An Lingrong's Rebirth: The Lock of Qingqiu

The next day, after the emperor sent An Lingrong to Tongji Hall, he took Xia Qian to Yangliu Lake to fish.

An Lingrong was still wearing coarse cloth clothes, with a light white opaque veil covering her face. Today was her first day at work, so she had to be careful about her own safety.

She hurriedly made a simple breakfast in the morning and ate it. Less than an hour later, her stomach was empty. Manager Xiao happened to have ordered some cakes and tea to be served to the doctors on duty. She ate the cakes and drank the tea and was half full again.

"Doctor, I want to see a female doctor." A woman's tender voice came from outside the door. An Lingrong stopped talking. Female doctor? She looked around. It seemed that she was the only female doctor in Tongji Hall. She was so anxious to find a female doctor. Could it be a gynecological disease?

There are thirteen doctors in Tongjitang, and only An Lingrong is a woman.

An Lingrong put down the pastry in her hand, took the plain cloth in front of her to clean the table again, and then waited patiently for her to come forward.

"Manager, there are so many doctors here, where is the female doctor?" The person who came in opened a pair of clear big eyes.

She is so beautiful and has such bright eyes, but are you sure she is not blind? Should my gender be written on my face?

How could she not see that he was so feminine?

An Lingrong coughed softly, and the visitor withdrew his gaze and looked at her and said, "Is this a boy or a girl?"

An Lingrong's eyes were filled with a hint of anger as she said, "I'm a woman. Come and sit down. Let me feel your pulse!"

The visitor sighed and said, "You are so young, are you new here? Are you really a woman?"

An Lingrong raised her hand and touched her hat. Only then did she remember that Tongjitang's special doctor uniform came with a hat. With her long hair gathered together and covered by the hat, it was probably impossible to tell the gender at first glance. It was no wonder.

An Lingrong looked at her medical card, which read: Wu Lanyi, 27 years old, female, living in Guanhongju near Yangliu Lake.

An Lingrong remembered that not everyone could live in Guanhongju. When she first moved to the small courtyard with three entrances and three exits in Yangliu Lake, she and the emperor walked around the area and found a very luxurious residence next to it that was similar to a royal garden. Three huge characters on it were particularly eye-catching. They read "Guanhongju".

An Lingrong nodded and asked, "Excuse me, young lady, where do you feel uncomfortable?"

Wu Lanyi stretched out her hand, revealing a row of red blood marks on her fair arm. They had already scabbed over, but they still looked shocking now.

An Lingrong was stunned and asked, "What happened? How did he get injured?"

Wu Lanyi said casually: "I scratched it myself when my husband ignored me. Whenever he insulted me, I would carve a mark. Don't worry, doctor, it doesn't hurt. It was a little painful when I scratched it, but it stopped hurting once the scab formed. I just wanted to show my strength and didn't want to make him sad."

An Lingrong roughly understood that the couple was having a conflict, and the woman was more tolerant and did not want to make her husband angry, so she hurt herself.

An Lingrong advised, "This body was given to you by your parents. You can't abuse it like this. I just took your pulse and it's normal. I didn't find any disease. What's wrong with you?"

Wu Lanyi retracted her arm, her face slightly flushed, and she leaned close to An Lingrong's ear and whispered, "Doctor, I, I, I want to have a boy. You don't know, my husband's family is rich, but I gave birth to a daughter in my left and right pregnancies. Although my husband's family has never said anything bad about me, such a big family business must have someone to inherit it, right? Sooner or later, this daughter will belong to someone else's family. Oh, I'm so worried! I don't know what's going on. I have visited many famous doctors, both openly and secretly, but it's useless. Tongjitang is well-known in the medical community. A branch office has just been opened in Jiangnan, so I rushed here impatiently. I live close to here, and I can get there by crossing the bridge. The Yangliu Lake was built with money donated by my family, and the bridge was also built by my family. Unfortunately, my husband only married me as his principal wife, and he refused to take a concubine no matter what. If he had been willing to take a concubine, I wouldn't have to work so hard. Doctor, can you check my whole body again to see what the problem is? I have given birth to eight daughters, one a year, all daughters, and my head is bigger than the other two."

