Chapter 134: CH 134

Warning: Potentially overly detailed medical descriptions

Min Si Xing was really sick to the bone. His entire body, all the way to his face, was lined with red rashes and blisters. Each one of them had a little bubble of blood inside, some of which had already been popped and was flowing out all over, mixed with some watery fluid. Perhaps in fear of his clothes getting stuck to the wounds, he was bare naked, and from afar he looked like someone without their skin.

Xiao Feng Wu used a white handkerchief to cover his nose and mouth, almost about to faint from the heavy scent of blood. He reached out with two fingers to lift up the thin blanket on Min Si Xing to take a look and found red welts spreading all the way to his waist. He then spread out his handkerchief so he could cover himself better and knotted it around the back of his head to hold it up before taking Min Si Xing’s pulse.

An extremely faint pulse. Breathing in just bare slivers. 

Xiao Feng Wu pushed down Min Si Xing’s jaw and found his teeth tightly gritted together. Which meant that there would be no way to force feed him any medicine, and even if they tried, he might just suffocate. He thought about it and then grabbed a brush to write down two prescriptions. 

He called out to the servants nearby, 

“Go and grab all the medicinal herbs on the first sheet and mash them into powder. You’ll need 10 kilograms. For the second, add water to the herbs and simmer the mixture in boiling water until it turns into a paste. When it’s ready, slather it over his body and then prepare the silver acupuncture needles along with the coal basin. Keep them at high heat, burning hot. I’ll call when I need them.”

Min Si Xing’s index finger had already started to swell up and turn purple. Xiao Feng Wu lifted up a silver needle and poked down at the tip of the finger, all the way down until the majority of the needle was inserted. A nearby maid’s face was cringing from the sight, as if her own hand was in pain as well.

The moment the silver needle was plucked out, the head of the needle could be seen to have blackened.1

Xiao Feng Wu switched to a small knife and nicked a small wound on Min Si Xing’s finger. He pressed down and after a while, a little bit of blood finally flowed out; it was black and tacky, sticking onto the finger and unmoving. Xiao Feng Wu used a handkerchief to wipe it off and then continued to press down, until he finally saw some blood of a more normal reddish hue come out.

Min Shang Shan utilized all the servants his family had in the entire estate and before long, the powder and the paste were done. Xiao Feng Wu took out all of the 36 needles poked into Min Si Xing’s body and then signalled a servant to apply the medicine, 

“Cover his entire body with the paste, even the places where the blisters popped.”

He himself was extremely grossed out, and he leaned back against a bedpost, not daring to take another look.

Anyone would be afraid of these kinds of illnesses that look to be contagious, so when the servant slathered the medicinal paste on, the servant was very much on the wire, not daring to even breathe loudly. Soon, the black paste was spread all over the body and Min Si Xing was quickly covered in black, without a single area where it was not on him.

Xiao Feng Wu opened up the bag containing the powder and dumped it all into the basin with the burning coal, 

“Take this and keep it underneath the bed. Fan the flames, and also make sure the corners of the room also get a basin and fanned. The temperature in this room needs to be brought all the way up.”

They had never seen such a rare method of curing illness, and although the servants thought it was strange, they followed his orders. Each of them fanned and fanned until they were all sweating buckets. Xiao Feng Wu himself left the room, only peering inside through a little opening in one of the windows.

Slowly, white smoke was emitting from the room, so heavy and thick that those nearby had tears forced out of their eyes, as if they were standing in a room that was on fire. The old baldy covered his face with his sleeves and glowered at Xiao Feng Wu, 

“What kind of trick are you pulling! Are you playing with human lives?!”

Xiao Feng Wu rolled his eyes and mockingly looked at him, 

“Shut your mouth, you whose time has long come past. The actual blood related father hasn’t even said a word, so why are you trying to pretend to be some grandson of his. What, too impatient to bow down to your ancestor?”

The old bald man in Yan Cheng was still fairly well known and he had numerous disciples. When would he ever have been pointed and yelled at before? Anger immediately blew up within him, so much so that it almost made him faint.

Min Shang Shan, who had some patience in him, didn’t say a word at all, only keeping his eyes on the house.

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“Our clothes haven’t even been taken off yet, how could this be shameless? Old man, you wouldn’t still be a virgin boy would you? How old are you? Should get on that pretty soon, or there won’t be anyone to light up any incense for you.”2

For those who lived in the slums, who has not said or heard anything bad? In the years that Qin Ming Yue lived, what kind of terrible sayings or words had he not suffered through that he would be afraid of such an asshole of an old bald man.

Hearing the two of them quarrelling, Xiao Feng Wu turned his head to stifle his laughter before saying to Qin Ming Yue, 

“Say, do you think these people are bad or not? Always pointing to this kind of thing. We could all be warm and under the covers.”

Qin Ming Yue glared at him and darkly said, 

“You aren’t any better than any of them.”

Without a care, Xiao Feng Wu nuzzled closer and closer to him, 

“If I’m not bad, you won’t like it.”

The morning light was not far away and from afar, the morning tolls began to ring. The room was hotter than a steaming basket and waves of servants changed over and over, but Min Si Xing showed no signs of waking.

Min Shang Shan was walking back and forth in the courtyard, evidently overcome with frustration and agitation. He would occasionally look over at Xiao Feng Wu with a dark face. Seeing the sky tinged with a slight light in the edges of the sky, Qin Ming Yue’s heart started to pound and he shook Xiao Feng Wu awake.

“Wake up, wake up. The morning’s about to arrive.”

Xiao Feng Wu had not fallen into a deep sleep and upon his calls, he opened his eyes and lightly sighed before climbing up from the floor. Qin Ming Yue patted off the dirt and dust from his clothes, 

“Go inside and check up on them. The room’s about to boil from all that smoke. Don’t let anything ruin it now.”

Xiao Feng Wu only replied, 

“Wait here for me.”

The old bald man, Li Si Mou, who had taken up the role of leader, was in the midst of the crowd of physicians, and they were all watching Xiao Feng Wu’s every move, and at this, they only shook their heads and chuckled, 

“Young man, don’t say such outrageous words and incriminate yourself. The morning’s arrived and the roosters are about to call.”

Xiao Feng Wu ignored them and pushed the door to go in. Thick wafts of heat came over as they were greeted with the sight of four male servants fanning with their backs all sweating heavily, as if they had just come out of water.

Notes:

*1 If you’re someone who’s into cdramas or historical genres (especially the imperial palace and the fight for the throne ones), you may have seen a common trope(?) or scene where someone tests for poison with a silver needle (acupuncture) and if the tip of it comes out black, it’s poisoned. According to sources online, this is due to mostly things that have a lot of sulfide/polysulfide (which doesn’t actually test if it’s poisoned) but as there’s not quite a lot known scientifically back then, the reason why it may be considered for poison is because this can test for arsenic (since most things were not created with sulfide/polysulfide back then, with the little amount that it was there as a composition of arsenic, the silver needles react and thus cause the conclusion of “poison”).

There obviously were a lot more different things that can cause the reaction (such as egg yolks apparently) but most other ways to poison did not do the same thing, so it’s not a great test, but apparently was very popular in this usage.

*2 Lighting up incense was mentioned in this footnote in volume 2.

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