Da Tang Si Zi: My Six Super Rich Little Nuggets!

Chapter 386 The Essence of Exhaustion - The Red Bean Book

Xiao Sizi opened the brocade box, inside were her treasured top-quality red beans, each one plump and round, with a deep red color like blood, far superior to ordinary beans in the market. However, these beans were not brought in by fast horses from Lingnan.

She carefully picked up a few and placed them in a brocade pouch embroidered with auspicious clouds and cranes. Then, she picked up her brush and, on a small piece of gold-flecked paper, wrote in elegant, delicate calligraphy:

"Red beans symbolize my sincere heart. My promise of three good deeds is as pure as gold. Your courage and perseverance are truly admirable. May you be healthy and bring comfort to your loving mother."

For the signature, she thought for a moment and only drew a small, simple sketch of a young beast (兕).

"Send this brocade pouch and note to...the home of the tutor. Do not state its origin, just say it is...an old friend who admires his mother's courage and hopes he will remember her teachings."

Xiao Sizi's voice carried a barely perceptible hoarseness as her gaze drifted to the leaden sky outside the window, piercing through the layers of palaces and landing on the small courtyard where her mother had just lost her.

The brocade pouch and the letter were eventually delivered quietly to Ono, who had just experienced the pain of losing his mother, by a palace servant who looked like an ordinary eunuch. The little boy, with red and swollen eyes, opened the brocade pouch in confusion, and several unusually plump, shockingly red beans rolled into his palm, with a warm touch.

He unfolded the letter, and although he was young, he could recognize most of the handwriting. When he read "A promise of three good deeds is as good as gold," "Such courage and perseverance," and "A long-lasting comfort to my dear parents," tears blurred his vision again.

He clutched the few red beans and the flower-patterned note tightly, as if holding the lingering warmth of his mother's body, and also the silent comfort and solemn entrustment from some distant and warm corner.

He pressed the brocade pouch to his heart, gazed at his mother's empty sickbed, and murmured in a voice only he could hear, "Mother, Xiao Ye will eat well, practice well, study well... and... learn to be happy..."

Outside the window, a bleak autumn wind blew by, swirling up a few withered yellow sycamore leaves, which drifted into a bright dream—

Ono leaned against the tatami mat, his face pale, as Kojiko pushed open the door and entered, carrying a steaming bowl of red bean porridge.

Little Sizi rushed over and said, "Little Ye! Quickly drink this bowl of porridge! It's made from 'lifesaving beans' that I brought all the way from the Northeast!"

Zhi Xiaoye weakly raised her eyes: "Sizi... what kind of beans are these? Ordinary red beans can't save a life..."

Little Si shoved the bowl at him: "Idiot! This is called Northeast Red Beans! A treasure grown on our black soil!"

She leaned closer: "Did you steal some red berries from the back hill to eat a few days ago?"

Zhi Xiaoye exclaimed in surprise, "Those...those red beads look so bright..."

Little Sizi stamped his foot and shouted, "Those are poisonous yew berries!"

She scooped up some porridge and blew on it: "Thank goodness I noticed you vomited green liquid! Quickly drink this red bean porridge—the ones with white lines are the real deal!"

She pointed to the bean's navel: "My mother said it can expel toxins and reduce swelling. Back in the day, people in the village who accidentally ate poisonous mushrooms relied on it to save their lives!"

Zhi Xiaoye took a sip with some skepticism: "Mmm... the red bean paste is so fragrant and smooth..." He suddenly widened his eyes: "That twisting pain in my stomach... it's really gone!"

Little Sizi proudly pulled out her cloth bag: "Red beans from Baoqing, Heilongjiang, are incredibly nourishing!" She unfolded the bag: "Look at these deep red skins, so round and plump! Southern red beans can't compare at all!"

Her eyes sparkled: "When you're all better—I'll make you sticky rice dumplings with plenty of red bean paste filling!"

The memorial service for Lady Zhi was not held in a grand manner; it was simply conducted in a quiet meditation hall next to the Imperial Medical Bureau.

Those who came to pay their respects were mostly former classmates, patients who had benefited from his care, and colleagues who were grateful for his resilience.

Inside the hall, white banners hung low, and incense smoke curled upwards. Hanging in the center was not the usual portrait of a deceased woman, but a meticulously painted portrait of Dan Niang: she was dressed in the plain white dress of a female official of the Imperial Medical Bureau, with gentle features and a serene smile on her lips, still vaguely resembling the beautiful young woman who had studied diligently all the way from the countryside of Henan and finally gained entry to the Imperial Medical Bureau in Chang'an through her talent.

Zhi Xiaoye, dressed in plain white mourning clothes, stood in front of the portrait, her small figure appearing particularly frail.

He gazed at his mother's smile in the painting for a long time, as if trying to etch this last warmth into his heart. The somber chanting and suppressed sobs around him seemed to fade away.

He silently reached out his small hand and took out a handful of red beans from the worn-out cloth bag in his bosom—these were the beans he had been diligently searching for and accumulating over the past five years, one by one, on the streets of Chang'an after the first snow and beside the frosty steps of Ci'en Temple.

