Adeline POV
The parking lot was still and cold when I began. The kind of stillness that presses on the skin, where even the hum of the running car feels too loud. Myra lay on the blanket, her small face pale and drawn. I had treated countless patients before, but my hands had never trembled like this.
I knelt beside her and pulled the blanket gently aside. The moment I touched her leg, I knew the situation. The qi and blood in the meridian were blocked; the tissue beneath felt so heavy and cold. The puncture wound left by the previous doctor was slightly swollen and beginning to bruise. My jaw clenched. He had gone too deep, hit the wrong point entirely. The energy that should have flowed through the nerve had collapsed inward instead, strangling the channel.
“You’re trembling,” I whisp
