Unaware of suffering

"This humble official dares not!"

Bai Shu realized he had spoken out of turn and violated a taboo. He hurriedly knelt down and kowtowed, saying, "Your Majesty, please calm your anger. It was my slip of the tongue. Your Majesty does indeed have..." He stopped mid-sentence, wanting to slap himself. The phrase "Your Majesty does indeed have a disease" sounded like an insult. Bai Shu truly felt the threat of "his head being tied to his belt." He kowtowed deeply and said, "It was my lack of skill that led me to speak recklessly. I know my crime."

Consort Zhou's expression softened slightly.

The head palace maid said impatiently, "Knowing that your skills are not up to par, you still dare to come and treat Her Highness? If you delay Her Highness's condition, how many heads do you have to chop off? Get out and bring your master here."

Bai Shu bowed and stepped back, saying, "Yes."

Upon leaving Consort Zhou's palace, Bai Shu found her legs trembling as she walked. Leaning against the palace wall and the palace lanterns at the corner, Bai Shu returned to the Imperial Medical Academy, still shaken.

Upon seeing Wan Gongfeng, Bai Shu said resentfully, "Master, you've ruined me."

Wan Gongfeng smiled and said, "From today onwards, you can be considered to have truly graduated."

“I think Consort Zhou is suffering from hysteria,” Bai Shu said. “Has no one told her the truth? They’re feeding her medicinal soup every day, as if she has some incurable disease. When will she ever get better?”

"You're being stubborn again, aren't you?" Wan Gongfeng shook his head and said, "Go ask Xiao Su about Consort Zhou's matter."

Wan Gongfeng said that Xiao Su was Su You, so Bai Zhu went to find Su You.

Upon hearing that it was Consort Zhou, Su You clapped her hands and said, "See, I told you she wasn't sick, and that's how you diagnosed her, wasn't it?"

Bai Shu neither agreed nor disagreed. After thinking for a moment, he said, "I think she has an emotional disorder. It doesn't seem like she's faking it. Didn't you hear how horribly Consort Liang scolded her? She was so angry that she fainted and couldn't utter a single word."

Su You pursed her lips and said, "You don't know, since she fell ill, His Majesty has been spending more time in her palace, and he even promoted her father and brothers to make her feel better."

Bai Shu disagreed, saying, "If she were truly favored by the Emperor, how could Consort Liang have mocked her like that?"

“It’s only in the last month or two that His Majesty has become a little cold towards her because she has been ill for so long,” Su You said. “So what if she has the Emperor’s favor? Why would Zou Changliang be afraid of her? Not to mention Consort Liang, even my aunt, Consort Xue, and Consort Chu have long disapproved of her behavior of using illness to curry favor.”

Bai Zhu has a headache, and she doesn't know whether it counts as an "illness" or not.

She looked at the many palace walls, which had been renovated in previous years and painted vermilion.

Bai Shu had seen the swollen, shiny knuckles of the laundry girls in the Laundry Bureau, the festering vulva of the ladies in the Music Bureau, the sleeplessness of Lady Cao, and the muteness of Consort Zhou.

Bai Shu let out a long sigh.

"Graduating from the training" is just the beginning.

She could treat the symptoms, but not the root cause.

Doctors can heal people, but... they can't heal the world.

In autumn, the peaches in the snow peach grove next to Qing Shi Academy and in Chu Family Fortress ripened, and many, many fruits ripened.

The Imperial Physician's Office held a meeting with the Assistant Physicians, Assistant Pharmacists, and Assistant Physicians Fang. Afterwards, Bai Shu and other imperial physicians received the news that the petitions they had written while burning the midnight oil had been rejected by the Imperial Household Department.

—Then supplement the complaint and proceed with the appeal.

Bai Shu was going crazy. She had many things to do every day, including compiling the "Medical Compendium," and she simply didn't have the time to waste on this petition.

