At the third quarter of the noon hour, Emperor Jinglong had just left court. Instead of returning to Yangxin Hall, he went to the South Study of the outer court. The eunuchs of the Imperial Kitchen had long been waiting, and upon receiving the word, hurried to set out dishes, filling the table.
Lan Xi, attending at his side, was so hungry his legs were weak, yet the emperor showed no hurry to eat. Swallowing his hunger, Lan Xi urged: “Your Majesty, from the fifth watch till now it has been nearly four hours. Please take your meal while it’s hot—your dragon body must be cared for.”
Outside, a personal guard knocked for audience. The emperor admitted him and asked: “Where is he?”
The guard replied: “After court, with the crowd dispersing, this minister chased Lord Su across Jinshui Bridge. He darted toward a carriage. Just as I was about to deliver Your Majesty’s summons, I was blocked by Yu Wang’s men—causing delay. By the time I shook them off, Lord Su’s carriage had already vanished.”
The emperor asked again: “And Yu Wang?”
The guard replied: “From a distance, it seemed His Highness Yu Wang also boarded Lord Su’s carriage.”
The emperor thought briefly, then waved him away.
Lan Xi, watching his expression, tried to please: “Does Your Majesty wish to summon Su Shaoqing? This servant will send word to the Su residence at once.”
The emperor shook his head: “To send for him from his residence into the palace would draw too much attention.”
Lan Xi thought, What does it matter if it causes a stir? Can His Majesty not openly summon a court official? Must we avoid someone’s eyes?
But before he could speak, Emperor Jinglong rose to his feet: “I’ll go out for a while. This meal—bestow it on you all to share.”
“Out of the palace?” Lan Xi hurried after him.
The emperor shot him a sidelong glance: “No need for you to follow. Have a carriage prepared, with two careful guards as drivers.”
Lan Xi had no choice but to accept the decree and went down to make arrangements.
Not long after, an unusually spacious carriage rumbled out of the Donghua Gate, heading eastward out of the city.
At the hour of wei the streets were relatively open, and from here to Huanghua Ward was less than half an hour’s journey. The emperor, dressed in plain clothes, drank some tea in the carriage, ate a few pieces of pastry, then lay down for a short nap on the low couch behind the screen. The twisting pain inside his skull eased considerably.
Of late, he seemed to have grown used to the headaches that came on from time to time. As long as it was not that piercing, bone-boring pain, he could keep his face unchanged, so much so that even the close-serving attendants could not tell.
By the time he had tidied up his appearance, the carriage had stopped. The guards brought over a step-stool and placed it beneath the door.
The carriage door opened. The emperor had just stepped down two steps when he suddenly braced himself against the doorframe. Thinking the step-stool wasn’t stable, the guards quickly reached out to support him. But the emperor drew a deep breath, pulled his hand back, took a handkerchief from his breast, covered his nose and mouth, and said in a low voice: “You will wait here.”
With that, he turned and went back into the carriage.
The two imperial guards exchanged looks. One sniffed hard at the air with suspicion and said: “I don’t smell anything strange… ah, could it be that stinky tofu stall across the street is too foul? I’ll go have them move.”
That guard went to drive off the vendor. The other looked toward the gate of a courtyard not far away. Over the lintel were written two characters: “Su Residence.” He knew this was the home of Lord Su, Right Shaoqing of the Dali Temple. He also knew that the founding emperor had enjoyed going out in disguise to visit officials at their homes, but the present sovereign very rarely did so. As for why His Majesty was making an exception this time, however curious he was, he would never ask.
Only after shutting the carriage door tightly did the emperor take the handkerchief away. He touched it—his fingertips came away slightly warm and damp. His brow furrowed, his expression grew grave, though his eyes held a faint bewilderment.
Everything before him seemed to dissolve into mere outlines, existing only as light and shadow, brightness and darkness, as though his sight pierced through the mundane world into another unseen realm.
The emperor closed his eyes, standing silently for a long while. When he opened them again, the forms and colors of the world reemerged from the ink wash. He lowered his head and saw on the brocade handkerchief several blurred stains of dark red.
There was a mirror in the carriage, fastened to the wall above the washbasin stand. He walked over and looked carefully at his reflection, then dipped the handkerchief in clean water and wiped away the traces of blood beneath his nose.
He folded the handkerchief and tucked it back into his breast, then turned toward the window, lifted the curtain, and said to the guards: “To Mingshi Ward, to Doctor Yingxu’s clinic.”
The Su Residence was right ahead, yet he passed its gate without entering, choosing instead to turn. The two guards did not dare ask questions; they leapt onto the driver’s bench and steered the carriage south toward Mingshi Ward.
