Chapter 278 - Recovery And Joy
Receiving Lily's mother's consent, Leon made some preparations by taking out an empty pill bottle and scribbled some reinforcement runes onto it with Ravenous Black.
The treatment process had already been thought out into three simple steps: removal, resetting, and nurturing.
First comes the removal of the yin poison. If it were before, he would have chosen to burn the yin poison directly, but now he had an even more effective method that would not leave behind any dregs in the bone marrow.
With Divine Will and divine sense, he was able to lock onto the yin poison and extract it directly. When Leon first removed the casts, Sara's sunken body was exposed. Parts of it were quite flat.
Sara's head was slightly inclined, just enough to see parts of her body. It was also the first time she had seen the state of her own body in years as she drew in a sharp breath to calm herself. It was beyond terrible.
Soon, she saw tiny specks of greenish-silver mist rising from various spots on her body as they gathered towards Leon.
After Leon made sure that he had extracted every bit of yin poison in Lily's mother's body, he sealed them in the reinforced pill bottle he prepared beforehand. He was keeping it for research later. He wanted to know its origins.
The yin poison only erodes the bone. It does not cause Lily's mother to have a pair of horn-like bones protruding from her forehead. This was an abnormal growth in the bones and was related to something else.
Within the greenish-silvery mist, Leon had detected a faint trace of dark miasma. It was so faint that he had almost missed it.
"This is the root cause of my suffering in the past six years? What is it?"
"Correct, it's a type of yin poison that likes to hide in bone marrows and eroded it from inside out. Do you remember how you might have come in contact with this?"
After Sara shook her head, Leon did not press Lily's mother for an answer. She was not exactly in the best state to answer. It is not too late to ask again when she has recovered.
"That's fine. You can take your time to recall when you are better."
Sara nodded, before asking, "Is the treatment finished? That's wasn't so bad. I didn't really feel anything."
"You might want to grit your teeth now. It's going to be very painful." Leon stated as he made Lily's mother swallow a Tier-3 All-Purpose Healing Pill.
He had to fix all the bones and organs back into place before the recovery. If Leon allowed for the Lily's mother's body to recover as is, the current bone structure would settle and become trickier to fix.
He had to do it while the bones were still flexible and malleable. However, the fragility of the bones would no doubt cause it to crack and shatter during the reforming process. Thus, the bones needed to be healed while he was fixing their deformity.
The pain Leon mentioned, came from the continuous cycle of breaking and healing of the bones.
"I'm ready." Sara gritted.
Leon did not hesitate once he was giving the confirmation. The silver needles were removed to not obstruct his treatment. The pain receptors were unblocked but a green layer of wood element softly wrapped around Sara's body as he started with the upper body.
Lily's mother spasmed with pain as she felt more of her bones breaking, but she was able to endure it with her great tolerance.
However, after the first wave would come a second wave, then a third, a fourth, and so on until Leon finishes reforming her bones. By the fifth wave, she already started grunting from the pain with beads of sweat.
Her bones cracked and broke as Leon reformed them with a frown. The process required his absolute focus as he had underestimated the fragility of the bones. They were more fragile than he expected. He had to exert his Divine Will to prevent them from shattering into fragments.
Sweat oozed from Sara's forehead and tears formed at the corner of her eyes but she continued to endure without uttering a single scream. Leon secretly admired Lily's mother's endurance.
Outside the room, there were three pairs of curious eyes peeking inside from the window frames. There was no excruciating scream, nor any bloodied process taking place, but they were still given a great scare.
The excruciating look of pain on Lily's mother's face and the state of the body revealed after the removal of the casts was quite the frightening sight.
"How terrible. I knew Lily's mother had contracted some sort of terribly rare disease that left her bedridden, but I didn't think it would be this bad." Sherry whispered with shock and horror.
"Yeah… she looks like a…" Melody covered her mouth. She did not speak further but the trio all had similar thoughts.
Lily's mother's body below her neck was quite flat like a human pancake or a bag of grounded candies. They weren't sure if they would be able to endure living under such disabling conditions.
Back inside the room, Leon did notice the spying of the trio due to his great focus. He only noticed them half an hour later after he finished setting all of Sara's bones and organs back into place and waited for the healing effects to stabilize them.
At this point, Sara had already passed out.
"No need to peek from outside. You can all come in and help me." Leon said he wiped his sweat. Using Divine Will for so long was quite taxing.
