Chapter Fifty-Seven: First Encounter with the Thousand-Bull Guard

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Li Zisheng’s cry of surprise immediately drew everyone’s attention toward him. Ignoring the gazes of those present, he addressed the screen again, saying that he knew the arts of medicine and hoped he might examine and treat General Deng, if only to express his good intentions.

Li Zisheng waited for a reply from within. Before long, a young maid emerged from behind the screen.

Li Zisheng had never seen her before. More importantly, in the Lingzhou military camp, where masculine energy ran so strong, female attendants were rarely seen. Her sudden appearance led him to conclude that she must be the maid of the ailing person, though whether she belonged to Deng Qing was impossible to say.

Fortunately, he had already managed to gain entry behind the screen. That was what mattered most.

Following the maid, Li Zisheng slowly made his way behind the screen.

A large wooden bed stood directly beyond it, but the front of the bed was veiled by a layer of fairly thick gauze, making it impossible to see who lay within.

Before long, and before Li Zisheng had even spoken, a red thread extended from behind the gauze.

At the same time, a medical record was handed out. It clearly documented the patient’s clinical manifestations, physiological condition, and every other bodily characteristic in exhaustive detail. Nothing had been omitted.

Li Zisheng was rendered speechless. Pulse diagnosis by thread—was this not deliberately making things difficult for him? It was perfectly obvious that the other party did not want him asking questions or looking at the patient inside.

He ignored the red thread for the moment and carefully examined the symptoms recorded in the medical record.

Coughing, expectoration, wheezing, palpitations after exertion, abdominal distension and pain, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, reduced tolerance for physical labor, slight edema around the ankles, the condition of the tongue coating, and a long list of other symptoms had all been written down.

Of course, these were merely superficial manifestations. Even a patient with a minor ailment of the respiratory tract could exhibit such symptoms.

Li Zisheng continued reading. The subsequent notes recorded occasional signs of respiratory failure and heart failure. The patient had also suffered episodes of coughing up blood, vomiting blood, and passing blood in the stool, though the blood had been somewhat bright in color.

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What drew Li Zisheng’s attention most was the statement that the patient’s skin would often take on a bluish-purple hue. That was highly unusual. Combined with the symptoms listed earlier, it was clearly one of the principal signs of heart failure.

The person behind the gauze was unquestionably elderly. It certainly could not be Deng Qing.

After finishing the medical record, Li Zisheng understood that the old man behind the gauze was very likely suffering from pulmonary heart disease.

The defensive energy was deficient, so every effort had to be made to prevent external pathogens from invading. Patients with pulmonary heart disease commonly suffered from deficiency of vital energy as well as cold and dampness. When lung energy was deficient, it could no longer secure the exterior, allowing external pathogens to take advantage of the weakness. This was the first characteristic.

In one afflicted by heart disease, the symptoms were mild in the morning, worsened around midnight, and quieted again at dawn. This was the second.

A crimson-red tongue with little coating indicated the depletion of qi and yin, suggesting that heat was beginning to enter the heart’s nutritive system. A deepening bluish-purple tongue, thickened veins beneath the tongue, and dark spots along the tongue’s edges showed that blood stasis had severely obstructed the vessels. This was the third characteristic.

As yang energy gradually recovered, yin energy correspondingly diminished. When yang sought to emerge but yin resisted it, the two forces struggled fiercely against each other. Because patients with pulmonary heart disease often suffered from the decline of yang energy, they could no longer contain and control yin blood, causing obstruction of the heart’s channels and blockage of the blood vessels. The brain then became deprived of nourishment, resulting in restlessness, an inability to lie down, hurried and elevated breathing, torrents of cold sweat, and a faint pulse on the verge of disappearing. These were the fourth characteristics of the late stage—and the most crucial ones.

The medical record before him clearly showed that the patient had already developed this fourth characteristic. Li Zisheng could therefore make a rough assessment of the patient’s condition.

Still, he would need to examine the pulse before he could be certain. He took up the red thread and listened intently to the pulse transmitted through it.

According to his own knowledge, the pulse qualities and forms of patients with pulmonary heart disease were relatively easy to identify. A taut and slippery pulse signified phlegm and dampness lodged in the lungs. If the tautness and slipperiness were pronounced, it indicated phlegm-heat. An irregular pulse suggested weakness of heart energy and stagnation in the heart and lungs. A deep, fine, and powerless pulse—or one so faint that it seemed about to vanish—indicated exhaustion of the heart, lungs, and kidneys, with the body’s vital energy unable to withstand external pathogens.

Li Zisheng listened carefully to the faint pulsations traveling through the thread. Although pulse diagnosis by thread did exist, it was in truth rather inaccurate. He had often seen divine physicians in television dramas diagnose a patient’s illness entirely through a thread, and he had always sneered at such nonsense. He had never imagined that he would one day find himself in the same position.

As he listened to the changes within the pulse, he found that the faint pulsations transmitted through the red thread were indeed extremely weak—so weak they were nearly inaudible. Even so, he could still distinguish the mingled traces of those three different pulse qualities.

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The distinction was unmistakable. Once Li Zisheng had identified them, the pulses became even clearer when he listened again.

There was one thing he could not understand, however. Why had the physicians outside all claimed that the patient’s pulse was vigorous and powerful? That made no sense. Could it be that the patient he had diagnosed was not the same person the other physicians had examined?

In any case, that was not something Li Zisheng needed to concern himself with.

For the old man before him, the most important task was to secure his vital energy, prevent the outward leakage of sweat, preserve his yin fluids within, and keep his yang from escaping.

“Bring me a brush.”

After thinking carefully for a moment, Li Zisheng gave the order to the young maid. She entered the gauze enclosure, and before long, brush, ink, paper, and inkstone were placed one by one before him.

A tall man emerged with them.

He was broad-shouldered, powerfully built, and clearly possessed a foundation in martial arts. Most notably, the boots he wore were the standard issue of a Thousand Ox Guard commander. Li Zisheng had happened to see such boots once at Commander Zhang’s residence, and he immediately recognized the man’s identity.

Although these boots were standard attire for the Thousand Ox Guards, their designs differed according to rank. The pair this man wore clearly belonged to a high-ranking commander. His rank appeared to be on par with Deng Qing’s, and it was even possible that he outranked him. Yet here he was, serving as the guard of the patient behind the gauze.

Who, exactly, was the person within?

“Little physician, are you about to write a prescription?” the tall man asked in a gentle voice.

“No. This patient’s illness cannot be effectively treated with medicine alone. Acupuncture at the appropriate points must also be used to open the meridians. That is the proper course.”

Li Zisheng deliberately referred to him only as “this patient,” clearly intending to convey that he merely wished to treat the sick man and had no desire to become entangled in whatever lay behind the illness.

Yet to the tall man, those words came as a profound shock.