Chapter 20: To steal the beams and change the pillars

  The old man had already guessed what was behind the words of Zuo Shao Yang. He hastily said, "Please be at ease about this matter, young master. We still have an old house and some thin fields at home. As long as you can save people's lives, I'll sell the land, houses, and everything to give you a diagnosis fee!"

  The old woman behind him shouted: "That's impossible! To save her, the whole family will sleep on the streets and drink northwest wind?"

  "Mother!" the young man exclaimed urgently, "Just save your daughter-in-law! She's also a life after all!"

  "Your wife's life is a life, but your mother's life isn't? You sold all your possessions to save her, and now you're starving your own mother to death. What a filial son you are! It's really true that once you marry, you forget about your mother!"

  The woman lying on the door panel heard their conversation amidst her groans and couldn't help but shed tears. The man didn't dare to disobey his mother, he just hugged his wife and looked at Zuo Shao Yang with pleading eyes.

  At this critical moment of saving lives, Zuo Shao Yang didn't want to argue about this matter, and hastily said: "Let's talk about the diagnosis later, saving lives is what matters most now!"

  The man was overjoyed and nodded repeatedly, saying it was good, with gratitude in his eyes.

  The old man was just scolded by his wife, and he thought that this attitude was not suitable. He couldn't cut off the livelihood of the whole family in order to save his daughter-in-law. Hearing Zuo Shao Yang's words, he hastily changed his tune and said: "Right! Right! First save people! Saving lives is urgent! We can talk about the medical expenses later."

  Everyone was busy lifting the door panel and followed Zuo Shao Yang to Gui Zhi Hall.

  Zuo Gui was sitting behind the long table, rolling up his sleeves and lowering his head in thought. He heard the sound of footsteps rushing to the entrance, and hastily lifted his head to take a look. Seeing that many people had come in, using the door panel to carry a woman in labor who was groaning in pain, he realized it was the same group of people who had just passed by the entrance earlier. He couldn't help but feel some surprise: "Everyone, what's going on...?"

  That man fell to his knees with a thud: "Old Master, please, save my wife!" He immediately kowtowed loudly. Several children also followed suit, kneeling and kowtowing while wailing and begging. The old man repeatedly bowed and said: "Old Master, please save my daughter-in-law! She has been pregnant for ten days and the dead fetus won't come out. We've tried all sorts of remedies, and even Doctor Ni from Huimin Hall has taken a look, but nothing worked... I heard you have..." At this point, the old man suddenly remembered Left Shao Yang's warning not to mention the four words "ancestral secret formula", so he hastily stopped himself and changed his words: "I heard your medical skills are exceptional, please save my daughter-in-law!"

  Zuo Gui was somewhat at a loss, having practiced medicine for decades, his father and also his master's medical skills were quite ordinary. Coming to this place, there was no surpassing the blue by being born from the blue, most of the treatments were just minor ailments like headaches and fever, never encountering any life-or-death illnesses, so he had never experienced patients kneeling down and begging for treatment with their heads bowed. He felt a bit flattered, hastily getting up to support them: "Quickly get up, absolutely must not be like this! Get up, all of you! Let old me take a look at the patient first!"

  "Alright!" Upon hearing this, the old man hastily made way for Zuo Gui by the door.

  Zuo Gui squatted down and took a look, asked the parturient woman's feeling, then diagnosed her pulse and tongue. Immediately, his eyebrows frowned together, slowly opened his hand, and shook his head gloomily: "Too late! It's really too late to rescue at this time."

  The old man thought that the old fellow was indeed as the young man had said, only saying that he would not save him because it was late. Fortunately, the young man had reminded him earlier, and with a plan in mind, the crowd begged again.

  Zuo Gui saw them kneeling all over the ground, pulling one up and another down, and said with difficulty: "It's not that I don't want to save you, it's just that I'm not capable of it. Think about it, even Dr. Nie from Huimin Hall said there's no way, so what can I do?"

  As soon as these words were spoken, everyone present understood the old man's intention and knew that he would refuse in this way. The knocking of heads was even more severe, with an extremely sincere attitude. Even the woman on the door panel who had been groaning incessantly begged pitifully. The old man even vaguely expressed his willingness to pay the medical fee, no matter how expensive it was, and said that he would hand over the medical fee even if he had to sell his pots and pans.

  Hui Xiang and Liang Shi knew about Zuo Gui's abilities, where he could cure illnesses that even the famous doctor Ni Daifu at Hui Min Tang couldn't. They were afraid these people would intentionally find fault with Zuo Gui's treatments to extort money from him, so they stepped forward with gloomy faces to persuade them to take their patients away, saying he couldn't be cured. But these people seemed to have made up their minds, pulling this one and that one, ceaselessly kowtowing and begging.

