A person’s fate is determined by the heavens—how could it possibly be changed?
General Liu shook his head. Since it was clear they weren’t dealing with villains, there was no reason to stay. Besides, seeing such a tragic scene stirred up some memories—his mood turned utterly foul.
Cheng Jiao-niang looked at Li Dashao and slowly reached out her hand, only to stop just short of his severed arm.
“Your hand’s gone…” she said, seemingly lost in thought.
So what if it’s gone…
Suddenly, a voice rang in her ears—a clear male voice, seemingly laced with a trace of laughter.
“So what if it’s gone,” she unconsciously echoed.
So what if it’s gone?
General Liu came to an abrupt halt.
To the people of this peaceful and prosperous capital—to those who have only ever seen executions at official courts—losing a hand may seem like no big deal, as long as you’re still alive.
Just one hand, right? You’re still breathing.
What’s the big deal?
But if they had ever stepped foot into the wounded soldiers’ camp, they would know what true despair meant—what it meant to wish for death rather than live on.
Just a hand gone. Just a leg gone. Just one eye blind…
The life remains, but fate changes in an instant. One moment it’s daylight, the next you plunge into a night that knows no dawn.
He wasn’t educated, barely knew a handful of characters, but there was one word he had painstakingly learned, stroke by stroke, and etched deep into his heart:
Ruin.
A person who becomes a ruined person is no longer truly a person.
General Liu clenched his fists, resisting the urge to look back.
A man doesn’t argue with women, he told himself. Especially not women who can cry at the sight of a mere bug.
“It’s broken—what, you think it can be reattached?” he growled.
Reattached?
Cheng Jiao-niang heard a voice in her mind—but it wasn’t the shout from the man in the courtyard. It was a woman’s voice: sweet, playful, girlish. Strangely familiar, yet distant.
“Of course! You just reattach it—look, I just fixed the little rabbit’s leg…”
“Ah! Be careful!”
“What are you so scared of? Look—it’s fine now. Touch it… and the ears, too, the ears can be bent and fixed again… I’ll show you… Want to learn? It’s fun, but not easy…”
“Hmph, is there anything I can’t learn?”
“Great! Then once you’ve mastered it, I won’t even be afraid if I get drawn and quartered someday…”
Cheng Jiao-niang reached out and clutched her chest.
Tears slipped down her cheeks.
Why am I crying?
Why am I crying?
“Sister.”
Xu Maoxiu knelt down beside her.
“Don’t be sad, don’t be sad…” he said urgently.
“I’m not sad. I’m not sad… It’s just… my heart is hurting,” Cheng Jiao-niang said, tears streaming down her face, yet a faint smile tugging at her lips.
“My heart hurts… I have a heart now…”
The girl’s gone mad from the shock, General Liu thought, shaking his head as he lifted his foot to walk away.
Cheng Jiao-niang held her hand to her chest.
In that brief moment, the sudden heartache had already faded, and the voice was gone, her mind once again blank.
But the pain that cut through flesh and bone still lingered, faint but real.
She took a deep breath.
It’s still there. As long as it’s still there, I’ll remember it eventually.
“Take him inside now, then go buy medicine and needle and thread. I’m going to reattach his hand,” she said.
Again with this nonsense! Who’d listen to such wild talk?
General Liu, already at the doorway, didn’t turn back—
—but then a man’s voice came from behind:
“Alright, we’ll do as sister says. Everyone, carry him in! Go get the medicine!”
Are they serious?
General Liu turned around to look.
“Reattach the hand?”
Meanwhile, in another room, the maid and Ban Qin, who were attending to Ah-Song, also stared wide-eyed.
“Yes, yes, that’s what Miss said—the young masters have already gone out to buy medicine. They’re also looking for pine needles and all sorts of strange things,” said Jin Ge’er as she turned to leave, “There are so many people in the house right now. I need to get back to work.”
The maid and Ban Qin exchanged a look, momentarily at a loss for words.
If Miss can bring people back from the brink of death… then reattaching a severed hand doesn’t seem so unbelievable.
But still—it was a severed hand…
“It’s here, it’s here…”
A murmur came from the sickbed. It was Ah-Song, reaching out aimlessly, scratching at the air, her expression growing restless and uneasy as she seemed unable to grasp anything.
The maid quickly stepped forward and placed a bolster pillow in her hand.
Ah-Song mumbled something again—“it’s here, it’s here…”—then fell back into a dazed silence.
The maid and Ban Qin looked at each other, tears welling in their eyes.
“Look at Sister Ah-Song’s feet,” Ban Qin whispered.
The maid glanced down and instinctively covered her mouth.
They hadn’t noticed it earlier, but now, as she lay down, the hem of her skirt had pulled back to reveal her feet. Her shoes were long gone. One foot was still in a filthy, mud-stained sock; the other bare, caked in blood.
“She walked the whole way here,” Ban Qin murmured as tears streamed down again.
It took over half an hour just to ride from Tai Ping Residence to the capital—how much worse to walk it, in the dark of night…
“It’s here… it’s here…”
Everyone could still hear Ah-Song’s soft murmur in their ears, as if they could see this woman clutching her husband’s severed hand tightly, wandering through the night, oblivious to all else.
Li Dashao had become a cripple. Ah-Song had gone mad.
This home—was ruined.
“May the Bodhisattva protect them,” Ban Qin couldn’t help but murmur, pressing her hands together.
The Bodhisattva is merciful and compassionate…
“No, no—that’s not right,” the maid whispered.
Not right? Ban Qin looked at her.
“We should pray to the Daoist Patriarch,” the maid said softly, hands pressed together.
According to rumors, when Miss was abandoned at a Daoist temple, she encountered True Master Li, a Daoist patriarch. Not only was her mental affliction healed, but she also gained the ability to bring people back from the brink of death. So, if that’s true, Miss would be aligned with the Daoist path.
