Chapter 45: Rapid Aging

Lin Rong was also someone who could read people's expressions. The moment he saw Doctor Fu's look, he instantly felt that something was amiss.

"Doctor Fu, what kind of illness does my daughter have?"

Doctor Fu hesitated for a moment before deciding to speak the truth.

"Is the young miss fourteen years of age?"

"Yes," Madam Wu hurriedly nodded.

What was wrong? Was there a problem with this age?

"Yet her body is frail now, her breath is weak, and her pulse feels like that of a sixty-year-old woman."

Even Lin Yanran's hands were those of an old woman.

"What did you say?"

Struck by the blow, Madam Wu almost slumped to the floor, and Lin Rong quickly supported her.

"Doctor Fu, what does this mean?"

Doctor Fu frowned, "It means she is aging at an extremely rapid rate. Her pulse indicates that her body is currently like that of a frail, sickly old person with almost no vitality left."

For a child of only fourteen, her pulse should naturally be robust, with her heartbeat and blood circulation carrying an inherent vitality. Furthermore, her skin and blood vessels should possess a different elasticity when pressed.

Yet based on the examination he had just conducted, Lin Yanran's body, from the inside out, bore no resemblance to that of a young maiden.

Doctor Fu pointed at her fingernails. "Look at her fingernails. The state of a person's health and the vigor of their life force can be glimpsed from their nails."

Lin Yanran's nail beds had completely lost their luster and color. A pale, grayish-purple tint showed through, and the nail beds were covered in vertical ridges. The edges of her nails also glowed with an unhealthy white, looking as though they were about to turn brittle and fragile.

"Before she fell ill, she really wasn't like this! Her nail beds were rosy and lustrous, truly!"

Weeping, Madam Wu reached out to grab Doctor Fu's hands. "So this must be because she's sick, right? Once this illness is cured, she'll recover, won't she?"

She looked at Doctor Fu with an almost pleading gaze, desperately hoping he would immediately give her a definitive, optimistic answer.

However, Doctor Fu had never been a gentle old man; he spoke the unvarnished truth.

"No. I can write a prescription for nourishing herbs that might slow down her rate of aging, and administer three days of acupuncture to clear her blood circulation, which should wake her up. But I have no way to restore her to her original condition."

"Why?" Madam Wu asked with a trembling voice.

"Because this old man cannot diagnose what kind of illness she actually has. In other words, she is simply growing old, yet she does not appear to be suffering from an actual disease."

Therefore, he had no way to prescribe the right medicine for the condition.

Lin Rong's expression shifted drastically.

"Doctor Fu, please save my daughter! She really wasn't like this before; she is truly just sick. I beg of you, name your price for the consultation fee..."

"Madam."

Lin Rong tightly grasped her hand, stopping her from continuing.

He could tell that it wasn't that Doctor Fu was unwilling to save her, but that he was powerless to do so.

To try and sway him with money might only anger Doctor Fu. At this stage in his life, was Doctor Fu lacking in silver?

However, Doctor Fu was not petty enough to get angry over this. After all, seeing Lin Yanran in such a state, he felt a measure of sympathy.

"Please go ahead and prescribe the medicine and acupuncture, Doctor Fu," Lin Rong said, enduring his grief.

Doctor Fu nodded.

"The most important thing right now is to wake her up. Once she regains consciousness, we can question her thoroughly about where she went or what inappropriate things she might have eaten before falling ill..."

Oh?

At this point, Doctor Fu couldn't help but recall his own situation and that of his grandson, which Lu Zhaoling had previously inquired about.

Could this extraordinarily strange illness of Miss Lin...

Doctor Fu looked at Madam Wu. "Did the Second Young Miss Lu say anything to you?"

"The Second Young Miss Lu?"

"It's the young lady who told you to come find this old man. Didn't you say you gave her a ride?"

So that was the Second Young Miss Lu?

Madam Wu hurriedly recounted everything Lu Zhaoling had said to her.

She looked nervously at Doctor Fu. "Is that Second Young Miss Lu also a physician? Is she a disciple of yours?"

Taking on a female physician as a disciple didn't seem all that strange.

Hearing her words, however, Doctor Fu's beard trembled as he immediately waved his hands.

"How could that be? This old man is hardly qualified to be her master!"

The Second Young Miss Lu hadn't seemed to say anything specific. But perhaps that was because she hadn't seen Lin Yanran with her own eyes?

Musing over this, Doctor Fu did not dare to act on his own authority and tell Madam Wu to seek out Lu Zhaoling.

He wrote out a medicinal prescription for Lin Yanran, instructed someone to have the herbs filled, and personally administered the acupuncture.

However, the needles had to be applied for three consecutive days.

Upon leaving the Lin residence, Doctor Fu could no longer restrain himself and headed straight for the Lu estate.

Old Hu, the steward of the Lu estate, had been driving himself crazy over the past two days.

He had taken his son to scour the capital for doctors, yet not a single one could cure Hu Dali's hand.

Hu Dali had been howling until his voice grew hoarse over the past two days. His arm simply hurt, aching so intensely that he wailed day and night.

Yet there appeared to be nothing wrong with his arm on the surface—not a single external injury. When questioned, he insisted he had never twisted, scraped, or hit it against anything.

The steward had been tormented to exhaustion.

When the doorman came to report that Doctor Fu had arrived and wished to see the Second Young Miss,

"He's here again?" The steward abruptly sprang to his feet. "That is Doctor Fu!"

A divine physician!

Letting out a cry, he dashed out.

Doctor Fu was escorted into the front hall. Seeing him bustling about to pour hot tea himself, Doctor Fu could not help frowning.

"This old man wishes to see the Second Young Miss."

He had not come to see anyone else in the Lu family.

The steward squeezed out a smile he imagined to be ingratiating (though it was actually rather unsightly). "Doctor Fu, are you here to change our Second Young Miss's bandages?"

Lu Zhaoling's head injury had been so severe that everyone in the Lu family assumed it would take a very long time for her to heal.

Still, changing bandages surely didn't warrant a personal visit from Doctor Fu himself, did it?

"Mn."

Doctor Fu kept his expression neutral.

Naturally, he couldn't just blurt out his true purpose for coming to see Lu Zhaoling.

"I've sent someone to invite the Second Young Miss," the steward said, rubbing his hands together. "That is... Doctor Fu, might I trouble you to take a look at my son's hand?"

"Look at his hand?"

The steward hurried to recount the situation.

Surely Doctor Fu could cure it? Aside from him, who else could?!

However, Doctor Fu latched onto a key detail in his narrative. "You said he was completely fine, but that night when he tried to block the Second Young Miss, it suddenly started hurting?"

In his subconscious, the steward actually harbored some suspicion toward Lu Zhaoling. It wasn't that he believed she possessed such mystical abilities; he simply thought she brought bad luck!

"Yes, exactly! I don't know what happened, but it inexplicably started hurting terribly!"

Doctor Fu stroked his beard, his gaze toward the steward turning somewhat cold.

He must have shown disrespect to the Second Young Miss. Why on earth should he save such a person? Let him hurt half to death.

"This old man cannot cure it."

"Wait, Doctor Fu, you haven't even looked at it yet!" The steward was dumbfounded. How could he know it couldn't be cured without looking?

"Then let this old man phrase it differently: this old man refuses to cure it."

With that, Doctor Fu stood up. "This old man will go directly to Tingnuan Pavilion."

Recovering his wits, the steward called out, "Doctor Fu!"

He chased after him, only to see Qingyin walking over from that direction.

"Doctor Fu?"

"Qingyin girl, is your young miss in?" Doctor Fu let out a breath of relief.