There seems to be a definite lack of HZGG fanfiction on this board . And being a HZGG fan, I feel I must contribute one of mine. Some feedback would be great! Thank you.
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NOTE: This story is not exactly the sequel of HZGG2 but starts off about 2 months before the wedding, after they have returned to the palace.
Chapter 1: Truth
Two months before the wedding
“Are you all right, Xiao Yan Zi?” Xiao Jian asked as he gripped Xiao Yan Zi’s arms to stop her falling over.
As per Qian Long’s special permission, Xiao Jian was in the palace to visit Xiao Yan Zi and to teach her swordplay and help improve her martial arts. The siblings were using a secluded part of the imperial garden as training ground.
Xiao Yan Zi felt oddly clumsy that day, her grip on the sword was slack, as if she could barely control her hands at all. Her balance also seemed oddly off. She did not, however, think much of the sudden affliction until, some time ino the training session, an intense wave of dizziness took over her, and the whole world seemed to darken in front of her.
“I’m all right,” Xiao Yan Zi breathed, not feeling all right at all.
“You don’t look all right,” Xiao Jian said with concern. “You look really pale. Come on, I’ll take you back to Shu Fang Zhai, and perhaps you should get a Tai Yi to examine you.”
Xiao Yan Zi felt too weak to protest and let herself be led to Shu Fang Zhai. However, she determinedly declined when both Zi Wei, after hearing of Xiao Yan Zi’s being ill, and Xiao Jian again suggested she see a Tai Yi.
“I’m fine!” Xiao Yan Zi insisted. “Really, I’ve just been feeling a bit under the weather lately. A bit of rest will clear it up.”
Xiao Yan Zi didn’t bother to protest, however, when Zi Wei insisted she went and lay down.
“It’s not like Xiao Yan Zi to suddenly become so weak,” Xiao Jian remarked as he and Zi Wei went out to the main room after making sure that Xiao Yan Zi was in bed.
“I know,” Zi Wei said worriedly. “She’s been looking pale on and off these past few days…but she hadn’t been collapsing like this.”
“I think we should call a Tai Yi to examine her anyway,” Xiao Jian said.
Zi Wei sighed. “I’ll see to it, Xiao Jian, if she doesn’t get better, that she does see a Tai Yi. For now, I’ll take care of her.”
***
For the next few days, Xiao Yan Zi seemed to be back to her her bubbly, vibrant self, losing her paleness, thus settled Zi Wei’s mind that her bouts of faintness before was just a passing thing. Zi Wei did not know, however, was that Xiao Yan Zi faced blinding dizziness every morning when she woke up, though this passed in matters of minutes. She also found that there were periods of times if she stayed in one position for a long time, she would seem to lose all sensation and feeling in her legs. The intensity and freuquency of these symptoms disconcerted Xiao Yan Zi as they increased, however she stubbornly convinced herself that since they would pass in minutes, that nothing was really seriously wrong with her. Thus, she determinedly kept these symptoms as well away from everyone else’ notice as she could.
It was not until a dinner to celebrate Qing Er’s birthday at Ci Ning Gong, which Qian Long, Ling Fei, Xiao Yan Zi, Yong Qi, Zi Wei and Er Kang all attended that anyone else other than Xiao Yan Zi and Zi Wei found out about Xiao Yan Zi’s fainting spells.
Xiao Yan Zi was sitting with the others at the dinner table when blinding pain swept over her body, her head suddenly felt twice as heavy and everything around her went black. She only had time to grip Yong Qi’s arm beside her in attempt to steady herself before falling into darkness.
Yong Qi was speaking to Ling Fei beside him when Zi Wei’s startled cry of “Xiao Yan Zi!” alerted his attention to her. Xiao Yan Zi’s face was scrunched up in pain and she was deathly pale. If Zi Wei was not holding Xiao Yan Zi up by her shoulder, she probably have collapsed onto the table. Xiao Yan Zi’s gripped Yong Qi’s arm to steady herself, but then her head rolled forward and Yong Qi only managed in the nick of time to stop her hitting the table by pulling her head towards his shoulder instead.
Yong Qi felt panic sweep into him as Xiao Yan Zi lay unmoving in his arm, looking paler than he had ever seen her. He slapped her cheek lightly, calling her name, all the while wondering how she suddenly collapsed like that when she was looking fine the whole evening.
“What’s wrong with her?” Qian Long asked worriedly as Zi Wei pressed at the nerve just above her upper lip to try and revive her. Xiao Yan Zi didn’t budge.
“Huang Ah Ma, I think we should get a Tai Yi to look at her,” Zi Wei said hurried.
“Yes, of course,” Lao Fou Ye said. “But the question is why she suddenly just dropped like that. She was looking fine all evening.”
“It’s a long story,” Zi Wei said shortly, looking pleadingly at both Qian Long and Lao Fou Ye.
Qing Er spoke up, “Yong Qi, take her into my room.” Then, she turned to order a eunuch to call for Hu Tai Yi.