Naturally, one should pray to the Daoist Patriarch, not the Bodhisattva.
Ban Qin was stunned—and almost wanted to laugh.
But this was no time for laughter. Her expression grew mournful, and she let out a quiet sigh.
“You stay with her. I’ll go outside and help,” she said softly.
The maid nodded, then glanced toward the doorway.
“Why are there still so many people out there?” she murmured.
Ban Qin stepped outside.
The night was still heavy and dark, but the courtyard blazed with light.
“Come with me and rest over here,” Jin Ge’er said, leading Li Dashao’s fellow villagers toward the back courtyard.
They moved away, yet the courtyard didn’t feel any emptier.
Over a dozen soldiers in armor stood rigidly in place. Under the lantern light, their shadows layered and overlapped, filling the entire courtyard.
General Liu stood in the middle, eyes fixed fiercely on the now-shut door.
Reattach the hand? Reattach the hand?
Nonsense. Complete nonsense.
Impossible!
Impossible!
How could something that’s already been severed possibly be restored?
“I’ve heard the divine doctor Bian Que could bring the dead back to life, even regenerate flesh and bone. Could it be that this young lady possesses such miraculous skills too?”
“Hey, wasn’t there a story not long ago about a divine doctor who encountered an immortal and gained the power to revive the dead?”
Soldiers in the back murmured among themselves, their voices low.
General Liu gave a slight shudder.
“What’s your family name?” he suddenly asked.
Ban Qin, who was passing nearby, stopped in her tracks.
“Cheng,” she replied.
“Then it’s not her. That divine doctor was from the Zhou family—from the house of Guide General Zhou,” the soldiers whispered among themselves.
General Liu watched as the maid walked off a few steps.
Then, hearing their comment, she turned to glance back at them—
and seemed to smile slightly.
Smile? What is she smiling at?
At the absurdity of such so-called miracle doctors?
Hurried footsteps sounded from outside the door as Xu Maoxiu rushed in with four or five villagers, each carrying large bundles.
“We’ve got the medicine! We’ve got the medicine!” they shouted.
General Liu couldn’t help but step forward, wanting to see what kind of medicine they had brought. But the group quickly dashed into the room, and the door was pulled shut behind them.
Through the narrow opening, he caught a glimpse of shadowy figures inside—some sitting, some standing—all appearing busy with something. Before long, the door opened again.
Two villagers came out carrying copper basins filled with bloody water.
“Boil more water—Miss said the spoon needs to be cleaned,” they said.
Ban Qin quickly led them toward the kitchen.
General Liu glanced back toward the room and saw two villagers working busily inside, while the young lady leaned against the armrest of a low table, eyes closed, as if resting or meditating.
“…How are we supposed to do this?”
One of the villagers, hands covered in blood and looking panicked, asked in a low voice as he couldn’t help but glance toward Cheng Jiao-niang.
The bundles filled with all kinds of medicine had been tossed aside.
The young lady hadn’t even looked at them once. She remained in the exact same posture as when they had entered, unchanged since the beginning—only saying one sentence:
“You’re back. Clean him up quickly.”
She had said it dully, almost expressionless.
So… all this time, she had just been sitting there, doing nothing?
The villager lowered his head to look at Li Dashao, lying unconscious on the wooden door, covered in blood, vomit, and filth.
Even someone like him, used to rough and dirty work, felt unsure where to begin—let alone a delicate, clean, and pretty young lady like her…
“Doesn’t matter how you do it. Just clean him thoroughly, change his clothes, and leave his right arm exposed.”
The girl’s voice came again.
The villager quickly responded with a “yes” and didn’t dare say more.
This is supposed to be a doctor?
General Liu stared in stunned disbelief.
As dawn began to break, the maid standing by the window heard a sound behind her and turned to see Ah-Song slowly open her eyes, a dazed look on her face.
“It was just a dream…” she murmured, a flicker of joy breaking across her face.
In that moment, the maid wished desperately that she couldn’t be seen.
The happiest thing in the world is realizing that something unbearable was only a dream. But the saddest thing, of course, is waking from a dream only to find it all truly happened.
Sure enough, as Ah-Song noticed someone else in the room and turned her gaze, the remaining joy on her face instantly shattered.
“Ah, ah…” she let out several hoarse, muffled cries. Her eyes began to roll back, and her whole body started to tremble.
The maid rushed forward in a panic.
“Sister Ah-Song, don’t be afraid! Miss is treating Brother Li right now!” she shouted, raising her voice.
Ah-Song reached out blindly, clawing at the air.
“The hand? Where’s the hand?” she cried over and over, struggling violently, as if she hadn’t heard the maid at all. “I had it, I was holding it—where’s the hand? Where’s the hand?”
Her body trembled uncontrollably. Unable to stand, she crawled across the floor, sweat pouring from her brow, her face deathly pale.
“Ah-Song! Miss reattached the hand—she’s put it back on Brother Li!” The maid pinned her down tightly, shaking her as she shouted. “Wake up! Please, wake up!”
Reattached the hand?
Ah-Song froze and stared at the maid in confusion.
“A hand can be reattached?” she finally managed a full sentence.
“Yes.” The maid nodded firmly without hesitation.
Ah-Song stared at her, trembling, her face a mess of disbelief and desperate hope. It was the answer she longed for—yet couldn’t bring herself to believe.
“Yes, it definitely can,” the maid said again with a strong nod.
Yes. It must be true. Miss never lies.
She grabbed Ah-Song’s hand and pointed toward the door.
“Look—look! Miss is already treating him!”
Ah-Song, trembling, tried to get up, but the pain in her legs sent her back to her knees.
So she simply began to crawl toward the door.
I need to see… I need to see…
