Chapter 58: Collecting the Medicine

The first step in rescuing a hypothermia patient is to remove them from the cold environment and frozen objects.

Shao Diandian quickly stripped away the icy garments from her. "Erdan! Go to the kitchen and get a brazier going! Make it fast! And boil a few pots of hot water!"

Shao Erdan: "The pot is—"

Shao Diandian: "Go borrow one from a neighbor, and be polite about it!"

"Got it."

Shao Erdan turned and strode out.

The biting wind and snow seemed to press down instantly, mercilessly striking Shao Erdan full in the face.

With his mouth still open, Shao Erdan inhaled a mouthful of snow, choking violently.

"Cough, cough, cough!"

"Ptuu, ptuu, ptuu!"

Disgusted, he spat out the snow in his mouth and knocked on the door next door.

The one who opened the door was the woman they had spoken to earlier.

The woman had been sweeping just moments ago, still holding a broom dusted with snow.

"What is it now?" the woman asked.

Likely disliking Mother Fu, and knowing the siblings had come to see her, she had no pleasant expression for them either.

Remembering his sister's instructions, Shao Erdan said very politely, "Madam, do you happen to have a spare pot? I would like to borrow one from you."

When acting as a neighborhood bully, Shao Erdan was fierce and intimidating, but when he behaved, he was actually quite pleasing to the eye. Combined with his gentle tone, he was rather... endearing.

The woman gave a light cough and asked indifferently, "What do you want to borrow a pot for?"

Shao Erdan answered truthfully, "Mother Fu next door has fainted, and the pot at her house burned through. I want to borrow a pot to boil some hot water for her."

"Fainted?" The woman was astonished. "Isn't her constitution quite robust?"

Shao Erdan scratched his head. "Maybe the snow was too slippery, she accidentally fell, and then she froze into a faint."

The woman frowned, turned inside to fetch a large pot, and handed it to Shao Erdan. She then gave him a long, deep look, as if wondering why anyone would actually help that foul-tempered old crone.

Had she not been cursed at enough by her?

To be honest, if not for the sake of Physician Fu, who would bother with that old woman?

"What relation are you to her?" the woman asked.

"We came to buy peanuts from her," Shao Erdan said.

The woman said nothing more.

Shao Erdan took the pot to the kitchen and quickly got the hot water boiling.

Back inside the house, Shao Diandian had removed the damp clothes soaked by the melting snow from the old woman and reapplied the splints on her legs.

She was extremely careful throughout the entire process, yet she could still sense that Mother Fu's breathing was growing increasingly abnormal.

She checked Mother Fu's pulse and peeled back her eyelids to inspect the fundus. "Could it be..."

A guess formed in the depths of Shao Diandian's mind.

She took out the first-aid kit from her small woven basket.

Since she was originally scheduled for a follow-up visit with Young Master Xiang today, she had brought the first-aid kit with her when she left home.

Inside the kit were a stethoscope and a sphygmomanometer.

Mother Fu had a minor abrasion on her left arm, so Shao Diandian wrapped the blood pressure cuff around her right arm, inserted the stethoscope earpieces, and pumped up the pressure while observing the monitor readings.

As expected, Mother Fu's blood pressure was very high.

Shao Diandian was unfamiliar with Mother Fu's medical history and could not yet determine whether this temporary spike in blood pressure was caused by frostbite or if her baseline blood pressure was naturally high.

Either way, the patient's blood pressure needed to be lowered immediately.

She decided to take this opportunity to test whether she could enter the pharmacy.

Shao Diandian closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, she found herself still standing in the exact same spot.

"No way, someone's life is on the line here. Can you function or not?"

Hypertension combined with frost-induced shock was extremely dangerous—much more perilous than Young Master Xiang's case!

After trying multiple times with no success, just as she was about to give up, her vision blurred, and she entered the pharmacy.

She stood right before the medicine cabinet in the cardiology section.

