Chapter 20: Unveiled Pietà
Xu Ling trailed Qu Xiao into the villa's marbled sanctum, their shadows stretching like supplicants across Carrara floors.
Lin Yutong ensconced Yu Mengna in the adjoining suite's embrace. "Respite claims you," she intoned before ascending the helical stairway, her departure a study in tactical grace.
Watching her dissolve into upper corridors, Xu Ling recalibrated his understanding of this protean woman—no mere adjutant to Qu Xiao's sovereignty, but a maestro of chaos theory made flesh.
Returning to Yu Mengna's bedside, Xu Ling winced at the grime mapping her skin's topography. He lifted her with sacerdotal reverence into the ensuite's Byzantine bath chamber.
The basalt immersion pool yawned—a Stygian mirror capable of swallowing four souls whole. Xu Ling excised soiled garments with numismatic delicacy. Under Jielander sconces' forensic glare, the cephalic imprint across her zygomatic arch burned like Cain's mark.
"Atonement eludes me," he breathed, qi spiralling through phalanges to purge the violative sigil.
Aqueous opalescence shivered with neroli essence. As Yu Mengna's final veil surrendered, Xu Ling's larynx constricted—her alabaster epidermis now etched with ecchymotic constellations.
He averted his gaze as she entered the thermal Ganges, then divested himself to enact ablutions. Their submerged limbs entwined like mangrove roots in coastal silt, fever-pitch warmth exorcising the night's incubi.
A zodiacal hour passed in Eleusinian ritual. Swathed in terrycloth vestments, Yu Mengna still convulsed against Mnemosyne's torments. "Defilement... defied..." she keened, carmine crescents flowering on Xu Ling's dermis.
He enfolded her against his sternum, vocalizing fragments of forgotten nursery rhymes until her tremors ebbed. Only when her respiration synced with oceanic rhythms did he dare retreat.
The percussion arrived as he ghosted toward egress. Lin Yutong oscillated in the liminal space, digits knotting. "Xiao-jie's... lunar ebb," she mouthed, orbital hues deepening. "The threnody exceeds nature's score. Might your arts...?"
Xu Ling ascended to Qu Xiao's inner sanctum, oblivious to the gorgon's lair he trespassed.
"Audience granted."
The revelation arrested cognition—Qu Xiao's peignoir spilling open as she anointed deltoids with tuberose unguent. Selenic rays transmuted her dorsal landscape into Parian marble cartography, the scapular ravine a bourne reducing cartographers to weeping acolytes.
Xu Ling's sinoatrial node commenced a staccato pavane. The boardroom Valkyrie stood divested of Aegis, her unguarded humanity more devastating than any boardroom coup.
Loom of Celestial Threads
"Anoint the dorsal tableau!"
Xu Ling was petrified, unprepared for Qu Xiao's imperial dissolution of decorum. Her sinuous form gleamed like nephrite statuary as she attended to gams sheathed in moonlight. Compelled by regal fiat, he accepted the citrus-kissed unguent.
Thermal resonance bloomed through his thenar eminences as he spread balm across her marmoreal plane. The narcotic bouquet of magnolia alba and oudh eroded cognition, his digital extremities charting spinous processes with sacral devotion.
"The sacral promontory demands obeisance."
Qu Xiao ascended to full verticality, orbits veiled in opiated serenity. Tonight's tactile liturgy felt peculiarly numinous—Lin Yutong's thaumaturgy had transcended mortal parameters.
"Further declination."
Xu Ling's man was arrested at her iliac friezes. Deeper progression would violate the charmeuse bastion shielding her callipygian citadel. His phalanges blanched against carnal hieroglyphs.
"Perhaps convoke Miss Lin—"
Qu Xiao pirouetted, startled from oneiric repose. "Thou?!" Cinnabar inundated her décolletage as she reconstituted her peignoir's fortress.
Xu Ling abraded his nuchal crest. "Your sanctum, your edict—was this not Delphic design?"
The magnate kneaded her frontals. "Presumed Yutong performed this liturgy. Declare your nyctophobic agenda."
"Homage for tonight's asylum," he genuflected. "Yet your leukodermic hue portends—"
"Lunar phasis's throe," she interposed, then pressed her thenar to the hypogastric crucible. "An eternal damnation."
Xu Ling's digits alighted upon her radial stargate. "Celestial imbalance betwixt Yin's tide and Yang's flame. Conjugal congress might—"
"Elect Tartarus o'er andric miasma," she fulminated, scrutinizing her specular avatar's timeless masque.
"Filiform intervention proffers ephemeral succour." Xu Ling pivoted towards his armamentarium.
"These may better serve."
Qu Xiao manifested an embroidered shroud unfurling across the psyche's altar—twelve lunar argent filaments crowned by a solar aureate spire, each tempered by Hephaestian adepts.
"The Sinitic Asclepius craves colloquy," she breathed, observing his numinous communion with the relics. "Avouched you'd know their chisel's song."
Xu Ling's pollux caressed the auric needle's helical apex. "This virtuoso's qi vibrates through the alloy's soul. When may I prostrate myself before their oracle?"
"At Eos's first blush," Qu Xiao riposted, a phantom simper haunting her labial gates. "Slumber now, Aesculapian. Aurora births draconic trials."
