Chapter 144.2
"Is there a medical hall nearby?"
The coachman thought for a moment before answering, "There’s one near the women"s academy ahead. I remember a new medical hall seems to have been built next to the women"s academy."
Court Lady Xu said with urgency, "Then go quickly!”
"Yes!" The coachman drove the carriage to the medical hall.
As soon as the carriage stopped outside the medical hall, Court Lady Xu jumped out at once and shouted, "Physician! Is there any physician there?"
Second Owner came out and replied, "Lady, our medical hall hasn"t opened yet. You..."
"Ahh—" The Third Prince"s Consort let out a scream of agony from within the carriage.
Second Owner’s heart was immediately anxious. Knowing that the other party was probably suffering from not just a minor illness, he thought it wasn’t good to just send them away and looked for the next medical hall.
He went to the second floor and found Gu Jiao, who was cleaning the side room. He told her, "There"s a patient. It"s a woman!"
Gu Jiao put down the broom she was holding, took off her dust coat and went downstairs.
"Where"s the physician?" Court Lady Xu asked.
"Here’s the physician." Second Owner replied while pointing to Gu Jiao.
"A medical woman?" Court Lady Xu furrowed her brows.
Just as there were male physicians, the State Zhao naturally had medical women too. However, their medical skills were not as good as those of the male physicians, and their status was very low.
In the imperial palace, medical women were merely a.s.sistants to the imperial physicians and could not treat the imperial consorts and concubines alone.
Court Lady Xu snapped at once, "How can only one medical woman be enough? Call out your physician!"
Gu Jiao would never allow anyone to treat her own people badly. She stood in front of Second Owner and said, "I am a physician. It’s either you let me treat people, or you get out of here."
Court Lady Xu choked up.
"Ahh—" The pain in the Third Prince"s Consort’s abdomen got even worse.
Court Lady Liu lifted the curtain of the carriage and said while choking with sobs, "Sister Xu! Please just send Third Prince’s Consort in for treatment! Her... Her Highness seems to be dying!"
Court Lady Xu"s heart thumped.
Gu Jiao got into the carriage. At this time, it was already a little dark, and the interior of the carriage wasn’t well lit.
"Light up all the oil lamps!" She instructed.
Court Lady Liu quickly lit up all the spare oil lamps.
Gu Jiao carefully observed the Third Prince"s Consort and saw that she was covering her right stomach. She knelt down and removed her hand, then she found the location of McBurney point in her lower right abdomen and pressed it, "Does it hurt here?"
"En!" The Third Prince"s Consort felt so painful that she almost pa.s.sed out.
Gu Jiao withdrew her hand and said, "It"s acute appendicitis. It needs immediate surgery."
"What, what did you say needed?" Court Lady Liu couldn"t understand Gu Jiao’s words.
Gu Jiao looked at the Third Prince"s Consort, who was in great pain, and spoke sternly, "Surgery, I"m going to cut open your stomach and remove the inflamed appendix."
Court Lady Liu stammered with fright, saying, "You, you"re going to cut open the Third Prince’s Consort’s stomach?"
The Third Prince"s Consort looked at Gu Jiao with a pale complexion, seemingly waiting for her explanation.
Gu Jiao looked straight into the Third Prince"s Consort’s eyes and warned, "Your condition is urgent. Medicine alone cannot control it. If you don"t do what I say, you will die soon."
The terrible thing about acute appendicitis was that if it wasn’t treated in time, it might cause perforation of the appendix, leading to total abdominal peritonitis which mortality rate was extremely high.
A trace of horror could be seen within the Third Prince"s Consort’s eyes.
"No!" Court Lady Xu got on the carriage and stopped in front of the Third Prince"s Consort, saying, "You’re just a small medical woman, and yet you want to cut open the stomach of my Madame! I think you’re simply being an alarmist! Just say it! How much money do you want?"
"I"m not an alarmist. It"s up to you whether you want to be treated or not." After saying so, Gu Jiao got up and was about to alight the carriage.
