A Spirit Spring like this should not have side effects, as its nature was purely restorative and life-affirming.
With a hard brake that sent a spray of muddy water arching through the air, Jing Shu reached the villa, only to find no one there. The large house felt cavernous and unnervingly quiet, the usual sounds of family life replaced by a heavy silence.
Turned out Grandma Jing had fainted in their own place at Building No. 25, the familiar apartment they had lived in before the world changed.
Since the rains began and the environment became increasingly unstable, the family had moved into the safety of the villa, leaving the ground floor unit in Building No. 25 empty for the most part. Grandma Jing used to go tidy up once in a while to keep the place from falling into disrepair, but lately she had been going often, almost every day, perhaps seeking the comfort of her old surroundings.
When Jing Shu arrived at the apartment, breathless and heart racing, Grandma Jing lay on the bed with eyes shut tight. Other than rapid, shallow breathing that moved her chest in a frantic rhythm, there were no clear signs of what was wrong. Faced with a sudden fainting spell like this, especially in the apocalypse where professional medical help was a rare luxury, it left everyone at a loss and gripped by a cold sense of dread.
All the windows in the small room were pushed wide open to give her enough air, allowing the damp, heavy scent of the rain-soaked city to drift inside.
Jing An was drenched in sweat, his shirt clinging to his back as he hovered near the bed. Grandpa Jing paced in tight, frantic circles on the floorboards, his hands knotted together behind his back. Wu You'ai looked on the verge of tears, her face pale as she watched her grandmother. Third Aunt Jing Lai stood nearby, her face equally pale and drawn with worry. Jing An had already called a doctor, who was on the way to the building.
"The doctor said over the phone that the elder should lie flat without being moved to avoid any secondary injury while we wait for him to arrive," Jing An explained, his voice shaking slightly.
Jing Shu scanned the room, her eyes darting between the familiar faces, and noticed a strange man standing in the corner. He was tall and thin, his frame slightly stooped as if he were trying to make himself smaller, and he wore glasses that gave him a scholarly appearance. She frowned, wondering who he was, but she went to Grandma Jing's side first and checked her breathing again. It was still fast, and when she pressed her fingers to the pulse point, her heartbeat was quick and thready.
She was still alive.
As long as she was alive, even with only one breath left in her body, Jing Shu could flood her with Spirit Spring and pull her back from the edge. To avoid a potential overdose or a shock to her system, she dripped a little diluted Spirit Spring onto Grandma Jing's parched lips first, watching the moisture disappear.
"Dad, what doctor did you find? Is he reliable?" Jing Shu asked, her voice sharp with urgency.
Jing An looked awkward, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "I am not sure if he is reliable yet. He is a Western doctor, the resident doctor for Banana Community. He said over the phone that without full equipment it is hard to diagnose anything properly, but he would take a look at her. If needed, he said we can move her to West Mountain for better care."
So, the situation was not very reliable at all, given the lack of diagnostic tools available.
"It should be hypotension causing dizziness, weakness, and palpitations," the strange man said from his place in the corner. His voice was old and a little hoarse, sounding as if it belonged to someone much older than he appeared, but his words were steady and strangely reassuring. "I suggest correcting her posture and quickly restoring her blood volume. As for the medication needed to stabilize her, you will have to find it yourselves."
"Nonsense. My grandmother has high blood pressure, not low," Wu You'ai said, snapping at the stranger.
Everyone in the family knew Grandma Jing had hypertension and took her medicine on a strict schedule every single day. Even if she did get hypotension, it should not be severe enough to need immediate blood volume support.
If it were a case of hypertension, they would believe it immediately, as they were used to managing it. She had never had low blood pressure in all the years they had known her.
"Who are you?" Jing Shu asked, turning her full attention toward the man.
"This is the guy who was chatting with Grandma when she collapsed," Wu You'ai said, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. "He says he lives next door in the neighboring unit. I think he wanted to hurt her or trick her."
Wu You'ai bristled like a little cat defending its territory. She had few people she truly cared about in this world. If any, one was her mother, one was her grandmother, and now, barely, Jing Shu had made the list.
Jing Shu frowned, her gaze lingering on the man. "Your name? How did you know my grandmother and end up chatting with her in an empty apartment?"
She took a closer look at the man's features. Because of his height, he kept his head lowered, his face partially in shadow, hiding his true expression from her.
He had a young face that looked no older than twenty or thirty, but an oddly old voice that carried a heavy weight. It was strange. From the sound alone, you would not link him to a villain or someone with ill intent. It was a voice that invited trust despite the circumstances.
He smiled wryly, the corner of his mouth twitching, and shoved his hands into his pockets as he leaned against the wall. "My surname is Lin, two trees make Lin. Call me Lin Yi. I met grandma days ago while she was here. Somehow we hit it off and started talking. She is very interesting and kind. Always so full of life, always cheering up someone like me, who often feels dead inside."