Echoes of the Celestial Apothecary
Qu Xiao's propensity for decisive orchestration materialized with the dawn's inaugural blush.
Xu Ling descended the villa's alabaster staircase to encounter Lin Yutong poised like a hummingbird mid-hover. "The Paragon awaits!" she trilled, shepherding him toward ablutory rites while Yu Mengna slumbered on, enshrouded in Morpheus' embrace.
"Doctor Li embodies Yunshan County's Hippocratic deity!" Lin Yutong's irises shimmered with hierophantic zeal as she leaned against the onyx washbasin. "When I fractured my femoral shaft during velocipede theatrics—"
Xu Ling expectorated mint-infused dentifrice, arching an interrogative brow.
"—Allopathic charlatans condemned me to lameness! The Paragon resurrected my mobility through lunar-phase alchemy!"
This testimonial solidified Xu Ling's anticipation. This convocation promised hermetic revelations.
The Boruimei Grand Hotel's private sanctum housed incarnate antiquity. Before Xu Ling breached the threshold, a gnarled figure surged forth—palms calloused from decadal communion with mortar and pestle.
"Divine Iatrosophist!" The elder's grip threatened carpals. "Li Jinggao prostrates before your genius! That cephalalgia formulation for Madam Qu—pure spagyric brilliance!"
Lin Yutong dematerialized, entombing them in aureate seclusion.
"From which celestial pharmacopoeia do you descend?" Li's gaze blazed with peripatetic hunger. "Your preceptor—doubtless an eremitic immortal?"
Xu Ling daubed spittle trails from his jawline. "A highland chiropractor. Returned to cosmic dust cycles past."
"Woe!" Li's shoulders collapsed like desiccated dendrobium. "Had I but scaled those brumal summits alongside such a hierophant..."
The inquisition progressed—ancestral codices? Occult scrolls? Disciples? Each negation deepened Li's despondence until Xu Ling tapped his frontal eminence. "The canon resides herein."
Li's corrugated visage underwent transfiguration. "Then grant this unworthy neophyte—"
The chamber doors detonated inward. Qu Xiao manifested like a snow leopardess, her glacial gaze arresting Li mid-genuflection. "Cease prostration, Ancient One. My theurgist requires ambrosial replenishment."
As jook exuded its vaporous benediction betwixt them, Xu Ling apprehended—this matutinal repast signified neither terminus nor genesis, but the inaugural stanza in an eternal hymn to Asclepian arts.
Resonance of the Spectral Needles
Xu Ling gestured toward his cranium. "Doubt my mastery, esteemed sage? Pose your challenge."
Li Jinggao's initial scholarly ardour dissolved into acrimony. "Youth, my tenure in medicinal arts eclipses your mortal span. Certain you court discomfiture?"
"Proceed without restraint."
"Elementary inquiry—characteristics and virtues of *Ganoderma lucidum*."
Xu Ling's consciousness became an animate pharmacopoeia. "Augments primordial *qi*, pacifies the *shen*, suppresses tussive spasms... Modern applications span leukocytopenia, arteriosclerotic cardiopathy, Keshan malady..." His enunciation flowed with ancestral oracle-bone cadence.
The sage manipulated his PearPhone with tremulous digits. "Parroting digital lexicons?"
"Etched within this sanctum." Xu Ling's digit grazed his frontal lobe. "Continue your inquisition."
Post twenty interrogatives, Li's mandible slackened. The catechism fractured when Lin Yutong breached the chamber, pallor-clad. "Paragon! The scullion succumbs—convulsions with spumous efflux!"
The kitchen unveiled a Bruegelian phantasmagoria—matrons encircling their thrashing peer, mycological broth pooling beneath her mandible.
"Fungal toxidrome!" Li proclaimed. "Prepare saponaceous emetic—"
"Grand mal seizure," Xu Ling interposed, argent filaments already gleaming betwixt his digits. Lunar-grade needles pierced the *Baihui* vertex, followed by astral configurations across cephalic meridians.
Li's remonstrance expired unvoiced as Xu Ling's digits became zephyr-borne—eighteen quicksilver spicules efflorescing like argent chrysanthemums. The aureate pinnacle anchored at *Baihui*, aquiver under Xu Ling's calibrated oscillation.
The argent grove resonated with harmonic pulsations.
"The *Guǐmén Shísān Zhēn*..." Li's susurration trembled with lacrimal tributaries. "The Zhou-era necromantic art..."
Xu Ling rotated the gilded axis. "Reconstituted as eighteenfold. Let antiquated dogma not fetter living praxis."
As the patient's spasms stilled, Li Jinggao knelt amidst scattered sporocarps, his life's erudition reduced to smouldering tinder before this phoenix of renaissance medicine.
Weave of the Astral Lancet
Li Jinggao's sclerotic orbs dilated with epiphany. "Young Adept Xu… Have you forged arcanum-charged vital currents?"
The inquiry hovered like temple incense as Xu Ling maintained triune contact with the patient's celestial pulse. The harmonized oscillation of eighteen filaments confirmed the Paragon's suspicion—this transcended mere acupunctural craft.
"My refined Guǐmén needling demands vital infusion," Xu Ling conceded, observing the argent constellation stilling above the supplicant's vertex.
