Chapter Nine: Enlightenment in a Dream, Reincarnation of the Divine Physician

In the Taiji Hall of the Imperial Palace, Empress Zhangsun recounted everything she had witnessed that day to Li Shimin. Had she not seen it with her own eyes, she would have found it impossible to believe that Su Chen had truly enabled Niu Jianhu to stand again.

"Is it really that miraculous?" Li Shimin asked, his face etched with astonishment. This was completely unexpected.

The Empress nodded. "I saw Daoist Sun there as well. Even he was slack-jawed, repeatedly exclaiming 'a miracle.' It was truly extraordinary!" The Empress spoke with a lingering sense of excitement, still caught up in the atmosphere from the Niu household.

At these words, Li Shimin’s heart skipped a beat. Arranging for Su Chen to go head-to-head with Zhangsun Chong had been his own deliberate design. He had never expected Su Chen to actually win; he had simply seized an opportunity to push the Su family forward as a pawn. He never imagined that Su Chen would surprise him in such a way.

Seeing Li Shimin lost in thought, the Empress assumed he remained skeptical. Li Shimin offered a few evasive remarks, not yet ready to share his true motives with her. "Guanyinbi, you should rest well here. Since Su Chen possesses such skills, I have become quite intrigued. I hear he owns a medical clinic; I shall have to pay it a visit myself one day."

Li Shimin smiled, brushing the matter aside. Since the situation involved Zhangsun Chong, he did not want to cause the Empress undue concern. However, deep down, he realized that this young man was not the person the rumors claimed him to be. It seemed Su Chen had become aware of his own peril; with Zhangsun Chong set to return soon, he knew he would be defenseless if he did not act. By helping Niu Jianhu stand again, he had become a benefactor to the Niu family. Given the close ties between the Niu and Cheng families, he had effectively secured the support of both.

*Clever lad,* Li Shimin thought. *You are not as foolish as you seem. This is far more interesting than I anticipated. But courting two families may not be enough.*

After leaving the Empress’s quarters, Li Shimin retreated to his study. He had previously paid little attention to Su Chen, viewing him merely as a profligate son—the perfect sacrificial lamb to pit against Zhangsun Chong. Now, however, the situation had shifted. With the Niu and Cheng families involved, the dynamics had completely changed.

Li Shimin began to scrutinize Su Chen. Yet, the young man had never shown signs of intelligence before. How could a notorious wastrel, one of the "Five Evils" of Chang'an, suddenly have such a change of heart?

"No, this is not right," Li Shimin narrowed his eyes. "There must be a mastermind behind this. Someone is guiding him from the shadows. Otherwise, given Su Chen’s character, he wouldn't have figured this out in a hundred years."

Meanwhile, at the medical clinic, Sun Simiao was waiting for Su Chen. He had held his tongue in front of the Niu family and the others, but upon leaving, he had gone straight to the clinic to wait for him.

Su Chen, having dined at the Niu estate and bid farewell to Li Chengqian—leaving the prince with a parting remark that ensured his plans were proceeding exactly as intended—whistled his way back to the clinic. Upon entering, he found Sun Simiao waiting.

Su Chen held deep respect for a man like Sun Simiao, a sage of the earth and a living immortal. "Greetings, Daoist. You have been waiting late into the night—have you had anything to eat? Do not let yourself go hungry."

Sun Simiao had been struck by astonishment during the earlier encounter at the Niu residence. Unable to sleep without understanding the secrets behind Su Chen’s methods, he had spent the time waiting for his return. He examined Su Chen closely, then sighed, producing a stack of rice paper. These were the medical records from the clinic—the cases Su Chen had diagnosed over the past few days.

"Are these patients all diagnosed and recorded by your own hand?" Sun Simiao asked, still reeling from what he had read.

Though the calligraphy was clumsy and the characters often incomplete, the records were meticulous. They detailed patient histories, prior ailments, treatment plans, and post-treatment reactions.

Su Chen nodded. "Yes, they are my records of the patients I have seen recently. Please forgive my poor penmanship, Daoist." For Su Chen, these were merely for his own convenience; he had yet to grow accustomed to the brushes and paper of this era.

"You spent only a dozen days with me, and you never opened a single medical text. How did you learn this?" Sun Simiao was utterly bewildered. When Su Chen had been sent to him as a child, he had stayed for less than two weeks and even burned the medicinal herbs Sun Simiao had painstakingly gathered from the mountains. Yet, these records followed the principles of Zhang Zhongjing’s classical prescriptions, and in some ways, even surpassed them. It was impossible to achieve this without an exhaustive study of the *Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases*. Even Zhang Zhongjing himself would have been impressed.

Su Chen had his answer ready. "Alas, I am filled with regret for not studying diligently under you back then. Since my return, I have been consumed by remorse. Every night, I study medical texts in my study until the small hours. I have often met Qi Bo in my dreams, where I have gained much experience..."

Su Chen spun an increasingly wondrous tale of nocturnal study, visions of the Yellow Emperor and Qi Bo, and his own experiments with Zhang Zhongjing’s formulas—even describing how he had accidentally poisoned himself with aconite and had to devise antidotes.

At first, Sun Simiao thought it sounded exaggerated, but the more he listened, the more it rang true. Was this not how he himself had learned in his youth? He, too, had experimented endlessly, occasionally poisoning himself with the wrong herbs.

"A prodigy! Truly a prodigy! You are far superior to what I was at your age!" Sun Simiao stood up. Looking at Su Chen now, he no longer saw the incorrigible youth of the past. He saw a reincarnation of the divine physician Hua Tuo, a man whose future was truly limitless.