The symptoms were straightforward. Patients first displayed mild symptoms such as a white discoloration on the tongue and a swelling of the glands on the neck. Then came coughing and a mild fever. Patients usually seemed to recover after a few days. Seemed to.
Within a week, the fever was back, along with extreme weakness in the limbs. The coughing returned, as did the swelling of the glands. The swollen glands made it hard and painful to swallow. The feeling of choking, coughing and wanting to have a drink but not daring to, was miserable. Babies and the elderly both had a significant risk of dying at this stage, as did those who were already weakened. Most managed to recover.
Until the third wave of fever came, fifteen days after the first symptoms were identified. Breathing became very hard, the glands were swollen to the point of agony, drinking water was impossibly painful, the limbs were weakened to the point of uselessness, trying to sit up would induce dizziness, and patients reported frequently feeling an intense paranoia. Fever made victims look almost festive with how red they were, though they turned pale again once their breath stopped. As it did for about one in ten of the afflicted.
Those who survived, rarely survived unscathed. Lasting weakness in the limbs was normal, ranging from a week to more than a month with no sign of recovery. No one was sure how long it would last. It was a new plague. Some people just didn’t seem to fully heal. Their throats were still raw and painful. It was still hard to swallow, hard to draw a full breath. Some, those whose fevers ran the hottest for the longest, never recovered mentally. Addled, they struggled to understand their new weakness. Struggled to understand how to survive in these chaotic times.
Tian and Hong walked through the city. Liren let Tian lead, seeing the way his eyes were reading the city, cataloging and picking it apart in ways she simply did not. He led them through the wide thoroughfairs, down into the cross streets, and finally to the alleys. They made no effort to hide from mortal eyes. There was no reason to. People might not know they were immortal, but no one moving with such utter confidence was worth crossing. Not without a very strong reason, and in this city staring down a plague, two people with hardly a trace of wealth didn’t inspire avarice.
Tian found a beggar and squatted down next to them. “I’m looking for a doctor.”
The beggar cupped his hands, and looked up at Tian.
Tian reached into his robe and pulled out a cold bun. “Best I can do, Brother.”
“Hah. You got close. Just around the corner, a few doors down. Doctor Jin turned his front room into a pharmacy and opened it to the street. Can’t miss it.” The legless man waved a stick-thin arm, the other already grabbing the bun with dirty fingers.
“Thanks.”
The doctor’s home was humble, as were all the houses around here. Not impoverished, not a slum, but certainly on the edge of it. Tian thought he could see the desperation in the swept street and scrubbed shutters. As though constant cleaning could keep away the stain of true poverty. He smiled a little. Perhaps it could. Keeping one’s dao heart dustless and bright was the source of true wealth, at least so far as he was concerned.
There was a queue outside the Doctor’s office. Tian and Liren joined the line and waited patiently. It was a good enough time to meditate. It had been a trying few days, especially after the enforced stillness of cultivating in Voidcatcher’s garden. Some time peacefully meditating was welcome. Besides, it was barely two hours. Not worth fussing over.
Doctor Jin was thin, almost as emaciated as his patients. His skin was sallow, his eyes dim, the hairs sprouting from the mole on his cheek drooped listlessly. Tian restrained a nod of recognition. That was the face of a real doctor. Someone working themselves to death keeping unappreciative people alive.
“You two aren’t sick, and if you want aphrodisiacs, scram. I need all my strengthening medication for actually sick people.” Tiredness added a vicious bite to the doctor’s words. Tian cupped his hands and bowed.
“Sir misunderstands. I am surnamed Tian, and it has been my honor to study medicine these last ten years. Although I do not consider myself a qualified doctor, I can compound simple medicines, diagnose common illnesses, set bones, suture wounds, and perform basic acupuncture. I am on an errand, so I cannot linger in this city for too long, but I come to you with a single request.”
Tian bowed again, deeper this time. “Please let me assist you. If you do not require my assistance, please tell me who does. I wish only to help, and to heal.”
The doctor gave the two of them a sharp look, carefully cataloguing their appearances. His face turned white, then red, then hardened. “Mountain Ascetics?”
Tian smiled. “I have been called that.”
“You truly wish to help?”
“Yes. Nor will I accept payment. Under the circumstances, to do so would violate my path.”
The doctor blew out an explosive breath. “Ten years studying medicine. I’m told ten years pass in an instant in the mountains. It’s an eternity here. And yet, also an instant. We don’t know how the plague is spreading. By the mercy of the ancestors, the plague is less infectious than some in the past. Finding out how it spreads would be the best thing you could do. Second best thing would be cooling the excess yang in the sick, easing their fevers enough for them not to get brain damage. Third best thing, getting medicine down them. We are treating with frilled duckweed powdered and mixed into a tea, but nobody is pretending it’s a cure. The duckweed grows in the canals, so it’s cheap, available, and helps cool the body.”
Tian nodded. “Understood. Liren, could you please trace the disease?”
She sent him a thought with a spell. “How?”
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“Follow the yin qi. It’s a yang phase disease in terms of the symptoms it produces, but the sickness itself should be yin. you should still be able to trace the flow of yin qi. If you can’t, make contact with the other cultivators in the city. See what they know.” He smiled at her. “I won’t run off. I’ll be here with the doctor. If I have to go somewhere else, I will send you a message. With this spell, we won’t be out of communication.”
She nodded sharply. “Alright. See that you are here when I get back.” She turned and strode out the door without a backward glance.