Culinary matriarchs converged like inquisitive bulbuls. "Arcane energies? Jianghu operas made real?"
"Can you traverse vertical planes?"
"Cleave monoliths with naked palms?"
Xu Ling deflected with diplomatic finesse. "Merely augmented remedial modalities, less theatrical than stagecraft portrayals."
As the throng dispersed reluctantly, Xu Ling addressed the reanimated patient. "You endured cephalic paroxysm, matron. Residual malaise?"
The woman's countenance blanched. "Convulsions? But my history—"
"This condition necessitates circumspect governance," Lin Yutong interposed, materializing with boardroom permafrost lacing her diction. The erstwhile rollerblade enthusiast now commanded with corporate edict. "Auntie Li, the sanctum. Immediately."
Capitalizing on the moment, Xu Ling elevated his palms in celestial choreography. Eighteen spicules levitated in a Pythagorean constellation, argent tendrils pirouetting through fluorescence before nesting in their silk reliquary at his iliac crest.
Li Jinggao collapsed amidst brassica detritus. "Qi-Suspended Dominion… By the Yellow Emperor's sacred viscera!"
Xu Ling elevated the tremulous savant. "Antique arts evolve through contemporary meridians."
Lin Yutong's stiletto percussion reverberated through suddenly sepulchral corridors. The metamorphosed adjutant paused, oculars gleaming with sibylline intent. In that liminal heartbeat, Xu Ling perceived the adamantine filaments binding this mercantile arras—where scullery sagas and corporate crusades intertwined through occult lancets.
The Herbalist's Stratagem
The resuscitated scullion bent like a reed beneath autumn gales. "Divine benefactor, this lowly one's vitality flows through your mercy!"
Lin Yutong's stiletto percussion echoed through tiled corridors as she escorted the ashen-faced woman away. Li Jinggao reclaimed Xu Ling's forearm with vulturine insistence. "Let us reconvene our symposium, Adept Physician!"
The chamber exhaled whispers of pu'er and existential yearning. "I safeguard a centennial Panax specimen," Li murmured through tobacco-stained teeth. "Might such subterranean nobility entice your dispensary?"
Xu Ling extricated himself from the damp clasp. "My apothecary overflows with such pedestrian rhizomes."
Li's dewlap trembled. "Dictate terms for supplementary roots! Bullion? Realms? My clinic's chancellorship?"
The vellum card materialized like a lotus breaching swamp mire—gilded characters proclaiming "Yunshan Celestial Therapeutics". Xu Ling feigned scholarly ennui. "Alas, provincial practice affords scant opportunity for..."
"Assume our Laureate Consultant!" Li imploded. "Our codices! Protégés! Auric subsidies!"
Xu Ling's jade optics glimmered. "For the advancement of Huangdi's legacy..." Their celadon cups chimed in concord.
The portal sighed open upon Qu Xiao's silhouette, a carafe of Pétrus cradled like the Holy Grail. "Do I intrude upon your Hippocratic cabal?"
Li ascended with arthritic fanfare. "We dissected your prescription's elemental dance! Your recent rejuvenation—could the Young Master's alchemical..."
The unsaid implication petrified the atmosphere. Xu Ling's gaze snared on Qu Xiao's exposed sternum—ivory geometry framed by lapis lazuli shantung. Her reciprocating glance mapped his carotid pulse.
"Pharmaceutical pedantry wearies me." Qu Xiao decanted liquid rubies with necromantic precision. "Yet I'll imbibe to..." Her carmine lips crescented. "...symbiotic entanglements."
Three crystal chalices sang. Within their refractive prisms—Li's rapacious simper, Xu Ling's auroral resolve, Qu Xiao's sphinxian amusement—swam the unuttered verity: this crimson vintage carried terroir notes of collusion, vaulting ambition, and fermenting taboos.
The Medicinal Amphora's Secret
"Perhaps so—my sleep *has* improved lately!"
Li Jinggao scratched his wiry scalp, brows knitted. "But our formula's components show no soporific properties! How could—"
Xu Ling interjected smoothly, "Individual constitutions vary. Perhaps Miss Qu metabolizes the herbs uniquely."
The Sage's nod held lingering scepticism as Qu Xiao redirected the conversation. "Professor Li, your modified recipe elevated our *Buddha Jumps Over the Wall*. Will you sample its latest iteration?"
Li's eyes ignited. "Ah! The stamina-enhancing and virility-boosting additives—"
"Clients rave about those effects," Qu Xiao praised, her laughter crystalline.
Flushed with pride, Li puffed his chest. "Three weeks perfecting the dosage ratios! The liquorice-root balance alone required twelve trials!"
Qu Xiao raised her goblet. "To the Sage's gastronomic alchemy!"
As she drained her wine, Li eyed the replenished glass before him—a silent lament for being outmanoeuvred by these young foxes.
The arrival of three ceramic amphorae halted all pretence. Fragrant steam coalesced medicinal bitterness with abalone's oceanic richness, creating a savoury symphony that defied expectation.
"Yet the bitterness persists," Qu Xiao sighed, her spoon hovering. "Our chefs tried honey, dates, even caramelized shallots..."
