Zi'an sighed softly. Family ties are often the hardest to give up. Take the Seventh Brother for example. Even though the Noble Concubine treated him like this, how could he not be able to bring himself to do that to him
Eunuch Lu greeted them at the second gate, and after the greeting, he led Aunt Ase and Zi'an in.
Imperial Concubine Mei was still waiting by the bed. When she saw Zi'an coming in, her eyes became moist. "Are you here?"
"Empress!" Zi'an bowed.
"Don't be so polite." Concubine Mei asked Zi'an for help, "I'm glad to see you come back safely."
"Thank you for your concern, I'm fine." Zi'an looked at her with a smile, "I haven't congratulated you on your promotion to Imperial Concubine yet."
Concubine Mei said awkwardly: "It's a happy event, but..."
She turned around to look at the sickbed and said worriedly, "The emperor has been sleeping since last night and has not woken up yet. The imperial doctors have examined him several times and all said that his condition is not good. Now that you are here, I feel relieved."
Zi'an didn't comfort her, and even if he did, it wasn't sincere. She didn't want to say anything against her will.
Eunuch Lu knelt on the ground and kowtowed to Zi'an, "Princess, please put aside the past unhappiness. I beg you here. Please remember that I helped you and the prince in the past. Please do your best to save the emperor."
Zi'an, who had never forgotten his previous kindness, also had great respect for Eunuch Lu, so he pulled him up and said, "The Empress Dowager asked me to come. I will do my best."
Eunuch Lu wiped his tears and said, "Thank you, Princess."
Zi'an walked over. The emperor had his eyes closed. There was slight edema under his eyes and the red spots on his face were very clear. Just looking at his complexion, it was indeed a little more serious than before.
Moreover, there is some black air on both sides of the nose bridge, which is the same as the black air on the lips. This should be a symptom of the backlash of the poison.
Zi'an first felt the patient's pulse and then asked about the condition. Since both Imperial Concubine Mei and Eunuch Lu served the patient the most, he was able to understand the basic situation by asking them both.
"He vomited blood more often than before. He vomited three times yesterday. There seemed to be worms in the blood foam." Concubine Mei said.
Zi'an nodded, "Yes, that's a sign of the poison backlash. The poison worms are multiplying in his blood and body. If they go to his brain, it will be difficult to deal with."
"Then..." Eunuch Lu was shocked, "Then how can we know if it's on the brain?"
"Has the emperor been talking nonsense recently? Has he been talking nonsense or doing anything strange?" Zi'an asked.
Eunuch Lu and Imperial Concubine Mei looked at each other and said, "No, even though he is not in a good mood, he doesn't say nonsense. He just curses sometimes."
"Is that normal?"
Imperial Concubine Mei hesitated for a moment, "They all blame the Empress Dowager. Is that normal?"
Zi'an thought to himself that it would be abnormal if he didn't resent the Empress Dowager.
"It seems that the insect has not yet taken over the brain."
Zi'an wrote a prescription first, then handed it to Eunuch Lu, "Ask the Imperial Hospital to get the medicine and boil it immediately, two doses a day, and take it about a quarter of an hour after a meal."
"Yes, I'll go right away."
The prescriptions are all for anthelmintics. Anthelmintics have certain toxicity. There is no problem for healthy people to take them, at most there will be side effects. However, the emperor's body has deteriorated and he cannot bear it.
Therefore, Zi'an also used acupuncture to seal part of the blood vessels to curb the toxicity of the medicine and prevent liver damage.
In fact, there was no need for any medical equipment to diagnose the emperor. Judging from her experience, without good doctors and good medicine, the emperor would basically not survive more than ten days.
After the acupuncture, Aunt Ah She took out a pill and gave it to Concubine Mei, "Mix it with water and feed it to him. Let him wake up first. This is the last of the three pills. There are no more."