“I’ve noticed her looking a bit pale and faint lately, and did suggest she see Hu Tai Yi but she just brushed it off, saying that it passes,” Zi Wei said to the room at large as Yong Qi placed Xiao Yan Zi down on Qing Er’s bed. “I think the closest she’s come to fainting like this was a few days ago, when she was having a martial arts lesson with Xiao Jian. Xiao Jian took her home, looking very pale and he said she’d nearly fainted in the garden. He also said she was oddly unfocussed and unproductive that day. I really shouldn’t have listened to her insisting not to call for Hu Tai Yi then but I thought…since she went to bed then and when she woke up she was fine again…that it wasn’t that serious…”
“How is it that I never noticed any of this?” Yong Qi asked in confusion, seeing as he and Er Kang practically lived at Shu Fang Zhai. He knew if Xiao Yan Zi ever showed uncharacteristics signs as fainting, he’d be sure to notice.
“That day she nearly fainted you and Er Kang were working with Huang Ah Ma. You didn’t see her until the next day, when she was looking decidedly better. And her paleness and dizziness that I’ve noticed happened mostly in the morning and passes quite quickly,” Zi Wei explained.
By then, Hu Tai Yi had arrived, and Zi Wei was obliged to describe what she had observed of Xiao Yan Zi’s symptoms to him. After examining Xiao Yan Zi further, Hu Tai Yi addressed Qian Long, “Hui Huang Shang, I have an idea what Ge Ge’s illness might be, however I dare not make the diagnosis before I can question Ge Ge herself about her health lately. I advise now that we let Ge Ge sleep, and I will come back in the morning to speak to Ge Ge.”
So that night, Zi Wei and Xiao Yan Zi stayed at Ci Ning Gong in Qing Er’s room, while Yong Qi very reluctantly left for Jing Yang Gong, his heart in turmoil about what could be wrong with Xiao Yan Zi. As he left, he met Zi Wei’s eyes and they shared for a moment a foreboding feeling of fearing the worst.
Zi Wei found herself unable to sleep that night. Something told her that Xiao Yan Zi was seriously ill, that this would not end for the better. Fear filled her whole body, though she hardly knew what she was afraid of. All she knew was for Xiao Yan Zi, who always healthy, to be collapsing like this, it could not be normal or good.
The next morning, Xiao Yan Zi awoke, looking still decidedly pale but insisted on going home to Shu Fang Zhai before seeing Hu Tai Yi again. Qing Er and Zi Wei took either side of her arms and accompanied her back to Shu Fang Zhai, noting with no little alarm to themselves, that Xiao Yan Zi’s balance was very much off. Just outside the gate of Ci Ning Gong, they met a very agitated Yong Qi who did not look as if he had any sleep at all and had come, as early as could be considered decent, to see how Xiao Yan Zi was.
Yong Qi’s heart filled with fear and pain as he took in her pale countenance and her weariness. She assured him that she was feeling much better than she was the night before, but that did nothing to reassure him, considering how she passed out cold the night before.
After they reached Shu Fang Zhai, meeting Er Kang on the way, Hu Tai Yi was duly summoned. Qian Long and Ling Fei arrived just in time as Hu Tai Yi did, after stopping at Ci Ning Gong and finding out that Xiao Yan Zi had gone back to Shu Fang Zhai. After a long interview with Xiao Yan Zi, where Xiao Yan Zi reluctantly described to Hu Tai Yi and everyone else in the room her symptoms lately, Hu Tai Yi seemed to take a long time to ponder to himself before making the final diagnosis.
Then, finally he looked up at everyone with a perfectly neutral face, though the news he was to impart was anything but.
“Hui Huang Shang, I believe that Huan Zhu Ge Ge is suffering from a rare illness, multiple scleroris,” Hu Tai Yi said quietly. “Not much is known about multiple sclerosis, since the number of patients is extremely small, however it is believed that this disease somehow affect the brain’s nervous system, causing damage to a variety of nerves in the body. Multiple sclerosis can cause a variety of symptoms, including those Ge Ge just described to us, dizziness, fainting, losing feeling and sensation in parts of the body, extreme pain, trouble with balance and concentration. Other symptoms may include vision impairment and various emotional conditions such as clinical depression and difficulty in controlling one’s emotions. Multiple sclerosis may take several different forms, with new symptoms occurring either in discrete attacks or slowly accruing over time.”
Hu Tai Yi paused for a moment as this part of the diagnosis slowly sank into everyone in the room. Yong Qi could only stare at him and sensed the worst was yet to come.
“Multiple sclerosis is a chronic illness and cannot, unfortunately, be cured. I can administer treatments that will ease Ge Ge’s suffering with this illness, we cannot cure it definitely. The symptoms Ge Ge is experiencing now will fade with time, but will inevitably come back with time. Attacks from multiple sclerosis are extremely unpredictable. Sometimes the illness lay dormant for months, on the other hand, some patients never experience a remission at all. It is much a matter of chance. However, multiple sclerosis, since it disrupts the body’s ability to function, invariably, significantly…shortens the patient’s life time. I think…realistically, we are looking at Ge Ge being able to be with us for another…three to five years. I dare not hope for more.” Hu Tai Yi finished his diagnosis with a decidedly morbid tone, his own heart feeling extremely heavy. It was moments like this that made Hu Tai Yi realise that being a physician to the imperial family did not do much to lengthen one’s life time either, what with having to hand out these sort of news, deal with the constant death threats and the stress of having the lives of some of the most important people in the country in his hand.
* * *
A/N: All information on multiple sclerosis comes from Wikipedia. Before you say anything, I know that in the real world people with MS usually live a lot longer than that... and I know it's a bit of a stretch that they'd know what multiple sclerosis is in those days but I'm writing a story!