That's it!

An Lingrong did not have any secret recipe for giving birth to a boy or a girl, but after working in the Imperial Pharmacy for so long, she had developed a set of methods to adjust the pH value of the human body's fluids so that she could conceive a boy or a girl according to her personal preferences.

An Lingrong nodded and said, "So this is what you are worried about. In my opinion, having a daughter is good, and you have eight daughters. I envy you very much!"

Wu Lanyi said, "I can't have another daughter. I'm not young anymore. If I delay any longer, I'm afraid it will be difficult to have another one. Please ask the doctor to check me more. This is for the doctor. Please keep it."

Wu Lanyi handed over a silver bag, which was bulging with gold leaves. An Lingrong suddenly remembered what Manager Xiao said. Although she was also in short supply of silver and gold, the doctors at Tongjitang would never accept tips from their guests. If she did, she would be asked to leave Tongjitang as soon as she started working!

An Lingrong quickly stuffed the gold leaf back into Wu Lanyi's arms and said, "If you really want me to treat you, you must not do this. This will only hurt me! Look, I have a proven method for determining the gender of a baby. As long as you take good care of your body, it will be no problem whether the baby is a boy or a girl."

Wu Lanyi's eyes sparkled with excitement. She asked in surprise, "Really? Then how should I treat it? I will do whatever the doctor says!"

An Lingrong took some herbs, crushed them, and then mixed a white powder to neutralize them. She then prepared a cup of light green juice-like substance and handed it to Wu Lanyi, saying, "Drink this medicine. You don't need to do anything else. Take it once in the morning after breakfast, once after lunch, and once before going to bed, three times a day. Then stick this brown pill on your belly button. A course of treatment is roughly seven days. Come back to me after seven days. During these seven days, you cannot have sex with your husband. If you must have sex, then take another packet of contraceptive pills and take them back. Take them once within 24 hours of having sex."

An Lingrong took out another pale white, round, finger-sized pill. All the medicines she prescribed were brought by herself as they were not available at Tongjitang.

After An Lingrong finished prescribing the medicine, Xiao, the steward of Tongjitang, stopped Wu Lanyi and said to An Lingrong, "Doctor An, the medicine you prescribed is not from Tongjitang. If there is any problem, who will be responsible? Since you work at Tongjitang, you can only prescribe medicine from Tongjitang."

An Lingrong pondered, "This is indeed the medicine I brought, but does Tongjitang have similar medicine?"

Wu Lanyi took the medicine from An Lingrong and wanted to take it away without explanation. Manager Xiao stopped her and said, "This is not Tongjitang's medicine. You can't take it away. This involves the reputation of Tongjitang."

Wu Lanyi frowned and said, "It's not Tongjitang's medicine, but it was prescribed by the doctor of Tongjitang. Could it be that the doctor here is not qualified to practice medicine? But the doctor also said that this is her exclusive medicine."

An Lingrong said, "Manager Xiao, let her take this medicine away. Although it is not from Tongjitang, you can see that this medicine is from Tongrentang and has the same efficacy."

Manager Xiao lowered his head and took a closer look. Sure enough, there was the Tong Ren Tang logo on the pill. However, Tong Ren Tang and Tong Ji Tang were competitors and hostile to each other, so Manager Xiao disagreed even more. Seeing that An Lingrong was not convinced, she took back Wu Lanyi's medicine and changed it to some conditioning prescriptions from Tongji Tang, asking Wu Lanyi to go back and try it first.

But Wu Lanyi disagreed. She said that her illness could not wait, time was pressing, and she was not young anymore. As long as the medicine An Lingrong prescribed was a Chinese patent medicine and had no side effects, she was willing to spend money to buy it. After much persuasion, Wu Lanyi finally only agreed to take the secret prescription medicine in An Lingrong's hand, and even did not want the prescription medicine from Tongjitang. Manager Xiao had no choice but to explain that if anything happened, Wu Lanyi would have to take responsibility herself. Wu Lanyi went back happily.