Grandma Jing had been happily chatting with someone during her visits here? Why had Jing Shu not heard about this before now? Lin Yi. The name sounded familiar to her, as if she had heard it in passing, but she could not quite place it.
But she only cared about Grandma Jing's condition now. There was no time to dwell on a familiar name.
"You should reflect on this," Lin Yi added, his tone neutral but pointed. "You leave an elder alone every day with no one to talk to in that big house. Elders do not want to bother their families with their small problems, so she chatted with me instead."
Lin Yi observed the patient on the bed with a clinical eye. "I am not a practicing physician anymore, but my secondary specialization in school was neurology. Blood pressure falls within that scope of study. Rest assured, I did graduate from my program. You should choose to trust me rather than waste time arguing."
"Are you crazy? Who would trust a stranger who might want to kill someone?" Wu You'ai snapped back.
Lin Yi blinked, his expression blank for a moment. "How did you know I have a mental illness?"
Wu You'ai fell silent, stunned by the admission. That made him even less trustworthy in her mind, not more.
Jing Shu checked the time on her phone, then made a quick call. "Minister Niu? Last time Mr. Qian had an old Chinese doctor helping him, right? Yes, please invite him over to Building No. 25 immediately. Thank you. We will settle up the fee afterward."
Western medicine without any equipment was a rough and uncertain path to take.
It would be better to have an old Chinese doctor take the pulse and reassure them with traditional methods. A combination of Chinese and Western approaches would be best to cover all possibilities.
The Western doctor arrived first, carrying only simple tools in a small bag. He measured her blood pressure and did a basic check of her reflexes and pupillary response.
Jing Shu felt a twinge of regret as she watched him work. With technology so advanced before the fall, home blood pressure monitors were convenient and cheap. She should have bought one earlier to keep in the villa. This might not have happened if they had been monitoring her daily.
"Hypotension. It is seriously low," the doctor said, his brow furrowed as he read the manual gauge. "Any medical history I should know about?"
Jing An quickly explained her history of high blood pressure and heart disease.
"Has she been taking her medication as usual?" The family nodded in unison. "We have never exceeded the dose all these years, always one pill at the same time," Jing An added.
Moments later, the old Chinese doctor arrived, looking weathered and wise, and took Grandma Jing's pulse with steady fingers. He reached the same conclusion as the Western doctor after a few minutes of quiet concentration, which was exactly what Lin Yi had said from the beginning.
Then it hit Jing Shu with the force of a physical blow. Why would Grandma Jing have low blood pressure all of a sudden? It was because she had been drinking Spirit Spring water every day. It nourished the body from the inside out and must have cured the hypertension over time. But she kept taking her powerful antihypertensives because she did not know she was cured. Of course the pressure would crash if she took medicine for a condition she no longer had.
That was it. Everything made sense now. If Grandpa Jing could even regrow lost teeth through the power of the water, then Grandma Jing's blood pressure could well have normalized months ago. There was no need for extra medication anymore.
The two doctors adjusted Grandma Jing's position on the bed to help with her recovery, lifting her legs slightly. The old Chinese doctor performed a firm massage on her pressure points and began acupuncture, the thin needles catching the light. Neither had brought any drugs with them, but the old doctor said this treatment would be enough to bring her around.
"Do you have anything in the house to restore blood volume or provide a quick boost?" the Chinese doctor asked.
Jing Shu nodded quickly. "Do blood mushrooms count for that?"
"Yes, yes. Quickly, give her some if you have them."
The family hurried to the small kitchen to cook the blood mushrooms, the savory scent filling the apartment as they worked. They carefully fed the warm broth to the patient. Jing Shu finally exhaled a long breath of relief. It was a false alarm after all, not a new illness. Turned out it was a mix up caused by the curative power of the Spirit Spring.
So it was not Lin Yi who had harmed Grandma Jing, as he had been the one to correctly identify the problem.
Whether it was the concentrated Spirit Spring, the nutrient-rich blood mushrooms, or the stimulation of the acupuncture, Grandma Jing finally woke, her eyelids fluttering open as she looked around the room.
===
"Two Trees Make Lin. Call me Lin Yi" is a wordplay based on how Chinese characters are formed.
The Chinese surname 林 (Lín) is literally made of two 木 (mù) characters stacked side by side. 木 means "tree."
So when Lin Yi introduces himself as "双木林 (shuāng mù lín)," he's explaining: "My surname Lin is written with two trees."
Then he says, "我叫林一 (Wǒ jiào Lín Yī)," meaning, "My name is Lin Yi."
It's a cultural way of introducing his name clearly, especially in speech, since some surnames sound similar but are written differently. By saying "two trees make Lin," he ensures people picture the character 林 instead of another "Lin."