Xu Ling savoured the broth. Ginseng's earthiness collided with sea urchin's briny sweetness on his palate, the aftertaste a lingering medicinal shadow. "The bitterness anchors its potency—'*Bitter herbs make strong medicine*', no?"
Li slurped contentedly, his tannin-numbed tongue registering only umami bliss. Within minutes, his vessel stood empty.
Xu Ling dissected a black moss-draped abalone. "Truly, '*Aroma to shame celestial feasts, tempting Buddha's leap*.' Magnificent!"
Qu Xiao pushed her half-finished portion aside. "But laymen find the bitterness off-putting. Must medicinal cuisine punish palates?"
"Citrus alchemy!" Xu Ling snapped his fingers. "Chilled lemon essence added *à la minute*—its acidity neutralizes bitterness without compromising efficacy."
Li's chopsticks froze mid-air. "Brilliant! Ascorbic acid interacts with the alkaloids—but synthetic citric acid would degrade the cordyceps!"
Qu Xiao's lacquered nail tapped the amphora. "Fresh-squeezed Sicilian lemons arrive tomorrow. We'll test this alchemy at noon."
As the trio departed, kitchen staff exchanged glances—this culinary war between tradition and innovation promised fireworks sharper than star anise.
The Gastronomic Apothecary
Qu Xiao's scepticism lingered like tea dregs. "Prepare another urn with this citrus alchemy—immediately."
The revivified *Buddha Jumps Over the Wall* arrived in a haze of bergamot-kissed vapours. The head chef shadowed the server, his oil-slicked apron trembling as Yu Mengna's spoon breached the golden broth.
"The bitterness—eradicated!" Qu Xiao's gasp carried operatic awe. "Now the abalone's briny soul sings unobstructed—a marine sonnet!"
The chef's cleaver-roughened hands clasped in prayer. "What culinary deity blessed our kitchens? I must prostrate before their cutting board!"
Li Jinggao's mirth rumbled like a stone mortar. "Behold your patron saint!" He thrust a sausage-like finger toward Xu Ling.
The chef's gaze raked Xu Ling's willowy form. "This... fledgling? He lacks the forearms of a bone broth brewer!"
"Not a cook—a meridian maestro!" Li thundered. "Your stockpots are his diagnostic tools!"
Xu Ling raised palms in mollifying grace. "Culinary incompatibilities mirror herbal antagonisms. Tofu-honey marriages deafen. Beef-chestnut alliances riot through intestines. Dog meat weds mung beans to birth silent killers."
The chef blanched to the hue of rice paper. "Last Mid-Autumn... pear-crab claypot... my wife's three-day purgatory..."
"Pear's glacial qi and crab's tidal essence besiege the spleen network," Xu Ling intoned. "Diarrhoea is Earth Element's lament."
Qu Xiao's vermilion nail tapped an impatient staccato. "Document these forbidden matrimonies. Every Boruimei culinary artist shall memorize them as Daoist scriptures!"
As Xu Ling acquiesced, the chef's bow scraped floor tiles. "This unworthy wok-jockey implores tutelage! Teach me to decipher ingredients' secret language!"
Li Jinggao chuckled into his goji berry infusion. "Beware, Adept Xu—soon they'll demand you harmonize newlyweds' bedroom chi!"
The kitchen's steam swirled with whispers of reformation—where woks would temper medicinal humours and soup cauldrons pulse with meridian wisdom. In this nascent gastronomic era, every braising pot became a diagnostic chart, every spice mélange a prescription scroll.
The Dragon's Redemption
Sated by the banquet's ambrosial fare, Xu Ling returned to Xujia Village's embrace. At the hamlet's periphery, village urchins scattered like startled quail, their bare soles churning dust as they heralded his arrival through winding paths.
The metallic clangour of gongs and thunderous drumrolls crescendoed—a sinuous dragon undulated through sunbaked lanes, its tasselled phoenix tail sweeping ochre clouds. Weather-beaten villagers emerged from rammed-earth dwellings, their creased faces illuminated by jubilant grins.
"Patron Saint! Our guardian returns!"
Twin serpents—one cobalt-maned yang beast, another peony-adorned yin counterpart—coiled about Xu Ling in celestial choreography. Xu Dajiao, the hamlet's erstwhile firebrand, lumbered forward, calloused palms pressed in obeisance. "Ling-di! The physicians swore Father would've languished, paralysed, without your intervention!"
Xu Ling arrested the man's descent. "What manner of pageantry is this?"
The draconic procession parted, unveiling Xu Dajiao's uncles—men who'd once brandished hoes against him over irrigation rights—now bearing gilded roast suckling pig and sorghum-distilled firewater. "Trouble darkens your path, lad?" boomed Second Uncle Xu, his former homicidal glower transmuted to boisterous fellowship, "Our clan shall be your thundercloud!"
Mirth rippled through the throng. Li Ruoxue and Li Ruoya materialized from the human tapestry, their contrasting auras palpable—Ruoya's gaze shimmering with idolatry, Ruoxue's arched brow conducting merciless appraisal.
"Urbanity becomes you," Ruoxue purred, tracing his Brioni lapel's razor edge. "Pity it exudes parvenu stench."
Ruoya plucked her sister's sleeve. "He mirrors those CEO idols from nighttime melodramas!"
