As the saying went, illness struck like a mountain collapsing and receded like silk drawn thread by thread. Prince Shao's vicious headaches lingered and relapsed, tormenting him like a blunt knife carving flesh until he was little more than skin and bones, nearly dying on his sickbed. Yet after the courier Huo Qilang arrived with the Carp Letter, his condition began to improve little by little, like snow melting in spring.
Perhaps sleeping soundly every night had allowed him to replenish the blood and vital energy depleted by his headaches; his appetite improved as well. Sleep nourished his spirit, food nourished his body, and his complexion grew healthier.
Gradually, Li Yuanying could leave his sickbed for a while to read at his desk and write a few characters. Occasionally, when his headache was less severe, he could even drape a cloak over his shoulders and stand in the courtyard for a moment. Though he had not regained his former vigor, those who cared about him no longer spent every day with their hearts in their throats.
With medicine proving ineffective, Prince Shao's illness had somehow been forced into retreat. Everyone privately speculated that either Princess Wanshou's tremendous fortune in returning from death had passed to her elder brother through the Carp Letter, or Huo Qi, that hard-to-kill wandering knight, had shielded him from some invisible baleful force. Countless people placed great hopes in her, thinking that the workings of the Mandate of Heaven and fortune were mysterious beyond words.
One day, the Household Steward received a visiting card from Military Governor Liu Kun and personally delivered it to Li Yuanying. It turned out to be an invitation to the annual Military Tournament.
The Youzhou military command lay at the northernmost edge of the Great Tang's territory, bordering the Khitan and