Volume One, Chapter 14: Cold Marrow Syndrome?
Deep within the hall, the beaded curtain leading to the inner courtyard was suddenly flung aside by a trembling hand.
An old doctor, his hair and beard white as snow, emerged, utterly distraught, his face etched with an overwhelming sense of defeat and helplessness.
His steps were unsteady, as if all his vitality had been drained away.
“Master Liu...” The old doctor’s voice was hoarse and dry as he struggled to shake his head in front of a middle-aged man anxiously waiting.
This man wore a dark purple brocade robe, his features refined, yet at this moment his eyes were bloodshot, his temples marked by time’s harsh touch—he was Liu Chengye, the head of the Liu family.
“Divine Physician Wang, even you...” Liu Chengye’s tall frame wavered violently, the last flicker of hope seemingly extinguished in an instant.
Divine Physician Wang sighed deeply, his face bitter.
“Master Liu, forgive my inability to help.”
“Miss’s cold marrow syndrome is beyond any earthly remedy. The chill has penetrated her bones, counterflowing through her heart’s veins. The vitality of her organs flickers like a candle in the wind, ready to be snuffed out at any moment.”
He paused, a trace of pity in his eyes, yet still uttered the cruelest words.
“Forgive my bluntness... it’s time to prepare for the worst.”
Boom!
Those words struck Liu Chengye like a thunderclap, crashing down mercilessly upon his head.
He staggered back two steps, barely steadying himself against a cold pillar. The man who once commanded the winds and storms of Yun’an City now had the light in his eyes utterly extinguished.
Inside the main hall, the twenty or thirty renowned physicians of Yun’an City hung their heads in silence.
“Divine Physician Wang speaks rightly, Master Liu. Please accept fate with grace.”
“We have done all we can, but the heavens have not granted more years. This illness is a cruel twist of fate upon a beauty, no fault of hers.”
“Now all we can do is administer warming herbs to maintain her fragile life, so she may... pass peacefully.”
Each phrase was like a blunt blade, repeatedly cutting into Liu Chengye’s heart.
Prepare for the end?
Pass peacefully?
No!
His daughter was only sixteen!
Liu Chengye suddenly lifted his head, bloodshot eyes scanning every doctor present. Each familiar, helpless face drove a tidal wave of despair through his soul.
Could it be that in vast Yun’an City, there was truly no miracle?
He refused to believe it!
He refused to believe that even if he spent his entire fortune, it would not buy back his daughter’s life!
“Double the reward!”
Liu Chengye roared with all his might, his voice trembling with desperation: “Two thousand taels of silver! Two hundred acres of fertile land! Whoever can save my daughter, I, Liu Chengye, will spare no cost, even if it bankrupts me!”
His gaze swept wildly over every person present, past those bowed heads and sighing faces, growing colder by the moment.
It was useless.
These people had already pronounced his daughter’s death sentence.
At that moment, his eyes passed over the crowd and fixed on a solitary figure standing out in a corner.
A young man.
Too young—barely more than a boy.
He wore a moon-white brocade robe, his posture upright and elegant, yet he stood alone in the corner, calmly observing the scene of despair before him, his eyes utterly unruffled.
A stranger.
The only unfamiliar face still standing when everyone else had given up.
Liu Chengye grasped this last straw like a drowning man clutching a lifeline; his eyes blazed with terrifying intensity.
He pushed through the crowd and strode over to Ye Xuan, his voice slightly trembling with excitement.
“Young sir, are you also a physician who has come to treat my daughter?”
The hall fell into stunned silence.
All eyes immediately turned to Ye Xuan.
“Master Liu, you’re mistaken!” Divine Physician Wang was the first to step forward, urgently warning, “This boy is barely grown, not even fully matured—how could he be a doctor? Please don’t act rashly in desperation!”
“Yes, Master Liu, even with all of us combined, we can barely keep her clinging to life. If this reckless youth disrupts the balance of the healing herbs, I fear... she won’t survive the night!”
Another doctor, filled with grief, disparaged Ye Xuan with contemptuous eyes.
“What brash child dares to come to the Liu residence and pretend to be a doctor? Get out of here at once!”
“Exactly! Do you even know where you are?”