  Zuo Gui was somewhat bewildered, he didn't know why these people insisted on him treating them, they had already said that he wasn't capable of it, but they still knelt down and begged. After thinking for a moment, he simply wrote out a prescription, regardless of whether it would work or not, just to get rid of them. He sighed and said: "Fine! I'll treat you, but if it doesn't work, don't blame me, I've already told you that this illness is beyond my capabilities, you're the ones who insisted on me treating you."

  The old man hastily agreed: "That's it, whether it's good or bad, as long as the master does his best, we'll be equally grateful. Even if he can't cure him, that... that's just the child's fate, and we won't make things difficult for the master."

  Xiang and Liang breathed a sigh of relief when they heard them promise not to cause any trouble.

  Zuo Gui nodded, picked up the brush, pondered for a moment, and wrote out a prescription. After finishing, he picked it up to take a look, sighed, shook his head: "To be honest, this prescription is probably useless, just going through the motions. Take it to get the medicine!"

  He handed the prescription to the old man, who was about to take it when Zuo Shaoyang snatched it away first. The old man glanced at him and suddenly understood that this was someone else's ancestral secret recipe, which naturally couldn't be shown to others. He hastily smiled and stood up, following Zuo Shaoyang to the counter.

  He glanced at the prescription and saw that it was a San Wu Bei Ji Wan. This prescription is used to treat cold, solid abdominal pain, heart and abdominal distension, constipation, and to expel cold accumulation. It contains strong purgative drugs such as croton seed and rhubarb. It seems that Old Man also wants to try the method of inducing diarrhea to see if he can bring down the dead fetus. He couldn't help but smile wryly and shake his head secretly, thinking that if it were that simple, the doctors at Hui Min Tang would have already brought down the dead fetus.

  This prescription is definitely not usable, he had already thought of how to deal with it, and fortunately, the old man was taking a pill, not a decoction, and the medicine he wanted to use was also a pill, which made it easier to cover up.

  He put the medicine box under the table and directly followed his own thinking to prepare the prescription. He secretly took out the musk from his pocket, broke it in half, and put it in the mortar to grind it into powder. Then he grabbed three money's worth of cinnamon from the medicine cabinet, ground it into a fine powder, this prescription is called "Xianggui San", which is a famous prescription for miscarriage that appeared in the Song Dynasty. He had studied this prescription in his pharmacology class, but in modern society, when encountering a dead fetus that cannot be delivered, general Western medical methods are used to handle it, which is quick, convenient and safe, so Chinese medicine prescriptions for miscarriage are rarely used, so he has never used this prescription before and does not know if it is really effective. Now he can only use it with trepidation.

  He rolled it out and said to the crowd in the main hall: "Who has wine? This medicine needs to be taken with warm wine, we don't have any at home."

  These people thought to themselves, "Not being drunkards, who would carry around burning wine?" They looked at each other in dismay. The man said, "I'll go get it!" and hastily ran out.

  Zuo Gui looked at Zuo Shao Yang similarly, San Wu Bei Ji Wan does not require warm wine to be taken down, warm water is enough, why use warm wine? However, previously Zuo Shao Yang taught people how to take Guizhi Tang, said it was very reasonable, many Zuo Gui himself did not know, and then heard Zuo Gui say that it came from a mysterious old doctor, presumably this was also learned in the same way. Anyway, taking warm wine is not prohibited, so he didn't care.

  When Zuo Shao Yang was pounding the medicine, that man had already returned with a jug of wine, panting and handing it to Zuo Shao Yang.

  Zuō Shǎo Yáng brought over a coarse ceramic bowl, instructing them to carry the woman in labor into the left wing of the house and shut the door. Only the elderly couple's wife and the husband of the woman in labor were left inside. He squatted beside her with the medicine. The woman was already half-unconscious. Zuō Shǎo Yáng loudly told her to open her mouth, but she could only manage to open it a small crack. Her husband anxiously helped pry open his wife's mouth, and Zuō Shǎo Yáng poured all of the medicinal powder from the paper package into her mouth. Then he slowly fed her the warm wine from the bowl.

  The woman's consciousness had not completely disappeared, and she still knew to swallow the medicine down, gulp after gulp, half a bowl of wine was swallowed into her belly.

  Zuo Shaoyang put the bowl aside, stood up, clasped his hands behind his back, and gazed at the woman in labor with a tense expression. It was as if he had placed a bet and was waiting for the dealer to reveal the treasure.