Ink Burns

Chapter 160 Snowballs are flying
At daybreak, a gust of wind blew away the peach-pink jujube flowers from the jujube trees in Xue Nan's mansion. Entering through the second gate, a thin man in a white linen shirt walked hurriedly in the corridor, carrying an old wooden medicine box made of dark red jujube branches on one shoulder. He walked briskly into the corridor.
Huang Zhi, who was leading the way, wiped her tears and jogged inside.

When they got to the main hall, Xue Xiao, who had been waiting outside the wing room, caught up with Cheng Xingyu in one big stride. He spoke quickly and hoarsely, "When he came back this morning, he vomited blood. It was bright red, and the amount of blood was about the size of two fists. Afterwards, he fainted, his pulse was weak, his face was pale, and his whole body was cold—"

As Xue Xiao spoke, he lifted the curtain to make it easier for Cheng Xingyu to walk.

As he spoke he had already reached the bedside.

Xue Xiao pulled open the bed curtain with one hand, his eyes fixed on the small, pale face wrapped in the mattress. Xue Xiao's voice was stuck, with a forced calm of panic in his voice: "It was fine all night, maybe because of the long journey--"

"It's not running around!" Cheng Xingyu raised his voice to interrupt Xue Xiao's next words. He quickly lifted Shanyue's wrist, and his index and middle fingers accurately touched the meridians. He closed his eyes slightly, and used his fingertips to sense the direction and strength of the meridians: compared with the last time, the veins were messy, and even seemed to be running backwards!

"Have you caught a cold?" Cheng Xingyu asked.

"No." Xue Xiao answered confidently. Shan Yue had been sticking close to him, and he could feel Shan Yue's body temperature.

"Have you ever taken anything extremely cold or spicy?"

"Not yet."

"Have you ever experienced great sorrow or joy?" Cheng Xingyu changed his hand to feel the pulse.

"Yes, yes!" Xue Xiao's eyes darkened: "We saw the light of water last night."

Cheng Xingyu finally let go.

Cheng Xingyu raised his eyes. The young man's usually gentle and honest eyes became more solemn. He did not talk about the disease anymore, but frowned and asked Xue Xiao: "What day is it today?"

Xue Xiao didn't understand what he meant: "April 18th."

Cheng Xingyu lowered his head, as if calculating something. After a moment, he leaned over and took out the silver needles from the medicine box, and then he applied acupuncture to Tianmen, Dazhui, Shenzhu, Tianyuan and Laogong.

In a moment, Shan Yue's lips gradually regained their rosy color. She frowned slowly into the shape of the Chinese character "川". She opened her mouth and murmured unconsciously, "Mom, it hurts. I hurt too."

Cheng Xingyu lowered his head gently, his hair falling down beside his ears, and asked softly in an unusually gentle voice, "Where does it hurt?"

"My stomach." Shan Yue closed her eyes and a tear fell from the corner of her eyes: "Mom, my stomach, my stomach hurts."

There was a hint of innocence and ignorance in the voice that had never been heard before.

Cheng Xingyu raised his head and looked at Xue Xiao calmly: "Abdominal pain, you need to moxibustion the closed gate."

The gate is three inches above the abdomen, and you need to lift up the woman's clothes.

Xue Xiao did not hesitate at all and moved aside: "Please do as you please."

After Cheng Xingyu finished the acupuncture, he took the silk handkerchief handed to him by Huang Zhi and wiped his sweat. He saw that the tall Xue Xiao was still standing respectfully behind the screen with his back turned.

"It's not fatigue." Cheng Xingyu said in a very low voice, and slowly stood up: "It's poisoning."

By the water, the four corners of the window frame were closed, Xue Xiao was tense, his lips were tightly pursed, his hands were clenched into fists, and his joints were supported on the thick square table made of rosewood. Cheng Xingyu sat opposite him with his hands folded, looking peaceful.

"You mean, Shanyue drank the poison soup on the day he met Jing'an, and will be under the control of this poison forever and need to take medicine for half his life?" Xue Xiao's voice was dim and unclear. The sunlight shone on his face through the window lattice, just falling on the lower half of his face. His eyebrows and forehead were hidden in the darkness.

