Ji Ping 吉平

In Chapter 23 of the Romance, at the court audience on New Year's Day of the 5th year of Jian'an, Dong Cheng sees that Cao Cao has grown ever more arrogant and overbearing and falls ill from indignation, and the emperor sends a physician of the court to treat him. That physician is a man of Luoyang surnamed Ji, named Tai, with the courtesy name Chengping; everyone calls him Ji Ping, and he is a famous physician of the time. Ji Ping administers medicine at Dong Cheng's residence and does not leave his side morning or evening, and though he sees Dong Cheng sighing often, he does not dare to ask why. Romance, Ch. 23 §31–32

On the night of the Lantern Festival, Dong Cheng, who has fallen asleep while drinking with Ji Ping, dreams that he cuts down Cao Cao, and even after waking he does not stop cursing 'Cao the traitor'. Ji Ping steps forward and says that although he is a physician he has never forgotten the Han, and that if he can be of any use he will have no regrets even if his nine degrees of kin are exterminated. When he bites off one of his fingers as an oath, Dong Cheng shows him the girdle edict, and Ji Ping says that whenever Cao Cao's headaches flare up he summons Ji Ping to treat him, so a single dose of poison will surely kill him. Romance, Ch. 23 §33 · 35–38

But Qin Qingtong, a household servant whom Dong Cheng had punished, flees to Cao Cao's chancellery and reports the plot of Wang Zifu and the others, together with Ji Ping's biting his finger as an oath. The next day Cao Cao feigns a headache and summons Ji Ping, and when Ji Ping secretly puts poison into the medicine he has brewed before Cao Cao's eyes and offers it, Cao Cao deliberately delays and tells him to taste it first before offering it. Realizing that the affair has leaked, Ji Ping seizes Cao Cao by the ear and pours the medicine into him, but Cao Cao pushes the medicine away and spills it on the ground, and the bricks all burst and crack. Romance, Ch. 23 §38–39 · 41–42

Seized by the attendants, Ji Ping is bound and tortured in the rear garden, yet his countenance does not change in the least, and he does not name anyone who sent him, saying, 'I wanted to kill you myself; how could anyone have sent me?' After he has been beaten for two double-hours and his blood flows all over the steps, Cao Cao, fearing there will be no witness left to confront the others, lets him rest. The next day, at a banquet to which he has invited the high ministers, Cao Cao has Ji Ping dragged out in a long cangue and beaten, and the four men including Wang Zifu who have been summoned there feel as if they were sitting on a mat of needles. Romance, Ch. 23 §43–47

The following day Cao Cao goes to Dong Cheng's house to ask after his illness and has Ji Ping dragged to the foot of the steps. When Cao Cao asks why he, who originally had ten fingers, now has only nine, Ji Ping answers that he bit it off swearing to kill the traitor to the state, and Cao Cao cuts off the remaining nine fingers. When Cao Cao orders his tongue cut out as well, Ji Ping says he will confess and has his bonds untied, then bows toward the palace, says that his failure to rid the state of the traitor is the will of Heaven, and dies by dashing his head against the steps. Cao Cao has his body torn apart and displayed, and the Romance dates this to the 1st month of the 5th year of Jian'an. Romance, Ch. 23 §51–54

In Chapter 69, Jin Yi proposes to Geng Ji and Wei Huang that they bring in the two sons of the Imperial Physician Ji Ping, the elder Ji Miao and the younger Ji Mu, saying that Cao Cao had killed their father over the earlier affair of Dong Cheng's girdle edict and that the two sons had escaped disaster by fleeing to a distant countryside. In Chapter 78, Cao Cao says of Hua Tuo, who proposes splitting open his skull to remove the root of his illness, that he is 'no different at all from Ji Ping', and has him tortured to the end. Romance, Ch. 69 §30Romance, Ch. 78 §14 · 16