What does it take to become an outstanding healer?
Talent?
Diligence?
Hua Yuan felt that it ultimately relied on the accumulation of predecessors.
The morning light streamed through the narrow window of the purification room, casting a long, slender shadow on the blue brick floor. Hua Yuan stood before the old wooden table that had been used for an unknown number of years, slowly turning the thin blade in his hand over the charcoal fire.
The blade had been heated to a faint red. The dancing flames reflected on his face, flickering light and shadow.
In terms of talent.
He was inferior to the family's first ancestor, Hua Tuo.
According to the family's biographical records, the first ancestor was born with a pair of discerning eyes. Even if he did not know the underlying cause, he could find the patient's lesion at a glance and tell the severity of the illness. The patients treated by him basically had no severe symptoms—before the illness could worsen, they were healed by him early on.
Those eyes were a gift from heaven!
Hua Yuan, however, never developed such a pair of discerning eyes. He looked down at his own hands. Even though he had taken the pulse of countless people, when he examined a patient, he had to combine the four diagnostic methods and ponder carefully.
Sometimes he had to search through medical books and repeatedly scrutinize.
Unlike the first ancestor.
Who could see through it at a glance.
In terms of diligence, he was inferior to the family's third ancestor, Hua Zhen.
The third ancestor traveled all over the Great Qian Dynasty in his lifetime, just to taste all things that could be used as medicine. Mountains, rivers, deserts, dense forests—as long as it grew leaves, bloomed, or bore fruit, he would pick it and taste it. Poisoning was a common occurrence, and a few times he almost did not make it back.
Ultimately, he authored a book, The Classic of Herbs.
A thick volume.
It recorded the properties, flavors, meridian affinities, efficacies, and contraindications of three thousand seven hundred and twenty-four medicinal materials.
He exchanged his life for that, and it also provided the most powerful basis for their descendants to prescribe medicine.
Hua Yuan remembered that when he was young, he also wanted to emulate the third ancestor.
He walked out of the house carrying a medicine basket.
But after walking for less than three months, he returned dejectedly—he could not stand the hardship of sleeping in the open, and even less the anxiety of being poisoned at any time.
His talent was inferior to the first ancestor.
His diligence was inferior to the third ancestor.
Then how did he advance his medical skills to the level they were today?
Hua Yuan took the blade off the charcoal fire and examined it carefully against the light. The blade reflected his face, his hair and beard half white, the traces of time carved between his brows.
He thought of the Hua family's library tower.
It was a three-story wooden building. From the outside, it looked ordinary, but inside it was filled with handwritten notes, journals, and medical records left by generations of ancestors.
Some pages had yellowed and become brittle, crumbling at the slightest touch. Some ink had faded to the point of being almost illegible, requiring one to hold it against the light to barely make out a few words.
The thing he did most often was to nestle in that building, flipping through those notes scroll by scroll.
The first ancestor's, the second ancestor's, the third ancestor's, the fourth ancestor's...
Generation after generation, layer upon layer.
Every case, every medicine trial, every failure, every sudden realization was meticulously recorded with a pen. In those notes, there was the joy of success, the chagrin of failure, the confusion when facing the unknown, and the enlightenment after grasping the profound mysteries.
Hua Yuan remembered that once he flipped to the third ancestor's notes, which read: Today I tasted an herb. Numbness in the mouth upon entry, stiff tongue after half a quarter, unable to speak after two hours. Fortunately, I had the antidote prescription left by the second ancestor, and recovered after taking it for three days. This herb is poisonous, recording it.
Below, a line was added in small characters: The second ancestor's prescription is wonderful, I am not as good.
When Hua Yuan saw that line of text back then, he suddenly smiled.
So the third ancestor also got poisoned.
So the third ancestor also had to use the second ancestor's prescription.
So these divine doctors looked up to by later generations also got there step by step, and it was also passed down generation after generation.
At that moment, he suddenly understood one thing—
There are so many illnesses in the world, and a person's lifespan is limited. It is impossible to master everything purely relying on one's own research.
The path ahead in medicine.
Relies on the continuous pioneering of generations of people.
The first ancestor left behind those discerning eyes, the second ancestor left behind those prescriptions, the third ancestor left behind that Classic of Herbs, the fourth ancestor left behind those surgical techniques, the fifth ancestor left behind those acupuncture secrets...
And he, Hua Yuan, was merely a child lifted onto the shoulders of these ancestors, seeing a little further.
As for those difficult and complicated diseases—
Many are difficult because they are rare, and there are too few patients available for research. It is by no means an easy task to thoroughly understand the changes in the illness and find a treatment method all at once.
Therefore, in the Hua family, when encountering an unprecedented illness, everyone's first reaction is never that it is difficult to handle, but—
Excitement!
