Chapter 165: Chapter 167: Separation
Chen Zhong coughed, his face unnaturally pale. It had been like this for the past few years, up and down.
“Grandpa, take your dicine,” Tang Yuxin placed the dicine in front of Chen Zhong. Yet, her expression was sowhat sad. She knew that Chen Zhong was ill, and it was serious. Neither Western dicine nor traditional Chinese dicine could cure his condition. It was simply the natural aging process, but Chen Zhong was aging faster than most.
As for the reason, it could have been so trauma he experienced when he was young, or a hidden illness he had for all his life. It wasn’t easy for him to have lasted until now.
Tang Yuxin was a doctor, and a pretty good internist at that. However, she discovered the illness too late, and Chen Zhong was good at hiding it, so it was irreversible by the ti Tang Yuxin found out about his condition.
And there was no cure for his illness.
Neither Western nor Chinese dicine could help a man already in the twilight of his life.
Every organ in his body was already failing, and his survival to this point might only be due to the Chen-style Rejuvenation Acupuncture Technique, which kept him hanging on.
“It’s okay.”
Chen Zhong reached out and patted Tang Yuxin’s head.
“I should have been dead long ago. If it weren’t for accepting you as my little apprentice, I might have died in that flood. I just can’t let go of you as you haven’t completely grown up.”
He sighed. Unfortunately, those books were swept away by the flood. “Therefore, there’s not much I can leave for you. You’ve grown up, and you’ve learned all that I know. Now it will be up to you.”
All of us will die eventually, sooner or later, it is determined the mont we are born.
Tang Yuxin realized for the first ti how sad it was to part from life. In her previous life, she had left Tang Zhinian dealing with her death, an old man burying his child.
Her brother had died, her daughter was gone too, an old man who had lived for his daughter had to face all this. How heartbroken he must have been. What use was there in leaving him more money?
No amount of money can buy back a life.
At this mont, Tang Yuxin finally realized what she had brought to her father in her previous life. She had led an ineffectual life and never allowed her father a single happy day. In the end, he even had to watch her die and bury her. They say raising children is to safeguard the old age, but who took care of Tang Zhinian’s affairs after his only daughter died prematurely? No one knew.
As for Sang Zhilan’s family, they were living happily, living in her house, with her husband, spending the money she had earned with her life.
“Little girl, don’t think too much, life and death are determined by fate.”
Chen Zhong patted Tang Yuxin’s head again, “Don’t be too mature, you’re still a child. I don’t know where you got this temperant. But even if I die now, I would have no regrets.” He had passed on the Chen family’s dical skills, so he had fulfilled his duty to the Chen family.
It’s unfortunate about his books.
Tang Yuxin took back the bowl, brought it to the kitchen, and silently began washing it.
Suddenly, she looked up. Her face reflected in the mirror still had an innocent, immature look. But just like Chen Zhong said, they would all die one day. She was still young now, but had prematurely aged.
“What’s this?” Chen Zhong seed a little better. His eyes had more energy, and his spirit seed lifted. But Tang Yuxin knew there was a term for this – terminal lucidity.
He pointed to the cardboard box that Tang Yuxin brought over and asked. His wrinkled eyes seed to shine a little brighter.
Tang Yuxin opened the box to reveal book after book.
“This is…”
Chen Zhong suddenly felt a sourness in his nose. His trembling, aged hands, devoid of skin and flesh, resembled dry tree branches in winter, grayish white, cracked, and lifeless.
He took a book from the box. It was an old book. The yellowing pages held mories unique to ti. If not mistaken, the book should be over a hundred years old.
He took out another one, also an old book with many annotations.
“These were what you gave years ago. I kept them all,” Tang Yuxin crouched down and took out the books one by one from the box. “When I was young, I didn’t know where it would be safe to keep them. I just felt they needed to be in a place where I couldn’t reach them on a whim.”
“So I thought of the big Pagoda tree at the entrance of my house. I asked my second uncle to keep my stuff there, including these books. These are what you gave , and those I borrowed and never returned. They’re all here, none are missing or damaged.”
“Good girl, good girl…”
Chen Zhong held the books and, his old face finally showed contentnt.
He handed the books back to Tang Yuxin. “I have nothing valuable to leave you in my life. Even this house belongs to the village. After I die, it will be returned to the village. These herbs were collected by over the years; you can take them. And these books, these books…”
He caressed the books. Through the passage of ti, it seed as if he was transported back to a long ti ago, when he was a child picking dicinal herbs on the mountain with his grandfather. Back then, he was a young boy. And now, he was about to die.
However, having lived a full life, he was content.
“I leave these books to you. One day, when you have a child, pass them on. The dical skills of our Chen family are passed down from generation to generation. Although it stopped with , without a direct Chen family successor, at least the Chen family’s dical skills survive.”
And these books, they’re still here. He now truly believed that Tang Yuxin was a child sent by the ancestors of the Chen family. She was the rightful one to learn their dical skills and inherit everything of the Chen family.
Tang Yuxin put the books away. Her hand, holding the pages of the books, tightened, resisting the bitter and sad feelings of the imminent parting.
Chen Zhong’s health started to deteriorate half a year ago, and during this ti, he taught Tang Yuxin everything he could. When she was young, he had already force-fed her a lot of knowledge. With Tang Yuxin growing up, she had now learnt 70% of his dical skills, and the remaining 30% would simply co with experience over ti.
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