Ding Xinwan tried to break free in pain, but unexpectedly found that the old woman's grip was unusually strong. A cloudy yellow color appeared in her eyes and her whole body was shaking.
"Mother-in-law, I didn't hurt you." Ding Xinwan explained anxiously, looking around for help.
However, the disaster victims around them were struggling to protect themselves, and each of them had a look of pain on their face, with no time to care about anything else.
The old woman seemed to be unable to listen to Ding Xinwan's explanation, and kept muttering: "It hurts... It hurts so much... You all want to hurt me..."
As she spoke, her body suddenly twitched violently, and then she suddenly spat out a mouthful of black blood, which splashed on Ding Xinwan's skirt.
Ding Xinwan was terrified by the scene before her. She wanted to scream, but found that she couldn't even make a sound.
Around the tent, servants and runners from the Huimin Office shouted in panic, their voices echoing in the night sky, sounding extremely harsh.
"Oh no! Someone is unconscious!"
"Someone fell down here too!"
The originally quiet night was suddenly broken, and chaos and panic quickly spread in the air.
Ding Xinwan's heart sank suddenly. She helped the fainted old woman to lie down on the straw mat. Turning around, she saw a little girl holding her mother's sleeve tightly, crying and shouting with tears streaming down her face.
"Mom! You can't wake me up no matter how hard you try! Mom, please wake up!"
The girl's cry was sharp and shrill, like a knife stabbing deeply into Ding Xinwan's heart.
She squatted down and gently hugged the girl, trying to comfort her with her warmth. "Don't be afraid, little sister. We'll go get a doctor right away."
However, the girl only cried even harder, tears rolling down her cheeks like beads from a broken string.
Xue Jiyan came to deliver a batch of rice from the granary outside Beijing. Before he got close, the mournful wails coming from the distant tents had already torn the silence of the night.
The group hurried over and saw Ding Xinwan's face as pale as paper, frantically dealing with the chaos in front of her.
Xue Jiyan immediately ordered his subordinates to move the rice safely into the porridge factory, and then asked Ding Xinwan with concern: "Miss Ding, what happened?"
Ding Xinwan's voice trembled. "I don't know why, but in the evening many of the victims suddenly fell ill and became unconscious. Some of the more serious ones even vomited blood."
Upon hearing this, Xue Jiyan strode towards the makeshift tent.
He visited the victims in several tents one after another and saw that many of them were indeed in a coma.
One of the victims caught sight of Xue Jiyan's royal blue official robes and immediately rushed forward, his face filled with grief and indignation. "You officials are so cruel! Once the flood is over, we will return home. Why would you resort to such cruelty to save a little food?"
Another person angrily echoed, "That's right! My brother is still in a coma, and he hasn't eaten anything except the porridge you gave him. Is this even fair?"
Facing the angry victims, Xue Jiyan looked solemn but not panicked. He knew that he had to respond calmly at this time in order to find out the crux of the problem.
Glancing at the disaster victims around him, he found that not all of them had symptoms, and many of them were still in good spirits.
This detail made him realize that the problem might not be universal in all food or water sources.
He turned and walked towards the porridge factory and began to carefully check every link that might go wrong.
Xue Jiyan turned and walked towards the water tank, carefully observing the water inside. The water in the tank looked clear and transparent, and had no peculiar smell.
Ding Xinwan took a look at the water inside and quickly said, "Master Xue, I also drink the water here. I can guarantee that there is no problem."
Xue Jiyan frowned slightly after hearing this. After thinking for a moment, he continued, "Since there's no problem with the water source, the problem may lie somewhere else."
He also checked the rice and dried fruits used to cook the porridge and found nothing unusual.
"Is this porridge cooked in several pots?"
"Yes, Master Xue. Because there are so many victims, we can only cook the porridge in batches so that everyone can eat as soon as possible."
Xue Jiyan nodded. He guessed that the problem might be in one or several pots of porridge.
Perhaps something went wrong during the cooking process. Ding Xinwan's words "all the porridge was drunk" meant that the poisonous porridge had been drunk by the victims, which triggered the symptoms.
"Miss Ding, please separate the victims who have not yet shown any symptoms from those who have already fallen ill. I will ask someone to find some doctors as soon as possible to treat the sick victims." Xue Ji Yan ordered decisively.
"Yes, Lord Xue!" Although Ding Xinwan was panicked, she didn't care about much at the moment and immediately made arrangements according to Xue Jiyan's instructions.
Doctor Hong Zhengxuan hurried to the porridge factory. As soon as he got off the carriage, he saw Xue Jiyan coming to meet him.
Xue Jiyan thought the doctor he had invited was Hong Zhengxuan, and a look of joy appeared on his face: "Doctor Hong, it's great that you're here!"
Previously at the Xingyuan Marquis Mansion, he had personally witnessed Hong Zhengxuan preserving his sister-in-law's pregnancy, and was well aware of his superb medical skills. Seeing him at this moment was like seeing a savior.
Hong Zhengxuan, however, looked solemn as he said to Xue Jiyan and Ding Xinwan, "The Qiao family's young lady fell ill just after returning home. Mr. Qiao asked me to go and see her, but I can't find the cause of her illness yet. The young lady has only been to the porridge factory in the past two days."
When Ding Xinwan heard this, she was so scared that she almost cried.
She recalled how Qiao Heyuan looked when she returned home. No wonder she seemed a little listless at that time. It turned out that she was sick.
When she thought of the sick refugees in the tents, her heart was filled with worry, and her usual heroic spirit disappeared in an instant.
Xue Jiyan also realized the seriousness of the situation, and he immediately told Hong Zhengxuan that the victims were sick.
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