"Ma'am, the scent is getting stronger."
"The floral scent seems to have a hint of herbal flavor."
Beiguan City, Jingping Lane.
Guixiang hurriedly pushed open the door to the inner courtyard and walked up to Gao, who was holding a long whip, to report.
Her name contains the word "Xiang", and her sense of smell and taste happens to be more sensitive than that of ordinary people. Just now, she and Liu Quan took the small path in the alley and ran to the Bai family at the end of the alley and knocked on the door.
When I came back, I just happened to smell a new change in this smell.
"You drink the medicine and stay here. Don't go out again."
After Gao finished speaking, she looked at Doctor Yu who was bending over and fiddling with a medicine pestle.
"Old man, can you tell what this smell is?"
Doctor Yu raised his hand and put the crushed fragrant leaves to his nose, sniffed hard, then raised his neck and sniffed the smell floating in his mouth.
Now I finally smelled the floral and medicinal scents that Guixiang had mentioned.
His expression became more serious. "It seems to be Udumbara flower. When I was young, I went to Yuezhou to practice medicine. I met merchants traveling near the border there. Udumbara flower is what they took out. After drying it, it was ground into medicine. It has the effect of soothing sleep and calming the mind."
"It's a pity that the quantity is too small. The dried flowers in the merchant's hand at that time were less than one tael in total, and they were sold at a very high price. I spent a full ten taels of silver to buy ten flowers. At one tael of silver per flower, I'm afraid only the royal family and nobles can afford to use such flowers as medicine."
"Is there any way to crack this Udumbara flower?" Gao continued to ask.
Doctor Yu shook his head, hesitated for a moment, and then continued, "For herbs like this, people with weaker blood and qi are more likely to be affected. People with strong bodies are rarely affected by smelling the herbs instead of taking them directly."
There was a gleam in Gao's eyes.
He opened his mouth and uttered four words.
"A feint to the east and attack in the west."
She hurriedly said to Liu Quan and Dong Dadao, "Go and tell the city guard Xue Lingwei who just came over."
Then he pointed to the pot of refreshing medicinal soup and the pungent bay leaves that Doctor Yu had just crushed.
"Take these with you as well. If they can be of use to them, that would be great. If not, just leave them alone!"
Liu Quan and Dong Da received the order and went out.
Gao glanced in the direction of the gate.
Two quarters of an hour had passed since Lan'er left with Steward Wang. This time was enough to ride back and forth from Jingping Lane to the City Affairs Office.
The fact that she hasn't come back yet means that Lan'er has chosen to stay in the City Affairs Office.
I sighed in my heart.
Gao calmed herself down and glanced at everyone in the yard.
Yue'e was holding Jiarong in her arms, and in her wide sleeves was a dagger tied to her body for self-defense. Lan'er's two maids, Ningshuang and Tingxue, were also with them at this time, in case of any unexpected events, so that they could protect them in time if they had no power to protect themselves.
Jiayan, whose waist is not even as big as an adult's, is like a little adult, holding the short sword he uses for martial arts practice, and standing in front of his mother and sister with a firm gaze.
Mingxuan, who was standing not far from him, looked like an enlarged version of him, and their expressions and postures were exactly the same.
There are also Nanny Wang, Wang Gui, Guixiang... these servants who followed them all the way from the capital to Beiguan on the road to exile have now become like family members.
Everyone is on high alert at this moment, trying hard to protect this home and not hold others back.
Tightening the whip in her hand, Gao said, "Tonight is destined to be a troubled night. Maolin and Lan'er will face more dangers than us. We who stay here should not distract them and worry about them. Everyone, please stay alert. After tonight, I don't want to see anyone missing from my family."
"Yes, mother."
"Yes, ma'am."
As the words fell in the yard, a dark shadow flashed by.
Stopped at Gao's feet.
Gao had just raised the whip vigilantly, but when she saw the figure at her feet rubbing its head against her skirt, she quickly stopped.
"Black cloud!"
Everyone in the Wei family is familiar with this "divine dog" raised by Wei Yunlan.
This is a magical dog that can fight with wild wolves and wild dogs and not be at a disadvantage!
His fighting ability is not weaker than that of an agile guard of Tianshu Pavilion, and may even be better.
"Did Lan'er ask you to come and protect us?" Gao immediately guessed Heiyun's purpose.
This dog only listens to my daughter's instructions.
The fact that it appeared here was obviously because the daughter was worried about their safety and sent it here to guard them.
Bending down and gently patting the dog's head, Gao whispered, "Go back to your master. You don't have to worry about us here. We are all capable of protecting ourselves. Lan'er and her father are more dangerous and need you more."
Gao guessed that this pitch-black wolfhound should be able to understand what he was saying.
At least he should be able to understand that I kept mentioning the name "Lan'er".
However, after some persuasion, it remained indifferent and still stood close to my feet.
As Gao said before, it only listens to the orders of one person.
"In that case, you should obey your master and stay in the courtyard first. If there is a riot in the city, you can rush back to your master to help."
Gao's words fell.
The black cloud lowered its head and made a "woooo" sound, as if in response.
At the same time, the City Affairs Office also received news from the South City Gate.
While sending people to capture those who burned Udumbara flowers in the city, they quietly adjusted their defenses, not relaxing any place where people might sneak into the city.
The clues about the Udumbara flower soon had follow-up.
"We caught several beggars burning paper money on the street. The smell of the paper money was the same as the fragrance of flowers and medicine that everyone smelled."
"According to the beggars, the paper money was given to them by a man in a bamboo hat early in the morning. Each person was given a thick pile of paper money and was asked to burn it nearby at night."
"These beggars originally stayed in the dilapidated temple outside the south city gate. In order to complete the task of burning paper, they specially went into the city before the city gate fell and hid secretly. The man found them in the dilapidated temple and gave each of them ten copper coins. It is said that after all the paper is burned, they can go to the dilapidated temple again tomorrow to get ten copper coins from him."
The beggars did not disobey because there were ten copper coins hanging in front of them.
Otherwise, according to their daily survival wisdom, after receiving the first ten copper coins, they would throw away the paper money or leave it next to the cesspool to be used as toilet tokens.
"This man must be very familiar with Beiguan City. He deliberately brought a bamboo hat and asked a beggar to do the work. It may not be easy to find out his identity." Wei Maolin said with a frown.
Wei Yunlan was listening nearby.
So that's where the smell of burning flowers came from. It was obvious that the other party had planned and prepared for it for a long time in advance.
No one would doubt that dried flowers are incorporated into paper money.
No wonder, even the people from Tianshu Pavilion didn’t notice anything unusual beforehand.
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