Zi'an said, "In fact, there is no need to waste the elixir. After the acupuncture, the blood and energy will gather in the head, and the emperor will wake up in a moment."
Zi'an knew that these pills were very valuable, but if he gave them to the patient at this time, and if the patient's condition suddenly worsened and there were no life-saving pills left, it would be bad.
If Doctor Wen Yi didn't make it to the capital in time, after all, the Empress Dowager had said it would take two days a few days, but after waiting for five days, there was still no sign of him.
Aunt Ah She said, "It's okay, just tell him to eat it. The Empress Dowager meant that she has done her best, and everything depends on his own luck."
Concubine Mei was afraid that Zi'an would stop her, so she quickly diluted the pill with water. Zi'an had to give up, but she also understood the Empress Dowager's thoughts.
The Empress Dowager was probably extremely disappointed with the Emperor and just wanted to finish what she was supposed to do as quickly as possible and then stop caring about it.
These three pills were specially made for him, so he gave them all to him and then ignored them no more.
Concubine Mei fed the emperor the elixir, and within a stick of incense, the emperor woke up.
Imperial Concubine Mei was half-kneeling beside the bed. Seeing the emperor slowly opening his eyes, she gently called out, "Your Majesty!"
The emperor seemed a little dazed, but the moment he saw Zi'an, his eyes became focused and he stared at Zi'an. A strange sound came from his throat and his expression became very strange. It was unclear whether he was happy, sad, or hateful.
Zi'an bowed calmly and said, "Your Highness!"
The emperor seemed to be much more energetic and asked Concubine Mei to help him sit up.
"Did the ancestor order you to come here?" The emperor asked in a hoarse voice, his eyes still fixed on Zi'an.
"Your Majesty, it was the Empress Dowager who sent me here," Zi'an replied.
The emperor laughed strangely, "Why did I call you here? To poison me?"
Aunt Ah She frowned and said, "Your Majesty, if the Empress Dowager wanted you dead, why would she poison you? She could just ignore you. Does Your Majesty think that the imperial physician can save his illness? Or is he waiting for God's mercy?"
"I begged her for a long time, but she was unwilling to save me. Doesn't she want to watch me die?"
As expected, once the emperor became angry, he began to feel resentful.
Zi'an knew that he was fine for the time being, and he didn't want to stay here and wait for punishment, so he said, "Your Majesty is fine for the time being, I will come to see you tomorrow."
The emperor laughed coldly, "You have united to deceive me. This is a serious crime of deceiving the emperor. Go back and tell Murong Jie that I will investigate his crime sooner or later."
Aunt Ah She was angry and was about to speak, but Zi An stopped her and bowed gently, saying, "Your Majesty, I will go back and tell Old Seven what you said, but there are some things Old Seven probably wants to say to Your Majesty as well. We have been brothers for more than 20 years, and we have been so sincere and devoted to each other, but in return, all we got was calculated harm. From now on, there is no need to think about the brotherhood or the friendship between the monarch and his subjects at all."
"Princess!" Concubine Mei was shocked and quickly stopped her.
Zi'an glanced at Concubine Mei coldly, then looked at the emperor and said, "Even if I said nothing today and knelt by your bed to treat you, I wouldn't get a single good word from you. If that's the case, why should I put myself in a difficult position? And let you slander my prince? Although we are brothers, we are worse than strangers. If it weren't for the order of the Grand Empress Dowager today, I would never enter the palace. Although I, Xia Zi'an, was born a doctor, I don't have a kind heart. I have the hatred of killing myself and I have to hold my loyalty to you to be abused. I'm not that cheap."
After saying that, he paused and said, "My seventh son is not so shameless."
The emperor's face looked extremely ugly, and his anger suddenly ignited the fire in his eyes. He stared at Zi'an intently. From the moment he woke up until now, the look of hatred and disgust had never changed, and it was even worse now.
"Get out!" the emperor growled and slammed his fist heavily on the bed.
(End of this chapter)