Chapter 1112 Vitality
"Your Majesty is wise." Prince Huangfu Shang bowed his head in response, his eyes glancing at the imperial edict deposing the crown prince that was still stained with blood on the desk.
"Three days later, we will hold a ceremony to worship our ancestors in the Imperial Ancestral Temple. It's time to change the Golden Book of the Crown Prince."
The old emperor coughed violently, and his bright yellow handkerchief became soaked with dark red. "The imperial physician said that my life span will not exceed ten months. From now on... cough... treat your brothers well."
Huangfu Shang knelt on one knee and solemnly swore: "I, your son, will ensure that my brothers are rich and healthy."
The drooping eyelids concealed the cold light - as long as those trash behaved themselves.
After the man in black dragon robe left the palace gate, Emperor Chengping stroked the portraits of emperors of all dynasties with trembling hands.
As the candlelight flickered, it was hard to tell whether the stains on the wall were blood or tears.
In Qiwu Palace, Jiang Yuyin looked at the sleeping baby in her arms and suddenly felt a chill on her back.
Outside the palace wall, she could faintly hear the noise of the Ministry of Rites preparing for the ceremony, and she subconsciously tightened her arms around the swaddling baby. The baby's eyebrows and eyes looked very much like the aunt who was guarding the border thousands of miles away.
"If he really wants to march south..."
Thinking of this, the woman dug her fingertips deeply into her palm.
The moonlight filtering through the window frames cast a cage-like shadow on the blue bricks, and in the distance the sound of drums startled a few crows.
The Zhenbei Palace was filled with the aroma of medicine at this moment, and Jiang Xue's pale face was immersed in the pile of brocade.
Xiao Zhan's hands were shaking slightly as he held the "Records of Mountains and Rivers". Between the pages was the prescription left by Yun Zhen. It would take seven days and three hours before the next acupuncture treatment.
"How about changing to a strange and legendary book?"
He forced a smile and handed the warm ginseng soup to the beauty's lips, but saw her shaking her head weakly.
As the night watch sounded, the young general suddenly threw the book to the ground, and with red eyes he growled, "If I could bear this pain for you..."
Before she finished speaking, her cold fingertips had already touched the back of his hand, where veins were bulging. The moonlight shone through the red screen window, making the sick man look like fragile glass.
Xiao Zhan hurriedly picked up the book. Amid the rustling sound of turning the yellowed pages, the sound of water dripping from the clepsydra was particularly clear.
He closed the book in his hand and gently kissed her forehead: "This book is finished. I asked Fu Dong to replace it with a new folk legend. The nobles in the capital are passing this one around."
“Yun Che!”
The woman's white fingers grasped the brocade quilt: "Stop reading the storybook, play the zither for me, okay? Just play the piece "Phoenix Returns to the Wutong Tree" that I often played in the Cining Palace when I was young."
She was now in a trance and could hardly hear a complete story, but she did not want her lover to notice her vulnerability.
The man in green shirt immediately ordered someone to bring the Jiaowei Qin. When the tune of "Feng Gui Wu" flowed in the room, Jiang Xue's pale cheeks turned pale, as if the frozen snow plum met the warm sun of early spring.
Before the sound had died down, a maid came from outside the door to report: "Princess, Prince Consort, Doctor Jiang has invited Doctor Wu to come."
Xiao Zhan hurriedly came to the corridor to greet him. An old friend stood in the moonlight - ten years had left no trace on Wu Xia's face, but her eyes that saw through the world were still as bright as stars.
He rescued the heir of Medicine King Valley on a snowy night, and now he is still as handsome as when he first met him.
"I hope you are well, Prime Minister."
Wu Xia treated him as an equal: "Back then I asked you to study medicine with me, but you insisted on entering the imperial court. If you could learn my method of maintaining youth..."
"The miracle doctor is still as good as ever."
Xiao Zhan interrupted the greetings and said, "I should describe my wife's illness in detail, please..."
The doctor had moved to the bedside. Seeing Jiang Xue's pale face, his pupils shrank slightly.
When three jade fingers touched the wrist pulse, everyone present held their breath. Wu Xia sometimes concentrated and probed carefully, sometimes closed his eyes and pondered, and sweat gradually seeped out of his forehead.
"But……"
Xiao Zhan was about to speak when Jiang Xiaoan held his arm.
