Chapter 43: Found Out

“Can you speak?” Zuo Gui asked.

The old woman opened her mouth, but only rough, unintelligible sounds emerged. At the others’ startled looks, he explained, “Loss of speech is common after wind stroke. It takes gradual treatment to recover. It cannot happen all at once.”

Reassured, her son bowed to him.

“Physician Zuo, would you prescribe a few more doses and cure my mother?”

Zuo Gui looked troubled. “This is wind stroke. It won’t be cured in three or five days. It may take ten days or more, perhaps several months; there is no telling. She will need medicine over a long period.”

He walked back to his table with his hands behind him and sat down.

Seeing such an immediate response to a single dose had filled the man with confidence. He understood why the physician hesitated: the cost. At Huimin Hall and the other shops, they had demanded four taels of silver for one dose, then claimed the illness was incurable and driven them out as soon as they learned he could not pay. Guizhi Hall charged only twelve wen, and the first dose had worked. They had truly found a benefactor.

Some of the men who had come were the old woman’s relatives—sons and nephews—while the others were fellow labourers who had helped carry her. The younger relatives conferred and pooled all their remaining coins. They had nine wen.

Peilan took out her purse and emptied it. Its contents were the eight wen Shaoyang had paid her for the firewood. She handed them to the man.

“Thank you, Peilan.” He bent gratefully towards her. “I’ll pay you back as soon as I earn it.”

She smiled and stepped aside.

With seventeen copper coins in his hand, he approached Zuo Gui’s table and bowed.

“This is all we could put together, Physician. It isn’t enough for two doses. Could you let us have the medicine first? We’ll find the rest when we get back. We know you’ve already cut the price to the bone, and we owe you enough kindness as it is. We wouldn’t dare leave you out of pocket. We’ll make it up, I promise.”

Zuo Gui stroked his beard and smiled.

“Very well. I’ll prescribe two more doses, enough for two days. When she’s taken them, bring her back for another examination. I’ll adjust the treatment according to her condition.”

“Thank you! Thank you!”

The man set the seventeen wen on the table and bowed again.

“We still owe seven. We’ll bring it within the next two days.”

Zuo Gui nodded. He studied Shaoyang for a moment.

“Zhong, dispense two more doses of that prescription for them to take home.”

Shaoyang agreed, selected and wrapped the medicines, then took out four Purple Snow pills. At the bedside, he handed over the packets and explained how to decoct and take them. Turning his back to Zuo Gui, he passed the man the pills and lowered his voice.

“Take these separately by mouth. One in the morning and one in the evening.”

The man thanked him repeatedly, accepted the medicine and thanked Zuo Gui again. Then he and the others left, carrying the old woman on someone’s back, with his wife accompanying them.

Peilan was smiling again. She glanced at Shaoyang with a lovely smile, lowered her head and followed them out.

He hurried after her. “Miss Peilan, are you going back to Laohuai Village? It’s dark already. The road won’t be safe.”

She looked back and smiled.

“I’m staying at the works with Sister-in-law and the others. There are several women from our village working there. I’ll go back tomorrow morning. Don’t worry.”

Pleased that she had taken the trouble to explain, he nodded.

Once the group had gone, Huixiang turned happily to her father.

“I never knew you were so skilled! When Huimin Hall and the others refused them, I thought the medicine must be too expensive for them to afford. Who’d have thought you could cure her with a prescription costing twelve wen? If I’d known, I needn’t have played the villain!”

“Now you’re flattering him,” Shaoyang said with a chuckle. “A little earlier, you kept telling me Father was only an ordinary physician and couldn’t cure her.”

“I was afraid we couldn’t afford the medicine! But these ingredients only cost seven or eight wen. There’s even a profit.”

“Have you counted the rent?” Madam Liang put in. “Include that and the cost comes to nearly ten. We make only a wen or two from a patient. How could we avoid running at a loss? Your father has no choice. The people who come to Guizhi Hall are all desperately poor. They’d split a coin in two if they could. They save every wen. Set the price any higher and who would come?”

“We could charge differently,” Shaoyang suggested. “More for wealthy patients, less for poor ones.”

“Exactly!” Huixiang said. “Huimin Hall charges several times what we do for both consultations and medicine. Why do so many people still go there?”

“Doctor Ni has treated princes and ministers,” Madam Liang sighed. “People go for his reputation and willingly pay more. The rich all choose famous clinics. Who would come here? That wealthy family your father and brother met in Laohuai Village yesterday was the first in all these years!”

“So the problem is our reputation,” Shaoyang said. “But Father has treated three difficult, critical cases in succession. That has earned us something. If we carry on, our reputation will grow.”

“Yes!” Huixiang brightened. “Didn’t this family come because patients at another shop told them how Father treated that woman whose dead baby wouldn’t come out? Fragrant flowers attract their own butterflies. If Father keeps showing his skill and cures more difficult cases, Guizhi Hall will become better known. Then we can raise our fees and give poor people free treatment and medicine. We’ll have both a good name and a living.”

“Aren’t you looking rather far ahead, Sister? We still haven’t found the rent. What we earned at the market today, plus just now, is only thirty-odd wen. We owe two thousand one hundred. Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve. When Madam Zhao comes at noon, what are we going to pay her with?”

Huixiang rolled her eyes. “You really do know how to spoil a mood! What else can we do? Move out! Isn’t that right, Father?”

Zuo Gui had been sitting with his hands tucked away, absorbed in thought, as though he had heard none of the conversation.

Huixiang found it strange and leaned closer. “Father, what’s wrong?”

He stood, glanced at Shaoyang and went into the kitchen with his hands behind his back. A moment later his muffled voice came from within, distinctly cold.

“Zhong. Come here.”

Shaoyang exchanged a look with his mother and sister. None knew what had happened. He answered and hurried in.

A heap of spent medicinal ingredients lay on the stove, spread apart for inspection. Zuo Gui stood beside it, hands in his sleeves, his face hard.

“What is the meaning of this?”

Shaoyang recognised the dregs from the old woman’s decoction. His heart gave a jolt.

“The meaning of what, Father?” he asked awkwardly.

Zuo Gui picked out a piece and held it before him.

“What is this?”

Most medicinal ingredients retained their shape after decocting. This one certainly had: it was a slice of antelope horn.

Shaoyang gave an embarrassed smile, unable to answer.

His father dropped it, selected a stem of double-hooked uncaria and glanced at him. Setting that down, he picked up a piece of poria spirit wood and shook it.

“Are these ingredients in Life-Prolonging Powder?”

Shaoyang lowered his head. “No.”

“You decocted the medicine. Explain!”

Madam Liang and Huixiang had been listening from the kitchen doorway. Frightened by her husband’s anger, Madam Liang hurried over.

“There’s no need to shout. Talk to him calmly…”

“Talk? You’ve spoiled him!” Zuo Gui’s voice rose sharply. “Now he dares change medicines behind my back! What if something goes wrong? Who will answer for it?”

Shaoyang immediately remembered the incident before his journey through time, when he had suggested adding coptis to a patient’s prescription and offended the department head.

To the other practitioner, such behaviour amounted to a grave vote of no confidence in his medical skill—an outright challenge, if one wished to put it strongly. Whether the substitution was justified would not matter. The secret alteration alone was enough to provoke a furious response.

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