Voices of suspicion and scolding rose one after another.
But Ye Xuan seemed deaf to it all; he simply looked at Liu Chengye and nodded calmly.
“That’s right.”
“I am here to save your daughter.”
Simple words, direct, yet brimming with undeniable confidence.
Liu Chengye stared fixedly into Ye Xuan’s eyes.
What kind of eyes were those?
Deep, serene, like a bottomless well, as if containing a starry sky beyond comprehension.
No trace of youthful frivolity, no hint of a charlatan’s evasion.
Only an absolute confidence born from deep within his very bones.
To save? Or not to save?
In Liu Chengye’s heart, a fierce battle raged.
Reason told him to trust the seasoned physicians well known and respected.
But desperation and emotion forbade him to abandon the one remaining sliver of chance before him.
Not to try meant certain death for his daughter tonight.
To try meant... perhaps a miracle?
He would gamble!
Liu Chengye clenched his teeth sharply, his decision made.
He was all in.
“Silence!”
Turning sharply, he let out a thunderous roar at the gathering doctors.
“You all say my daughter is beyond saving, that I should prepare for the end!”
“Now someone says he can save her, and you want to stop him?”
“What, do you want to watch my daughter die helplessly beneath your ‘inability’?”
His challenge struck the physicians dumb, their faces paling.
Liu Chengye ignored them, instead gesturing respectfully to Ye Xuan, his tone now carrying both reverence and plea.
“Sir, please!”
“If you can save my daughter, my life is yours!”
Seeing Liu Chengye’s resolve, Divine Physician Wang and the others sighed deeply, knowing further persuasion was futile.
It was over.
The young lady of the Liu family was truly on the verge of fading away.
Divine Physician Wang approached Ye Xuan, his expression complex as he handed over a thick dossier.
“Young man, these are records and analyses of Miss Liu’s condition accumulated over the years.”
His tone was condescending, as if issuing a warning.
“Cold marrow syndrome is the coldest malady in the world. Any slight trace of Yang energy will trigger a backlash of cold, causing instant death. We have only been able to barely sustain her with warming treatments.”
“Be mindful. Even if you cannot save her, do not disrupt this fragile balance and cause her to suffer more.”
His words, though framed as advice, were clearly a warning.
They did not believe Ye Xuan would succeed—they only hoped he wouldn’t make things worse.
Ye Xuan took the thick medical record but did not even glance through it, instead passing it casually to a nearby servant.
He looked at these self-important physicians and a faint, almost imperceptible smile curved his lips.
“Thank you all for your kindness.”
“I never undertake what I cannot accomplish.”
“Please wait here and await good news.”
With that, he turned away from everyone, following Liu Chengye straight toward the beaded curtain, the threshold between despair and hope.
Passing through several corridors, a bone-chilling cold assaulted them.
The closer they drew to Miss Liu’s chamber, the more piercing the cold became.
Liu Chengye, a formidable martial artist himself, shivered uncontrollably, his breath turning into thick white mist.
The moment the door was pushed open,
a chilling aura as if summoned from the abyss below swept out violently!
Everything in the room was coated in a thin layer of frost.
The teacup on the table held water already frozen solid, icicles clinging to its rim.
The air was sharp as blades, each breath sending stabbing pain through the lungs.
In the center of this icebound chamber lay a young girl upon an elaborately carved bed.
She appeared no older than fifteen or sixteen—a blossom of youth.
Yet her face bore no color, as pale and translucent as delicate parchment.
Her lips were tinged a strange bluish-purple; fine ice crystals adorned her eyebrows and the tips of her hair.
Her eyes were tightly shut, and beneath the thick blankets her body trembled faintly, each breath barely perceptible, as if on the verge of vanishing.
She no longer resembled a living person.
More like a masterpiece of exquisite art, destined to be frozen forever, radiating the silence of death.
Ye Xuan’s gaze settled upon her.
Cold marrow syndrome?
In his “Divine Medical Arts” knowledge base, it was merely a somewhat tricky cold poison.
Yet to these mortals, it was an incurable disease that even immortals could not heal.
Very well.
The more hopeless the scene, the more stunning the arrival of a divine healer.
The more invaluable he would prove to be.