This means that the accumulation of the Hua family's medicine will gain another layer of depth.
Hua Yuan inserted the blade back into the charcoal fire and slowly turned it. The dancing flames reflected in his cloudy old eyes, which also flickered with a certain light that others could not understand.
The Ninth Prince's illness.
Congenital Yang on the outside and Yin on the inside, appearing male on the outside but actually female on the inside.
This kind of case.
Was only recorded once in the Hua family's medical books.
It was encountered by the fourth ancestor.
At that time, the patient was already an adult, the illness had dragged on for too long, the lesion had changed, and the private parts were rotting and ulcerating. The fourth ancestor tried every means but was powerless to reverse the situation.
Before dying, the patient held the fourth ancestor's hand and said: If there is a next life, I wish to be a true woman.
After returning, the fourth ancestor locked himself in the library tower for three full months and wrote a thick volume titled Treatise on the Intermingling of Yin and Yang. One of the hypotheses proposed in it was—
Excisional surgery of the lesion, restoring the original source.
He wrote down the child's medical records, his own thoughts, and all the deduction processes in full detail. Then, he placed those notes in the library tower, waiting for latecomers to access them.
When Hua Yuan was fifteen years old, he flipped to those notes for the first time.
He remembered that night, he lit a lamp and read the fourth ancestor's notes from beginning to end. After reading, he sat alone on the floor of the library tower for a whole night.
The moonlight outside the window was like water.
He suddenly thought, if the patient the fourth ancestor encountered back then had been treated earlier, before the lesion underwent changes and worsened, would that patient have had a chance to survive?
But there are no ifs in the world.
The path of medicine has always been walking forward step by step, stepping on countless regrets and failures.
But—
It was different now.
Hua Yuan took the blade out of the charcoal fire. The blade had been heated just right, glowing with a dazzling red light.
Previously, because it involved royal secrets, although he had diagnosed the Ninth Prince's illness, for the sake of the lives of his whole family and even his extended relatives, he had to suppress the thought of taking action.
Later, the Ninth Prince's illness was exposed by the Sixth Prince!
The Ninth Prince faked his death.
That girl Cheng Lu had now settled down in the Weiyuan Marquis Manor. The Sixth Prince had arranged everything properly, the Empress was also keeping an eye out, and everything was proceeding according to plan.
And what he had to do.
Was to hone his craft to the extreme during this period.
The step of restoring the original source allowed for no mistakes. With one cut, cutting a fraction more was not acceptable, and cutting a fraction less was not acceptable; stopping the bleeding had to be fast, suturing had to be accurate, and subsequent conditioning had to be meticulous.
With the slightest error, the Ninth Prince's life would be ruined, and he could not bear the responsibility.
Therefore, Hua Yuan needed practice.
He needed to train every movement into muscle memory, and he needed to think of countermeasures for every kind of accident in advance.
And the purification room...
The corners of Hua Yuan's lips curved slightly, an arc so faint that it was almost imperceptible.
Isn't the castration room the best place to practice?
The children sent here all had lesions that needed to be removed. Although their situations were not exactly the same as the Ninth Prince's, the general concept was identical: excise, stop the bleeding, and heal.
If he could cure the Ninth Prince...
The hand Hua Yuan used to hold the knife paused slightly.
If he cured the Ninth Prince, he would surpass his ancestors and become the first person to cure this affliction. When that time came, a dedicated page would be opened for him in the family genealogy book.
"Hua Yuan, the seventeenth-generation descendant of the Hua clan, cured the congenital syndrome of intertwined yin and yang. With the method of restoring the origin, he saved the life of a nobleman, to be recorded in the clan register forever."
What member of the Hua family could resist such an honor?
Hua Yuan took a deep breath.
He tried hard to suppress the surging heat in his heart.
No, he couldn't smile. He had to keep a straight face. If he suddenly burst into laughter and made people think he had lost his mind from shock, that would be troublesome.
"Imperial Physician Hua!" the eunuch attendant at the door urged again. "What are you still dawdling for?"
Hua Yuan quickly composed himself.
He turned around.
He looked at the cowering children in the corner.
"Come here," he beckoned.
The youngest child trembled even more violently, but he still gritted his teeth and walked over step by step. When he reached Hua Yuan, he looked up, his eye sockets red, stubbornly refusing to let his tears fall.
Looking at that dirty little face, Hua Yuan's heart softened for a moment.
This child.
From now on, he would belong to the palace.
Once this knife went down, he would no longer be a "he."
"What is your name?" Hua Yuan asked.
"Gou... Goudan." The child's voice was as thin as a mosquito's.
Hua Yuan nodded. "Goudan, lie down on it."