When the carriage disappeared at the end of the street, a squad of brocade-clad imperial guardsmen rounded the corner where it had stopped and followed behind an ordinary-looking carriage, pulling up at the Su Residence gate. Su Yan was the first to jump down, drawing deep breaths of fresh air.
He turned his head toward Yu Wang and Shen Qi, who were still exchanging dagger-like glares inside the carriage, and said:
“Let’s go discuss in the reception hall—bring the sword.”
—
Dusk was falling. Chen Shiyu was tidying up the prescriptions on the consultation table, instructing the medicine boy to close the door.
Today the clinic was shutting early, as he had promised his wife he would attend a cousin’s baby’s one-month celebration. One by one the lamps inside were blown out. Carrying his emergency medicine case on his back, Chen Shiyu was just about to leave when he heard a knock at the door.
The medicine boy called out: “The doctor is busy. No consultations tonight. Please come back tomorrow.”
But the knocking continued, unhurried yet firm.
The boy grew annoyed. “He already said no patients, no injuries either. Don’t you understand?”
“Enough, stop shouting. Perhaps it’s a life-or-death injury. Saving people is like fighting a fire—being late is no matter.” Chen Shiyu patted the boy’s head and went to open the door himself.
The wooden door creaked open. The room was dim, throwing the features of the man outside into shadow, only the hazy glow of two lanterns outlining him. Chen Shiyu saw that his posture was upright, his breathing even and steady, not at all like an injured man, so he courteously said: “Honored guest, I have urgent matters tonight. The clinic is closed. Please return tomorrow.”
Two lantern-bearing guards stepped forward from behind the man, about to bark out, when the man lifted his hand to stop them.
He reached up, pulled back the hood of his cloak, and said quietly: “Doctor Yingxu.”
The voice was very familiar. By the lamplight Chen Shiyu saw the man’s face clearly. The medicine case slipped from his hand with a crash.
“Your Maj—”
The man inclined his head slightly. “Let us speak inside.”
—
Since the master doctor was not leaving, the boy could not leave either, and muttered to himself in the courtyard as he ground herbs. Two sword-bearing guards stood outside the closed door, faces stern, eyes watchful.
Inside the consulting room, the lamps burned bright, and the two men sat across the table.
After taking the pulse, Chen Shiyu carefully examined the emperor’s eyes, ears, mouth, and nose, then asked for the bloodstained handkerchief. He checked the color and sniffed at the odor.
He had occasionally been in and out of the palace and had heard the servants speak of the emperor’s chronic headaches. Yet the emperor had never summoned him, and with so many skilled physicians in the Imperial Medical Bureau, he had not offered himself.
That the emperor now came by night in plain clothes to his clinic was wholly beyond expectation. Chen Shiyu vaguely realized that the emperor did not wish those in the palace—even the imperial physicians—to know of his condition.
The emperor succinctly recounted the new symptoms and asked: “Sometimes my vision goes black and I can see nothing; then it clears again as if nothing were wrong. What is the cause?”
Chen Shiyu stroked his beard, pondered a moment, and answered: “It seems like a problem with the eyes, but this humble one has carefully examined Your Majesty’s eyes and found no signs of disease. The greater likelihood is that it stems from your head ailment.”
“And the nosebleeds without cause—also from the head ailment?”
“That is possible. At present it is spring, with much rain and damp weather, so it is unlikely to be from dryness of the nasal passages. Judging from Your Majesty’s pulse, your yin and yang are balanced, your yang qi is somewhat overactive but not to the degree of excessive liver fire, so nosebleeds are unlikely from that. After much thought, I have one conjecture, though I do not know whether I should speak it.”
The emperor smiled: “Speak. I am not one to conceal my illness or shun the physician. As for your character and skill, Doctor Yingxu, I place my trust in them.”
Chen Shiyu cupped his hands in thanks, then asked, “This humble commoner dares to ask—how far has Your Majesty’s head ailment worsened?”
The emperor sighed: “I have suffered from this head ailment for several years. At first, it attacked only two or three times a year. Later it became two or three times a month. Decoctions, acupuncture, moxibustion… all the methods the imperial physicians suggested I have tried, yet none can cure it. Lately it not only attacks more frequently, but the pain grows ever more severe, especially after fatigue or emotional agitation.”
Chen Shiyu advised: “Your Majesty handles the affairs of state daily—excessive toil harms the vital essence. According to internal medicine, the human body follows the principle of harmony between heaven and man. Only when the five movements and six qi are all in balance can there be health. It is not a matter of merely treating the head when it aches or the foot when it hurts.”
The emperor asked in return: “And what of external medicine?”
“External medicine…” Chen Shiyu hesitated a while, then decided that as a physician he must speak plainly. “External medicine regards the body as a combination of bones, flesh, marrow, sinews, and blood. But these parts are not isolated from one another—touch one hair and the whole body moves. The most subtle and complex, the hardest to probe and treat, is the brain.”
