Chapter 19 Throwing Himself into Her Arms

Ye Mingzhu had anticipated the request from the Duchess of Rongguo and readily agreed without causing her any trouble.

As a woman herself, she could understand.

Lady Rongguo felt relieved and looked at her with even gentler eyes.

Once inside the room, Ye Mingzhu took the pulse of the Duchess of Rongguo and, based on her description of the symptoms, wrote a prescription for her.

Lady Rongguo's situation was not complicated. Her main problem was that multiple births had caused her to lose blood and qi. What she found difficult to talk about was uterine prolapse.

Because of this symptom, she has to suppress her cough and doesn't dare to laugh too much, for fear of causing an indecent situation.

The woman had an unspeakable secret; she was unwilling to call the imperial physician.

She was too proud to seek out a skilled female doctor, and since it wasn't fatal, the matter was delayed indefinitely.

After writing out the prescription, Ye Mingzhu gently comforted her, "Don't worry, Madam. With some time to recuperate, your health will gradually improve. I won't say that the symptoms will completely disappear, but you can recover about 70-80%."

"That's good then." The Duchess of Rongguo breathed a sigh of relief and asked somewhat embarrassedly, "Have I been using this prescription all along?"

Ye Mingzhu said, "Take this for seven days first, and then we will adjust the dosage according to your physical condition."

The Duchess of Rongguo said, "If I may ask, what comes after me...?"

Ye Mingzhu smiled and said, "I forgot to mention that you and Madam Qin are my elders. If you two don't mind, you can just call me by my maiden name from now on."

"How could I mind?" Lady Rongguo said with a smile. "We owe you a lot for today's lotus banquet."

"It's nothing, just a small favor," Ye Mingzhu said. "If you'd like, I suggest that my mother and sister-in-law take over the treatment of your health. They are more experienced than me and can massage you to help your uterus return to its normal position more quickly."

"Really?" Lady Rongguo asked in surprise.

She and Ye Mingzhu had only met today and were not very familiar with each other. She felt embarrassed to keep troubling Ye Mingzhu, who was also a Duchess.

In comparison, the Ye family is a good choice; she can receive stable and reassuring medical treatment, which is the best option for her.

It was also Ye Mingzhu's maternal family, and she trusted Ye Mingzhu, who was a person of good character.

"Really." Ye Mingzhu nodded with a smile.

Lady Rongguo smiled broadly: "Then I will send invitations to your mother and sister-in-law today, and see when they are free so I can visit them."

Ye Mingzhu thought for a moment and suggested, "I see that you value your privacy, so why don't we go to the Buddhist temple together? We can also invite Madam Qin along and relax a bit."

"Yes, that's a good idea." The Duchess of Rongguo's smile deepened.

Ye Mingzhu also thought it was good.

She had been pondering the future path of the Ye family, but hadn't found a turning point until today, when things unexpectedly opened up.

Recommending the Duchess of Rongguo and Madam Qin to the Ye family can be considered as forging a good relationship for the Ye family.

If the two women are satisfied, they can introduce other ladies to the Ye family in the future, and the Ye family's network of connections will become wider and wider.

With her help, the Ye family should not suffer the same tragic fate as in their previous life, where they were devoured by Sheng Huai'an until not even bones remained.

However, as the Ye family's business grows larger, it will attract more and more covetous eyes.

She had better secure her position as the Duchess of Wei, so that she could benefit her family by leveraging her husband's status.

Ye Mingzhu seemed to be deep in thought.

Emerging from the inner room, the Duchess of Rongguo instructed her maid to serve tea, snacks, and drinks again.

Although the Rongguo Duke's Mansion was a family of meritorious officials, the lotus banquet they held was very elegant.

The pastries include lotus flower pastries, which have layers of flaky pastry and are filled with lotus seed paste and Buddha's hand preserved in white sugar.

The tea snacks include lotus seedpod dew, with each lotus seedpod hollowed out and filled with pre-rain tea, then cooked with snow water from plum blossoms in winter, giving it a light fragrance.

Ye Mingzhu took a few bites and thought it was pretty good.

