Chapter 106
Chapter 106
Chapter 106: Cheng Yao’nang
Bai and Mei took their seats under Master Cheng’s invitation. During the meal, they kept observing Lady Cheng.
They also observed Master Cheng’s attitude toward his wife.
With this awareness, the behavior of the Cheng couple naturally did not escape their notice.
They saw Master Cheng first glance at his wife with concern; Lady Cheng responded with a slight nod, as if saying, “It’s nothing.” Then Master Cheng exhaled and turned to Bai and Mei, putting on a smile again.
“Jingzhou is a small town,” he said, “the food may not be as precious as elsewhere, but I hope it pleases the heroes.”
This was modesty. Even Bai and Mei could recognize rare northwest delicacies on the table, showing the Cheng family’s care.
They immediately complimented the dishes. At the repeated praise from the visitors, Master Cheng’s face displayed a faint smile, though it faded slightly when his wife lowered her head to cough.
He looked at her with concern. At this point, Bai and Mei could not stay silent and spoke up. Bai Zhengliu asked, “Aunt, are you unwell? When we first saw you, your complexion seemed pale.”
Mei Yinghan added, “Master Cheng, you know, in Tianshan we often sell some medicinal herbs externally, partly to support the sect’s expenses. Over time, even though not all of us are physicians, we’ve learned some medical techniques. Since your household has kindly hosted us, if it’s not inconvenient, may we take a look at Aunt?”
Hearing this, the Cheng couple exchanged glances. Master Cheng’s faint wry smile emerged fully: “You two heroes flatter me.”
Lady Cheng said, “It’s nothing serious; I just caught a chill last night.” She coughed twice more.
Master Cheng frowned, whispering to his wife, “Why not let the heroes take a look?”
After a brief hesitation, Lady Cheng agreed.
As before, the current era did not emphasize strict gender separation, and Lady Cheng was nearly twenty years older than Bai and Mei. Moreover, this was in the context of healer and patient. Master Cheng watched from the side as Mei Yinghan, at the table, shifted closer to Lady Cheng and began to take her pulse.
When he said earlier that he “learned some medical techniques,” he wasn’t exaggerating; he truly had some knowledge of herbs and medicine—not just him, Bai Zhengliu was similar. Traveling outside, illness and injury were inevitable. Learning some medical principles benefited them.
But Mei Yinghan, with the Tianshan inheritance, had studied them systematically and rigorously, whereas Bai Zhengliu’s approach was rougher—enough to make remedies for himself, but not for giving definitive diagnoses to others.
Now, Mei Yinghan’s fingers rested on Lady Cheng’s wrist, and Bai Zhengliu’s gaze first fell on Mei’s fingertips, then followed up her arm.
—Mei Yinghan wasn’t merely taking her pulse. He subtly transmitted some spiritual energy into her, testing whether he could dispel the Yin energy surrounding her.
The effect was remarkable. Though Yin energy lingered around Lady Cheng, it did not invade her body. The swordsman’s spiritual energy was pure and potent; within moments, Lady Cheng felt as if waking from a long dream, her mind suddenly clear.
When she fully regained her senses, Mei Yinghan had already asked Long Ge for paper and pen to write a prescription, saying: “Aunt, this is wind-cold entering the body, that is clear. Additionally, there is long-standing worry and concern that has exhausted her mind and body. Such conditions cannot be fully remedied by medicine; the heart’s concerns must also be resolved…” He paused, oddly struck by how familiar his own words sounded.
Bai Zhengliu immediately realized: Wait, isn’t this the same diagnosis the physician gave the lady in The Dream-Seeking Chronicle?The swordsman’s mind twisted for a moment, but he comforted himself not to overthink. After all, the phrase “worry weighing on the heart” wasn’t made up, and the symptoms Mei Yinghan described were hardly unusual. His repeated thoughts about The Dream-Seeking Chronicle were merely triggered by what they had seen and heard in Jingzhou, not something worth obsessing over.