Xu Ling sought refuge in his ancestral abode, shedding metropolitan armour for handwoven linens. Yet respite proved fleeting—the Xu clan descended like locusts, five generations cramming his courtyard around steaming terracotta cauldrons of braised pork belly and fermented bean curd.
At the symposium's zenith, Second Uncle Xu thrust a gourd of blazing *baijiu* into Xu Ling's grasp. "To Ling-di—alchemist of enmities into brotherhood!"
The libation ignited a Dionysian chorus. Beneath swaying lanterns mimicking intoxicated fireflies, ancestral vendettas dissolved in shared libations. Xu Ling surveyed the revelry—the dragons now slumbering by the village well, children gnawing caramelized ribs, Ruoxue's sardonic smirk softening as she surreptitiously replenished his tea—and tasted the unfamiliar vintage of belonging.
The Alchemy of Reconciliation
The banquet's central table quivered beneath the Xu clan's libational assault. Second Uncle Xu drained his sorghum firewater in a single draught, Adam's apple undulating like a mating toad. "Brother Wenhai—our mulish obstinacy these years! May this cup wash clean the hoofprints we've stamped on your fields!"
Behind him, even seven-year-old scions gulped rice wine, their cherubic cheeks incarnadine with filial fervour. Third Uncle Xu staggered forth, breath reeking of regret and baijiu. "Your scion's destiny outshines imperial chancellors! His compassion could float armadas!"
Fourth Uncle's vigorous nod scattered perspiration like benedictions. Fifth Uncle's scrutiny cut deepest. "County physicians should kowtow before his mastery."
Xu Ling sipped chrysanthemum tea amidst the alcoholic pageantry. "Merely inherited village elders' wisdom."
Xu Wenhai's gnarled hands trembled about his cup—not from intoxication, but decades of petrified grievances liquefying. These men, who'd once torched his soybean harvests over irrigation grudges, now grovelled like Taoist supplicants. His son's unmerited grace tasted sweeter than eight-treasure glutinous rice.
Platters of braised pork belly and wine-marinated shrimp lay half-consumed—an unprecedented sight in a village where ancestral hunger demons still haunted midnight whispers. Orchard prosperity had midwifed novel restraint.
When the moon ascended its celestial throne, Xu Ling retreated to Xu Dajiao's compound. The quadrangle courtyard's feng shui mirrored clan hierarchy—eastern pavilion for patriarchs, western wing for unblooded youths.
"Erected during my ammonium nitrate trafficking era," Xu Dajiao preened, buffing a Mercedes hood emblem repurposed as a gate guardian. "Viennese architect's design!"
Xu Ling bypassed the gilded kitsch. The patriarch's chamber exuded camphor and remorse. Upon the kang bed, Xu Dajiao's father exhaled tobacco wraiths through gapped dentition.
"Preserve your qi," Xu Ling cautioned, observing surgical steel sutures glowing like malevolent runes beneath parchment flesh.
The elder's rheumy orbs spilled gratitude. "This broken ploughshare should've rusted in burial soil. You... you recomposed the ancestors' ledger in vermilion ink."
Beyond, pyrotechnics consecrated the night—golden peonies blossoming above lineage tombs. Xu Ling perceived the true remedy lay not in needles but in this mystic transmutation—venoms to antidotes, foes to brethren, a village's vitriol to life-giving nectar.
The Matchmaker's Miscalculation
Xu Ling returned beneath a gibbous moon, his mother's trill piercing the courtyard's twilight hush. "Aunt Wu's procured a prospect! County infirmary nurse—respectable lineage!"
Wang Huifen glowed, bookended by Li Ruoxue and Li Ruoya—the former's gaze surgical in its precision, the latter's brimming with liquid apprehension.
"Mother, our eroding eaves startle even sparrows," Xu Ling parried, catching Ruoxue's venom-laced smirk.
Aunt Wu manifested like an ill wind, propelling a diminutive figure swathed in chrysanthemum-printed rayon. "Behold Jiajia! Cosmopolitan maiden—administers intravenous elixirs to comely physicians!"
The nurse appraised Xu Ling's solar-bleached tunic and threadbare slacks, her collagen-plumped lips crimping. "My aunt alluded to your... agrarian enterprises?"
"Enterprises?" Xu Ling's chuckle resonated with cavernous irony. "We cultivate ancestral loam as our forebears decreed."
Ruoxue's derisive snort cleaved the twilight. "Observe the urban peahen's display," she hissed to Ruoya. "Her cosmetics could daub a fresco."
Jiajia's lacquered nail traced a fissure in the rammed-earth wall. "Two *mu*? And this... historical hovel?" Her nasal timbre curdled the jasmine-scented air.
Aunt Wu interposed with mercantile zeal. "Jade dwells within uncut stone! This youth—"
"—finds contentment in humbler minerals," Xu Ling concluded, bowing with iatric grace. "My regrets for squandering your lunar promenade."
As the affronted retinue retreated, Wang Huifen sighed at the scattered celadon teacups—their crackled glazes mocking aspirations for metropolitan daughters-in-law. Ruoxue materialized at Xu Ling's flank, her whisper redolent of osmanthus malice.
"Shall I retrieve your auric lancets? Perhaps suture her cosmetically enhanced rictus into permanent beatitude."