After sitting for a while, Madam Qin and the Duchess of Rongguo changed their address for her from "Duchess of Weiguo" to Mingzhu, showing great intimacy.

Seeing that it was almost time, Ye Mingzhu got up to say goodbye.

As she rode in a sedan chair to the gates of the Rongguo Duke's mansion, she saw Sheng Yunche, dressed in a long black robe, standing beside the carriage, seemingly waiting for her. Only then did she suddenly realize:

I was thinking, "I always felt like I'd forgotten something, and now I realize it's this!"

...

Once inside the carriage, Ye Mingzhu gave Sheng Yunche a slight smile.

Sheng Yunche stared at her with a cold face for a long time, then suddenly raised his hand and pinched her earlobe hard, asking with dissatisfaction, "You begged me to accompany you, and then you forgot about me?"

He suspected that she was putting on an act, pretending that she couldn't live without him, when in reality she was dispensable.

"..." Ye Mingzhu certainly couldn't admit it, and quickly retorted, "How could that be? It's just that something happened, and I rushed off to save people."

Speaking of this, Sheng Yunche frowned and asked, "What's going on?"

The Rongguo Duke's Mansion was keeping the news under wraps, so he didn't know the details. He was only told that someone had fallen into the water and that Ye Mingzhu had rescued them, and that he should wait patiently.

After Ye Mingzhu explained the situation, Sheng Yunche almost laughed out of anger: "You saw a villain committing a crime and you rushed in?"

Ye Mingzhu said, "I know what I'm doing..."

"Do you know what's good for you?" Sheng Yunche retorted.

Sensing something, Ye Mingzhu stopped arguing with him, looked at him with her beautiful and charming almond-shaped eyes, and smiled as she leaned into his arms: "Lord Duke, are you worried about me?"

Suppressing his unease, Sheng Yunche asked with a stern face, "What do you think?"

Ye Mingzhu actually thought about it for a moment, and deliberately replied, "I think you must be worried about me, otherwise you wouldn't be so fierce to me. It's just that you're too proud to admit it."

Sheng Yunche: "..."

He looked away and chuckled softly.

Why would I worry about her? Impossible.

Unwilling to admit it? Even less likely.

but……

Where did he treat her harshly?

"You..." He wanted to really scold Ye Mingzhu and tell her not to be so pretentious, but when he met her smiling almond eyes and saw her throwing herself into his arms, he unconsciously swallowed his words and said coldly, "Stop thinking nonsense."

She did a good deed today, so he can't refuse to give her some face.

Ye Mingzhu blinked: "Oh..."

She lowered her eyes and couldn't help but smile.

...

In the carriage where the maid was sitting, Baozan and Yaqin were also talking.

Yaqin asked, "Baozan, you can swim? When did you learn?"

Baozan said smugly, "What's so special about being able to swim? All of us maids can! If it weren't for my young lady, um... Madam not being able to go into the water, she would swim even faster than me!"

"Madam can do that too?" Yaqin was surprised.

"Yes! My young lady not only knows how to swim, but also wants to teach us how to ride horses. However, the master and mistress absolutely refused, and no matter how much she pleaded, she couldn't get it to work. She had no choice but to give up the idea."

Yaqin was even more surprised: "Madam wants to learn to ride a horse? How can a woman ride a horse after her feet have been bound?"

“My young lady doesn’t have bound feet,” Baozan said, taking a bite of the pastry.

"No foot binding?" Yaqin was quite surprised, but after thinking about it, she understood.

Although the Ye family was extremely wealthy, they were merely a merchant family with insufficient social standing, and their upbringing of their daughters was certainly not as strict as that of families of officials.

I wonder if the wife's bound feet will affect the couple's relationship, since nowadays men consider bound feet to be beautiful.

Yaqin was worried, but she said, "It's good that feet aren't bound."

Baozan nodded vigorously, "That's right! My young lady also said that foot binding is too painful and is an act that harms the body and skin. It's better not to bind feet!"

Yaqin was startled again.

Would the Duke not like it if I didn't have bound feet?