Water Mirrored Moon - 水鏡月

8. Extra - Caterpillar:

I love Yang Ming Xi as a character. He's quirky and wicked, but I was never able to get very much into his relationship with his disciple Chen Li or his grand disciple Song Qi. Song Qi was also a great minor character and both Yang Ming Xi and Cui Xi obsessed about his immense height and his eyebrows...

***

"Er...Yifu...what are you up to, hmmmnn?" asked Cui Xi, rolling her eyes. She had come into her foster father's medical room to find him rubbing his hands together like a mad scientist.

This looks bad...

She crossed her arms with a dubious look on her face, head cocked to the side and peered down at the tall man passed out on the cot in front of her. He was so huge that his legs hung off the bed.

Her Yifu also peered down with his arms crossed, but his eyes were gleaming mischievously, and he had a satisfied smirk on his face.

"Song Qi and I were testing the potency of a new mafeisan that I'm working on. I was trying to figure out the correct dosage..." he said with a bit of a shrug.

"You tested it on him? That's why he's lying here?" she asked, a little shocked. "Even so, I don't think this is too good..."

"You worry too much...it's not going to hurt him..." grumbled the old man. "Who is your Yifu, ah? I'm not some quack off the street..." he harrumphed, looking offended.

Where is Xiao Yu when I need her? thought Cui Xi. Should I panic? What if Song Qi dies...?

Drool was leaking out of the corner of the young man's mouth and pooling on his collar.

"Ah, Yifu, don't misunderstand me, but is this really alright?" she frowned, turning her head this way and that.

"Chen Li leant him out to me, of course it's alright..." Yang Ming Xi said, unrepentantly.

Cui Xi wanted to hit herself in the face.

"Yifu..." she sighed. "I'm sure when Chen Li said you could use that man, he didn't mean it like this...isn't this an abuse of your position...?"

How can the temperament of master and disciple be so different? she thought to herself.

When Cui Xi had first met the head of the Imperial College of Physicians, Chen Li, she had found him gentle, soft-spoken, and calm, whereas Yifu tended towards brilliant, hot-tempered and eccentric...and he was getting worse as he aged.

Since Yang Ming Xi had been fully reinstated as a doctor of the Imperial College of Physicians by the Emperor, and had taken a teaching position at Chen Li's invitation, he had been spending quite a bit of time doing lectures for the younger more inexperienced imperial doctors as well as taking Song Qi out into the city to get more experience doing charity work for the poor.

However, Cui Xi believed that her tricky Yifu was actually just bored and was using Song Qi, who was extremely earnest, and thus easily fooled, as a source of amusement.

"Alright...well let's get tea..." her Yifu said cheerfully.

"Eh? Are we just leaving him here?" she blurted, startled out of her thoughts.

"Yes, that's right. The mafeisan will wear off eventually. I've already sent for Chen Li as I've other things to take care of..."

"Waaaaah Yifu! You sent for the head to come personally to fetch Song Qi?"

Her foster father looked unperturbed.

"So? What about it...?"

"Yifu!"