The Empress Dowager's Pulse Raced for the Palace Physician novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Racing
Three physicians are dead, and Qinglan is summoned to the Empress Dowager at night, finds a healthy woman, and says out loud that her pulse is racing.
Shen Qinglan was the fourth physician summoned to Ningshou Palace in a single season.
The first one who had asked what happened to the other three.
"They died," said the head eunuch, walking fast ahead of her with a paper lantern.
"Of what?"
"Of the post."
"That isn't a sickness," Qinglan said.
He did not answer.
He led her across three courtyards and past six guards who did not look at her face, and stopped at a door carved with phoenixes.
"The bodies were buried outside the wall before dawn," he said. "No one saw."
"Who burns incense for them?"
"Go in, Physician."
She was twenty-seven years old, she ran a clinic in the south city out of a back room and a courtyard.
She was being paid three hundred taels a month to walk through that door.
That was ten times what the clinic earned.
She tightened the green cord on her sash, shifted the wooden medicine box on her shoulder, and went in.
The room was hot and smelled of sandalwood.
Lamps burned in every corner, and a carved screen cut the far end into a dark alcove.
A woman sat on a lacquered couch in front of the screen, one elbow on a low table.
A cup of tea stood untouched at her hand.
Qinglan had seen the Empress Dowager once, from far off, on a balcony.
Up close she was larger.
Murong Yue was tall even sitting, pale as paper, with black hair pinned up in a mass of gold.
A beauty mark sat under her lower lip.
Her robe was scarlet, and it was open at the throat a finger's width farther than it should have been.
"Shen Qinglan," the Dowager said. "Kneel when you've put the box down."
Qinglan knelt.
Then she frowned, because she had not said her name to the eunuch or to anyone since the gate.
"Rise," the Dowager said. "You're the one from the south gate. Last winter, the plague line."
"Your Majesty was there?"
"Your sash was that same green." The Dowager's voice was low and slow. "Take my pulse."
Qinglan rose, and crossed the carpet, and sat on the low stool by the couch.
The Dowager held out her left arm, palm up, sleeve pushed back.
Her wrist was long and white and had one blue vein running along it.
Qinglan set three fingers on it.
She had taken ten thousand pulses.
She knew the slow pulse of the old and the thin pulse of the starving and the slippery pulse of a woman with child.
She waited for the Dowager's pulse to tell her what was wrong.
It told her nothing was wrong.
Then it kept going.
It was fast, and strong, and it jumped under her fingertips.
Qinglan frowned.
She moved her fingers to the other side, pressed deeper, and counted a full breath of the Dowager's chest.
"It's racing," she said.
The room was very quiet.
"Your Majesty's pulse is racing," Qinglan said again, because she was honest and could not help it.
"Twice the rate it should be."
"Are you afraid?"
"No."
"Have you run? Taken anything? Are you in pain?"
"No, no, and no."
"Then I can't find a cause," Qinglan said. "The wrist says you're healthy. It also says you're about to bolt."
Somewhere behind the screen, a woman's breath caught and was hushed.
The Dowager's mouth moved at one corner.
"Three men sat on that stool and took my pulse," she said. "None of them said that."
"What did they say?"
"That it was strong, Your Majesty."
"That Heaven blessed me." Her eyes were black and steady, lined with kohl.
"They were afraid of me, Physician, and they wanted to live."
"And me?"
"You said it's racing."
Her wrist turned in Qinglan's grip.
It was quick.
Then the Dowager's long fingers closed around Qinglan's own wrist and held it there.
A gold nail guard rested against her skin.
A thumb found the pulse under her palm and pressed.
"And yours," the Dowager said softly, "is also racing."
Qinglan's face went hot to the ears.
It was, she realized.
It was pounding in her wrist, in her throat, in her stomach.
She had not known.
"It's the lamps," she said. "It's warm in here."
"Is it?"
The Dowager did not let go.
Her thumb slid in a slow circle over the inside of Qinglan's wrist.
"The Prince says I am sick," she said.
"He says grief has broken my mind, and a regent should hold the seal for my son."
"He is going to send his own men to look at me."
"And you want a physician's paper that says you're well."
"I want a witness, one who will put her hand on my body and say I am sound."
"Say it in front of the court." Her voice dropped.
"One who won't die of it."
"Why would I die?"
"You won't," the Dowager said. "Not if you stay near me."
She released Qinglan's wrist, and the skin where her fingers had been burned.
Then she lifted both hands to the sash at her waist, and pulled it loose.
The scarlet robe fell open at the front.
Underneath was a white inner gown, thin as breath.
"A physician examines the whole body," said the Empress Dowager. "Isn't that so?"
Qinglan's mouth was dry.
"Yes," she said.
"Then lock the door," said Murong Yue. "And examine all of me."
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend