After that, the world narrowed to a single object: healing. Lin Wei served long hours, asleep in short bursts at her bench, waking to the sounds of a city that had already learned to be guarded. She taught about wound cleaning: the use of heated wine, the technique for sutures that kept tissue aligned without strangling it. Midwives learned a few things that saved both mothers and sons. The bureau became a place where lives were stitched not only by thready stitches in flesh but by the long work of habit and shared methods.
Her relationship with Shen deepened in the small language of care — preparing a career, rinsing a dressing, sharing a pot of rice. There were quiet mornings where they would read a passage of old medical text and compare the procedure to something she'd seen once in an emergency room in a city that smelled of exhaust. The juxtaposition of the two eras became an ongoing conversation rather than a contradiction.
One evening a messenger came with a petition: villagers from the western county had an outbreak of an illness that blurred voices and left people febrile. Lin Wei packed a small satchel with tools and herbs and went with a party of physicians. She worked in that hard, itinerant way: dividing tinctures, instructing families about sanitation, teaching how to boil water and keep wounds dry. She saved hundreds in the region, and the gratitude she received was simple and intense.