Chapter 40 Exhausted

The Old Madam successfully obtained the token of the Head Imperial Physician from Dou Hongyan.

As the bronze token fell into her palm, even she herself had never expected Dou Hongyan to be so accommodating, which only made her feel a surge of even deeper gratitude and emotion.

After offering profuse thanks, she hurried off to the palace with a complex mixture of feelings to summon medical assistance.

Her previous resentment toward Dou Hongyan completely melted away, leaving her speechless. Along the way, wiping away tears, she recalled the hardships of these past few years and ached for all the suffering Shen Yishu had endured out in the world.

Just look at him.

All it took was a simple fall, and yet he had remained unconscious for an entire night!

Once the imperial physician was secured, Liu Yun, who had been waiting for a long time, stepped forward to guide the way, leading the physician straight to Shen Yishu’s courtyard.

Along the path, Liu Yun lowered her voice and urged, "Please examine our master’s condition with the utmost care, Doctor. If there is anything to report, speak the plain truth. If our master is restored to health, our mistress will naturally be most generous with her rewards."

"I wouldn't dare, I wouldn't dare..."

It would have been better if she hadn't mentioned her mistress; the moment she did, the physician felt a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.

Hastily waving his hands at Liu Yun, he replied, "Curing the sick and saving the lives is this old subject's bounden duty. Naturally, I will diagnose the Eldest Master of the Shen family thoroughly and hold nothing back."

The two exchanged glances, each smiling with an insincere sincerity, each harboring their own secret agendas.

The physician was particularly puzzled. Carrying a belly full of doubts as he arrived before Shen Yishu's sickbed, he was utterly startled the moment he caught sight of the person keeping watch by the bed.

"Is the physician here?" Dou Hongyan stood up. "Please."

"Yes, yes..."

To think that Madam Dou would personally keep watch over the Eldest Master of the Marquis's Estate.

The physician inwardly clicked his tongue in amazement. In the past, when His Highness occasionally suffered injuries or illness, he wouldn't even dare to ask this person to tend to him at the bedside.

How on earth did the people of the Marquis's Estate manage to command such immense prestige?

It must be that the Madam is plotting something! I must on no account disrupt the Madam's plans.

With this thought, the physician instantly cast aside the perfunctory attitude he had held when he first heard he was merely treating Shen Yishu. He proceeded to examine Shen Yishu from head to toe with the utmost meticulousness.

As he took the pulse, he exerted every ounce of his skill to write out the prescription. His cautious and deliberate demeanor was no different from how he would treat the Emperor himself.

Standing nearby, another person closely watching Shen Yishu was Liu Xin'er.

After observing for a while, she felt an escalating sense of wrongfulness. Biting her lip in bewilderment, she gazed at the unusually earnest physician, her mind churning with doubts.

This physician was part of Dou's faction.

Knowing Dou's temperament, simply agreeing to save someone was already a rare mercy; how could she possibly induce the imperial physician to be so utterly devoted?

Something was amiss.

She bit down harder and harder on her lip, her mind involuntarily recalling the rumors she had heard ceaselessly ever since she arrived at the Marquis's Estate.

They all said that Dou felt a deep and unrequited affection for Shen Yishu...

Could it truly be so?

What about Shen Yuhang, then?

Liu Xin'er's heart sank lower and lower. Casting a glance filled with jealousy toward Dou Hongyan and Shen Yishu, she spat mentally in disgust.

Men were truly all about sweet words and empty promises. She was the only fool who had believed his one-sided claims about being heartless and estranged from Dou, when the truth was plainly visible right before her eyes.

There was even the blood-testing verification as proof.

Perhaps Shen Yuhang was the child he had kept hidden behind her back specifically for Dou!

The more Liu Xin'er thought about it, the more her eyes reddened. Her heart felt bitter, sour, and flooded with a rising tide of jealousy.

One moment she envied Dou Hongyan, and the next she cursed Shen Yishu as a faithless wretch, convinced that not a single man under heaven was any good.

After gingerly turning Shen Yishu this way and that to examine him as if he were made of precious jade, the physician finally began to assemble the herbal prescription. Stroking his beard, he weighed his words carefully and said, "In this old subject's humble opinion, Eldest Master Shen's condition is not actually critical. The reason he collapsed from severe illness is largely due to a depletion of vital energy and blood. Having spent these past few years abroad, he has, ah... been somewhat too unrestrained and self-indulgent, which unfortunately left him with these hidden ailments."

To translate that into plain human speech: he had been indulging in earthly pleasures away from home, leaving his constitution somewhat frail.