The doctor glanced at him. “Wife?”
“Dao companion.”
“Sounds like a wife.”
“It’s really quite different, though I’m not sure how to explain it to you without wasting your time.” Tian shrugged. “Now, doctor, while you tell me how I can help you specifically with your patients, let me fix you a cup of tea. I guarantee it will perk you right up.”
Tian carefully controlled the vital energy and qi inside the tea, not infusing it with his elemental understanding. He was beginning to understand a bit more about how his touch shaped the mortal world. He could see it if he paid close attention- the touch of his hands left gentle traces of qi, vanishing quickly enough, but still leaving an almost undetectable residue. Utterly insignificant, to him. He knew it would not be so for a mortal.
Doctor Jin plainly liked the tea.
“I’m young again!” Doctor Jin yelled, his mole hairs quivering with ecstasy. “Oh, just you wait, Little Orchid! I’ll show you how much life is left in these old hips! Dare to tease an old dog? Hrmph! Just you wait and see how I deal with you!”
“In retrospect, maybe adding ginseng and black pepper to the tea was doing too much.” Tian muttered.
“Not at all! For the first time in weeks, I feel alive! Now then, you say you can diagnose and do acupuncture? Little Third, where are you? Get over here, I have a job for you.”
A well scrubbed, if threadbare, child appeared in the doorway, worming his way through the queue.
“Doctor Tian, this is Little Third, who grew up in this neighborhood. You sure you don’t want paying?” The doctor fixed him with a hard look.
Tian silently shook his head.
“Good. Take him to Madam Li’s boarding house. He will tend to the patients there.” Tian looked over at the newly revitalized Doctor Jin. “It’s a makeshift hospital. Hospice, really. Families who can’t afford proper medical care or medicine take their sick there. Some people donate food, others cook, others clean. Never enough hands, but it’s better than keeping the sick at home. When I have time, I check in. Do what I can to help. Old Cao and Old Wei do the same. They can’t do much either, but people feel better when they see doctors and apothecaries come by.”
“Hope.”
The doctor nodded. “Hope.”
Tian bowed, then asked “Do you happen to have a set of acupuncture needles I could borrow? My needles are not suitable for those with weakened physiques." He displayed one of the horn needles, and watched Doctor Jin recoil.
“Did you actually-”
“I used it on myself. Quite effectively, I am happy to say, though the pain was significant.”
“Yes. Significant. Here, these are the ones I trained with. They have great sentimental value, so I expect them back. Clean.”
Tian smiled and gratefully accepted the thick cloth roll.
Tian started moving towards the door. He updated Liren with where he was going, following the boy out into the street. The long distance communication spell was very convenient. He could hear the relief in her thoughts, clearly comforted to know he was keeping her up to date on his location.
“I really hope something absolutely diabolical happens to Mourning Cry. I don’t often wish that kind of ill on people, but in her specific case, I would be DELIGHTED to learn she got eaten by a tiger or something.”
Don’t worry. She’s still stuck on the mountain for now, but I can more or less guarantee that if she starts looking into those asterisms and the possible formations they could be forming, insanity is an all too likely result. Depending on how deep in the weeds she gets, anyway. It would be even better if the ward was down. That kind of journey starts in the light, and ends in eternal darkness. Still, there is a certain charm to knowing she is feeling trapped, that immense secrets and power are hidden on the other side of a door in the sky. A door she is powerless to reach. Powerless… unless she takes drastic measures. Dreadful measures.
“Grandpa… I have wondered for a long time, what did you do before you were a ghost?”
The best I could, same as everyone else. Looks like your little guide has a question.
Tian looked down. Little Three had a question or had to pee. Either way, the little boy had an urgent expression. “Yes, Little Three?”
“Are you really a doctor?”
“A doctor in training, certainly. I have made medicines, done surgery, set bones, diagnosed illnesses, that kind of thing.”
“Can you cure Sis’ Bing?”
“I don’t know. Is she at Madam Li’s?”
“Yes. I took her there when she fell down the first time.”
“Mmm. Let's hurry along then. I hope Madam is looking out for her.”
Little Three turned and glared at Tian. “Madam Li is dead.”
Tian smiled. “That doesn’t matter. I know at least two helpful ghosts. Come, bring me to her. I can’t promise to heal her, but I promise I will do my best.”
Madame Li’s boarding house was two stories and a dozen rooms packed with people, barely a couple of feet between them. They lay on mattresses on the floor, most of them, chamberpots and small jugs of water next to them. The stink was an almost physical thing. The chamber pots were being emptied, he knew, but there were only a few volunteers, and many, many patients.
“Little Three, do you have friends that like candy?”
Little Three gave him a scornful look.
“Take me to Little Bing, then go find your friends. Pick the oldest, healthiest ones. Then come back. If they empty every chamberpot in here, I will give each of them three pieces of candy.”
“Six.”
“I have exactly twenty pieces of candy. You can have them all and divide them up how you like, so long as all the chamber pots are emptied and rinsed clean first. Rinsed clean. No dunking them in the wells. I shouldn’t have to explain why.”
“Why?”
“Do you like eating poop?”
“No!”
“That’s why.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Then you don’t get candy.” Tian grinned.
“I get it.” Little Three nodded sharply. “Little Bing is this way.”
Tian walked into the stinking room and was shown a little girl, just five years old. The first patient he would treat, not as an assistant, or an orderly, or a field medic, but as a doctor in his own right.