“These words sound familiar. I have heard Qinghe say something similar.” A strange light flashed in the emperor’s eyes, but he lowered them at once.
“The hot compresses and steaming method he offered were indeed effective, but they could only bring temporary relief.”
Hearing this, Chen Shiyu furrowed his brows all the more. “Lord Su has considerable insight into medicine and holds marvelous remedies in hand. If even his methods are useless, then this ailment is all the more intractable. To speak frankly—Your Majesty’s head ailment may not be caused by what people commonly call wind-evil invasion, yet with the skull as barrier, what exactly lies within cannot be known. Apart from continuing internal treatment with decoctions, supplemented by acupuncture and the like, this humble one has no better method.”
The emperor felt disappointment, though he showed none of it on his face. He said lightly:
“In years past, Duke Cao suffered severely from head wind. The divine physician Hua Tuo proposed the method of opening the skull to cure the stubborn illness. Suspecting him of plotting harm, Duke Cao cast him into prison and in the end put him to death. What is Doctor Yingxu’s view of this matter?”
Chen Shiyu was deeply startled, though he had faintly anticipated such a question. After some thought, he replied: “Because of this, Divine Physician Hua’s Qing Nang Jing was lost—an immense loss to our nation’s medical art. Yet even if it had been passed down, though he dared to suggest such a treatment, others may not dare to attempt it. And even if they dared, they might lack the ability to ensure success.”
The emperor looked straight at him: “Doctor Yingxu is praised as the ‘master hand of surgery in our time.’ Is it that you do not dare—or that you cannot?”
Chen Shiyu bowed to admit his fault: “This commoner bears a shallow reputation only. Compared with Divine Physician Hua, I am far, far inferior. I do not dare, and I cannot.”
The emperor fell into a long silence, his expression like a sky heavy with clouds, yet without rain.
Just as Chen Shiyu grew uneasy, fearing the dragon visage would turn to wrath, the emperor suddenly rose. His face was calm. “Since Doctor Yingxu has spoken thus, I will not force the matter. Let this end here. Treat it as though I never came.”
Seeing the emperor about to leave the consulting room, Chen Shiyu at last could not hold back: “Your Majesty—why not invite Lord Su here? This humble one could consult with him. Perhaps together we might find another path.”
“No need.” The emperor’s steps halted. He turned his head slightly, his tone calm yet brooking no refusal: “This matter, I must ask Doctor Yingxu to keep secret. Do not speak a single word of it before Su Yan. Otherwise, I will have to punish you.”
Chen Shiyu understood the weight hidden in those light words. He immediately prostrated himself in full obeisance and said: “Whether from medical ethics or from obedience to imperial command, this commoner will never reveal a patient’s information. May Your Majesty set your mind at ease.”
The emperor inclined his head, and before departing left one final sentence: “If you have any new ideas, come seek an audience with me.”
Chen Shiyu respectfully sent the emperor out, and only when the carriage had vanished into the night did he lift his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his brow, sighing in guilt: “All my life I have only lamented lacking a miraculous hand, unable to heal all the people of the world.”
The medicine boy, hearing this behind him, objected: “Sir, your The Fundamental Principles of Surgery is cited as a classic by surgeons across the land. If your hands are not counted as miraculous, then whose are?”
Chen Shiyu shook his head again and again: “The Way of Medicine is like the sea. I am but a drop in the vast ocean.”
As for Emperor Jinglong’s illness, he truly wished to research it well, to try and seek out a new treatment. But many scruples weighed upon him; he could not rashly shoulder it all. Originally he thought to discuss it with Lord Su and perhaps gain some insight, but since the emperor had strictly forbidden him to reveal the matter, he could only keep his lips sealed.
The medicine boy urged: “Sir, quickly go home. Mistress is waiting anxiously and will scold you again. Last time she told you to buy vegetables on your way back, but you forgot completely, went off to the charnel house to dissect an unclaimed corpse, and came back stinking. Have you forgotten how angry she was?”
Chen Shiyu gave a start. Suddenly an idea flashed in his mind—he recalled that yesterday a body had been brought to the charnel house, said to have died of severe head disease and seizures. Why not seize this chance to open the skull and see what the lesion inside truly was?
Normally he worked on surgeries of bone and flesh, but never before had he attempted craniotomy. Yet his thirst for knowledge and dedication to medicine urged him forward. Without delay he shut the door, shouldered his medicine case, and hurried onto a carriage.
Behind him the boy called: “Sir, you’re going the wrong way! Home is over there!”
Chen Shiyu didn’t even turn his head: “Go make my excuses to Mistress. Tell her I had urgent matters. Have our son accompany her to the full-moon banquet!”
