The steady sound of a jump rope echoed through the hall.
Li Ce had reached two hundred and ninety jumps. His inner robe was soaked through, and his long hair clung in disarray to the side of his neck. Each movement pulled at the muscles of his waist and abdomen. The heavy ache that had dragged from his lower back into his lower belly suddenly sharpened with the constant jarring.
“Jiang… Yuejian…” Li Ce stopped. That sudden stab of pain made his entire body go rigid, and his face shifted from deathly pale to an unnatural flush.
Jiang Yuejian immediately threw aside her sunflower seeds and hurried over. “You feel it? Quick—go behind the hall, use that empty basin, and do not waste it!”
Li Ce no longer had any pride left to protect. Like a leopard with its tail stepped on, he nearly stumbled and crawled behind the screen into the side chamber.
Jiang Yuejian was not idle either. Carrying a small lantern, she followed.
“Jiang Yuejian! You… stop!” Li Ce roared from behind the screen, desperation plain in his voice. “You are not allowed in!”
“I am your attending physician. I have to observe the stone and how smoothly it passes!” Jiang Yuejian stood at the screen’s edge, entirely justified. She did not enter, but her voice carried with impressive force. “Your Highness, push. Do not hold back. Imagine you are breaking through enemy lines on the battlefield!”
A muffled groan came from behind the screen, followed by a series of shallow breaths drawn through tension and pain.
A moment later—
Clink—
A tiny, crisp sound: something hard striking the bottom of a porcelain basin.
In the deathly quiet side chamber, it sounded like thunder. Li Ce went weak all over.
Bracing himself against the wall, he stared at the bottom of the basin. There lay a small brown, jagged little stone, with the faintest trace of blood on it. He fell into a profound crisis of self-doubt.
That was it? This thing, smaller than a fingernail, had tormented him for half a month and had made Jiang Yuejian prod him, treat him, smack him, and force him to jump rope?
Jiang Yuejian drifted in like a ghost. Paying absolutely no attention to Li Ce’s disheveled embarrassment, she crouched, picked up the stone with small tweezers, and examined it carefully beneath the lantern.
“Tsk. A calcium oxalate stone. The edges are quite sharp.” She sounded as if she were appraising a work of art. “No wonder Your Highness hurt badly enough to wish for death. Li Ce, look—this is the crystallized result of staying up all night over memorials, refusing plain water, and swallowing those heavy-metal tonics at random. It is called Little Li Stone. Would you like to say hello?”
With trembling hands, Li Ce fastened his belt and turned toward the red brocade pouch in Jiang Yuejian’s hands.
With great solemnity, Jiang Yuejian put the stone into the pouch, pulled the cord tight, and offered it to Li Ce with both hands and a devout expression.
“Congratulations, Your Highness. Your eldest son has arrived. Keep this pouch well. The next time you want to stay up late, drink that oily salted tea, or take random immortal pills, take it out and feel it.”
Li Ce stared fixedly at the pouch.
Those decisive hands of his were actually trembling. He truly wanted to snatch the pouch away and smash it into Jiang Yuejian’s lively, infuriating face with all his strength.
He had even rehearsed countless punishments in his mind: throwing her into the imperial prison, exiling her to the frontier, or simply confining her inside the prince’s residence…
But in the end, he only seized the pouch resentfully and clenched it in his palm. The stone’s sharp edges pressed into his skin, and that faint pain reminded him that this woman had just saved his life.
“Jiang Yuejian…” Li Ce bent closer, his nose nearly touching hers. His voice was low as a beast’s growl. “You had better pray that I never grow another one of these things in my life. Otherwise, next time, I will definitely—”
“You will do what to me?” Jiang Yuejian raised an eyebrow, entirely unafraid. “Lock me up so I can handle your catheterization full-time?”
Li Ce’s breath caught in his chest. He nearly ascended to the heavens on the spot.
He discovered that before this woman, not only was his body transparent—his dignity had been shattered to pieces as well.
Taking a deep breath, he suddenly revealed a cold, devastatingly beautiful smile. “No. I will appoint you Great Tang’s First Imperial Medical Priest. From now on, you will not only watch my kidneys; you will watch every hidden ailment in all of Chang’an. Physician Jiang… we have a long road ahead of us.”