Doubts
That night, the sky was clear, but the stars were sparse. The dim spots of light were hidden beside the crescent moon and were soon blocked by the flowing clouds.
At midnight, everything was silent, and the room was brightly lit by candlelight. Shen Yunqiu sat in front of the wide-open window, tilting his head to look at the girl who was sleeping soundly behind the screen, then at the large bag of candies on the table, and a faint smile appeared at the corner of his lips.
This little girl is so honest. She was just joking yesterday, but today she actually bought him so much food to compensate him. She is really cute.
After a while, Chen Yunqiu opened the paper bag and took a bite of the peanut crisps. The candy crumbs fell apart, and the sweetness was cloying. It wasn't tasty at all. The little girl was also stupid. She didn't realize that he didn't want these cloying candies.
But it doesn't matter anymore.
Shen Yunqiu looked at the flat oil-paper bag on the table and thought of what happened during the day.
Even after the temple gates were closed, he still looked at the elderly woman with some wariness, not believing she could possess any magical powers. Therefore, he didn't move a step, and the old woman didn't come forward to feel his pulse. She just sat there and kept eating candy.
After waiting for a long time, Shen Yunqiu, who was already disdainful, became even more angry. "What's wrong with you, old woman? Even if you don't have any real skills, can't you at least pretend? You're obviously trying to cheat me out of money, don't you feel guilty?"
"You really have a bad temper, young man." The old woman turned around and sat cross-legged, patting the candy crumbs on her hands. "If I don't take your pulse, it's useless even if I did. A dying person is at the end of his life, and seeing more doctors is just a last-ditch effort."
"You..." Shen Yunqiu was still angry, "You didn't even look at it, how do you know?"
"A doctor can read a person's face, see his heart, and discern his fate. You've been poisoned for too long, for months and years, and the poison has already penetrated your lungs. You cough up blood, suffer from palpitations, and cramps from time to time. Furthermore, the meridians in your legs are severed, and your qi and blood are blocked, which only exacerbates the toxin accumulation. There's no cure."
After the words fell, Shen Yunqiu's face became even darker, but he had nothing to say.
Although he had guessed this would be the result, now that things had come to this, the last glimmer of hope in his heart had been shattered, and it was still hard to accept.
Shen Yunqiu calmed down and suddenly remembered that the old woman had just checked Su Xi's pulse.
"What about her?"
"who?"
"And her face? Can you cure it?"
"Of course, it's a piece of cake."
Shen Yunqiu's eyes suddenly lit up, but then he heard the old woman say,
"But even if I gave her a way to heal her face, she wouldn't use it. When she breaks this cycle of reincarnation, she'll come to me."
Seeing that Shen Yunqiu was confused, the old woman sighed, went to the small hall at the back and fiddled with it for a long time before taking out an oil-paper bag.
"I'll give you this. It's the Linggan Pill, with the power of a tiger or wolf. While it won't prolong your life, it will more than help you regain your vitality. Take it twice a day. It will relieve your pain and completely eliminate all symptoms, but it will deplete your already limited vital energy. Life depends on energy, so if your energy is exhausted, your life will also wither. So, the choice to take it or not is entirely up to you."
Shen Yunqiu took the bag of pills, barely able to suppress the trembling in his fingertips. Seeing the old woman leaning on a crutch to return to the small hall, he hesitated for a moment before asking, "How long do I have left to live?"
Hearing this, the old woman paused slightly, but did not turn back.
"At least three months, at most half a year."
"What if I take this medicine?"
"At most three months."
As soon as he finished speaking, the hunched figure disappeared without even picking up the candy on the ground.
Reflecting on his thoughts, Shen Yunqiu took up the oil-paper package, opened it, and stared at it for a long moment before finally picking up a pill and putting it in his mouth. The medicine was bitter, and he couldn't help but frown. He threw a peanut candy into the teacup and swallowed it with it, so that it wouldn't be so hard to swallow. But after the sweetness faded, a strong medicinal taste lingered in his throat, and no amount of tea could dissolve it, like a constant reminder of his limited time and his frail body. This feeling was too depressing. Shen Yunqiu grabbed the paper bag of peanut candy, tilted his head back, and poured the candy crumbs into his mouth. The candy crumbs were choking and cloyingly sweet, but it seemed that no matter how hard he tried, they couldn't dissolve the nagging bitterness. Instead, it amplified the taste, projecting it into every part of his body.
Chen Yunqiu choked on a mouthful of sugar crumbs and suddenly began coughing violently. He couldn't help but glance over the screen. Seeing the woman still sleeping peacefully, he covered his mouth tightly and moved to a corner to cough softly. By the end, his face flushed and tears streaming from the mouthful of sugar crumbs, he looked utterly miserable. But no matter how hard he tried, the choking feeling in his heart wouldn't dissipate even a little.
Shen Yunqiu couldn't understand why he was acting this way. Before he went to see the doctor, he'd known for a long time that he didn't have much time left to live, and he'd even hoped to die sooner rather than end up in this muddled, lingering existence. But now that he finally knew his death date, he was desperate to live, hoping for even longer.
"Three months..."
He murmured, unable to help but smile bitterly. When he looked up, the already sparse stars had all disappeared, leaving no trace.
Three months was too short. It was so short that he could no longer eat lotus ice cream, visit the market, or look at the moon. He could not even see the little girl shed her childishness and grow into a graceful young lady.
