The child was four years old, belonged to the family at the north edge of the village, and had a fever that had been running for six days.
Chen Yi heard about it from the Widow Meng, who heard everything and distributed information without prejudice, and he heard in the report enough clinical detail — high fever, refusing water, periods of confusion — to construct a working diagnosis before he reached the north-edge house.
His father was already there.
This created the first complication. His father was the village herbalist. His father had presumably already assessed the child. Walking in and offering his own assessment meant either confirming his father's work, which was useful, or contradicting it, which required care.
He stood outside and listened through the open window.
His father's voice: "Fever is from the qi imbalance, not from the illness directly. The Water element is suppressed — possibly from the cold spell, possibly from an existing sensitivity. I'm going to give her a cooling preparation and recommend—"
Chen Yi's Spirit path had been active since he arrived at the house.
The child's qi signature was —
Wrong in the way he'd learned to recognize. Not blocked, not depleted. Misaligned. But more severely than Elder Carpenter Wu's back. The Water element wasn't suppressed by cold. It was suppressed by something else. Something occupying the same channel.
He went around to the door and knocked.
His father looked up when he came in. Not surprised — Chen Yi had been appearing at his patient visits for years, observing, never interrupting. But something in the look was a question.
"It's not cold suppression," Chen Yi said quietly, from the doorway. "The Water channel has a secondary blockage. Here—" He touched a point on his own forearm. "Probably from a minor injury, six to eight months ago. The blockage has been building. The fever is the body trying to force it clear."
His father was quiet.
The child's mother was looking between them with the expression of someone who had agreed to one herbalist and received two.
Chen Yi looked at the child. Four years old. Hot-faced. Too still.
"I could be wrong," he said. "I don't have your experience. But that's what I'm reading."
His father came and stood beside him and looked at the child and then at Chen Yi.
"The point you indicated," he said. "How do you know about that secondary channel?"
"Third volume of the Compendium. Appendix."
His father looked at him.
Then he turned to his supply case and adjusted the preparation. Not completely — he kept the base his father had prescribed and added a secondary component that addressed the blockage point.
He administered it himself.
He didn't ask Chen Yi to leave or to stay.
Chen Yi stayed and watched.
The child's fever broke in two hours.
Walking home, his father said: "The Spirit path." Not a question.
"Yes. It's developing faster than projected."
His father walked beside him for a while without speaking.
"You're going to need to be careful," he said, "about how you use that in front of people who don't know what you are."
"I know."
"And you're going to need to be careful—" He paused. "—about the things you see that you can't fix."
Chen Yi thought about this.
"I know," he said again.
His father nodded once.
They went home and his mother had made dinner and the house was warm and the child at the north edge of the village was sleeping with a normal temperature for the first time in six days, and Chen Yi filed it: first successful application. One correct. One case.
He didn't celebrate.
He thought about what his father had said about the things you can't fix.
He started keeping a list.