Chapter 169: Critical Point
At last, the horses came to a halt in front of a grand mansion where several maid-servants stood anxiously waiting at the door, clearly expecting their arrival.
Su Yu stepped down firmly, the sound of horse hooves falling silent, then followed the maid-servants’ meticulous guidance through the carved wooden doors and into a courtyard filled with a clamor of voices.
Inside the courtyard, there was a bustle of people, each face etched with an anxiety they could not hide, as if the hearts of all present had grown heavy beneath a sky laden with dark clouds.
In the air mingled a faint scent of medicinal herbs, a fragrance that was both reassuring and slightly worrying, yet in this place, which should have been filled with the pain and joy of childbirth, there was no sound of a laboring woman’s moans—an ominously unusual silence.
Quickly stepping indoors, the scene before Su Yu’s eyes made her heart tense.
Director Liu, a physician of considerable local renown, was busy, drenched in sweat, feeding a bowl of dark medicinal soup to the pale, gasping County Magistrate’s wife.
His clothes were soaked with sweat, clinging tightly to his lean body, revealing how fiercely he had been battling with death for the lady’s life.
On the bed, the lady who was usually gentle as water now resembled a flickering candle in the wind, the flame of her life on the brink of being extinguished.
Su Yu’s arrival seemed to bring a glimmer of hope to Director Liu.
The hope sparkling in his eyes was like rain after a long drought, and although his voice was hoarse and deep from continuous tension, he still conveyed the urgency and complexity of the wife’s condition with firmness and strength.
After speaking, Director Liu’s eyes were full of expectation, as though Su Yu was their last lifeline.