Chapter 20: A Secret Substitution

The old man had guessed what Zuo Shaoyang could not bring himself to say.

“Don’t worry about the fee. We still have an old house and a little farmland. If you save her life, I’ll sell them to pay you!”

“That won’t do!” his wife cried from behind him. “Save her and leave the rest of us sleeping in the street, living on air?”

“Mother!” the younger man pleaded. “Please save your daughter-in-law. Her life matters too!”

“And mine doesn’t? You’d sell everything to save her and let your own mother starve? What a dutiful son! Married a wife and forgotten your mother!”

Through her groans, the woman on the door heard them. Tears slipped down her cheeks. Her husband dared not argue. He could only hold her and look beseechingly at Zuo Shaoyang.

There was no time for a quarrel.

“We’ll discuss payment afterwards. Saving her comes first.”

The husband nodded eagerly, his eyes full of gratitude.

Rebuked by his wife, the old man too had begun to think his promise ill judged. They could not destroy the whole family’s livelihood for his daughter-in-law. He seized the offered escape.

“Yes, yes! Save her first. We’ll discuss the fee later.”

They followed Zuo Shaoyang back to Guizhi Hall.

Zuo Gui sat behind the long table, hands tucked into his sleeves, head bowed in worry. At the confused footsteps outside, he looked up. The same party that had passed earlier was coming in with the groaning woman.

“What brings you…?”

The husband dropped to his knees.

“Doctor, please save my wife!”

He knocked his head against the floor. Several children followed, crying and begging. The elder bowed again and again.

“Please save my daughter-in-law. Her baby has been dead inside her for more than ten days and won’t come. We’ve tried every prescription. Even Doctor Ni of Huimin Hall couldn’t help. We heard you have…”

He remembered the warning and stopped himself.

“We heard you’re a fine physician. Please save her!”

Zuo Gui hardly knew what to do. His father, who had trained him, had been an ordinary practitioner; the son had never surpassed him. Decades of practice had brought chiefly headaches, fevers and other minor ailments, not life-and-death cases. No patients had ever knelt and begged him like this.

Overwhelmed by the honour, he stood to lift them up.

“Please, get up! There’s no need for this. Let me examine her first.”

“Yes, of course.”

The old man ushered him to the door on which she lay.

Zuo Gui crouched, looked her over, asked how she felt and examined her pulse and tongue. His eyebrows drew together. Slowly releasing her wrist, he shook his head.

“Too late. To begin treatment now… it really is too late.”

Exactly as the young man had predicted, the elder thought. Fortunately they had been warned. Everyone begged harder.

They were kneeling all over the floor. Zuo Gui lifted one, only for another to go down.

“It isn’t that I refuse to help. I simply haven’t the skill. Think: if even Doctor Ni can do nothing, how could I?”

They had been warned of that too. Their foreheads struck the floor more earnestly. Even the patient pleaded between her groans. The old man vaguely renewed his promise to find the money, whatever the cost, even if they had to sell everything.

Huixiang and Madam Liang knew Zuo Gui’s limits. How could he cure a case beyond Doctor Ni? They feared a trap: these people might force him to treat her, then demand compensation when he failed. Both tried to persuade the family to carry her away.

But the supplicants would not give up.

Zuo Gui was bewildered. He had plainly said he could not do it. Why would they keep begging?

At last he decided to prescribe something, useful or not, and be done with it. At least they would stop pestering him.

“Very well. I’ll try. But understand this: you mustn’t blame me if it fails. I’ve told you I can’t cure her. You’re the ones insisting.”

“Of course,” the elder agreed. “Whatever happens, we’ll be grateful if you do your best. If she cannot be saved, that… that will be her fate. We won’t make trouble for you.”

Only then did the two women relax.

Zuo Gui took up his brush, considered a moment and wrote a prescription. Looking it over, he sighed and shook his head.

“To be honest, I doubt it will help. It’s merely doing what little a man can. Have it dispensed.”

He offered the paper to the elder, but Zuo Shaoyang took it first and gave the man a look.

The elder understood at once. A family secret could hardly be shown to outsiders. Smiling apologetically, he followed the young man to the counter.

Zuo Shaoyang glanced at the prescription.

Three-Ingredient Emergency Pills—San Wu Bei Ji Wan. A remedy for abdominal pain due to cold excess, distension and constipation, using strong purgative ingredients such as croton seed and rhubarb to drive out cold accumulation and fluid.

His father really had committed himself to a last desperate throw: perhaps a violent purge would bring the baby out too.

Zuo Shaoyang shook his head with a bitter smile. If it were that simple, Huimin Hall would have managed long ago.

He certainly could not use this prescription. He had already decided what to do. Fortunately, his father had chosen pills rather than a decoction, and his own remedy was a powder. That would make the substitution easier to conceal.

He put the paper beneath the counter and prepared his own formula.

Turning his back, he quietly took out the musk pod, broke off half a qian and ground it in a mortar. Then he took three qian of cinnamon bark and powdered that too.

This was Musk and Cinnamon Powder, Xiang Gui San, a famous formula specifically for expelling a dead baby that had not appeared until the Song.

He had studied it in his formulas course. In modern practice, however, retained stillbirths were generally managed through Western medicine: quick, convenient and safe. Such Chinese formulas were seldom needed. He had never used this one and did not know whether it would truly work.

Now he could only try.

“Does anyone have wine?” he asked as he ground the ingredients. “The medicine must be taken with warm wine. We don’t have any.”

The family exchanged looks. They were hardly drunkards; who carried liquor about?

“I’ll buy some,” the husband said, hurrying out.

Zuo Gui glanced at his son. Three-Ingredient Emergency Pills did not require warm wine; warm water would do. Why use wine?

Still, the boy’s earlier explanation of Cinnamon Twig Decoction had included much he himself did not know. He said he had learnt it from a mysterious old travelling doctor. Presumably this was another such detail. Wine was not prohibited with the medicine, so Zuo Gui let it pass.

By the time the powder was ready, the husband had returned, panting, with a flask.

Zuo Shaoyang fetched a coarse earthenware bowl and had the patient carried into the left-hand room. The door was shut. Only her husband and mother-in-law remained with him.

He crouched beside her. She was already half-conscious.

He called loudly for her to open her mouth. She tried, but managed only a little. Her anxious husband helped prise it open. Zuo Shaoyang tipped in all the powder from its paper packet, then slowly poured the warm wine after it.

She had not lost consciousness completely and could still swallow. Half a bowl of wine and medicine went down in gulps.

He put the bowl aside and stood with his hands behind his back, staring tensely at her.

Like a gambler who had placed his stake, he waited for the result.

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