Gongsun Jingming spoke, appearing calm, but his gradually reddening cheeks betrayed him.
"Suit yourself," Xu Mu said with a faint smile, walking past Gongsun Jingming to the bedside.
He saw that directly in front of the bed, a large charcoal stove was burning, its heat making the space seem hazy, wafting towards him.
"The poison fire is attacking her heart, yet you still light a stove for her. Do you wish for her to die slower?"
Xu Mu extinguished the stove with a frown.
Although he didn't turn around, everyone in the room, including Zhu Yue Rong on the sickbed, should have known that Xu Mu was referring to Master Gongsun.
"The poison fire attacking her heart is already irreversible. If you want her to live longer, you should provide enough heat to dilute the coldness in her body. What's wrong with that?" Gongsun Jingming asked after a moment of silence, his tone laced with confusion.
Yes, he asked. If Xu Mu had spoken to him like this when they first met, he would have certainly cursed Xu Mu as a quack.
But the situation had changed drastically. Their positions had quietly shifted.
"The medicine I gave her is enough to resolve the coldness," Xu Mu said. He pulled back the bed curtains and helped Zhu Yue Rong sit up. Her face was incredibly pale, her breathing shallow, as if she were on the verge of death.
Seeing this, Xu Mu frowned, felt her pulse, and then turned to glare at Gongsun Jingming. "I don't understand. Before you threw away my medicine, did you even check the patient's condition?"
"You swapped my medicine and lit a stove for her at the same time. The Yin deficiency that was suppressed has flared up again, and there's a conflict with the medicine's properties. You almost killed her, do you know that!"
Xu Mu's voice echoed throughout the room, the accusatory tone clear to everyone.
Gongsun Jingming's expression turned grim. His eyes were wide open, and just as he was about to argue, he noticed that Zhu Yue Rong's condition had indeed worsened considerably since he arrived. His face immediately turned ashen.
Had he truly made a mistake?
"Little Divine Doctor Mu, what should we do? Can Yue Rong still be saved?" Jiang Li timidly approached and asked hesitantly.
"Fortunately, I arrived in time. Half an hour later, no one could have saved her," Xu Mu said. He scooped some medicinal gruel from a pot with a spoon and fed it to Zhu Yue Rong bit by bit.
Gongsun Jingming and the three Jiang family members stared anxiously at Zhu Yue Rong's pale lips. They watched as she opened her mouth and laboriously swallowed the medicinal gruel.
Instantly, a hint of crimson appeared on her ashen face, her weak heartbeat gradually quickened, as if she had been reborn. The rhythmic thumping could be heard throughout the room.
"She's better?!" Jiang Sheng exclaimed in immense excitement, tightly gripping Qian Qian's arm like a vice, nearly making the latter jump.
"This... how is this possible?" Gongsun Jingming stared at Zhu Yue Rong's increasingly rosy face and listened to her pounding heartbeat. A wave of dizziness washed over him.
The incurable, difficult illness he couldn't cure had actually been cured by this young man. The prescription he wrote was actually effective!
He could actually resolve the conflict between the Seven-Leaf Pure Lotus, the Thunderclap Vine, and other high-level spirit herbs!
How could this be real?
Just as Gongsun Jingming was reeling from the shock and feeling his sanity fray, Xu Mu, who was quietly feeding the medicine, suddenly frowned deeply, his expression changing drastically.
"No, this medicine is wrong!" Xu Mu cried out, quickly scooping the medicinal gruel he had just fed Zhu Yue Rong out of her mouth. He stood up, his face filled with shock.
"Wuwu... it hurts so much... I... I'm in so much pain..." Zhu Yue Rong, sitting up on the sickbed, let out a series of heart-wrenching cries of agony. The color on her face had turned a deep crimson, like an overripe persimmon, or magma about to solidify in a volcano.
Xu Mu's eyes flickered. With a grave expression, he lifted Zhu Yue Rong's quilt. Her body, exposed outside her undergarments, had turned completely red. A slight touch was burning hot, as if it were about to ignite.
"What's happening? Why did it suddenly turn like this?" Jiang Li, looking at Zhu Yue Rong writhing in pain on the bed, asked in panic. Jiang Sheng and Qian Qian's faces were frozen.
"It's the Thunderclap Vine and the Sunlight Mushroom. Their medicinal properties have clashed," Gongsun Jingming said, his mind snapping back. After a mere glance at Zhu Yue Rong, he reached this conclusion.
Before this, he had smelled the Sunlight Mushroom and Thunderclap Vine in Xu Mu's concoction. Both were substances of extreme Yang energy. For an ordinary person to consume them, they would likely explode instantly.
"Kid, while I admire your talent for developing prescriptions, and your skill and courage in refining medicine, it's clear you've lost this gamble," Gongsun Jingming said, looking at the grim-faced Xu Mu and then at Zhu Yue Rong, who was on the verge of death. He sighed with a complex mix of emotions.
Xu Mu had failed. He hadn't perfectly resolved the conflict in the medicinal properties. Although it was only a small margin, it was enough to kill Zhu Yue Rong.
Yet, he didn't know whether to be happy or sad. After all, Zhu Yue Rong was also his patient, and as a master alchemist who healed the sick, watching a patient die before his eyes was a disgrace.
His feelings were a mix of hoping Xu Mu would succeed and hoping he would fail.
"Impossible. I might make a mistake, but never here," Xu Mu said after briefly feeling her pulse. He then took a small amount of the medicinal gruel and tasted it carefully on his tongue.
"Whether you admit it or not, the facts are laid bare," Gongsun Jingming sighed again and said with a hint of comfort, "Kid, you don't need to be discouraged or blame yourself. You've succeeded to this extent. You were just lacking a bit of luck."
"To be honest, if I were given these spirit herbs to refine, I might not do as well as you."
Gongsun Jingming finished speaking, but Xu Mu ignored him, his brow furrowed as he tasted the medicinal gruel he had personally refined.
Gongsun Jingming interpreted this as Xu Mu's final struggle. After all, geniuses had their pride and found it difficult to admit defeat.
"The taste is wrong, the texture is wrong. Why are the medicinal properties of the Nightshade grass and the Century Snow Lotus so diminished here?"
Xu Mu spat out the medicinal gruel, his mind racing. He now knew where the problem lay: it was the Nightshade grass and the Century Snow Lotus. These two herbs were meant to neutralize the other ingredients. With their weak medicinal power, Zhu Yue Rong had ended up like this!
"Jiang Sheng, how long did you boil the medicine?" Xu Mu suddenly turned his head towards Jiang Sheng and asked sharply.
"I... I boiled it for an hour and a half, then added cold water to dilute it, poured it back, and boiled it again for the duration of an incense stick... Isn't this the method you taught me? I didn't do anything wrong!" Jiang Sheng stammered, feeling flustered as everyone stared at him, and quickly explained.
"What you said... wasn't that the method for boiling the previous medicine?" Qian Qian said stiffly.
"Didn't I tell you that the initial steps were the same, but after adding cold water at the end, you should only boil it for half an incense stick? If it's boiled for too long, it will dissolve the medicinal properties of the Nightshade grass and the Century Snow Lotus!"