The Director of Astronomy's usually exquisite almond-shaped eyes drooped listlessly. Seeing how genuinely worried the emperor was, he forced himself to be helped upright and slowly took a few mouthfuls of the congee the emperor fed him.
After three or four mouthfuls, the director suddenly grew even paler. He pushed the porcelain bowl away and erupted into violent coughing. As his body shook, his coughs grew increasingly muffled, until he clamped his mouth shut, yet a thread of blood still seeped from the corner of his lips, glaring against his pallid face.
The eunuch beside him hastily offered an empty teacup. The director took it and spat out a large mouthful of blood.
The chief eunuch sent someone to the Imperial Medical Academy to summon a physician, while the other eunuchs stood ready nearby with tea for rinsing his mouth, a spittoon, towels, and other things he might need.
The director's frail chest heaved violently for a long time before he gradually calmed beneath the emperor's soothing, filled with guilt and grief. He looked solemnly at the emperor. "I don't blame you. Everything that has happened was my own choice. I wanted to spend... a few more days with you. I simply never expected my body to be so useless, so terribly weak."
His gaze fell on the booklet beside his pillow, titled Records of Corpse Liberation. "After I die, there's no need to bury my books with me. They can be kept in a library for future practitioners to study."
"But this Records of Corpse Liberation, which I wrote myself, is different. This art exacts a terrible toll. It would be best entrusted to the most prudent family of practitioners of our age. Unless they have no other choice, I imagine no one would use it lightly."
The so-called