diskusbooks Chapter 153 Visitors
Chapter 153 Visitors
There was heating in the Yanxi Palace. Concubine Chun was sitting on the small couch. After Lu Ziqing took her pulse and put away the examination towel, she asked.
"Doctor Lu, is my pregnancy okay?"
Lu Ziqing said, "Your Majesty is now three months pregnant. You have stopped taking the medication to maintain the pregnancy for a while, and the pregnancy is still stable. But you must remember to be careful not to catch a cold."
"The Imperial Physician is right." Concubine Chun took the hand warmer from Caiping and hugged it. "When winter comes, my hands and feet become cold. I'm very afraid of the cold. If I catch a cold, I can't just use medicine carelessly."
Lu Ziqing put the towel into the medicine box and said, "Your Majesty's body is already weak, and with pregnancy, the blood deficiency will be aggravated. Just take the dietary therapy prescription I gave you before on time."
The door opened and a palace maid came in carrying a tray. Caiping brought the bowl of red porridge to the small table on the couch, and Concubine Chun picked up the spoon and ate.
"Doctor Lu's red bean and red date porridge is quite good. It also contains wolfberries and brown sugar. I've been eating it for a while now, and my cold hands and feet have indeed improved. However, I'm always vomiting, and my appetite is poor and I want to eat sour food."
Lu Ziqing said, "If you're vomiting a lot and really want to eat, you can eat some sour plums."
"Your Majesty doesn't like sour plums," Caiping asked, "Can you have hawthorns?"
"Hawthorn?" Lu Ziqing pondered for a moment. "The pregnancy is stable now, so it's okay to eat one occasionally, but don't eat too much, remember."
Outside the palace, the air was gloomy and the rain was pouring down like a curtain.
Lu Ziqing walked out of the palace gate while being immersed in the cold wind. He saw a tall man holding an umbrella coming towards the Jinshui Bridge. When he raised the umbrella, he saw Xiao Yan's face.
"My Lord?" Lu Ziqing walked over quickly and asked him, "What are you doing here, my Lord?"
"Waiting for you." Xiao Yan glanced at Lu Ziqing's thin official uniform, "Why did you come out without a cloak again?"
Lu Ziqing didn't know how to respond to the first half of the sentence, but the second half was similar.
It's strange to say, ever since what happened that night, he couldn't stand any of Xiao Yan's caring words. It wasn't as natural as before, but a little awkward.
He had occasionally thought in the past two days that perhaps he was being too pretentious, so he deliberately avoided thinking about it in a complicated way.
But Xiao Yan's casual concern would inexplicably bring up the suppressed thoughts, like now.
"I forgot in my rush to leave." Lu Ziqing covered up his embarrassment with a smile, "My Lord, you are waiting for me... Is there something wrong?"
Xiao Yan turned his head away from the street not far away and said, "Let's talk in the carriage. It's cold standing in the wind."
Lu Ziqing got on the carriage in a daze. He sat on the small bed in the main seat where he usually sat and wiped the rain off his body.
Just as he was about to ask a question, a bowl of steaming sweet-scented osmanthus syrup dumplings was handed to him.
"I'm hungry in the afternoon, let's have this to warm us up first." Xiao Yan said, holding the bowl, "Try it and see how it tastes."
Lu Ziqing was stunned and stood there for a moment, not knowing how to respond. He could only take the bowl stiffly and smiled awkwardly.
"When did the Marquis do this?"
Although Lu Ziqing felt that this act of concern was a bit exaggerated, he had no resistance to this dessert. It was a familiar and sweet memory.
He scooped a spoonful with a spoon and ate it, smiling politely, "The Marquis's cooking is as good as my senior sister's."
Xiao Yan also laughed and poured himself a bowl to eat.
The carriage swayed and the rain hit the roof with a crackling sound.
Seeing Xiao Yan put down his bowl, Lu Ziqing asked him, "Where are we going?"
