Bowls of dark brown thick soup were scooped into coarse porcelain bowls, carried by the army cooks, and delivered into each tent.
The reactions of the wounded soldiers varied greatly.
A few bold ones mimicked Xu Zhan, tilting their necks back to gulp it down. Halfway through, they began to retch uncontrollably, saliva mixed with acidic fluids dribbling from their lips, only to be held down by the shoulders by their comrades and forced to swallow the rest.
More of them pinched their noses, sending it down their throats in tiny sips. With every swallow, their facial features twisted into a knot as they repeatedly gasped for cool air.
Xu Qinghuan did not stay long inside the tent. She ordered Li Sheng to move an old wooden chair and place it under the shade of the locust tree outside. Then, she commanded the cooks to roll up the felt cloths on all four sides of each tent, allowing the hot cross-breeze to blow through.
"Covering the felt tents in this May weather makes the inside no different from a steamer. The wounded soldiers in the tents are already weak and exhausted. If it remains this stuffy, they will suffer from heatstroke before the medicine even takes effect."
Xu Qinghuan sat on the wooden chair and instructed Lao Sun, who stood to the side.
Lao Sun acknowledged the order and took two apprentices to roll up the flaps of each tent one by one.
Tie Lanshan did not leave. He stood with his hands behind his back under the sun, three steps to Xu Qinghuan's right. The old general half-squinted, his gaze falling upon the cluster of tents in the wounded soldier camp.
The late May heatwaves surged above the camp. The mingled scent of sour vinegar and gamey blood caused the armored soldiers patrolling in the distance to frequently turn their heads and look over.
A quarter of an hour passed.
It was unusually quiet inside the tents, with only the occasional low groans and the rustling of straw mats when someone turned over.
Another quarter of an hour passed.
The first to make a sound was the large tent near the camp gate.
A sharp, agonizing scream pierced through the tent, carrying far in the oppressive afternoon heat. This was closely followed by a second, then a third, rising and falling in continuous succession.
"It hurts! Argh!"
The sound was a raw, genuine roar squeezed from the depths of the throat.
Inside the large tent with its flaps rolled up, the situation was completely visible.
The sick soldier near the tent door curled his legs and rolled toward the corner of the cot. Both his hands covered his mouth, with dark red blood seeping through his fingers. His eyes were wide open, and his entire face was distorted with pain.
The situation in the second tent was even worse. A wounded soldier with a severed left arm tumbled directly off his straw cot. After hitting the ground, he used his remaining right hand to claw at the wooden pillar beside him, his fingernails digging into the coarse wood grain, producing a teeth-setting scraping sound.
Wails of agony spread throughout the entire wounded soldier camp.
Several army cooks retreated from the tents carrying empty bowls, their faces drained of color. The calves of one young recruit trembled uncontrollably, and the wooden tray in his hands clattered to the ground.
"What is going on?"
The captain of the patrolling armored soldiers walked briskly to the camp gate. Hand resting on his sword hilt, he peered into the tent, his face tightening. The captain turned his head, his gaze bypassing the helpless cooks to land on Xu Qinghuan, who sat motionless beneath the shade of the locust tree.
Xu Qinghuan, however, did not stand up.
Tie Lanshan knitted his brows together, turning half his body to look down at Xu Qinghuan from his vantage point.
This old commander had led troops for decades and had seen mountains of dead bodies, but the agonizing screams coming from these tents were entirely different from the wails on a battlefield.
Wounded soldiers on a battlefield understood their own injuries and knew what to expect. But these sick soldiers had no idea what was happening inside their bodies; the unknown changes made it all the more unbearable.
Tie Lanshan finally could not hold back and spoke in a deep voice, "Imperial Envoy, this medicinal soup..."
"Commander, wait a little longer," Xu Qinghuan interrupted him.
Tie Lanshan's words caught in his throat, and he swallowed them back down.
After the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea, the screams inside the tents did not weaken; instead, they grew even more violent.
A severely ill soldier arched his body on the cot, his mouth wide open. A wad of blood-streaked saliva gushed from his mouth, splattering onto the straw mat, while his hands tore madly at his own collar.
"I can't take it, I can't take it... Someone cut off my tongue!"
Standing in the distance, Xu Zhan cast a glance toward the tents. He shifted his footsteps a fraction of an inch, instinctively moving to guard Xu Qinghuan's side.
A crowd of soldiers in the camp, drawn by the noise, gathered at the gate. Witnessing the miserable state of their comrades inside, their murmurs buzzed like a swarm of bees.
"This soup couldn't be poison, could it?"
"Shh! Don't talk nonsense. The Imperial Envoy brewed it with her own hands, and she drank it herself."
"But look, the brothers are in such agony after drinking it. Is this curing a disease or..."
When Lao Sun emerged from the third tent, his head was covered in sweat, and his hands were still trembling slightly. The most severely ill soldier in the tent had just been coughing up bloody froth right in front of him. That tragic sight had given this veteran military doctor of several decades quite a fright.
Lao Sun walked up to Xu Qinghuan, his dry, cracked lips moving.
