Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The imperial physicians knelt all over the room outside the screen, while the prince consort pointed at them and cursed.

“The princess bled again last night from fetal movement. The Imperial Medical Bureau prescribed so many medicines, and not a single dose worked! A pack of useless quacks!”

The physicians kept their heads down, not daring to speak.

Princess Yongwu had conceived early this year. Since becoming pregnant, she had been plagued by discomfort, with abdominal pain and bleeding from time to time.

Once the palace heard, it sent over the best physicians in the bureau, but even after dozens of bowls of bitter medicine, none of it worked.

Physician Xu said to the princess behind the screen, “In this humble official’s opinion, if we want to keep Your Highness safe, I fear we should first terminate the pregnancy. Let the princess recover for a few years, then try again.”

“How dare you tell This Palace to abort?” Princess Yongwu’s voice came from behind the screen. “Someone, drag this quack out and give him twenty lashes!”

“Wait!”

I, who had been kneeling behind Physician Xu all along, rose and said loudly, “Please calm your anger, Princess! This servant has a way to keep the young heir alive!”

Everyone in the room turned to look at me. The prince consort stared and asked, “Who are you? Why haven’t I seen you before?”

“I am Ning Li, a female physician newly admitted to the Imperial Medical Bureau. I specialize in women’s medicine and have only been following Physician Xu for the past two days to take the pulses of the noble ladies and masters.”

It was not strange for Physician Xu, who was responsible for the princess’s pregnancy, to have a female physician at his side.

The prince consort asked, “What method do you have?”

“I have a family secret: a pregnancy-preserving acupuncture technique. With only nine needles into the abdomen, the child in the womb can remain safe for ten full months, and mother and child will both survive the delivery.”

Physician Xu was the chief of the bureau and a master of his art. Even he could not save this child, so the princess and the prince consort were not completely ignorant of how serious the situation was. Hearing me speak so confidently, they chose to treat a dead horse as if it might still be alive.

“Come forward,” they said.

I stepped behind the screen and saw Princess Yongwu half reclined on the bed. Her fine, delicate face was pale, glistening with a sheen of cold sweat. Her belly was swollen high, and two maids were lowering their heads to change the blood-soaked skirt beneath her.

Her bleeding had become so frequent that she needed her clothes changed often.

“Have everyone leave. This servant will needle you,” I said.

After feeling her pulse, I took out the nine silver needles I carried on me.

The needles were thin and sharp. If one did not look closely, no one would notice the soul-calling talismans carved on them.

Before I inserted them, Princess Yongwu warned me, “If this does not work immediately, you had better beware for your entire clan.”

I lowered myself even further. “This servant will do everything in her power to treat Your Highness and the little heir.”

She did not know that my clan had already died three years earlier because of her.

My real name was Ye Gui.

I once had both parents alive, and a six-year-old younger sister.

Our family settled in Yue City.

Before they died, my parents were the divine doctors whom everyone in Yue City respected.

My sister was lively and adorable. She liked nothing more than curling up in my arms and asking me to read medical texts to her.

All of that was destroyed three years ago.

Three years ago, Princess Yongwu, who had come to Yue City for a pleasure trip, fell from her horse in a moment of carelessness.

The horse’s iron hooves smashed into her chest; she collapsed on the spot, and a terrifying pool of blood spread beneath her.

Princess Yongwu was rushed to the Yue City magistrate’s office. After checking her pulse, the accompanying physician said tremblingly that only human blood as an ingredient could possibly save her life.

The prince consort immediately ordered the people of Yue City to bleed for the princess.

In an instant, every person in Yue City, whether sturdy young men, women, elders, or even infants not yet a month old, was made to give up a bowl of blood.

But after checking ordinary blood, the physician shook his head again and said it had to be medicinal blood for the princess’s constitution to match.

Magistrate Lu Bin of Yue City clutched at his black gauze hat. If the princess died in his jurisdiction, he would not have ten heads enough to lose.

So Magistrate Lu found my parents in a bamboo cottage outside the city.

Our whole family carried medicinal blood.

One drop could cure a hundred illnesses.

My parents had warned my sister and me never to reveal the secret of our blood, or greedy villains would set their sights on us.

