Chapter 1295 — A Painful Past

"The headaches are real, but there is nothing wrong with your body." Wei Zhao explained: "A headache does not necessarily mean that something has gone wrong with the body; you can have headaches even when nothing is wrong! There are many triggers for headaches. For instance, if you run into trouble, or if something sorrowful happens to you, headaches will follow. A business going bankrupt, the loss of family or friends — all of these can bring on headaches as well."

"Then I..." Xu Shilan suddenly thought of something. She had once gone to see another famous doctor in Songshan City, and after a detailed examination his conclusion had been that she was not ill at all. And at the other hospitals too, nothing could be found wrong with her. Could it be that everything Wei Zhao said was true?

When that famous doctor had delivered his conclusion, Sister Wang had called him a charlatan; at the time Xu Shilan had said nothing, for although the man had reached a conclusion, he had been unable to cure her. But now Xu Shilan was rather inclined to believe Wei Zhao, because his medical skill was plainly greater than that man's — even somewhat greater than that of Zhao the Medicine King, whom she had met before.

So Xu Shilan was quite convinced by Wei Zhao's conclusion; she was merely a little shaken by it.

Hearing Wei Zhao's words, Sister Wang could not help frowning. She wanted to say something, but she had seen with her own eyes the medical skill Wei Zhao had displayed, so she swallowed her words, and in the end said nothing.

"But I have no troubles or pressures now, nothing to give me a headache..." Xu Shilan hesitated, then asked.

"I did not say now. Earlier I asked you when the headaches began, and you told me it was when you were very small. That means the thing happened when you were very small! At that time you met with something that gave you a headache — perhaps in your life, perhaps among family or friends — but that thing has to this day not been resolved, and so your headaches have continued all the way to now!" Wei Zhao said: "This is a kind of psychological suggestion, a knot in the heart, not a physical problem!"

"Ah!" Hearing Wei Zhao's analysis, Xu Shilan stared at him in astonishment and shock — not because his words were so very startling, but because they had struck exactly the secret hidden in her heart!

Wei Zhao was not wrong in the least. When she was small, something had indeed befallen her that had left her grief-stricken; every time she thought of it, Xu Shilan's head felt as if it would split apart, and so she could only keep from thinking of it.

Yet Xu Shilan had never before felt any necessary connection between that matter and her headaches. She had believed that her headaches were simply always there, and that recalling those sorrowful affairs merely triggered an attack — never once had she thought that those painful memories were in fact the root of her headaches!

At that moment Sister Wang was also looking at Wei Zhao in utter amazement. Earlier she had doubted Wei Zhao's claim that Xu Shilan was not ill, but now she did not doubt it in the slightest. Xu Shilan's painful past in childhood was no secret to Sister Wang, and Wei Zhao was an outsider, who could not possibly know these hidden things. The only possibility was that his diagnosis was entirely correct!

"Perhaps you are right... When I was small, I did meet with some sorrowful things. It is a knot in my heart, and to this day it has not been untied..." Xu Shilan sighed and said softly: "Would you be willing to hear it?"

"Tell me." Wei Zhao nodded.

There was no one else in the carriage at that moment. Today Xu Shilan was riding in the company's large business RV; the driver's cab was cut off from the rear compartment, so only Wei Zhao, Feng Xiaoxiao, Sister Wang and Feng Sanhuang could hear her words — and Sister Wang and Feng Sanhuang clearly knew of these matters; from their expressions Wei Zhao could be certain of it.

It was plain that they were all people close to Xu Shilan; she had not hidden it from them.

"When I was small, I always lived with my mother. My father came to visit my mother and me only after long intervals. At the time I asked my mother, why does father not stay with us every day?"

"My mother told me that father was busy with his career, that he had no such time, and that only now and then, when he found a little leisure, would he come to see us..."

"At the time I was too young to understand, and I believed everything my mother said was true. But later, when I had grown up, I gradually came to understand that I must be an illegitimate daughter..."

"I took my mother's surname. To this day I do not even know what surname my father has..."

"When I was four, one night a woman with a murderous look on her face suddenly burst into our home with men at her back. She cursed my mother as a little slut and cursed me as a little bastard..." Here Xu Shilan's expression could not help turning bleak: "Looking back on it, that woman must have been my father's lawful wife..."

"That woman and her men wanted to kill my mother and me. To save me, my mother was beaten half to death by that woman, but in the end we still escaped her claws..."

"Afterwards my mother fainted on the road. I wanted to go call someone to save her, but I lost my way, and was taken into an orphanage..."

"I was really too small then. Later, when I had grown a little, I went back to that place to look for my mother, but she was nowhere to be found..."

"From then on I never saw my mother again... I do not know whether she has already..." Here Xu Shilan's tears burst forth, and she choked with grief...

Though Xu Shilan told her story in broken snatches, Wei Zhao had already understood the wretched tale she was telling.

It seemed that Xu Shilan's mother had most likely been a woman the man kept on the outside, only to be discovered by his wife, who brought her people to root out the weeds and cut them off at the source — except that mother and daughter had escaped!

And Xu Shilan, having lost her father and then her mother, could hardly be expected to untie such a knot!

"Miss Xu, restrain your grief and accept what fate has sent. Life is ever inconstant, but the achievements you have won, Miss Xu, are beyond the reach of ordinary people. In this matter I cannot help you — this is not an illness. A knot in the heart must be untied by oneself!" Wei Zhao said with a sigh.

"Thank you... In any case, I must thank you! You let me find the root of my headaches!" Xu Shilan said: "So what should I do now?"

"A cure is impossible, but I can make up some medicine for you. When your head aches, take one pill and it will pass." Wei Zhao said: "This medicine has no toxicity and no side effects; you may take it without worry. As for other painkillers, do not take them — they are bad for your body!"

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