51 Without Pain

As soon as he heard Lan Chang scream from outside his office door, the Imperial Physician knew that he was going to be in for a difficult time, the woman's shouting and demanding nature making it difficult for him to complete his job without being questioned at every turn.

It also didn't help that she herself had the basic knowledge to competently treat at least a good few of his patients, and she knew all about his research methods.

Gods, the only thing keeping him from giving up his office was his salary.

If it wasn't for that, then he would have already seceded his position to his apprentice and have left years ago.

...

And Lan Chang didn't even let him test out truly, to the fullest extent, the capacity of her charge's pain tolerance.

Honestly, it was for the boy's own good.

If one could not feel pain, then there was a chance that one day they might accidently stick their hand into a fire, and not know about it until all their skin and bones had burnt off, leaving them with a stump for life.

Lan Chang really ought to let him carry out his tests on the boy, and let him try and find out the root cause of his condition for the sake of knowledge and discovery.

It could be the meridians of the body, not properly responding to pain, but he really wouldn't know without his acupuncture needles to check extensively throughout his entire body, or on the other hand, considering the boy's recent audio hallucinations, it may be his mind blocking out all the pain in his body.

There seemed to have been some sort of terrible incident that the boy had gone through to put him in such a place.

"Lan Chang, where did you find this child?" he decided to ask her, as soon as there was a lull and a break in her comments and passive aggressive insults.

"I adopted him," she replied, her voice solid and confident, as if beckoning him to question the validity of her statement and challenge him that the boy wasn't her child.

"Yes, but from where? The streets..."

He had to stop talking.

She looked as if she were about to gut him for his incredulous tone.

...

It seemed as if she were only pretending to be polite, dignified, and respectful, as her position particularly required to those of his rank, the first time around to set an example for the child.

If she was deliberately antagonising him, fussing over her child, then she must have gained some sort of attachment.

Who knew that it took only a little boy to adopt as her son to unfreeze her loveless, cold heart?

Well, he wasn't one to judge, considering all the women that he had ever been with had run away screaming as soon as they took one look at his lab at home.

If Lan Chang was able to find some sort of companionship in this world, then good on her.

Shame that he couldn't dissect the child to understand his exact pathology.