Beneath the persimmon's arthritic boughs, Xu Ling contemplated the orchard's silhouette—each twisted limb pregnant with latent promise. The night thrummed with cicadian auguries, their eternal chorus eclipsing mortal follies.
The Peacock's Plume
Wu Jiajia recoiled as from noxious fumes. "Aunt, you'd entomb me in this hovel?"
Aunt Wu's claw-like grasp intensified, her timbre shrill with foreboding. "Child, scorn this union, and your lineage shall bear the ancestral curse!"
Before the admonition faded, Xu Ling found himself flanked by living antitheses—Li Ruoxue's left arm constricting his like a jade serpent, Ruoya's right limb aquiver with conflicted decorum.
"A hinterland nurse presumes to disdain our Xu Ling?" Ruoxue's mirth crystallized into arctic shards. "What could some provincial naïf fathom of metropolitan metrics?"
Jiajia's cosmetically augmented lips trembled. "I've repulsed consultants piloting Maybachs! You... you loam-stained rustic!"
Ruoxue's lacquered nail drummed her alabaster cheek. "Declare your infirmary's name, poppet. Let us authenticate these spectral paramours."
Aunt Wu interposed her corpulent frame, complexion mottled with umbrage. "Miss Li! Urban pedigree grants no charter for venom!"
Ruoxue advanced like a snow leopardess cornering quarry, her cheongsam's silk hissing implicit threats. "Auntie, hawk your bizarre mannequins elsewhere. Our Xu Ling parleys with magnates, not discount trinkets."
Wang Huifen materialized as an agrarian Kuan Yin, her calloused palms anchoring Ruoxue's shoulders. "Sister Wu, repatriate your polymer princess. My scion requires no clinical castoffs."
The courtyard ossified. Cicadas arrested their vespertine aria. Jiajia's mascara bled onyx tears as Aunt Wu hauled her retreating form, the nurse's stilettos fracturing flagstones like shattered pretensions.
Ruoxue disengaged with ophidian elegance, her sibilant aside traversing the ruined matchmaking. "Shall I petition Father to revoke their saline shipments? A casual remark about compromised IV protocols..."
Beneath the persimmon's arthritic boughs, Xu Ling contemplated the orchard's silhouette—each gnarled limb pregnant with unrealized potential. The night thrummed with cicada prophecies, its eternal symphony eclipsing mortal follies.
The Peacock's Vanity
The courtyard congealed with petrified animosity.
Xu Ling addressed the trembling Aunt Wu with diplomatic levity: "Dearest Aunt, behold—what maiden present fails to eclipse your wilting magnolia?"
Aunt Wu's gaze traversed the twins. Li Ruoya's jade-like serenity exuded nuptial grace, while Ruoxue's diamond-edged allure thrummed with lethal magnetism. For a treacherous instant, the matchmaker envisioned abducting Ruoya as her own progeny's bride.
"Aunt! This indignity!" Jiajia's ululation rent the gloaming, kohl bleeding down hyaluronic slopes. "Must I shackle myself to indigence?"
Aunt Wu blotted the girl's despoiled countenance, her resolve dissolving as she contrasted Ruoya's nenuphar refinement against her niece's garish coarseness. Revelation struck—Jiajia's solitary virtue, the nurse's coif, paled before the twins' Asclepian mastery.
"Huifen-jie, pardon this geriatric misjudgment," Aunt Wu kowtowed, hauling her snivelling burden gateward. "The child's tongue outraces her wisdom—"
"Tarry." Ruoxue's gelid decree arrested retreat. "Which provincial lazaretto claims your service, porcelain manikin?"
Wang Huifen clasped Ruoxue's alabaster wrist. "Child, let injured hubris withdraw with tattered honour."
Ruoxue emancipated herself with pantherine fluidity. "This Dresden doll has besmirched Xu Ling's honour. Shall we consult County Hospital's Dean Yu regarding her Florence Nightingale credentials?"
Jiajia sneered through saline tributaries. "Summon him! I take tisanes with municipal health satraps!"
Ruoxue conjured a PearPhone 15 Pro Max from her qipao's arcane recesses. Li Ruoya murmured, "Must we disturb Uncle Yu's meditations?"
"Would you have carrion fowl defile Xu Ling-ge's repute?" Ruoxue's basilisk stare immobilized protest.
Xu Ling reclined against the persimmon's arthritic bole, ocular crinkles betraying silent mirth. However nettlesome, Ruoxue's ursine guardianship kindled embers beneath his sternum.
The dial tone throbbed like a sepulchral timpani. Across the compound, Jiajia's braggadocio fissured—recollections of Dean Yu's tungsten discipline at last month's medical convocation resurfacing. Her stilettos etched frantic sigils in gravel.
Ruoxue's carmine lips sculpted a vulpine crescent. "Dean Yu? President Li's scion enquires about Nurse Wu's Florence Nightingale... proclivities."
Carrara pallor usurped Jiajia's contoured facade. In distant bureaucratic catacombs, personnel dossiers spontaneously ignited.
Wang Huifen sighed at the shattered celadon shards—once a vessel of hospitality, now an omen of rupture. The orchard's perfume cloyed, its saccharine essence corrupted by mortal venality. Xu Ling inhaled profundis, recognizing the acrid bouquet of human frailty.
