Chapter 72 Fang Chengxian
Fang Chengxian, who was pretending not to care while drinking tea, was actually very concerned and eager to hear what Li Sanniang was saying.
Upon hearing Li San Niang say that he had been poisoned, he became so agitated that he dropped the teacup, spilling the warm tea all over himself.
This teacup is quite sturdy; it rolled on the ground and remained intact.
Xu Jingzhen reacted quickly, taking a cloth from the washstand to wipe herself. Luckily, it was only a small half cup of warm tea, which only slightly dampened her clothes and didn't cause much trouble.
When Xu Jingzhen complained about his lack of carelessness, Fang Chengxian smiled at her first, then stood up solemnly, straightened his robes, bowed deeply, and gave a very serious salute to Li Sanniang, saying in a solemn tone, "Please, Li Sanniang, save my life. I will grant any request you make."
Li San Niang sat there dumbfounded, staring at Fang Chengxian, whose clothes were stained with tea but whose handsome and noble air was still undeniable, as he respectfully pleaded with her. She was completely stunned.
Seeing that Fang Chengxian was still bowing with his hands folded, Li Sanniang quickly stood up and stepped back, causing the chair to overturn to the side. "Young Master Fang, there is no need for such a grand gesture. I have only seen a hint of the situation and would never dare to say anything that could save my life."
At this moment, Xu Jingzhen pulled Fang Chengxian to sit down and also picked up the chair that had been knocked over. She then comforted Li Sanniang, saying, "Sanniang, please sit down. Chengxian never thought it was poisoning. Please tell me in detail."
When Xu Jingzhen mentioned the word "poisoning," he only pronounced it without making a sound. Li Sanniang wasn't stupid; she was afraid that someone might overhear her.
Indeed, you can hear the piano music from next door from this room. How can you guarantee that the teacup that was broken, the chair that was knocked over, and the voices that were spoken were not heard by others?
Not to mention, there were two servants standing at the door, one of whom was Fang Chengxian's personal servant. Who knows if he wasn't someone's spy?
Fang Chengxian, who had regained some composure after Xu Jingzhen's words, gave a wry smile and slowly said, "I'm sorry to have made you laugh, Madam Li. I was just too anxious and frightened you."
For so many years, I've only thought of myself as someone who has been ill since childhood, someone who wasn't born whole, and I don't know why I was born into this world.
Fang Chengxian's dejected voice was truly heartbreaking.
"Although I have long accepted my fate, how can I not want to live when I am only twenty years old?"
Haha, I was so excited when I first heard what Li San Niangzi said.
I just want to live a long and healthy life.
As he spoke, Fang Chengxian picked up the teapot and poured Li Sanniang a cup of tea, gesturing for her to drink it. This served as an explanation for his earlier actions.
Li San Niang felt that since she had decided to tell the truth, she might as well do so.
Then, Li San Niang stopped being so reserved and began to ask Fang Chengxian about his symptoms since he was a child, what medicine he had taken, and how long he had been taking it. She even made Fang Chengxian write down the prescription he had been taking.
Li San Niang wondered if she had really lied and said that she had received medical knowledge from a Taoist nun, and if it was really true that she would encounter trouble and have to save people whenever she went out?
Treating the sick and saving lives is a doctor's duty, but we can't always encounter unexpected situations, can we?
Li San Niang was genuinely frightened by the incident at the Liangguo Duke's mansion where she encountered Wu Silang's sudden death due to curiosity.
After a detailed interrogation lasting half an hour, Li Sanniang pieced together the events of Fang Chengxian's life over the past eighteen years.
He has three older brothers and sisters who share the same father and mother. His biological mother had a difficult childbirth and died before he was a month old.
Fang Chengxian had never met his elder brother, who died young; he had only heard about him from his elder sister.
Fang's sister was in good health. She was three years older than Fang Chengxian and had already married into her maternal family.
Because Fang Chengxian was in poor health, his father took two concubines when Fang Chengxian was eleven or twelve years old, after being diagnosed by a skilled doctor as not living past twenty-five.
Thus, when he was thirteen or fourteen, one of his father's concubines gave birth to a young man, who was his half-brother.
After he came of age, his grandmother and father in the Fang family kept pressuring him to find a wife.
First, as the eldest son of the Fang family, Fang Chengxian needed to get married before he could be considered an adult.