After cycling through these thoughts, he looked up again. The Cheng couple had already huddled together over the prescription. Clearly knowledgeable in medicine, they finished reading and smiled: “This is indeed gentler than what the city doctors would prescribe. Good, we’ll gather the herbs according to this recipe tomorrow.”
Master Cheng handed the prescription to Long Ge. Lady Cheng hesitated for a moment, pressing her hand to her forehead.
Master Cheng turned back and saw his wife’s gesture. Just as he tensed, she smiled at him and said, “I don’t know if it’s imagination, but when Hero Mei was taking my pulse earlier, I felt a warm current flow from my wrist all the way to my heart. My body still aches somewhat, but I do feel much lighter.”
Master Cheng immediately exclaimed, “Eh?”—surprised and delighted as he looked at Mei Yinghan.
Mei Yinghan blinked subtly, very low-key, and said: “Earlier I tried using internal energy to adjust Aunt’s circulation. This usually works on my juniors, but since Aunt is not trained in martial arts, I didn’t know how effective it would be, which is why I didn’t mention it. Now that it has been effective, it’s a good thing.”
The Cheng couple’s faces lit up with joy at his words. They exchanged a glance, as if making a silent decision, and spoke together: “If the heroes have such skill, would you—”
Bai and Mei: “Hm?”
The Cheng couple: “Would you kindly examine our daughter Yao’nang?”
Bai and Mei’s hearts stirred.
This time, they didn’t look at each other. But martial artists don’t rely solely on sight to perceive their surroundings.
The slight tension in the body, the faint sounds of sleeves brushing… Bai and Mei observed the Cheng couple carefully and asked, “Please, Master and Lady Cheng, first tell us, what is the young lady’s condition?”
…
…
For a moment, Bai Zhengliu felt as if he were listening to The Dream-Seeking Chronicle again. Only now, he was no longer a bystander hearing the innkeeper recount the story—he was truly in the text, playing the doctor who treated the “young lady.”
Fortunately, the Cheng couple kept mentioning names like “Leshan Troupe,” reminding the swordsman that he was still in reality.
The couple explained: “It all began when Yao’nang invited that troupe to our home. After hearing them once, she wasn’t satisfied, so she had them perform two more times. At the time, I wondered, was the play really that good? Even if the lines were well-written, Yao’nang liked it so much…”
Sigh, liking it is liking it. Though it grew tiresome, the Cheng couple didn’t take their daughter’s unusual fondness for The Dream-Seeking Chronicle seriously.
Who could have guessed that trouble would follow? After the Leshan Troupe left, Cheng Yao’nang immediately lost her appetite. Lady Cheng noticed her daughter’s abnormal behavior and gently asked about it, but Yao’nang refused to speak.
Worried and anxious, Lady Cheng appeared even more haggard than her daughter during those days. Perhaps sensing her mother’s deteriorating condition, Cheng Yao’nang finally reluctantly confessed that she had experienced the same dream as the lady in the play.
Lady Cheng listened in stunned silence.Once the floodgates opened, the rest came out more easily. Cheng Yao’nang and her mother admitted that from the very first day she watched The Dream-Seeking Chronicle, she had dreamed of a young scholar who shared the same name as the one in the play. His surname was “Song,” and his given name was simply “Shi.”
The dream figure was as elegant and talented as the one in the play. Yet unlike the play, his love was not for the “young lady” on stage, but for the real Cheng Yao’nang.
Lady Cheng looked at her daughter in disbelief as a faint pink flushed her cheeks.
Yao’nang was completely immersed in her affection, speaking of her love with overwhelming joy, describing how they exchanged poetry and debated literature. Song had already become a scholar, though unfortunately he was not in Jingzhou. That didn’t matter—he asked Yao’nang to wait for him, promising that in time he would come to her home to propose.
