At 4 a.m., the emergency room seemed to have been muted, with only the ticking of the monitor and the crunching of Lin Xiaoman's biscuits. The pottery in her white coat pocket suddenly began to vibrate, making her lower back numb - this broken thing has learned to pick the time recently, and it will make trouble when she sneaks in for a midnight snack.
"What are you doing again?" She mumbled to the pottery, and the biscuit crumbs fell on the duty desk. In a flash of light and shadow, Li Chengqian's translucent figure fell to the ground, and three carving knives and half a Hu biscuit that was hard enough to crack walnuts fell out of his wide sleeves. "West Market exploded!" He knocked over her chrysanthemum tea when he got up. "I taught people to rinse their mouths with salt water to prevent toothache, but they put the salt pot on their heads and said it could drive away tooth ghosts!" Lin Xiaoman looked at the chrysanthemum tea dripping from the ends of his hair, and suddenly found that he had a crooked bamboo tube hanging around his waist, with the five characters "Xiaoman Brand Toothpaste" engraved on the tube, with simplified Chinese strokes mixed in the official script, as if it was chewed by a dog. "Did you carve 'Xiao Yan' into 'Xiao Yan' again?" She pulled out a silver needle and poked his arm. She didn't really use any force, but it made Li Chengqian scream exaggeratedly. "How could that be!" He took out a piece of broken pottery, on which was engraved a little man with a big mouth, holding a branch in his hand, and the words "Poke teeth!" were marked next to it. Lin Xiaoman almost burst out laughing: "So you carved brushing teeth into poking teeth? It would be strange if the people didn't regard you as a quack doctor!" As she was talking, the pottery fragment suddenly projected a picture of the Tang Dynasty: Doctor Zhang was holding the tooth powder jar she gave him, blowing his beard and glaring at Li Chengqian, and the three words "mint flavor" on the mouth of the jar were carved into "mint flavor".
"Okay," Lin Xiaoman tore off half a sesame cake and stuffed it into him, "Tomorrow I'll draw a diagram of brushing teeth, and you can carve it according to it. By the way, take back the pottery jar that you carved last time with the words "Little Chen Fool" on it. He hides in the toilet when he sees archaeological news now." Li Chengqian gnawed on the sesame cake and mumbled: "That's an anti-counterfeiting mark! Besides, he said in modern times that my carvings looked like earthworms crawling——"
The door of the emergency room was suddenly knocked open, and the intern Xiao Chen helped an old lady in. The old lady was holding a piece of broken pottery in her hand, and on it was the "poking teeth" figurine carved by Li Chengqian. "Doctor, this pottery will glow at night!" The old lady grabbed Lin Xiaoman's hand, "I also dreamed of a young man in a robe saying that poking teeth can make you immortal!" Lin Xiaoman glared at Li Chengqian who was pretending to be transparent, squatted down and whispered: "Grandma, this is to remind you to rinse your mouth with salt water every morning and evening, not to poke your teeth." She took out the small mirror she carried with her and demonstrated the brushing action to the old lady. But out of the corner of her eye, she saw Li Chengqian secretly engraved a smiley face on the pottery, changing "poking teeth" to "brushing teeth".
When the shift changed at dawn, Li Chengqian's figure had faded like a cloud, but he was still entangled in the taste of the sesame cake: "Why is your sesame cake so sweet? Our Hu cake in Chang'an is sprinkled with sesame seeds, which is more solid." Lin Xiaoman kicked him in the ass: "Go back to your Chang'an and sprinkle sesame seeds. Remember to carve the toothpaste formula correctly. If you carve it wrong again, I will put your crooked pottery pieces on Taobao for auction!"
At noon, when eating in the cafeteria, the news from the archaeological team popped up: "The fragments of the Tang Dynasty'Oral Care Guide' were discovered, engraved with a suspected toothbrush pattern. Experts speculate that it was used exclusively by the nobility." The "toothbrush" in the accompanying picture is clearly a branch with sawtooth carvings, and there is a simple self-portrait of Li Chengqian next to it, holding the branch and grinning. Lin Xiaoman burst out laughing and almost spilled the tomato egg soup on the phone.
When on duty in the evening, the pottery began to heat up again, this time with a burnt smell. When Li Chengqian appeared, the ends of his hair were still smoking, and there was a hole burned in his wide sleeves: "I was trying to boil mint ointment in the Imperial Hospital, but I caught the stove on fire. Doctor Zhang said he would kick me out of the Imperial Hospital!" He spread his hands, and in his palms lay a deformed silver ring, which was the one Lin Xiaoman gave him.
"Idiot!" Lin Xiaoman took out the burn ointment distressedly, "Mint should be boiled slowly over a low fire, do you think it's fried Hu Bing?" Li Chengqian lowered his head and stared at her hands: "But I want to bring you some gifts from the Tang Dynasty. You said the pickled plums were too sour last time, so I want to make something sweet this time..." His voice became smaller and smaller, and the tip of his ear was redder than the burn.
The lights in the emergency room plated a layer of gold on the ends of his hair, and Lin Xiaoman suddenly realized that this prince who always carved words crookedly was actually more serious than anyone else. She took out the glass jar from the drawer, which contained the cane sugar Li Chengqian brought last time: "Next time, take this to the West Market and tell the people that brushing their teeth with cane sugar in their mouths is more effective than poking their teeth."
Late at night, the heat of the pottery gradually faded. The Hu biscuits left by Li Chengqian were hard enough to be used as weapons, but they glowed warmly under the moonlight in the duty room. Lin Xiaoman touched the newly engraved lines on the inside of the silver bracelet. This time, there were very small words: "Xiaoman's sesame cakes are sweeter than the moon in Chang'an."
She suddenly felt that these noisy days spanning a thousand years were like the pottery shards carved by Li Chengqian - always with gaps caused by the slipping of the carving knife, always with the reckless fireworks, but more reassuring than any perfect medical classics. After all, when the carving knife engraved not only the medical advice, but also the clumsy concern, when the silver needle provoked not only the acupuncture points, but also the concern across time and space, this worldly fireworks is the warmest medical way.
A message from Xiao Chen popped up on the phone: "Doctor Lin, the Tang Dynasty pottery exhibition at the museum is haunted tonight. The surveillance camera captured a figure carving words!" Lin Xiaoman looked at the moonlight outside the window and smiled. She knew that a fool whose carving knife always went astray was secretly carving a little man "brushing teeth before bed" on a modern pottery jar.