After Li Wei and Zhao Huirou departed, Han Zhi and Lǚ Huìqīng returned to their quarters.
No sooner had the two men stepped across the threshold than a muffled fit of coughing echoed from the inner chamber, tearing through the air like the wheezing bellows of a dead winter's hearth. Han Zhi hurriedly lifted the soft curtain to see Su Zhen propped against a brocade pillow, gasping for breath, the sharkskin handkerchief clutched in her fingertips already damp from coughing.
"Why are you coughing so badly again?" Han Zhi reached out to feel her forehead and smoothed her quilt, then turned to Yueping standing nearby and asked, "Has the decoction been brewed?"
Chapter 401