shaoyang knew that once a baby had died in the womb, it had to be delivered as soon as possible. Otherwise, disseminated intravascular coagulation could develop and ultimately endanger the mother’s life.
He could not help sharing the family’s anxiety.
The decoction was soon ready and carried into the room. A little later, the clack of a watchman’s wooden clapper sounded outside.
The first night watch had begun.
Tang shops generally closed at that hour, and medicine shops were no exception. On hearing the watchman, the patients who had not yet been seen rose and left of their own accord. The assistants began closing the doors.
Besides the main entrance, there was a small side door for emergencies. Curfew ran from the second watch to the fifth, during which no one was allowed to travel through the city. There were a few exceptions, however. Critically ill patients could be taken for urgent treatment, provided the soldiers on night patrol gave permission.
Medicine shops could still open to receive such patients. That was what the little side door was for.
The assistant who had greeted Zuo Shaoyang earlier approached him with a polite smile.
“Master Zuo, as you can see, we’re closing. If you have any further business, could you come back tomorrow?”
Zuo Shaoyang had no choice but to leave the hall.
Out in the street, he could no longer hear the voices of those trying to save the woman. He shook his head, tucked his hands into his sleeves and hunched his shoulders against the wind.
Then he started for home.