Chapter 174: Treating The Illness
After leaving the real estate agency, Lin Xin used her wide sleeve to take out a fifty-tael silver note from the space and handed it to the tallest among the six guards. “Take this silver note and first buy some clothes and shoes for you all, then get some food, and then go······”
Lin Xin realized she didn’t seem to know her own home address and turned to look at Mo Ziyuan.
“Number Seventy-Six, Apricot Forest Street.” Mo Ziyuan said, holding back his laughter.
“Mm, then just go to this place to settle down. I’ll give you the keys; keep the one for the front gate, and you all can choose the rooms you need from the rest.” With that, Lin Xin simply handed the front gate key to that guard as well.
“Yes, Young Lady.” After exchanging glances, they all bowed deeply to her in unison.
“Alright, go do what you need to do!”
After everyone had left, Lin Xin said to the father and son, “I’ll take you to find Nan Nan’s Master first, but let me say this upfront: if your son really can’t be cured, you must not be rude to the doctor.”
“Young Lady, don’t worry. I’m not an ungrateful person. Young Lady bought my son and is even spending money to treat him. I’m already endlessly grateful. If he really can’t pull through, that’s heaven’s will. I absolutely won’t blame the doctor or anyone else.” The man said earnestly.
Lin Xin nodded. As long as he could keep a clear head, it was fine. Even if Cui Shi couldn’t cure his son, she could use her supernatural ability to nourish his body. It might not make him very healthy, but at least he would live.
Under Mo Ziyuan’s lead, the group arrived at Cui Shi’s house. He had previously been the head of the Imperial Medical Academy, so he naturally wasn’t short of money. He lived in a five-courtyard house, and the servants were very complete. The gatekeeper opened the door and let them in upon seeing Mo Ziyuan. One of them hurried off to find Cui Shi.
“You brat, what made you think of coming to my place?” As soon as Cui Shi heard Lin Xin had come, he happily strode toward the door. But just before seeing her, he seemed to remember something. Not only did he slow his hasty steps, he even twirled his little mustache. The gatekeeper behind him pushed his nearly popping eyes back in and immediately raised Lin Xin’s status in his mind quite a bit.
“You’re a doctor, so of course I’m here to see a doctor! What else, to freeload a meal?” Lin Xin rolled her eyes and said.
“Hey, you’re so arrogant coming to Old Me for treatment. Watch out, or Old Me will give you a packet of poison.”
“Fine, if the poison doesn’t kill me, you lose.”
Listening to their bickering, the man and his son broke out in cold sweat. Was this really a doctor? How did he casually talk about poisoning people? Could his son / I really be okay in this man’s hands?
As usual, after they were evenly matched in their verbal sparring, Cui Shi snorted coldly and asked, “Where’s the patient? Let me see!”
Lin Xin’s gaze shifted, and she was surprised to find that the skinny son had already been picked up into his father’s arms. The father and son were both trying hard to shrink behind the smirking Mo Ziyuan.
“······Uh,” Lin Xin paused, then reacted, pointing at the father and son with schadenfreude as she looked at Cui Shi. “See, you smelly old man with no filter on your mouth—you’ve scared the patient and his family half to death.”
“Hmph, it’s all because of you, you brat. You’ve ruined Old Me’s lifetime of reputation.” Seeing the father and son’s appearance, Cui Shi’s face turned pitch black. He snorted, grabbed Lin Nan’s hand, and turned to walk away. “Follow if you’re getting treatment; otherwise, get lost!”
Lin Nan’s little feet trotted after Cui Shi, but he didn’t forget to turn back and smile at the child. “My Master has this kind of temper. His words are harsh, but his medical skill is amazing! Hurry and follow us!”
Hearing his little disciple’s words, Cui Shi ahead revealed a proud smile on his face, and his steps slowed considerably.
The man looked at Lin Xin somewhat uneasily. “Y-Young Lady······”
“It’s fine. Old Cui was previously the head of the Imperial Medical Academy. His medical skill is amazing. Just relax and let him treat your son.”
“······Yes, a-alright······”
Feeling his son’s feverish little body in his arms, the man gritted his teeth and stepped forward, following Lin Xin and the others into the house along Cui Shi’s footsteps.
“Put him on the bed so I can take a look.” Once in the medicine room, Cui Shi’s demeanor changed immediately, which reassured the man quite a bit. He obediently placed his son on the bed.
Cui Shi first took his pulse, then checked his eyelids and tongue. Without saying much, he had a servant fetch a basin of warm water to wipe the child’s body. He was going to perform acupuncture.
The man hurriedly took over the task. When he lifted the child’s clothes, everyone revealed expressions of pity, Lin Xin included.
There were no scars from abuse on the child’s body, but he was simply too thin. When clothed, his face still showed a bit of flesh, but once the clothes were off, he was truly skin and bones!
His little ribs were distinctly visible, the joints on his arms protruded, with almost no fat or muscle to be seen. Lin Xin wondered how he managed to move so freely.
“Doctor, my······my son he······” Though the man had seen it many times before, seeing it again still filled him with heartache. He looked at Cui Shi, not daring to ask his question, afraid of an answer he couldn’t bear.
“This child was premature, right? He was congenitally weak to begin with, and didn’t get proper postnatal nutrition.” After inserting gold needles of varying lengths and thicknesses all over the child’s body, Cui Shi sat down and said to the father, “His illness can be treated. Even if cured, his constitution won’t be as robust as others. As for whether it will affect his lifespan, that depends on the final treatment outcome.”
After Cui Shi spoke, the man was stunned at first. Then he immediately knelt before Cui Shi and kowtowed several resounding heads—real ones at that. Lin Xin winced for his head.
“Enough, stop kowtowing. If you knock yourself silly, that brat will have bought you at a loss.” Lin Xin had grown accustomed to Cui Shi constantly dragging her into it. She rolled her eyes and ignored him.
“Yes, yes, thank you Doctor, thank you Young Lady!” The man scrambled to Lin Xin and made to kowtow again, but recalling his recent words, he felt he couldn’t. For a moment, he didn’t know how to express his excitement.
“Just put your heart into working for me from now on.”
“Yes, yes! Young Lady, rest assured. From now on, my son and I—our two lives—are yours. As long as Young Lady commands, my son and I will brave mountains of knives and seas of fire without hesitation.”
“Talking nonsense again. You’ve finally gotten the child’s illness treatable, and now you’d send him into mountains of knives and seas of fire? Why treat him then? Just to make him suffer again?” Cui Shi glared at him and said.
Everyone in the room laughed, and even the child on the bed revealed a faint smile.