"Is it going to work or not?" Bai Shu asked Pan Cheng, saying irritably, "I don't care anymore, just punish me if I want. It's going to be a deduction from my salary anyway, so I might as well get it over with once and for all, instead of wasting money and effort."

Su You also chimed in, "Are you not going to write anymore? If you're not going to write, I won't either."

Pan Cheng knocked one of her heads with each hand and said to her, "It's okay to say such things in anger. Go and get the lamp oil, paper, and ink."

Bai Shu and Su You rubbed their heads, grumbling and cursing as they went to the Wensi Academy to get lamp oil, paper, and pens.

Every expense in the palace was meticulously documented, down to the smallest detail. The clerk from the Imperial Household Department's Wensi Academy examined the matching cards between Bai Shu and Su You, quickly calculating the amount on the abacus and then having Bai Shu and Su You sign it.

Bai Shu glanced at it, startled by the price, and looked back twice more before asking, "Sir, isn't this a bit off?"

"What's wrong?" Ling Shi checked it once and found nothing wrong. He said impatiently, "Hurry up. If you want to do the accounting, do it elsewhere. Don't delay the people behind you."

"Can't my junior sister even ask one more question?" Su You couldn't bear to see Bai Shu being bullied, and she defended Bai Shu, saying, "What's wrong with that?"

“This isn’t right,” Bai Shu said, pointing to the ledger. “How can a ream of paper cost two taels of silver? At the paper shops on Xuande Street outside, a ream of paper only costs a few dozen copper coins. The lamp oil is wrong too; at this price, who can afford to light a lamp?”

The eldest daughter of the Duke of Su Youhuai's mansion had no concept of money, let alone how much a ream of paper or a liter of oil cost in the ordinary market. She went over and flipped through the pages one by one.

The clerk of the Imperial Household Department scoffed, "This is the palace, do you think it's your own home? Who are you trying to account to? Hurry up, here's pen, ink, and paper. Do you want it or not? If not, go buy it yourself from the shop on Xuande Street."

Su You flipped through a few pages, understood, signed her name, and said to Bai Shu, "There's no problem with the accounts. These are public accounts, and all departments in the palace are the same. Sign them."

Bai Shu looked at Su You in surprise, and Su You nodded to her: "Sign it, go back early, your senior sisters are waiting to use it."

Bai Zhu took up the pen, paused a few times, and finally signed his name.

The last petition was written according to each case, one petition per case. This time, the Imperial Household Department had to rewrite it according to categories, and it took more than half a month of busy work to finish it.

Bai Zhu helped his colleagues pack the scrolls of petitions into boxes, saying, "Is this the end of it? There won't be a third time, will there?"

Lang Dianxian, still shaken, said, "Please don't, I can't hold on any longer. I'm so sleepy I could die. Yesterday, I took the pulse of a talented woman, and I almost fell asleep while taking her pulse. It scared me to death. And Senior Sister Fang, she wrote Huangqin as Huanglian, which almost caused a problem."

Xiao Fu said, "I was so shocked the other day that I didn't know why my mind was not clear. I had seven or eight prescriptions with the wrong medicine. Fortunately, Master Wan checked and found out."

Oh dear, the female physicians unanimously agreed that Xiao Fu was the scariest.

"Go to sleep." Lin Shaoyin pushed her back into the room. "I'll cover for you today. Get your head back in shape first."

"This is also a reminder to everyone," Qiu Chu thought to herself, "We need to be careful when formulating prescriptions in the future."

Bai Zhu, Su You, and others all said "yes".

This turmoil of investigation has now come to an end.

Bai Zhu's life seems to have returned to normal.

She held consultations, made house calls, read books, and compiled books. Sometimes she would accompany Wan Gongfeng to the palaces of various concubines and noble ladies to take their pulses. Sometimes she would run into Taishiyi in the palace and exchange a few words with him. But both Bai Shu and Taishiyi had their own affairs. Taishiyi felt that Bai Shu had already colluded with those "black-hearted and rotten fellows" in the Imperial Medical Bureau. Bai Shu felt that Taishiyi was truly ignorant of the suffering of the common people and was just like those high and mighty nobles.