Red beans, still warm from the child's body, were gently scattered before the shrine beneath the portrait. The crimson beans rolled onto the cold blue bricks, like frozen tears of blood, or silent prayers, expressing a child's deepest and most heartfelt longing for his mother—"Mother, Xiaoye has found red beans again…Are you…still in pain?"

This scene of "scattering beans to offer as a sacrifice to one's mother" deeply pierced the hearts of everyone present. Someone in the know whispered that not long ago, a collection of manuscripts and letters from friends, compiled by a well-meaning person, had been circulating among the people.

On one of the yellowed pages of paper was a simple yet lifelike Zhong Kui puppet, next to which was a specially made, glossy black "evil-suppressing ink pill" from the Imperial Medical Bureau.

Beside her was her delicate but slightly weak handwriting: "The 23rd day of the 11th month of the 13th year of Zhenguan, today is also the day to exorcise ghosts and drive away evil spirits."

This handwritten booklet circulated quietly among the common people. One mother, whose own family was also afflicted with illness, added a heartbreaking question in trembling handwriting in the margins: "Madam Zhong, my husband is also afflicted by illness, suffering daily, and our young child is filled with anxiety. May I ask, Madam, how should this 'Zhong Kui' play be 'performed' for our child to put his mind at ease?"

With red eyes, the senior female official of the Imperial Medical Bureau whispered to her colleague, "On the day Dan Niang passed away... her mind was not very clear. What she kept repeating was not the essentials of the 'Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Pieces of Gold' that she had studied so diligently, nor the medical classics that she had helped to annotate... but... 'Xiao Ye is afraid of the cold. Red bean soup needs to be soaked for two hours and simmered over a low flame to make it soft and sticky...'" This female doctor who rose from a poor farming family to the Imperial Medical Bureau through her true talents and learning, at the end of her life, what lingered in her heart was still the most subtle concern for her young child in the mundane world.

Meanwhile, at the Imperial Medical Bureau's internal discussions on prescriptions and diagnoses, some physicians still mentioned the last detailed medical case and treatise left by Dan Niang before her death. It was about the early detection and treatment of "debility and blood deficiency" in children, with unique insights and every word a gem, lighting a lamp for those who came after.

Her son, Ono, wrote in his still somewhat naive handwriting a passage from the newly assigned text "Compassionate Instructions" in his elementary school, which left the teacher speechless for a long time: "My mother, Huang Danniang, once said that she was a scholar who had passed the imperial examination and was chasing away demons from her body every day."

Zhi Xiaoye firmly believed this and picked red beans to increase his strength. However, his mother eventually passed away.

Now I know, my mother was not the real Zhong Kui. Yet, her endurance of endless suffering, her battles against invisible demons, and her unwavering devotion to her child—her courage and decisiveness far surpassed Zhong Kui's by a million times!

Some say that for a woman from a poor family to enter such a prestigious and prestigious place as the Imperial Medical Academy is as difficult as ascending to heaven.

But this farm girl, through sheer hard work and extraordinary talent, became one of the few female doctors in the history of the Imperial Medical Academy.

A doctor can heal others, but cannot heal himself.

Despite her frail body, she fought against the ferocious demon known as "Exhaustion and Blood Depletion" for five years, pushing the tenacity of life to its limit. The "Three Goods" motto she left for her young son—"Eat well, practice well, study well"—was simple as earth, yet carried immense weight.

This is the most genuine wish of parents everywhere. However, some can watch the tender buds sprout and grow, while others can only become a smile in a painting, silently gazing.

The little boy who once searched desperately for red beans in a corner of Chang'an, regarding them as a "miracle cure," now stands in his mother's empty room, holding a brocade pouch bestowed by the palace—embroidered with a young beast (rhinoceros) and containing a few bright red beans. These red beans are precisely what he once searched so desperately for; his mother used to cook porridge with them to nourish her blood and heart, and now they have become a silent comfort in the deep palace.

Outside the window, the lights of countless homes illuminated his youthful yet sorrowful face. What would he become? A healer? Or a brilliant strategist? No one knew.

But one thing, like the nourishing power and expectations carried by the red beans in his hand, like the longing symbolized by the ordinary red beans scattered before his mother's spirit, has been etched into the very essence of his life:

He will surely keep his promise of "three good things"—eating properly (the aroma of red bean porridge still seems to linger in his nose), exercising diligently, and studying hard. The future may be unpredictable, but the "a million times more courage and perseverance" forged by his mother's life will be his strongest armor.

Deep within the palace, Princess Li Mingda (Xiao Sizi), who shed tears over her young son's essay and quietly sent him precious red beans, had already transcended the high walls with her clear mind. She understood that the profound maternal love, along with every red bean the boy picked up—whether a bean for nourishment or a bean to express his feelings—would transform into fertile soil to nourish him.

Zhi Xiaoye will gradually accumulate her own light in the long years of loss... and those few red beans from the deep palace are the warmest and most real sparks when this glimmer of light first ignites.