Pang Yi's heart sank. He knelt on the ground, staring blankly at the needle hole dripping with pus and blood. After a while, he suddenly grabbed Doctor Lu's hand and begged bitterly: "Doctor Lu! Please think of another way! Please! As long as you can cure my master's leg, ten thousand taels of silver will be sent to your house immediately! Please!"
"I've already said it's not about the money!" Doctor Lu looked at Pang Yi impatiently, but felt sorry for him. He then slowed down his tone. "I've seen a lot of cases like his. Ningguta has never lacked wealthy foreign masters, and even more so, Beijing nobles with crippled limbs. In the past, there were people with milder symptoms than him who were also tortured. I've seen them too. I've treated them myself. They were given the best medicines, but they only lasted for ten years, and then they were completely paralyzed in bed. Not to mention someone like him. There's nothing we can do about it. But speaking of it, since you can come up with 10,000 taels of silver, why don't you make some concessions with your superiors and move to another place? Why bother staying in Ningguta and watching your legs become crippled?"
This time, Pang Yi stopped talking. He stared blankly at the swollen knee in front of him, then raised his head and looked at Zhong Mingwei who was also silent. His lips trembled a few times, and then he whispered, "Master..."
"Is it really incurable?" Zhong Mingwei, who had been silent for a long time, slowly spoke and looked at Doctor Lu, trying his best to suppress the fear in his heart. "I don't ask for a cure, as long as I can stand up. I don't mind if I limp a little, as long as I can walk."
"Sir, why don't you understand?" Doctor Lu frowned and explained to him, "With a leg like yours, don't sit if you can lie down, and don't stand if you can sit, let alone walk. If you move, pus will form in your knee, and then it will hurt your body. Now you see that your knee is just a little swollen, but in fact, I don't know how badly it is injured. How can the skin and flesh withstand being soaked in pus for years? If you want to..."
"Pang Yi," Zhong Mingwei suddenly interrupted Doctor Zhilu's words and said to Pang Yi in a deep voice, "Send the gentleman down the mountain."
"Master!" Pang Yi was anxious. He hurriedly grabbed Zhong Mingwei's hand and whispered, "Doctor Lu is the best doctor in this city. If..."
"I said send him away!" Zhong Mingwei suddenly shook off Pang Yi's hand. He pointed at Doctor Lu with gritted teeth and cursed, "What kind of doctor is he! He can't even cure a disease! What kind of doctor is he? He is just a fraud!"
"Goodbye!" Doctor Lu was so angry that his white beard was shaking. He didn't care about Pang Yi's attempts to keep him and just picked up the medicine box and left.
"Doctor Lu! Doctor Lu!" Pang Yi hurriedly got up from the ground and chased after him anxiously.
The old doctor had a bad temper and refused to come no matter what Pang Yi said. Pang Yi had no choice but to send him down the mountain.
…
In the bedroom.
Zhong Mingwei, who had been sitting stiffly on the kang, suddenly fell backwards onto the kang. The light coming through the window paper was so dazzling that he pulled the quilt over his head.
After a while, a man's hoarse cry came from under the quilt. His two tightly clenched fists pounded the kang hard again and again. Finally, the crying stopped and he gradually calmed down. He reached out and pulled out the cotton trousers that were warmed in the quilt. He turned his face to the side and held the black cotton trousers in his arms, burying his face in them. After a while, the cotton trousers that had been warmed dry by the quilt became wet again.
Zhong Mingwei had never been so desperate before, no matter whether he had been kneeling in front of the spirit tablet of Queen Zhenxian year after year or was sent to the clan house by his own father, he had never been so desperate.
Once upon a time, on this kang and under this quilt, he and the little girl in his family lived such a sweet and happy life.
"Girl, don't... don't take it off..."
"I'm hot...it's up to you to take off your clothes, but not others."
"Girl, wait a little longer... I'll touch you again when I'm better..."
…
The sweet words of the past were still lingering in his ears. Zhong Mingwei felt that every word was heartbreaking. He bit the corner of his cotton pants tightly, trying to hold back his useless tears, but his tears were flowing more and more like a flood that had broken through the dam.
He is a loser, really a loser.
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