Goudan climbed onto the crude bed made of wooden boards. His body was taut, like a fully drawn bowstring. He closed his eyes, his lips trembling, but he never cried out in fear.
Hua Yuan scooped a bowl of medicinal broth from a nearby clay pot and brought it to his lips. "Drink it."
Goudan opened his eyes and looked at the dark medicinal juice, fear flashing in his eyes. "What... what is this?"
"Mafeisan," Hua Yuan said. "You won't feel any pain after drinking it."
Goudan froze for a moment, seemingly not quite understanding what "won't feel any pain" meant. He took the bowl and tilted his head back to gulp it down. The medicinal juice was incredibly bitter. He scrunched up his face as he swallowed it, coughing twice from choking.
Before long, the medicine took effect. His gaze began to lose focus, and his body went limp.
Looking at his face that was gradually losing sensation, Hua Yuan suddenly felt a bit emotional.
This batch of young eunuchs.
They could be considered to have enjoyed a portion of royal treatment.
In the past, castration was nothing more than a single slash of the knife followed by a handful of plant ash. If they survived, they survived; if not, so be it. After all, they were here to be eunuchs, and their lives were just that cheap.
Of the young eunuchs the palace took in every year, only five or six out of ten would survive.
But in Hua Yuan's hands...
They had Mafeisan, golden needles to pierce acupoints to stop the bleeding, top-quality wound medicine, and his pair of hands that had not trembled in forty years.
Hua Yuan gripped the sterilized knife and took a deep breath.
Hand up.
Knife down.
The movement was clean and crisp, without the slightest bit of excess.
The excision was completed shortly. Hua Yuan took out the goose feather tube he had prepared in advance and carefully inserted it for Goudan. He had specially chosen the goose feather tube; its thickness was just right, and it was smooth enough not to damage the flesh.
After inserting it.
He took a box of wound medicine and meticulously applied it to the wound.
The medicinal powder was specially made by the Imperial Academy of Medicine using only premium ingredients. Normally, only nobles could use it, but now it was being used on this little eunuch.
Having finished all this, Hua Yuan let out a long breath.
He straightened his back, wiped the thin layer of sweat from his forehead, and looked at the sleeping child on the bed, a trace of satisfaction flashing in his eyes.
This child should be able to live.
The eunuch attendant at the door had been staring at him the whole time. His gaze slowly changed from initial impatience to shock, and then gradually into something... complex.
When Hua Yuan finished treating the second child, the attendant finally could not help but lean in.
"Imperial Physician Hua," he lowered his voice, his tone carrying an indescribable meaning. "Isn't this... isn't this a bit too meticulous?"
Hua Yuan did not even look up, continuing the movements of his hands. "What? Is being meticulous a bad thing?"
"It's not that it's bad..." The attendant paused, his eyes falling on the box of wound medicine, his Adam's apple bobbing. "This medicine... I'm afraid it's enough to buy this child's life several times over, isn't it?"
Hua Yuan hummed in acknowledgement and asked in return, "What's wrong? Is it forbidden to use?"
The attendant fell silent.
He stood to the side, watching as Hua Yuan finished treating the third child as well. His movements were still so steady, so accurate, so... practiced. The knife in his hand was like a painter's brush or an embroiderer's needle, so precise that it left one speechless.
When the last child was carried away, the attendant finally couldn't hold back from speaking.
"Hua Yuan," his voice was somewhat hoarse. "You just said... that Mafeisan, can it really stop the pain?"
Hua Yuan's hands, which were packing up the surgical tools, paused.
He looked up.
He looked at the attendant.
The attendant was not old, in his early twenties, with a fair complexion.
At this moment, standing in the shadows by the door, the arrogance on his face was long gone, leaving only an indescribable... envy? Jealousy? Or something else?
Hua Yuan gave him a glance but said nothing.
The attendant lowered his head, his voice muffled. "When I entered the palace back then, I didn't get this kind of treatment."
"One slash of the knife, and I fainted from the pain. After I woke up, the wound festered for over half a year, and I almost didn't make it. Although it healed later, that place... it leaks from time to time, giving off a fishy, foul smell that just can't be covered up. I have to wear a fragrant sachet whenever I go out. Others think I'm just being vain, but actually..."
He didn't finish his sentence.
But Hua Yuan understood.
Hua Yuan remained silent for a moment, then lowered his head and continued packing his tools.
"These newcomers," the attendant said again, his tone carrying an indescribable sourness. "They really have good luck."
Hua Yuan did not speak.
He just wiped the knife stroke by stroke. The blade reflected his face. There was no expression on that face; only a pair of cloudy old eyes reflecting the light streaming in from the window.
Good luck?
Perhaps...
