Jin Rui’s pulse weakened while he rested in the clinic. Jessa had been writing the time of each reading along the margin of his chart. The earlier pulse had been fast but steady; now it skipped and thinned beneath her fingers.
“Qinghe,” she called.
Qinghe came to the bedside and checked his breath, then the qi moving through his channels. Jin Rui’s face had gone gray. He tried to answer, but the words barely carried. Jessa called his name and asked him to squeeze her fingers. He managed a weak pressure with his left hand, then lost the grip. His breathing stayed shallow. The small pulse at his wrist had grown difficult to find.
“Do you feel pain?” Qinghe asked.
“Just cold.”
She tucked a blanket around his shoulders, then checked the path through his chest again. The incomplete circulation had drained more than his ordinary rest could replace. She looked at Yan and described the damaged pathway in plain terms, naming the point where the flow had thinned and the direction the Palm should take. Jessa stayed on the wrist, ready to call out any change.
“His flow is collapsing,” she said. “The incomplete circulation has drained more vitality than his body can replace. I’m going to restore the pathway with Returning Spring Palm.”