But just before she could walk away, her wrist was grabbed by a cold, fragile hand.
The Third Prince"s Consort held on her wrist tightly, expending almost all her strength. She asked, "Can you really save me?"
"Madame!"
The faces of the two court ladies suddenly changed color.
The Third Prince’s Consort wasn’t serious, was she?
She would really allow this medical woman to cut open her stomach?
Crazy! Crazy!
This medical woman was crazy!
The Third Prince"s Consort was crazy too!
Court Lady Xu said, "Madame, don"t listen to her! I"m going to ask for a physician now!"
Gu Jiao blandly said, "Go ahead then."
"Don"t..." The Third Prince"s Consort kept her grip on Gu Jiao"s wrist.
She actually had seen this kind of disease before. Before she got married, her wet nurse also suffered the same pain on her stomach. The spot where it hurt was exactly the same as hers, and with also the same symptoms. Her wet nurse had invited a physician to treat her, but the physician wasn’t able to cure her at all. In the end, her wet nurse died in pain!
Right now, she felt like dying too!
Court Lady Xu said, "Madame! You can’t!"
As a prince"s consort, she couldn’t have any wound nor scar on her body. When entering the palace for an imperial selection, anyone who had even the smallest flaw in their body would immediately fail to be chosen.
Although she was already married at present, she was a prince’s consort after all. Her body didn’t belong to herself anymore, but rather to the Third Prince.
Without the consent of the Third Prince, she couldn’t damage her body at will.
The Third Prince’s Consort was rendered unable to speak by the severe pain, but her eyes sent her resolve across to Gu Jiao clearly.
Gu Jiao carried the Third Prince"s Consort out of the carriage, and the two court ladies were unable to stop her at all.
Court Lady Xu said to the coachman, "Hurry back to the prince residence and inform His Highness, quick!"
"Yes!" The coachman went back to the prince residence without stopping.
Gu Jiao carried the Third Prince’s Consort into the side room and put her on the temporary operating table.
The Third Prince"s Consort looked at her in fear.
Gu Jiao might not be so good at perceiving the emotions of her family, but she could understand the patient"s feelings in a second.
She said, "You can rest a.s.sured. I know what I’m doing. I"ve handled a lot of operations like this before. I"m not your ordinary medical woman, my medical skills are extremely good. Furthermore, your surgery is not complicated, and it also won"t hurt. I will give you an anesthetic so you won"t feel anything during the whole process."
She spoke a lot of words in one breath to calm the patient"s mood.
The rim of the Third Prince"s Consort’s eyes unwillingly turned red.
She was afraid of not only death and pain, but also many, many things.
Her life wasn’t hers, but the whole imperial family"s.
Her body wasn"t hers either, it belonged to His Highness the Third Prince.
Without her husband"s permission, she allowed other people to damage her body. She would surely be reviled for this!
Gu Jiao looked at her intently, saying, "Nothing is more important than your life. Your body is your own, you don"t need anyone to make decisions for you. If treating a disease will cause you to be criticized and spurned by others, then it’s not you who are wrong, it’s the world that is wrong."
The Third Prince"s Consort"s tears burst out at once.
……
The surgery went smoothly.
A new anesthetic appeared in the medicine chest, and the Third Prince"s Consort responded well to this anesthetic.
During the operation, she actually fell asleep. When she woke up, she had changed into dry clothes and was lying on the bed in the side room.
"Does it still hurt?" Gu Jiao asked.
The Third Prince"s Consort shook her head.
It no longer hurt so much like before.
"The wound will ache after the effect of the anesthetic subsided, but it should be within the range of your tolerance." Gu Jiao said, then she explained some matters needing attention after surgery.
The Third Prince"s Consort wasn’t very popular in the capital. She wasn’t sociable. People didn’t like her, and she didn’t like others.
But this little girl was different from most people she had ever met.
The Third Prince"s Consort opened her mouth weakly and asked, "What"s your name?"
“Gu Jiao.”