In the silence of the room, the sound of the night watchman was particularly clear, and the candlelight flickered on everyone's tense nerves.
As soon as Wu Xia's fingertips left Jiang Xue's wrist, Xiao Zhan hurried forward: "Sir, what exactly is Xiao Xue..."
The white-haired old man turned to his disciple and said, "Ju'an, you have been taking care of His Highness these days, and you know the pulse best."
Jiang Xiaoan's Adam's apple rolled several times before he spoke: "Although your Highness's pulse occasionally fluctuates, your foundation is as weak as a candle in the wind. Even if Yun Zhen uses his true energy to prolong his life..."
His voice got lower and lower: "It's just a glimmer of hope compared to a dying person."
"presumptuous!"
Xiao Zhan suddenly grabbed Jiang Xiaoan's collar and said, "Didn't you say before that you just needed to rest?"
The tremors in his fingertips betrayed his panic.
Jiang Xue's fingers under the quilt suddenly tightened. She clearly remembered that half a month ago she had promised this man under the parasol tree that she would not hide anything.
Jiang Xiaoan turned away and whispered, "Your Highness forbade me to say it..."
There was a slight noise between the bed curtains, and Jiang Xue buried her face deeper into the soft pillow.
Maybe she could get away with pretending to be unconscious at this moment - she thought to herself, but she didn't know that her trembling eyelashes had already betrayed her disguise.
“That’s enough!”
Wu Xia slammed his silver staff heavily on the ground: "I have encountered a similar situation in the desert of the Western Regions."
He looked out the window at the falling snow, and his memory went back to twenty years ago: "The girl fell down in the sand dunes with her whole body burning. But when I took out the Nine Revolutions Resurrection Pill, she smiled and said, 'This medicine can't cure the witchcraft heart-gnawing'."
The medicine bowl in Fu Dong's hand made a crisp clash sound.
Xiao Zhan's pupils suddenly shrank, and the bloody scene of Yun Zhen's caesarean section on the day he took the baby suddenly flooded into his mind.
"What happened next?" Jiang Xiaoan asked hurriedly, forgetting the distinction between high and low.
"We waited in the poplar forest for three days and three nights."
Wu Xia stroked the faded tassel ornament on her waist: "Her tribe used cinnabar to paint a totem on her heart. Seven days later, she was able to ride a horse and chase an eagle."
The old man suddenly turned around and looked directly at Xiao Zhan: "If I remember correctly, Yun Zhen's mother's family is from the Guifang tribe in the Western Regions."
The bamboo curtain rustled slightly in the wind. Wu Xia stroked the silver needle box on the table and pondered in silence.
Jiang Xiaoan suddenly leaned forward and slammed the table: "Old man, your story starts from camels in the Western Regions and ends with vultures on the snowy mountains. In which valley is the key point buried?"
"presumptuous!"
Wu Xia picked up the medical book and knocked on his forehead: "The pulse of that woman back then was like a glacier flowing backwards, and now the princess..."
"The pulses are exactly the same?"
Jiang Xiaoan interrupted the conversation, poking his fingertips at the edge of the table: "You've gone through so much trouble, aren't you just trying to say that they were bewitched by the same witchcraft? Who here can't hear the hidden meaning?"
The room suddenly became silent, and white mist from the medicine furnace lingered between the master and his disciple.
Xiao Zhan suddenly tapped the green porcelain medicine bowl with his fingers: "Yun Zhen holds the antidote, we shouldn't alert the enemy at this moment."
"I will immediately mobilize the Shadow Guards to set off."
Fu Dong's sword clanged out half an inch, and the silver bell on the sword tassel jingled: "Please give me some clues, doctor."
Wu Xia suddenly grabbed the embroidery on her sleeve and took out a hollow black bird pendant from her inner pocket under everyone's gaze: "Thirty years ago, she left this thing and said..."
"Tamucuo!"
Jiang Xiaoan snatched the jade pendant and examined it in the sunlight. The light spots from the hollow part danced on his face: "You should have taken out this token earlier. You made us go through so much trouble!"
When Xiao Zhan took the jade pendant, he tapped the table with his knuckles: "The caravan will leave in three days and announce to the public that they are buying snow lotus."
He lowered his eyes and stared at the sleeping Jiang Xue, a dark light flashed in his eyes: "As for Yun Zhen, please trouble the doctor to continue the acupuncture to delay the treatment."
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