Secondly, although Fang Chengxian's half-brother is healthy and no different from a normal person, he is only a four or five-year-old child at the moment.
If we wait for the young master to take over the household, how can we possibly have enough time?
Therefore, Fang's father and mother-in-law needed Fang Chengxian to get married and marry a woman so that he could prolong his life for a few more years. At least there were still six or seven years before Fang Chengxian turned twenty-five, giving his younger brother time to grow up.
However, Fang Chengxian himself loathed his frail health and really didn't want to harm other young women. He was afraid that he might die one day and leave the young women who had married into his family to be widows, even before six or seven years had passed.
"Young Master Fang, please don't get excited about what I'm about to say."
Fang Chengxian was taken aback, then nodded, "Third Miss, please speak."
"Who knows the prescriptions for the medicine you are taking?"
"This prescription was written by Dr. Liang, whom my father had consulted before. Is there something wrong with this prescription?"
My father and grandmother should know the prescription, since all the medicine I take comes from the public funds.
Looking at the prescription, Li Sanniang glanced at Fang Chengxian with pity, not knowing how to say anything.
Even strangers shouldn't distance themselves from relatives!
"Third Sister, please tell me quickly, I'm getting impatient with your cryptic talk."
Xu Jingzhen, who was extremely anxious, interjected.
"I've also heard my grandmaster talk about Dr. Liang; he's a very skilled physician. My father and I both admire him greatly."
If you've managed to pull through all these years, then the prescription he gave you must be effective.
I've heard he's incredibly skilled in acupuncture, and I've always wanted to see it for myself.
"Since there's nothing wrong with the prescription, why are you looking down on Chengxian like this?"
Fang Chengxian, being a patient himself and confined to his home environment, noticed Li Sanniang's hesitant expression and had a pretty good idea of what was going on. He glanced at the prescription he had recently written down from memory, then said to Li Sanniang in despair, "Is it a problem related to this prescription?"
Li San Niang nodded and pointed to several herbs on the prescription, saying, "The prescriptions that Doctor Liang gave you before were all for strengthening your body and nourishing your internal organs. The reason I told you to rest was to help you live longer."
This prescription is fine, and it's suitable for your condition.
However, someone in your family must have known the prescription and deliberately added something to your medicine somewhere that would cause poisoning.
Thus, one of the ingredients, originally intended to strengthen your constitution and nourish your vital energy, and the other harmless, when combined, will actually deplete your already scarce vital energy, effectively consuming your life force prematurely and hastening your death.
After saying this, Li Sanniang paused before continuing, "This must be because the toxins in your body have slowly accumulated to this level due to the conflict between the small, frequent doses of medicine you are taking and the medicine you are taking over a long period of time."
If we don't intervene, it shouldn't be more than two years before you... pass away, Mr. Fang.
"Haha," Fang Chengxian paused for a moment after hearing Li Sanniang's explanation, closed his eyes and then opened them again, laughing heartily. Then he covered his chest with his right hand and laughed again and again.
"Chengxian, you..."
At first, Xu Jingzhen didn't understand why something harmless could cause poisoning, but after hearing that it consumed life force and accelerated death, she understood why Fang Chengxian did it this way.
As he laughed, Fang Chengxian's laughter turned into a sob. "Cough cough, so the prescription Dr. Liang gave was not the problem. It was the people in my family who knew what medicine I was taking who deliberately gave me harmless things. Over time, these things contradicted Dr. Liang's prescription, which is why I was poisoned."
Haha, it was my family who ruined me.
Despite my illness, I still had to plan for the family, fearing that I might die one day and leave the Fang family without an heir.
Haha, hahaha.
Li San Niang had never encountered such a situation before and really didn't know what to say to comfort Fang Chengxian.
Li San Niang gestured to Xu Jingzhen with her eyes, "Your best friend is in this state, why don't you go up and say something to persuade him?"
Xu Jingzhen received Li Sanniang's gaze, but shook his head.
Xu Jingzhen believed that Fang Chengxian, whom he had known for nearly ten years, would not remain immersed in a state of self-destruction due to being betrayed or abandoned by his family.
Sure enough, Fang Cheng closed his eyes, and when he opened them again a moment later, he was still the same gentle and handsome young nobleman.
"Third Sister, since the prescription is fine, how exactly was this poisoning caused?"
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