Upon hearing Joe Di ask about her illness, Zoe Shen immediately realized that Joe must have forgotten this part as well. In fact, Joe did know about her condition and had even promised to find the Scarletblood Flower for her.
"My illness is cardiac asphyxia..." Zoe explained, "It means my heart can fail at any moment, sometimes for only a short while, sometimes for a long time. If it lasts too long, even emergency treatment won't help..."
As Zoe spoke, Joe Di suddenly understood—her illness was known as the Lifeforce Dissipation Syndrome in Jade Nation.
Joe Di had once been a master healer in Jade Nation, so he knew just how terrifying this disease truly was.
Lifeforce Dissipation Syndrome was also called Vitality Collapse Disorder, and its symptoms were far more than cardiac asphyxia. What Zoe described was just one manifestation. Those afflicted rarely lived past thirty-six years of age.
Even in Jade Nation, those who contracted Vitality Collapse Disorder could only resign themselves to fate. The lucky ones might reach thirty-six, but the unlucky could perish at any moment. Western medicine offered no cure.
In Jade Nation, there was no distinction between Western and traditional medicine—their technology far surpassed Earth's. For most diseases, treatments were abundant, but only natural herbs could treat Lifeforce Dissipation Syndrome. The Scarletblood Flower was one such remedy.
The Scarletblood Flower was priceless, rarer than gold.
What puzzled Joe Di was how his past self had known the Scarletblood Flower could cure Lifeforce Dissipation Syndrome. Even in Jade Nation, only a handful of healers were aware of its properties.
Seeing Joe Di fall silent, Zoe Shen pulled a bank card from her bag and handed it to him. "There's some money in here. The password is all ones. You should leave Luojin City for now."
"Thank you," Joe Di said, accepting the bank card without any hesitation.
He had already decided to leave the Scarletblood Flower for Zoe Shen. It didn’t matter how much money Zoe had stored on that card—even if she gave him a hundred such cards, none would be enough to purchase a single Scarletblood Flower.
As Joe Di took the card, Zoe Shen hesitated slightly. She had thought he would refuse, but she had prepared every argument to persuade him. Yet Joe accepted it without a trace of reluctance.
Perhaps she had misunderstood his reasons for proposing divorce back then...
Zoe Shen’s thoughts drifted back to the day Joe Di had asked for a divorce. That was the day the NDA test results revealed he wasn’t Di Wencheng’s biological son, and he lost the right to inherit the Di family’s legacy.
Everyone—Joe Di, Zoe Shen, and even many outsiders—knew that Zoe had married Joe to save her own Shen Family from financial ruin. But once she made her choice, she resolved that since she’d married Joe Di, she would never marry anyone else.
Zoe Shen also knew how much Joe Di cared for her. So, after the Di family abandoned him, she told him herself that she would never leave him—because she was also afflicted by illness.
Her illness was cardiac asphyxia, a terminal condition on Earth.
In the prime of her youth, Zoe Shen was struck by a fatal disease. She could not accept such a fate. When no hospital in the world could cure her, she sought answers at Lethe Temple from its master, Redmond.
Stories of Master Redmond’s miraculous healing were known only within elite families. He often traveled abroad, and even if you lived at Lethe Temple for years, you might never meet him.