"It's about your jade pendant." Xiao Yan said, "I was delayed before because of something. It just so happens that he and I are both free today."
Lu Ziqing perked up and asked, "Did the Marquis ask about it?"
Xiao Yan said "hmm", "You can ask him later."
After a while, the carriage stopped at a small street in Fucaifang. Xiao Yan led Lu Ziqing into the alley and walked straight to the door of the last house with a locust tree.
He knocked on the black lacquered door, and after a while the door opened. A tall, thin, middle-aged man stood inside with a small mustache and a net scarf on his forehead.
"Brother Qianshan." Xiao Yan greeted first.
Lu Ziqing's eyebrows twitched when he heard this name, and he felt as if he had heard it somewhere before.
Lu Qianshan's eyes lit up, "Oh, the Marquis is here, please come in."
The room was not particularly spacious. There were a few old yellowed landscape paintings hanging in front of the table in the main hall, and a storage cabinet in the corner of the side hall.
Lu Qianshan invited the guests to sit down and said embarrassedly: "My place is simple, please bear with me, my lord."
"Brother Qianshan, that's not right." Xiao Yan pulled out a chair and sat down. "We're already so familiar with each other, there's no need to be so formal."
He introduced them to each other separately. Lu Ziqing and Lu Qianshan were chatting when an old lady came out from the side room, carrying tea and putting it on the table. Xiao Yan greeted them.
When the old lady politely handed the second cup of tea to Lu Ziqing, her face seemed surprised and happy.
"Oh, is that you, the imperial physician?"
The other two were stunned. Lu Ziqing looked at the old lady's reaction for a while, then said with a smile, "Auntie, is that you?"
Lu Qianshan was suspicious and asked, "Do you know each other?"
The old lady's face was full of joy as she said to Lu Qianshan, "Son, this is the doctor I told you about before, the one who saved me on the street. Not only did he save my life, he also took away the consultation fee."
"Oh, it's Doctor Lu. Thank you for saving my mother's life. Please accept my greetings."
As Lu Qianshan spoke, he stood up and knelt down to pay his respects. Lu Ziqing immediately stood up to stop him.
"Master Lu, you must be so kind to me. It's a doctor's duty to save the dying and the wounded. As long as my wife is fine, I'm glad."
"Dr. Lu is kind-hearted and skilled in medicine. He is truly a role model for doctors and is worthy of admiration," said Lu Qianshan.
Lu Ziqing smiled politely, and Xiao Yan continued, "This is fate. I was delayed last time, and today I came here to ask Brother Qianshan to identify an item."
He took out the jade pendant, and Lu Qianshan took it and said naturally: "This is a work I carved in my early years."
Lu Ziqing immediately remembered the word "Qianshan" engraved on the jade pendant and felt delighted.
"So this was made by Lord Lu. Not only is his work exquisite, but he even managed to hide his name within it. His carving skills are truly unparalleled in the world, unmatched by anyone."
"You're too kind, Doctor Lu. I'm just a jade carver in the palace, not a senior official. Doctor Lu, just call me by my name." Lu Qianshan said with a smile, "What do you want to ask?"
Lu Ziqing said, "I just want to ask Brother Qianshan, who is this jade pendant made for?"
Lu Qianshan handed the jade pendant back to Lu Ziqing. "This is jade that was once a tribute from Myanmar. There are eight colors in total, including the white ice jadeite. The emperor ordered me to create this magnolia flower. Concubine Xian loves magnolia flowers, so this jade pendant is the only one of its kind."
"Xian Guifei?"
Lu Ziqing had never seen it before. He and Xiao Yan looked at each other and listened to what Lu Qianshan said.
"How did Consort Xian's jade pendant end up in your hands?"
Lu Ziqing quickly tried to smooth things over, "I found this while I was on a medical visit in the palace. I didn't know who it belonged to, so I came to Brother Qianshan to ask about it and return it to its rightful owner."