But in those years, plague had swept through Yue City, and more than a hundred people died in a single day.

My parents could not bear it. They cut open their wrists and used their blood in medicine, saving more than ten thousand people in Yue City, and were honored as divine doctors by the townsfolk.

Naturally, it did not stay a secret that the blood of the Ye family could save lives.

That day, my parents were urgently summoned to the magistrate’s office. They examined the princess’s pulse and said there was no hope. She could not be saved.

Magistrate Lu, who had once been saved by my parents’ blood during the plague, blurted out in front of the prince consort, “Didn’t you say your blood could save people? You even cured the plague back then! Why can’t you save the princess now?”

After hearing that, the prince consort immediately ordered my parents to cut open their wrists and feed two whole bowls of blood to the princess. Of course it did not work.

My father explained helplessly, “Our blood can only be used in medicine to save an acute illness. The princess is gravely wounded and has lost too much blood. This is already a hopeless case.”

“By hopeless, I mean that even if the gods themselves came, they couldn’t save her!”

The prince consort and the magistrate looked at one another. If the princess really died, one of them would be accused of poor care and the other of failing to protect her. Neither would survive.

Suddenly, the prince consort stared at the wounds on my parents’ wrists that had not stopped bleeding and, as if possessed, said, “Two bowls of blood aren’t enough. Then drain these two dry and feed all of it to the princess!”

Magistrate Lu immediately did as he was told.

My father sensed that things were wrong and shielded my mother at once. “My lord! The princess’s life matters, but ours do too! If you must draw blood, take mine. Don’t touch my wife!”

The prince consort sneered. “Your lives are worthy of being compared to the princess’s? Do it! Now!”

My parents had already been bled for two bowls. They were weak to the point of collapse, and once the guards pinned their arms and forced the blood from them, they had no strength left to resist.

They were bled through the entire night. It was not until the next morning that the princess, after drinking dozens of bowls of medicinal blood, suddenly showed signs of improvement.

The prince consort was overjoyed. “Do you see that? As long as enough blood is fed to her, the princess can live!”

Only then did the guards grow troubled. The prince consort went to the next room to look, and there he saw my parents, the divine doctors who had been bled dry for an entire night. Their faces were deathly pale, and their eyes were still open. They had already been dead for some time.

“There’s no blood left, Your Highness,” a guard said, holding the bowl, unable to hide his reluctance.

“Prince Consort! Their family still has a six-year-old daughter!” Magistrate Lu said eagerly, as if presenting a treasure. “That girl’s blood can be used as medicine too!”

The prince consort’s men immediately went to the house and dragged my little sister back.

My six-year-old sister was still holding a bundle of danggui root. She had thought she would be able to see our parents and was still planning to ask them how that herb should be used in medicine.

Only when she saw my parents’ corpses did she realize what would happen to her.

That afternoon, a rare torrential downpour fell from the sky.

I was gathering herbs on the mountain when a knife suddenly sliced my hand. Unease surged through me, and I hurried down the mountain in the rain. By the time I was almost home, the rain had already stopped.

From afar, I saw my sister, Ye Li, staggering a few steps before tumbling with a splash into a muddy puddle formed by the rainwater.

“Sister!”

I rushed over and gathered her into my arms, only to find her face as white as ash and her lips without a trace of color.

“What happened? What’s wrong?” My words caught in my throat when I saw that Ye Li’s right wrist had nearly been cut clean through.

The wound was still pouring blood, endlessly, soaking into the mud and spreading through the rainwater.

No matter how hard I pressed, I could not stop the bleeding. My sister’s hand was almost severed.

“Father and Mother are dead, Sister. They bled us dry to save the princess…”

Their blood had brought the princess back from the brink.

My sister’s blood had awakened the princess.

Only after the princess woke up was my sister finally spared.

She dragged herself home through the rain, already having lost far too much blood. Dazed and barely conscious, she clutched the danggui root in her hand and grabbed my collar.

“Sister, run. Run…”

The danggui root slipped weakly from her fingers and scattered into the rainwater.

On the rainy day when the princess was saved, I, Ye Gui, lost my father, my mother, and my little sister.