The Masquerade of Justice
Xu Ling savoured the unfamiliar nectar of sheltered masculinity as Li Ruoxue executed her theatrics with baroque precision. The PearPhone's amplified speaker released Dean Yu's paternal timbre: "Beloved Ruoxue, what phantom disturbs our sovereign today?"
Ruoxue's vocal cords spun saccharine artifice, her visage a canvas of taunting triumph. "Uncle Yu, your Florence Nightingale derides me! She scorns my pastoral allure and parades her clinical credentials!"
Wu Jiajia sneered, hands planted on cocked hips. "Farcical pantomime! As though some agrarian simpleton could command the Dean's—"
"Uncle!" Ruoxue interposed, augmenting her moue. "She brands me as hinterland refuse! My self-worth disintegrates!"
Jiajia's oculars performed acrobatic contempt. "Lunatic harlequin grasping at phantom reflections!"
An aeonian pause preceded Dean Yu's fulminous edict: "Identify this impertinent whelp! Her supervisor shall audit every case file bearing her fingerprints!"
Ruoxue severed the connection with viperine satisfaction. "Your Florence Nightingale cap expires at first light, Dresden doll."
Jiajia vaulted onto her electric steed with venomous finality. "Aunt, never again squander my hours upon paupers!"
Wang Huifen observed the settling dust, weariness etching her features. "What alchemy links you to medical hierarchs?"
Li Ruoya murmured, "Our patriarch schooled Dean Yu in meridian mysteries."
Xu Wenhai's gaze ignited. "Then your ancestor rivalled the Yellow Emperor's physicians!"
Ruoxue coiled an ebon tress about her finger. "Feeble spectres beside Xu Ling-ge's arcana."
As gloaming deepened, Xu Ling pondered the courtyard's chessboard cosmology—pawns sacrificed, queens pirouetting, himself the accidental monarch about whom principalities collided. The orchard's susurrant foliage prophesied impending tempests where trivial vanities would drown in diluvian truths.
The Apprentice's Awakening
Xu Wenhai regarded his son with paternal scepticism. "The profundity of Chinese medicine transcends mortal grasp. Even had this fledgling studied since conception, he could scarcely rival your patriarch's erudition."
Li Ruoya's cheeks bloomed with ardent devotion. "Xu Ling-ge might be prodigious!"
The subject of her veneration basked in adulatory gazes until Li Ruoxue's stiletto wit intervened: "Competence ≠ omniscience. Cease exalting him to empyrean heights."
Ruoya anchored herself to Xu Ling's arm, indignation inflating her cheeks. "You've beheld his marvels! Why this obstinate scepticism?"
Xu Wenhai's austere mien dissolved before her imploring gaze. "Peace, child. We concede his modest prowess."
As mirth dissolved tension, Xu Ling turned toward his clinic. "Ruoya tended patients during your absence," Xu Wenhai conceded with grudging pride. "Her diagnostics eclipse my antiquated methods."
"Father's duplicity astounds," Xu Ling parried. "Earlier you pontificated that wisdom resides in silvered beards."
The elder Xu hefted his hoe with performative urgency. "The orchard's weeds clamour for immediate subjugation!"
Ruoya shadowed her mentor through mulberry-dappled lanes, confession quivering on coral lips. "Xu Ling-ge, I remain a neophyte. Simple maladies strain my capacities."
Xu Ling paused where fireflies waltzed above Ruoya's apothecary garden—twin plots of medicinal flora thriving under her stewardship. "True mastery germinates through myriad consultations. Each errant diagnosis nourishes wisdom's roots."
Ruoya's gaze lingered on his profile, lunar radiance gilding her paragon's features. "Yet you've ascended such heights at my age..."
Their clinic's serenity fractured by desperate pounding. Aunt Gang's silhouette trembled in the threshold. "Coughs convulse his frame! Phlegm dark as funeral ashes!"
Xu Ling's argent needles glinted as he strode into night's maw, Ruoya's hastened footfalls composing a devotee's ode. Through the infirmary's pungent miasma, the acolyte witnessed her mentor's digital ballet—acupuncture points blazing like astral maps, each filament's insertion recomposing destiny's manuscript.
In that febrile chamber where mortality and vitality performed their eternal quadrille, Ruoya's revelation crystallized: genius is not bestowed but smithed through nocturnal crucibles and a healer's unyielding mercy.
The Earthbound Dirge
At the hamlet's periphery loomed a disintegrating hovel, its rammed-earth walls fissured like drought-stricken clay. Li Ruoya stared until Aunt Gang rasped, "Barren wombs birth no renovations."
The interior devoured illumination—a solitary bulb cast sallow radiance over death's antechamber. Ruoya gagged on air viscous with necrotic effluvium and fungal spores. Beneath threadbare coverlets, Gang Shu spasmed, each convulsion splattering carmine blooms across his kerchief.
"Consumption's final act," Xu Ling pronounced, argent acupuncture needles shimmering in moonlight as villagers bore the skeletal form aloft. "Nightfall conspires with diagnosis."
Gang Shu's terminal paroxysm rendered him alabaster-still. Aunt Gang's fissured palms hovered above his cadaverous cheeks. "Does his... his *hun* still tarry?"