As she spoke, Yao’nang grasped her mother’s hand. She was joyful, yet tinged with a hint of nervousness. “Mother, I know this sounds unbelievable, but how often do dreams feel so real?… Surely there really is a Song Shi in the world, it’s just that the author of The Dream-Seeking Chronicle happened to give the character the same name. He is on his way to propose to our family now.”
Lady Cheng’s hand trembled slightly.
Yao’nang, still lost in her dreamy thoughts, continued: “When we watched the play, didn’t you always say the young lady’s family was too rigid and almost harmed her? Our family would never be like that toward Song. Mother, don’t you agree?”
Lady Cheng: “……”
Faced with her daughter’s bright, expectant gaze, Lady Cheng still couldn’t bring herself to say, “But plays are plays, and reality is reality.”
Suppressing her own tangled thoughts, she asked her daughter: where was the young man in her dream from, and what was his family like?
To Lady Cheng’s surprise, her daughter answered every question. When she didn’t know, she promised, “I’ll ask Song Shi in my dream tonight,” and would tell her mother the next day.
At the main hall’s dining table, Lady Cheng spoke with great worry to Bai Zhengliu and Mei Yinghan:
“…He is from the south, and he has a younger brother who is already married. I said, that can’t be right—how could the younger brother marry before the elder? But Yao’nang told me she asked ‘Song Shi’ about it, and he told her he had always focused on studying the sages’ books and never thought about marriage. It was just the brother who was clumsy, so the family arranged a clever wife for him.
“I was overwhelmed, but Yao’nang became even more absorbed. Over time, I began to feel that there really might be a ‘Song Shi’ out there, now on his way to marry my daughter.
“If that is true, then it would be a fated match.”
Though they said it that way, the expressions of Lady and Master Cheng showed they did not really believe in this “fate.” “But Yao’nang dreams day after day, and her health deteriorates! We suspect—”
Bai and Mei watched the couple silently.
They didn’t speak, yet the Chengs seemed to make another firm decision. Like before when discussing their daughter’s condition, they clenched their teeth and confessed honestly to the two wandering heroes:
“Yao’nang hasn’t met any real young man at all—she’s possessed!”
Upon saying this, both Master and Lady Cheng broke into cold sweat. But, upon reflection, they also found it incredible that they had actually spoken the words.
Yet how could they not? So much time had passed since Yao’nang’s first dream, and no living “Song Shi” had appeared. If they truly believed the young man was still on his way, given the distance, it would take a month or two at least to arrive. Meanwhile, their daughter’s condition worsened day by day—once a lively young lady who could meet friends for tea and plays, she now lay in bed with a waxen face.
How could Master and Lady Cheng be at ease?
And yet, despite their unease, they could think of no solution. They even secretly obtained talismans from temples outside the city to ward off evil, but it had no effect. “Song Shi” existed solely in their daughter’s speech, and when the doctor examined her, he could only say Yao’nang was suffering from lovesickness.
Master and Lady Cheng were at a loss, not knowing what to do.Lady Cheng even took the initiative to ask about her daughter, wanting to know how far along “Song Shi” had traveled. Yao’nang would explain, and the details of “Song Shi’s” journey sounded somewhat believable—but no matter how believable, it could never compare to the daughter’s current pale and feeble state!
Thinking this way, any lingering regret over “how could we have spoken such absurd thoughts aloud” vanished.
The Chengs did not expect Bai and Mei to have any way to influence “Song Shi”; they only wished for their daughter’s health to improve. Even if one day “Song Shi” really did appear, as long as he came from a respectable family, they would willingly provide a dowry and arrange the wedding.
Hearing this, Bai and Mei exchanged glances, then quickly looked away.
Bai Zhengliu: “So it’s really like this…”
Mei Yinghan: “If convenient, may we take a look at the young lady?”
“Of course it’s convenient,” the Chengs hurriedly replied. “Two heroes, please come with us!”
Author’s note:
Originally wanted to eat rice dumplings tonight, but when I checked the fridge, the ones at home were expired… but only by four days.
So… should I eat them or not? Such a dilemma.