The trio was embarrassed after being caught but they obediently walked inside in files. "How can we help you, Your Highness?"
"Remove the remain casts and clean Lily's mother up for me. It's inappropriate for me to do it. Also, be gentle. Her bones are still quite weak." Leon said.
"Yes, Your Highness."
While Ellie, Melody, and Sherry went to get Lily's mother's body cleaned with wet towels and changed into fresh clothes, Leon had gone outside and found himself an open spot to summon his pill cauldron.
The fire was soon lit, and spirit herbs were tossed inside as he began a round of pill refinement. Half an incense stick of time later, two new batches of pills were refined. They were Blood Nurturing Pills and Bone Reinforcement Pills used to aid the recovery of new blood and growth of bones.
They were all Tier-2 Spirit Pills. Due to it being quite a long time since he last refined these types of pills in his previous life, there were a few Mid-rank pills among the High-rank pills within the batch of nine pills he refined for each.
Leon kept a single of each pill and stored away the rest before returning inside the room to feed Lily's mother the two pills and helped her absorb its efficacy.
The painful process of reforming the bones had made her passed out several times, only to reawaken shortly due to the pain. By the end of the treatment, she had passed out again, having exhausted all her mental strength.
At this moment, she was awakened once more by Leon's subtle movements.
"How are you feeling?" Leon asked.
Sara studied her body carefully and said, "Better than ever. Thank you for your treatment, Divine Doctor. You have given this lady a chance to walk under the sun again. I'm not sure how we can repay you."
With such divine skill and medicine, Lily's mother figured that the cost would not come lightly. She was rather concerned that her daughter and she would not be able to afford the treatment fee.
However, the Divine Doctor had given her a new lease on life. This was a debt of gratitude she had to repay at all costs.
"There's no need for you to be concerned about that. It was just a small favor." Leon waved it off nonchalantly, but Ellie saw that there were still few beads of sweat on his forehead and took the opportunity to wipe it for him. "Err… Ahem, thank you."
"Well then, my job here is done. I still have other matters to attend to so I will be excusing myself first."
Ellie, Melody, and Sherry respectfully bid him farewell with a curtsy.
Seeing that Leon was unwilling to dwell on the matter, Lily's mother did not keep him as Leon left. The trio also left shortly after cleaning up the room a bit.
Lily continued to sleep with drool coming out from her mouth, while her mother sat upright in the other bed with a pondering look.
She was still clueless about Leon's identity as he had referred to himself as a divine doctor and she was not awake to hear the three maids address him as "Your Highness" either.
From the limited information she gathered in her mind, she concluded that the young divine doctor might be the new royal physician working in the palace.
If that was the case, there were plenty of chances for their mother and daughter to repay the divine doctor's good grace.
"Uuu."
At this moment, Lily was finally awoken from her two-hour deep sleep. She rubbed her eyes as she surveyed the familiar room. When her drowsy eyes landed on her mother, she was roused awake.
"Looks like my lovely little girl has finally woken up." Sara smiled.
"Mom?! Are you okay?! How are you sitting up?!" Lily was given a huge fright. She knew how bad her mother's condition was. It was impossible to sit up like this! She hurried over and inspected her mother anxiously with concern.
"It's alright. The divine doctor you found had already treated me." Sara said to her daughter with gentleness.
Her face was no longer pale and even have a rosy hue. She still feels a bit weak, but her pain was gone. She felt very comfortable. It was a blessing to be alive.
Lily was confused by her mother's words, but this confusion only lasted a moment as it was swept away by the overwhelming joy she felt for her mother's recovery. She could see the transformation. There were no casts supporting her mother's body.
"Mom! It's so great that you are well again!"
Lily rubbed her face in her mother's embrace affectionately with joy and tears as Sara rubbed her daughter's head lovingly with a bit of redness in her eyes. It had also not been easy for her daughter to take care of her all this time.
Life was hard, but they made it through. Tomorrow would be a new beginning chapter of their life.
"It's been hard on you."
Lily cried hard when she heard this and the two stuck together for some time before Lily finally calmed down.
"Why does my forehead feel so sore?" Lily suddenly frowned and rubbed her forehead. Before Sara could answer, Lily had already dashed in front of the mirror and came rushing back. She cried while pointing to her two big bumps, "Mom, this is bad! I think I accidentally caught your disease!"
Sara was briefly stunned, before she angrily chided, "Nonsense!"