But compared to having a head full of white hair, fainting frequently, and even becoming a useless person who needs others to serve him even for food and water, he would rather live a few months less, at least not be too embarrassed in front of her, and be able to look as normal as possible.
With this thought, Shen Yunqiu casually pulled a small porcelain bottle with blue and white patterns from his desk pocket, poured all the pills wrapped in oil paper into the bottle, covered it with a wooden cork, and placed it on the counter. Then he pushed the wooden wheel around the screen, reached out to straighten the book covering the girl's face, returned to the bed, drew the curtains, and slowly lay down, supporting himself with his arms.
-
The next morning, Suxi slept until noon. When he arose, he saw the curtains had been drawn on the other side of the screen. There was no sign of Chen Yunqiu, not even his wheelchair. Feeling strange, Suxi hurriedly got up and searched everywhere. He couldn't find him in the toilet, the kitchen, or even Yinzhen, who usually worked early in the side room.
Could it be that Shen Wenzhao was causing trouble for Shen Yunqiu again?
Suxi was panicked for a moment and ran out of the West Garden in a hurry to look for him without even closing the door. Just as he ran to the wild bamboo forest, he saw Yinzhen pushing Shen Yunqiu slowly towards him in the sparse bamboo shadows. The boy in the wheelchair looked much rosier overnight, and even a few of his white hairs seemed to have decreased.
Suxi approached, and Yinzhen also saw her. She pushed the wheelchair slowly to a stop, but her face did not have her usual heartless smile. Instead, she looked a little angry, and her brows were unconsciously twisted into a "川" shape.
"What's wrong, Silver Needle? Where have you been so early in the morning?"
Suxi asked.
Upon hearing this, Yinzhen's brows knitted even tighter, and he instantly became angry.
"Don't mention it, Xiaoxi. You don't know how excessive those maids and servants were when the young master and I went to the treasury of the Shen Mansion to get the curtains this morning. They blocked the young master from entering, saying they needed to ask the old lady for permission. Their noses were all up to the sky. The young master and I waited for a full hour before we were let in. When we came out, I heard a few people gathered together to talk about the young master. What they said was really nasty. If the young master hadn't stopped us, I would have beaten them so badly that they wouldn't even recognize their own mothers!"
Yinzhen was filled with righteous indignation, but Suxi was still confused.
"Tent, what tent?"
"It's the tent for you. The young master said you couldn't sleep well with the lights on at night, so he called me..."
“Cough cough cough---”
Yinzhen's words were interrupted by a sudden cough. Suxi lowered his head and saw that Shen Yunqiu was covered with a thick piece of black cloth inlaid with gold, and a lifelike yellow and white kitten doll.
As if he didn't notice Su Xi's sudden stiff expression, Shen Yunqiu hid the doll behind him, looking a little unnatural.
"Well...Xiaoxi, don't think too much about it. I was just worried that your saliva would stain the books in my study, so I brought back a bed curtain. As for this doll, I just brought it with me."
"Who said that? Young Master, you clearly did it on purpose..."
"Shut up!"
Shen Yunqiu glared at Yinzhen angrily, then turned around and saw that Suxi had walked forward on his own without him noticing. His steps seemed unsteady and he seemed a little lonely.
"Hey, Xiaoxi, wait for me!"
Yinzhen shouted loudly and hurriedly pushed the wheelchair to follow.
-
After returning to the West Garden, Chen Yunqiu instructed Yinzhen to climb onto the small couch in the study and hang the bed curtain on the golden hook on the ceiling. Seeing Suxi return to the yard, he picked up the broom and swept the fallen leaves along the wall without saying a word. He was puzzled, but still walked to the couch carefully while Suxi was not in the room, put the raccoon doll next to the pillow, for fear that it would fall, and then bent over to push it to the corner of the bed before he felt relieved. When no one noticed, he pretended to be calm and filled the teacup with a big gulp.
Elsewhere, Su Xi absentmindedly swept the fallen leaves from the courtyard. Setting down his broom, he saw Yin Zhen hurried out of the house to the small kitchen to prepare a meal. He dusted his hands and returned to the house. As he reached the door, he saw Shen Yunqiu uncork a small porcelain bottle, pour out a pill, and swallow it. He froze in his tracks. It wasn't until Shen Yunqiu, after swallowing the pill with his tea and candy, turned around and looked at him that Su Xi snapped back to his senses. He hurried forward, snatched the bottle from Shen Yunqiu's hand, and examined it carefully.
That's right.
This porcelain bottle was the medicine bottle that Shen Yunqiu used to take medicine every day in her previous life. She saw it every day and was already very familiar with it. She could even draw the blue and white patterns on the porcelain bottle and knew where the bottle had bumps and wear.
"What's wrong, Xiaoxi? Why are you staring at this bottle?" Shen Yunqiu couldn't help but feel puzzled when he saw Suxi's strange expression.
"Chen Yunqiu, where did you get this medicine?"
Now Shen Yunqiu was even more puzzled.
"Isn't it the same prescription the old man gave me yesterday? But the oil paper is hard to preserve, so I poured it into the bottle."
It’s like this...
Su Xi put the medicine back on the wooden cabinet in a daze, then turned around and looked at the layout of his bed, which was almost the same as in his previous life.
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