"My lady, those severe cases in the tents... this old man must go in and check their pulses again."
Xu Qinghuan lifted her eyelids. "Go ahead."
Lao Sun returned to the tent and crouched beside the severely ill soldier who had coughed up bloody froth.
This man was no longer screaming much now. He had wailed until he had no strength left. He lay curled up on the straw cot, drenched in sweat, his chest heaving rapidly, with traces of blood still hanging from his lips.
Lao Sun extended three fingers and placed them on the soldier's pulse points.
The pulse was chaotic, suddenly fast and then slow, which was to be expected.
But after Lao Sun's fingers rested on the wrist for a moment, a strange expression appeared on his face.
Lao Sun felt something he had never before detected in these sick soldiers.
A beat.
A strong and powerful beat.
These sick soldiers had suffered from hunger and cold for half a year, and their pulses had always been weak and soft. Some had pulses so faint they were barely perceptible, with the intervals between each beat so long it was terrifying—a sign of a lamp running out of oil.
But now, although the beating transmitted to his fingertips was chaotic and disorganized, every throb was more solid than before. Vitality was reviving.
Lao Sun abruptly straightened up, lunged to the adjacent cot, and grabbed the wrist of another sick soldier.
The beat was equally powerful.
Lao Sun checked the pulses of five people in a row, and every single one was the same.
Though the pulses were chaotic, their heart strength was recovering.
Lao Sun's hand paused on the wrist of the last sick soldier, his fingers trembling at the strong pulsation. His deeply wrinkled old face revealed a mingled expression of shock and profound relief.
Lao Sun stood up, lifted the tent flap, and strode out, walking straight up to Xu Qinghuan.
Tie Lanshan turned around and stared at Lao Sun.
The soldiers watching at the camp gate all pricked up their ears.
"How is it?" Tie Lanshan asked.
Lao Sun did not look at Tie Lanshan. He gazed straight at Xu Qinghuan, tears welling up in his cloudy old eyes, his lips trembling slightly.
He felt both the astonishment of having his decades of medical knowledge overturned and the remorse for his previous doubts.
Lao Sun desperately wanted to ask Xu Qinghuan where this medical theory came from and who her master was, but the words reached his lips and were swallowed back.
Lao Sun stood up straight, turned around to face Tie Lanshan, and spoke in a steady, powerful voice.
"Commander! Although the sick soldiers' pulses are chaotic, the beating of their hearts is more than ten percent stronger than before they took the medicine! This is a solid sign that their vitality is reviving!"
Lao Sun paused, realizing that the warriors present would not understand terms like pulse and heart strength, so he switched to a more straightforward explanation.
"The medicine is correct. The pain right now is drawing out the poison."
Tie Lanshan let out a long breath, and his shoulders, which had been tense for a long time, finally relaxed. The old general raised his hand to signal the soldiers gathered at the camp gate to disperse, lowering his gruff voice a few fractions.
"Disperse, all of you! Go patrol if you're on patrol, go drill if you're meant to drill. The imperial envoy and Lao Sun are looking after the medical camp, we don't need you causing trouble here!"
The soldiers scattered in twos and threes, talking in low voices as they walked. The doubt in their tones had mostly dissipated.
The miserable screams inside the tent continued for about a quarter of an hour after Lao Sun returned.
Gradually, the screaming in the tent began to weaken.
First, the soldiers with milder symptoms quieted down. They panted heavily, their sweat soaking the straw mats beneath them, but they were no longer wailing.
Then came the ones with severe symptoms.
The one-armed injured soldier, who initially had been tossing and turning on his straw bed, slowly collapsed onto his side on the mat. The heaving of his chest shifted from violent to gentle, and his heavy panting was gradually replaced by long, steady breathing.
He fell asleep.
One by one, after experiencing that piercing, bone-deep pain, the sick soldiers exhausted their strength and fell into a deep sleep.
The entire medical camp returned to silence, leaving only the sound of rising and falling snores mingling with the chirping of cicadas.
When Lao Sun stepped out of the tent again, his footsteps were much lighter than before.
The old military doctor walked up to Xu Qinghuan, bent his knees, and gave a solid, formal bow to this imperial envoy who was young enough to be his granddaughter.
"My Lord, I have practiced medicine for thirty-seven years, but only today do I realize that there is always a heaven beyond heaven."
Xu Qinghuan set down her teacup, stood up, and reached out to help Lao Sun to his feet.
"Elder Sun, there is no need for this. The principle is not so extraordinary once explained. The bleeding of the gums is due to a prolonged deficiency in the blood vessels and the inability of the internal organs to regulate them. The residual energy in these fruit pits is best at securing the blood vessels, but its nature is fierce and potent. When it meets rotting flesh, the medicinal properties clash, so pain is inevitable."
Xu Qinghuan stood up straight and looked into Lao Sun's eyes, her tone calm.
"There is no making without breaking. If the rotting flesh is not removed, new flesh cannot grow. The principle is that simple. Elder Sun, as long as you boil three more doses according to the original prescription every day, the bleeding from the sick soldiers' gums will stop within five days."
