Chapter 159: The Truth
The middle-aged man was very thin and dark-skinned, looking like a countryside man, not like an official.
He sat there letting Jiang Jing take his pulse and see a doctor, but his eyes were not idle, looking around everywhere, as if very curious about the place.
“How many patients do you have here?” the middle-aged man asked.
“Why are you asking that?” Zhaodi said from the side. “These are all Imperial Court secrets. Don’t ask around blindly, or you’ll bring trouble on yourself.”
The mild and elegant man who had spoken first said: “Everyone, don’t take offense. It’s just that we’ve heard the epidemic here is very serious. Our master happened to pass by here and originally planned to rest one night and leave, but resting that one night ended up causing extra trouble. This epidemic is so frightening. Our master is worried that his illness won’t get better so quickly, which would affect the big business he has to discuss next.”
“What business do you do?” Wangshu asked. “Since you heard the epidemic here is severe, why did you still dare to enter the city? If you had taken a remote path, you wouldn’t have risked this.”
“The situation is bad now, with more bandits in the mountains than before. If we took a small path, there’d be no epidemic, but there are bandits! We’ve heard that the county magistrate here is good at governance. We thought with such an official in charge, the epidemic must have been controlled.”
“You’re lucky. Coming here at this time is indeed no problem,” Wangshu said.
“Was there a problem before?” the middle-aged man asked.
“No, no problem.” Yaoguang pretended to glare at Wangshu, lowered her voice, and said, “If you don’t want to invite disaster, shut up. Why say everything out loud? Do you not want to go home?”
Wangshu let out an “oh,” looking annoyed.
The middle-aged man and the elegant man exchanged a glance.
Zhaodi and the others had already guessed the identities of these two. Unlike Yaoguang and Wangshu, they couldn’t keep things in their hearts or play those fake pretenses, so they hurried off to care for the patients.
“Your body is fine. It should just be an ordinary common cold. Take two doses of medicine for treating the common cold and you’ll be good. This place is full of epidemic patients. Go to another clinic to get the medicine!” Jiang Jing said.
“Doctor, I don’t trust other doctors, only you. You can even cure such a terrifying epidemic. Our boss’s common cold is a small matter to you. You prescribe the medicine as you see fit. Our boss will stay here to recuperate. You don’t need to worry about the epidemic infecting us. We’ll find a separate place to nestle, not contact others, and guarantee the epidemic won’t affect us.”
“You two are really interesting. Others can’t wait to stay far away, but you insist on coming here. You’re not spies sent by someone, are you?”
“We’re honest businessmen. What kind of spy would dare to come into a pile of epidemic patients? What’s the difference between that and delivering yourself to death?” the elegant man said. “We just don’t trust other doctors.”
“Do as you like,” Yaoguang said. “As you’ve seen, we have many patients here and no spare energy to take care of you. Take care of yourselves.”
Yaoguang and Wangshu exchanged a glance, then one after the other left the room. As usual, they decocted medicine for the patients, recorded the patients’ recovery situations, and regularly fumigated the patients’ residences with herbs for disinfection.
Those two secretly contacted patients, probing for news from their mouths. Whatever Yaoguang wanted them to know, they quickly found out. After getting the news they wanted, they found an excuse to leave. They thought they had hidden it well. Yaoguang and the others saw through it but didn’t say, pretending nothing had happened. As for that one thousand two hundred taels of silver, they wouldn’t accept that dirty money. They would use this sum of silver to buy large amounts of rice and flour, distribute it to the poor people, and improve their lives a bit.
While Yaoguang and the others were aiding the people in the neighboring city, Xiao Yanci recovered his spirits, rallied himself, studied his schoolwork with all his might, preparing for the upcoming imperial examination.
Wen Shi was still helping out at the academy. Although the short-term workers who originally worked at the academy had returned, Wen Shi didn’t want wages and volunteered to stay at the academy doing odd jobs. Most importantly, Xiao Yanci was willing to keep her. The academy now had all its hopes pinned on Xiao Yanci and wouldn’t let such a small matter displease him. Besides, no matter how diligent Wen Shi was, she was just a widow. Xiao Yanci couldn’t possibly take a liking to such a widow.
“Mr. Xiao, my younger sister hasn’t come back. Where exactly have you hidden her?” The first thing Jiang Yihui did upon returning to the academy was to pick a fight with Xiao Yanci.
Jiang Yihui had been having too much fun lately and didn’t want to return to the academy to study at all. In his view, his mother had opened that shop, earning so much money every day. He already had more money than he could spend, so why suffer through studying?
To avoid returning to the academy to study, he would pretend to have a stomachache one moment and a headache the next. This time, Zhong Lanhua saw he still wasn’t returning to study, so she steeled her heart and said that if he didn’t study, she’d cut off his pocket money.
Jiang Yihui returned to the academy and, upon learning that Jiang Yihuan wasn’t there, immediately went to demand her.
Xiao Yanci felt baffled: “Didn’t your younger sister go down the mountain and return home long ago?”
He had been down the mountain for so long, and Jiang Yihuan hadn’t come to see him once. His heart had long gone cold. In his previous life, he loved Jiang Yihuan to his core. Now he began to doubt whether their feelings were really as steadfast as she had said. Otherwise, why in this life was she not even as good as Wen Shi? Was this the deep affection like the sea she spoke of?
“She hasn’t come back since following you up the mountain. When did she go down? Did you see her go down? Did she tell you she went down?” Jiang Yihui slapped the table, roaring ferociously, “I tell you, if anything happens to my younger sister, I’ll make you pay.”
Xiao Yanci frowned: “You mean she never went home?”
“Of course.”
Xiao Yanci stood up: “Then let’s report to the officials.”
Wen Shi came in carrying pastries and said to Xiao Yanci: “Young Master Xiao, you’ve been studying hard. I made some pastries for you.”
Jiang Yihui sized up Wen Shi.
Although Wen Shi wore coarse cloth, her figure was truly good, and her appearance was very alluring. The way she looked over shyly had the bashfulness of a young girl and the romance of a young woman.
A strange light flashed in Jiang Yihui’s eyes.
“I heard you had a dispute with my younger sister. Could it be that you did something to her?”
Wen Shi looked startled: “No, I haven’t seen Miss Jiang for a long time.”
“You say you haven’t seen her, but maybe you did something to my younger sister, and now she’s probably dead?”
“Brother Xiao, Miss Jiang fainted at the courtyard gate. The old man guarding the gate asks you to come out and handle it quickly,” a scholar shouted from outside the door.
Xiao Yanci ran out in big strides: “Where?”