"Yes, according to Shanyue, the medicine soup you took is called Qianjiyin." Cheng Xingyu leaned his head back lightly, his eyelids down. "I have searched through medical books in the past few days, but have not found any information about this medicine. Based on Shanyue's pulse, I can only piece together a few medicinal ingredients in the medicine soup, which does not constitute a complete prescription. Shanyue said that day that if you report to the court for mourning, the first dose of antidote will be delivered in ten days. Calculating the date, it is today - but I didn't expect that she would cause her meridians to be reversed due to a short period of extreme joy and sorrow, and fall ill early."

Xue Xiao took a deep breath and turned his fist into a palm: "Is your life in danger now?" "After the acupuncture, your life is not in danger for the time being."

"Is there any solution?"

Cheng Xingyu: "I need to get the first antidote before I can reverse engineer the poison. Once the poison recipe is revealed, I can then prepare an antidote that will solve the problem once and for all."

Xue Xiao paced back and forth for a while, and suddenly he felt a sense of panic that he had not felt for a long time.

"What if you can't solve the prescription?" Xue Xiao swallowed his fear and lowered his voice.

Cheng Xingyu raised his eyes calmly: "Impossible."

There was no way he could watch Shan Yue die.

He could risk his life.

Xue Xiao looked at Cheng Xingyu deeply, then bowed deeply.

Just after noon, a maid from the Chang family came to greet Huang Zhi and brought a food box under the pretext of sending a spring gift. Huang Zhi took it respectfully, her eyes red, and she bowed and choked up as she thanked him, "You came at the right time. Our lady was not feeling well last night."

In the flower hall, Huang Zhi stopped talking abruptly, as if he was afraid that someone could hear him. After asking around, he lowered his voice and said, "She is vomiting blood and fainting. We have invited Dr. Cheng from Songjiang Prefecture to treat her. He is also Qingfeng, a subordinate of Mr. Liu, the prefect of Songjiang Prefecture. Madam is relieved after he came to treat her. Now, she is waiting for your life-saving medicine!"

The Chang family's nanny's nose was about to turn up to the sky: "Since you know that the disease is uncomfortable, you should have acted faster! That mad dog Xue just wrote a letter of mourning the day before yesterday, and we didn't have time to prepare the antidote? This is just one bowl, and I stayed up all night to make it for your wife!"

Huang Zhi thanked her timidly and reached out to take the food box from Nanny Chang.

But just as she was about to get close, Nanny Chang retracted her hand, put the food box in her arms, and glared at her: "You are not following the rules?"

Huang Zhi quickly took out a sachet from his sleeve and passed it over.

Nanny Chang weighed the food with one hand, and then reluctantly handed over the food box: "Next time, tell your wife to move faster! The order from Qingfeng is a great decree! It is more important than an imperial edict! It is more important than the order from the emperor! She should show her real ability and do it quickly, don't dilly-dally!"

Nanny Chang was very proud: "Don't even think about getting rid of Qianjiyin. People have been taking Qingfeng for ten years, and no one has yet found someone who can solve this problem!"

Madam Chang glanced at Xue Nan's house. The house looked quite big. It was a good deal for these lowly people who came north. "Hide this medicine soup. Your mad dog can smell everything. If he finds out the truth about your wife, Qingfeng will skin her alive!"

Nanny Chang cursed and swore.

Huang Zhi shuddered and answered.

As soon as Nanny Chang left, Huang Zhi's drooping eyebrows quickly raised and he spat fiercely on the ground.

The upper layer of the food box contained six green rice cakes, and the secret compartment on the lower layer contained a bowl of medicine.

Cheng Xingyu put the medicine in his mouth with a silver needle and tasted it. Before he could say anything, he saw a snow-white parrot flapping its wings from the side hall and flying to his shoulder. The parrot's sharp beak pecked at the edge of the medicine bowl: "No! No! No!"

Xuetuan screamed at the top of his lungs to stop them.

"This antidote is also a poison!"

A murderous intent rose up from Xue Xiao's back: "Snowball can identify poison, it will never make a mistake!"

There had always been a foreshadowing that Xuetuan would recognize the poison.