Xu Ling's needles performed their danse macabre—Baihui to Yongquan, twelve celestial conduits breached in rapid succession. Ruoya's fingertips detected a pulse frailer than gossamer. "Life's thread unravels!"
Perspiration crystallized on Xu Ling's brow as spiritual essence flooded Gang Shu's medulla-vacant frame—a deluge filling crazed porcelain. The elder's brow darkened with ancestral wraiths.
"I've transgressed against the Dao's decree," Xu Ling murmured, retracting his filaments.
Aunt Gang's ululation cleaved the gloaming, her arthritic talons scrabbling at a consort reduced to smouldering tinder. Ruoya quivered against Xu Ling's arm, briny tears initiating her into mortality's liturgy.
Villagers materialized bearing mute tributes—vermilion envelopes swollen with creased currency and resin-scented coffins of raw pine. The headman entreated, "Seek solace among the living, sister. This sepulchral vigil nourishes only ghosts."
Aunt Gang caressed her husband's nicotine-stained incisors. "I'll commune with the loam that nurtured our dual becoming."
As aurora bled across fallow fields, Xu Ling witnessed the widow's silhouette dissolve into hovel shadows. The orchard's distant susurrus murmured of Thanatos' impartial reaping—whether sage or simpleton, all taproots eventually surrender to humus.
The Peacock's Requiem
Aunt Gang's youthful affliction with HIV had exiled the couple to Xujia Village's periphery—spectral figures haunting untilled soil. As mourners draped funerary banners for Gang Shu, Wu Jiajia's electric steed whirred into the dirge-laden gathering.
"The grovelling pheasant returns," Li Ruoxue proclaimed, her triumph sharp as a raptor's cry.
Jiajia dismounted, kohl bleeding into the crevices of her sculpted cheeks. "This farce about the Dean—truth or theatre?"
"Our bond transcends professional courtesies," Ruoxue purred, fingertips grazing the crescent moon of her jaw. "Shall we wager Yu-shushu's retribution? Salary garnishment?" Her obsidian eyes glinted. "Ah no—career immolation better suits his paternal zeal."
Jiajia's lacquered nails curled into talons. "You metropolitan viper! What sanctimonious—"
"—Right do I possess?" Ruoxue completed, her arm sinuous as a river eel around Xu Ling's torso. "The right of jade over resin, of heirloom silk over polyester pretension."
Xu Ling's nape flushed coral as Ruoxue's whisper pooled in his ear: "Claypot fowl or public mortification, Ling-ge. Choose wisely."
Jiajia's stiletto stabbed earth. "How endure you this peasant seraglio?"
Ruoxue's laughter cascaded like shattering celadon. "Sweet fool, my mirror reflects what his pulse already races to confess."
"Kowtow to Xu Ling!" Ruoxue's command hung frostbitten in the air. "Your provincial effrontery soils ancestral honour."
"Never! This clodhopper merits only ditchwater!"
Ruoxue spun toward smoke-plumed hearths, Xu Ling in tow. "Come—our banquet of triumph awaits. Let this moulting fowl contemplate her obsolescence."
Li Ruoya drifted behind, her guileless smile veiling a hydra of envy. The funeral gongs' bronze lament merged with cicada drones, weaving an ode to vanquished vanities—Jiajia's ambition reduced to cinders, Aunt Gang's nuptial ashes scattered, Ruoya's silent yearning curdling into venom. All embers feed time's inexhaustible forge.
The Peacock's Penance
Li Ruoya darted past Wu Jiajia, seizing Xu Ling's other arm with a possessiveness that transformed the trio into a living fresco of rivalry—Ruoya's guileless longing, Ruoxue's triumphant sneer, and Xu Ling as the unwitting axis of their gravitational pull.
Jiajia's scrutiny lingered, suspicion unfurling like ink in water. *Could this clodhopper cloak conceal profundities?
Her scooter's electric whine pierced the dusk. "Xu Ling! My error!"
The plea fractured Twilight's hush, freezing their retreat. Ruoxue's brow arched at the cunning glint in Jiajia's gaze. "How pedestrian. Resume your professional beggary."
"Why deny redemption?" Ruoya breathed as footsteps resumed.
"She craves the jewel adorning your Ling-ge," Ruoxue cautioned. "Mark his muteness—perhaps serpents charm him more than saints?"
Ruoya's lashes fluttered. "Does Ling-ge treasure… honeyed venom?"
The query nearly felled both siblings. Xu Ling marvelled at Ruoya's nacreous naiveté—lotus floating unscathed through life's swamp.
The claypot feast's dying warmth still lingered when Xu Ling's phone tore the calm. "Mr Xu? The Wang Shufen litigation necessitates your presence. Ms Yu remains… beyond reach."
At the county precinct, Zhou Lian's harried footfalls mirrored Xu Ling's disquiet. A junior officer slid damning folios across cold steel. "As Jiangnan Medical's scion, these clinical chronicles will resonate—cornerstones of the plaintiff's deception claims."
The documents seethed with counterfeit diagnoses and apothecary lies. Xu Ling's knuckles whitened—this was no mere legal skirmish but a stiletto at his orchard's throat. Beyond the frosted glass, Zhou Lian's silhouette convulsed like a snared rat in its death throes.
To be continuous…