Shao Diandian was utterly bewildered.

"Are you running on a 2G network? Why are your reaction times so sluggish?"

Complaints aside, Shao Diandian didn't forget to grab the medicine: antihypertensives, diuretics, potassium chloride...

"And Old Man Shao's medicine, too!"

Since she had managed to get in here for once, she had to—

Before the thought could even finish flashing through her mind, her vision blurred again.

She was thrown right back out.

Shao Diandian's face turned completely dark.

Last time she had at least managed to pilfer a bottle of bone-strengthening granules, but this time she didn't even get the granules.

"Guard your inventory tight, why don't you."

Shao Diandian curled her lips in displeasure.

Truth be told, she still didn't completely understand how the whole mechanism worked. After all, she had only managed to get in three times; figuring out the underlying pattern would probably require a few more attempts.

"Let's treat Mother Fu first."

In the kitchen, Erdan had gotten the brazier roaring and the hot water ready.

Shao Diandian filled several water-skins to use as hot water bottles and placed them around Mother Fu to warm her up. Finally, Mother Fu regained a flicker of consciousness.

With stiff and labored movements, she opened her eyes and saw Shao Diandian bustling about the room.

"It's... you..."

Having been frozen through, her lips could barely form the words properly.

Shao Diandian greeted her: "It's me, Mother Fu."

Mother Fu was unable to move, but from the rotation of her eyeballs, Shao Diandian could easily deduce that she had just rolled her eyes at her.

Since she could still roll her eyes, it seemed she wasn't going to die anytime soon.

Shao Diandian gently propped her up, placed a pillow behind her back, and brought over a cup of water and a handful of pills on a cup lid. "Since you're awake, take your medicine."

With fierce determination and sluggish movements, Mother Fu continued to roll her eyes!

Shao Diandian shoved the pills directly into her mouth, then fed her a few spoonfuls of warm water to wash them down.

Her condition couldn't be managed with just antihypertensives alone; diuretics and potassium chloride had to be administered as well.

With her stomach full of strange medicines, Mother Fu rolled her eyes so hard it looked like she was sweeping the room with them.

Shao Diandian said, "Can you speak now? If you can't talk, nodding or blinking will do. I need to understand your medical history so I can provide more accurate treatment moving forward."

Mother Fu thought: My own son is a physician; do I need you to treat me? Besides, what could a little brat like you possibly know about medicine? Forget it!

Shao Diandian asked, "First question: Do you frequently experience dizziness and vertigo, sometimes accompanied by chest tightness, shortness of breath, and numbness in your limbs?"

Mother Fu started, and her expression of utter disdain froze.

"It seems you do." Shao Diandian nodded and continued, "Do these symptoms mostly occur in the morning and evening?"

Mother Fu's expression grew even more astonished.

"It seems that's another yes." Shao Diandian knew she had guessed correctly once again.

Mother Fu's condition was clinically known as dipping hypertension. If left uncontrolled, it could easily trigger cardiovascular diseases such as angina, and in severe cases, even lead to cerebral or myocardial infarction.

Her fall this time was likely caused by vertigo resulting from a sudden spike in blood pressure. Fortunately, she and Erdan had come to buy peanuts; otherwise, in this freezing weather, even if she hadn't taken ill, she would have frozen to death.

"Look at you. It's not like there's no one living next door—couldn't you have called out when you fell? You'd rather freeze into a faint than cry for help. What a stubborn temper!"

Shao Diandian cherished her life deeply, especially after having died once; she appreciated the preciousness of life all the more.

What could possibly be more important in this world than staying alive?

"Have you ever considered how Physician Fu would feel? If he returned from a house call only to find his own mother gone, without even getting to see her one last time, how would you expect him to face the rest of his life? Whenever he thought that his absence indirectly caused your disaster, could he ever forgive himself? Could he continue to save lives and heal the wounded? Could he ever hold the silver needles steady in his hands again?"