"Madam Li, I'm not quite sure you know what you're asking," said a man who looked to be in his early forties. His beard was scruffy, and his eyes looked dim, as though he had been awake for days on end.
Li Jun's mother slid him a note across the wooden table they were both sitting at.
"Yes, I'm a pill master, but tendon-repairing pills are expensive. The materials alone would cost at least fifty gold coins," the man said with a hesitant frown. He knew of their financial situation; in fact, there wasn't a single person in the city who didn't.
She took back the parchment and wrote something else.
"I understand, I really do. But please, there's just no way I can make a pill like that for free. It would bankrupt me," the man said with regret.
Li Jun's mother sat silently for a moment before reaching into a pouch she had tied to her waist. She pulled out a bronze plaque with writing on it and pushed it across the table.
"This is!" The man's eyes lit up as he looked at the plaque.
She pushed him the sheet of parchment again.
"I know you are teaching your son how to make pills. But with this, he will be able to enter the imperial college and learn from the best teachers in the country."
She looked at the plaque she had just handed him with hesitation. That token was something that everyone seemed to want to get their hands on since her husband had died. It was awarded to him by the emperor himself.
She wanted Li Jun to become a scholar and was saving it for when he turned sixteen. But she knew that even if she gave him the token, he would never recover mentally from having one of his arms taken from him. She was willing to give anything for her son's recovery, and that plaque was the most valuable item she still owned.
The man looked at her with a grim look in his eyes.
"I can't take this." He tried to give it back, but she quickly grabbed his hand, forced it back into his grip, and stared directly into his eyes as she shook her head.
"Fine. Fine. I'll make the pill," he said in defeat. Although he put on a hesitant front, he was secretly beaming with excitement.
"Thank you," she wrote and then bowed respectfully.
"I will be back when it's ready. I'll try to be as quick as I can," he bowed in return before leaving. As he left the Li Family mansion, he grinned to himself happily and made his way further into the noble district.
"Mom!?" Li Jun called out as he stumbled his way downstairs to see her sitting at the table with a delighted smile.
It had been three days since Li Jun had been attacked. His wound still ached, but the medicine applied to the wound seemed to work wonders; it felt as if he could yank on his arm, and the cut would remain closed.
His mother refused to let the situation go and would ask him every day who had attacked him, but Li Jun still kept up the act that he had lost his memory. He didn't want her to get herself into trouble too.
"Who was here?" He asked with curiosity.
His mother turned to look at him and smiled even brighter as she quickly hid away the parchment she had written on and presented a fresh one.
"It's a secret," she wrote and handed it to Li Jun as he joined her at the table.
"You never keep secrets from me," he said with confusion. It was the first time he had seen her smile like this in a while.
"Is that what you think? I have lots of secrets," she wrote and then ruffled his hair with her hand.
"Do you feel any better?" she wrote.
"I told you already I'm fine. I'm going to go see Mister Bai and see if he needs any more help today. I have to let him know what happened, at least. I just disappeared for three days," said Li Jun as the servant who had dressed his wound quietly entered with two bowls of oats.
His mother looked at him with concern but didn't write anything. She wanted to make sure he ate before questioning him any further.
"Thank you, Hu Mei," he said as she placed it down in front of him. His mother bowed her head as she received her bowl, and they began to eat.
His mother watched as he ate before she did so herself, and once they had both finished, she handed him the parchment once more.
"I don't think it's a good idea for you to go out. What if the person who attacked you is still out there?"
"It will be fine. I'm not going to go out to the fields, just to his house. It's right next to the city gates; no one would think about attacking me that close to the guards," he laughed, but his mother didn't find it funny.
She still didn't know exactly what had happened, but she had an idea who had done it and why they had done it. She folded her arms as she looked at him with a disapproving stare.
"It's morning now; there's going to be dozens of people working the fields. No one will attack me."
She continued to stare at him.
"Fine, at the first sign of trouble, I will run home," he sighed.
His mother nodded her head and held out her hand with her pinky finger towards him. Li Jun did the same and made it a promise.
She felt hesitant to let him go out, but she couldn't exactly stop him. She knew her son's temperament. If she locked the doors, he would climb out of the window, and even if she guarded the windows, he would still find a way out.
She watched as Li Jun got up from the table. His right arm was tied across his chest with a bandage supporting it. He put on his boots and left the house after waving her goodbye.
His mother sighed and put her hands together in front of her face. She prayed he would manage to stay out of trouble for just one day or just until she got her hands on the tendon-repairing pill. But trouble seemed to follow her son wherever he went. It hung over him like a storm cloud.
She wished her husband was still around to keep him safe. But she now hoped that the gods would protect him instead. She sat at the table with a worried expression until one of the maids sat beside her and sparked up a conversation to distract her from worrying.