If you don't see eye to eye, even half a sentence is too much.

Bai Shu privately told Yang Huaishu about the "rumors" about Senior Sister Qiu. Yang Huaishu's eyes widened in surprise. "How is that possible? Master is a man of both virtue and skill. How could he do such a thing? Who said that? I'm going to confront him!"

The little girl puffed up her cheeks and stood up, ready to fight. Bai Shu quickly said, "No, no, it's all just baseless rumors, spread by misinformation."

Yang Huaishu said, "No matter what others say, I believe in my master!"

Bai Zhu said, "Yes! I believe it too!"

Winter arrived in the blink of an eye, and as the weather grew colder, more and more people in the palace were suffering from coughs.

Coughing is a minor ailment in winter, and the palace servants don't distinguish between different specialties; they just see whichever physician is on duty. Bai Zhu also treated several patients.

But gradually Bai Zhu realized something was wrong—the effect wasn't good.

Bai Zhu was completely baffled and went to ask Fang Lingshan. To his surprise, Fang Lingshan had the same question and said, "I've noticed it too. Several of my patients are the same way. They have a persistent cough that won't go away even after taking medicine. It's very strange."

Bai Zhu examined Fang Lingshan's pulse diagnosis and prescription and found no problems; Fang Lingshan also examined Bai Zhu's and found them to be correct as well.

The two were completely baffled. When they mentioned it to Qiu Chuxin and Pan Cheng, Pan Cheng said, "I thought it was because I changed the production team that the effect was not good. It turns out it was the same for you two?"

"Could it be some kind of plague breaking out in the palace?" Bai Shu guessed. "What kind of troublesome illness?"

Pan Cheng remained silent, while Qiu Chu thought to herself that Bai Shu was just talking nonsense. "Everything is fine outside. How could there be any plague that started in the palace? You are a physician, so you must be careful with your words. If these words spread and cause panic, you will be punished."

Bai Shu quickly fell silent, "Pah, pah, pah, I was just talking nonsense."

Pan Cheng took the medical records and prescriptions and said, "Go ask Master."

It just so happened that Bai Zhu was seeing patients the next day, and some patients from a few days ago had scheduled a follow-up appointment. Pan Cheng invited Wan Gongfeng, who examined the patient and the prescription, and frowned, saying, "Strange, your prescription is correct. Logically, she should see improvement after three days of use."

“But no,” Bai Shu said dejectedly, turning the medical record over, “and these patients have not only not improved, but one of them has gotten even worse.”

After thinking for a while, Wan Gongfeng put his hands behind his back and went out, saying, "Take the prescription with you and come with me to the Medicine Master's office."

Bai Zhu hurriedly followed.

The doctor on duty was Xiao Fu. When he saw them all arrive together, he asked with a smile, "What kind of wind is blowing today? Why did you all come here in such a rush? I didn't even have time to wash my teacup."

Wan Gongfeng handed the prescription to Xiao Fu and said, "Please prepare a dose of medicine now."

Xiao Fu glanced at it, replied "Okay," and then took the prescription and moved between the medicine cabinets.

Xiao Fu quickly prepared a dose of medicine and gave it to Wan Gongfeng, saying, "Just letting you know, we've run out of Sichuan fritillary bulbs, only Zhejiang fritillary bulbs are available. Our Chief Physician said to proceed as is, is that alright?"

Bai Zhu and Fang Lingshan looked at each other in bewilderment.

“The medicinal effects are different,” Bai Zhu said. “How can Fritillaria cirrhosa and Fritillaria thunbergii be the same?”

Xiao Fu shrugged. "What can we do? Our adults say that since it's all fritillaria, if one qian (a unit of weight) isn't enough, we should add two qian. That's what he insisted on saying, so I had no choice but to listen."

That's not how it works!