Yang Wan smiled, resting her chin in her hand. “That’s because you’re just a kid.”
“I’m going to tell my sister you insulted me.”
Yang Wan reached out to pat his head. “Go ahead, kid.”
Deng Ying listened to the cheerful voices outside, stood up, and bowed to Physician Peng.
“This lowly one’s body truly cannot offend my lord. Moreover, this ankle injury was received while serving my punishment – it was meant as punishment and warning, and needs no treatment.”
Physician Peng gestured for him to sit.
“This official is a healer – I don’t concern myself much with legal matters. However, in the palace, the principle is the same: healing is also forming a connection. Even if you truly were a criminal servant, as long as your crime wasn’t capital, I would still be willing to treat you. Just now you wouldn’t remove your shoes and socks – that was because you didn’t want to be improper in front of Lady Yang, wasn’t it?”
An outsider had seen through it in one sentence.
He felt deeply ashamed.
Yang Wan was the person closest to him, so close she had seen him nearly naked, with only a cloth covering his shame.
Before this young woman, he should have long since had no “propriety” to speak of, and indeed could never regain it.
Just liking her was already a grave mistake.
So, almost like confessing to a crime, he answered with a single “Yes.”
Physician Peng said: “She’s not here now. Remove them and let me look – I can see you’ve been enduring pain since you came in. If this continues, there will be severe consequences. You don’t want to be crippled at such a young age, do you?”
Hearing these words, Deng Ying no longer insisted. He bent down and rolled up his trouser leg. Since returning from Guangji Temple, his ankle had been severely bruised and swollen. Every day when putting on shoes, the pain was excruciating, but he had endured without telling anyone. He didn’t know how Yang Wan had noticed.
“It hurts even like this, doesn’t it?”
Physician Peng squatted down to examine the affected area. “Have you been walking much these days?”
“At the Hall of Supreme Harmony, walking is unavoidable.”
“No wonder.”
He stood up as he spoke. “The root of the pain is in the bone. With the foundation damaged, it’s very difficult to cure completely, but it can still be treated. I must say, though Lady Yang doesn’t understand medicine, she has quite a good eye. How old is she this year?”
Deng Ying lowered his trouser leg and began arranging his shoes and socks. “Eighteen.”
Physician Peng stood by the window washing his hands, glancing at the steps outside. Without elaborating further, he just smiled and said, “At such an age, having such consideration is rare.”
Just then, they suddenly heard a commotion from the direction of the Grand Secretariat’s duty office.
Physician Peng simply pushed the window wide open.
“What’s happening at the Grand Secretariat today?”
Deng Ying stood and walked to the window. “Today is the assembly – what’s wrong?”
Yang Wan also stood up, and seeing Deng Ying at the window, hurried over saying: “I heard Yang Lun’s voice – it sounds like he’s arguing.”