Chapter 122 A Dream: Tasting All the Bitterness of Life, Yet Not a Single Breeze of Spring Blossoms Touches Its Touch…
The walls of Jiuhua Mountain Villa were very high. The servants would trim the vines that climbed up the base of the walls and dig up the roots. There was no deathly smell or acrid odor in the air, only freshly turned soil and the faint, warm, sweet aroma of pastries wafting from the kitchen.
The two doors of a vermilion wooden door were pushed open at the same time, and two girls dressed in the same light red jackets and skirts ran out from the crack in the door, giggling.
They were both eight or nine years old, both wore their hair in double buns, and their eyebrows and eyes were almost identical.
"Quick, to the back garden!"
Two figures in bright red chased and weaved through the winding corridors.
A little girl ran along, panting, and said, "My mother said the camellias in the back garden are blooming, and we need to pick some to make flower cakes."
The other person was thinner, with a hint of calm in their eyes. They ran alongside her, urging her to finish her studies, "Today, your parents are taking us to the back mountain to learn about herbs. Have you memorized all the herb charts that your mother asked you to memorize?"
"I've memorized it after reciting it many times."
"You said the same thing last time, which caused me to be punished along with you."
They ran across the vermilion bridge and the meadow of the mountain villa, past the craggy rockery and the pond, startling a few butterflies that were lazily dozing on the branches...
“A-Yuan”.
A young woman was already standing not far away, smiling, carrying a basket of steaming camellia cakes.
Hearing the call, they ran even faster, stumbled, and lost their balance, falling together onto the soft, fallen leaves-covered grass. Seeing each other's hair stained with grass clippings and their skirts soiled, neither cried, but burst into carefree laughter.
A young woman approached them, helping one up and then another, gently brushing away the bits of grass from their hair and the morning mud from the hems of their skirts.
“Ah Yuan, be careful.”
The two little girls called out to the young woman, "Mother."
Strangely, even though the young woman was standing right in front of her, the girl couldn't see her face clearly. It was blurry, like a cloud of mist shrouding her face. But no one seemed to think anything was wrong.
Before we knew it, the sky had quietly darkened.
A cooler wind, carrying frost, blew in from the distant mountains, swept through the camellia forest, and scattering petals from the trees.
The girl was looking up as a pink petal swirled and landed on the tip of her nose. Suddenly, she felt a cool sensation on her nose and instinctively reached up to touch it. She felt the icy snowflakes, which quickly melted away.
The two girls looked up at the sky at the same time. The clouds turned light gray, and countless tiny snowflakes fluttered down.
It's snowing in Liangxi City.
It rarely snows in Liangxi.
Zhu Ying woke up in the medical tent of the Tongmen Pass camp, awakened by a squad leader. Her eyes were slightly itchy, and when she rubbed them with her fingertip, a damp, salty stain appeared.
The sergeant bowed and stood beside the medicine table where she was dozing. "...Doctor Ye." His voice was soft and rough.
As dusk settled, after she awoke, two more oil lamps were lit in the medical tent, instantly brightening the room considerably.
Zhu Ying patted her numb legs, and as soon as she moved, the shackles on her ankles rattled.
"We've found Doctor Pei, but... he seems to have suffered a great shock and isn't doing well."
Pei Danxing was led into the medical tent by two soldiers, stumbling along. His disheveled hair revealed his dejection. He had lost one boot, leaving only a white cloth sock on his right foot.
Zhu Ying said to the soldiers who had brought him back, "Thank you, generals."
The squad leader said, "Imperial Physician Ye, please find a way to wake him up. The Marquis of Chengyang has some questions for him to ask later tonight."
"I see."
Two days had passed since the great fire in Waguan Village. The flames gradually died down that night, and most of the people were rescued by the soldiers of the Marquis of Chengyang. Some, however, perished in the scorched earth left by the fire. At that time, everything was in chaos. People were busy treating the plague patients. Groans, cries, and curses filled the air. No one noticed that Pei Danxing, like a wandering ghost, dragged his feet, covered in scorched earth, toward the desolate wilderness.
Zhao Xingli secretly investigated the case of burning civilians, which inadvertently uncovered an old case involving Linxia and Li'an. He only got halfway through the investigation when the officials of Yunshan County discovered his plot and set up a series of traps, including a banquet with a beautiful woman, to invite him. He was so frightened that he fled overnight, abandoning the official road and taking a detour through narrow mountain paths to Yongdu to report the case.
After Zhao Xingli returns to Yongdu, he will definitely investigate the matter of the great plague thoroughly, and the Marquis of Chengyang also needs to find out some things beforehand.
What exactly is the "blood curse" mentioned by the surviving patients?
According to the head constable who ordered the fire that day, one of the two female doctors said that "the plague was spread by humans" and asked him to send both of them to the government office.
When questioned about this, Zhu Ying said, "It was a temporary measure, only to save lives."
Yue Zhengyang also stepped forward to testify, saying that, as she said, she only said that at the time to buy time for the Yue family's troops to arrive, and it was a helpless act out of impatience.
"Are you raising these carrion-eating blood worms? Are you using these worms to spread plague?"
The criminal case was laid out before Zhu Ying, containing several black worms, already dead, their bodies stiff. At first, a few were alive, but they all died before the afternoon was over.
Zhu Ying picked one up, twisted it hard, and the worm crumbled into a puddle of black mud that smeared on her fingertip.
Upon seeing this, the torturer covered his mouth and nose and stepped back.
"This insect carries a plague!"
"They're just corpse worms, used for cleaning wounds."
Zhu Ying tried her best to recall every word Ye Weiwan had said. She had raised blood gu for several years and personally experienced three peach blossom plagues. If she said the plague virus was alive, there must be a reason. The plague virus carried by the blood gu must be very weak in order to survive. The plague virus is a living parasite in the body of a living creature. So, if the gu lives, the plague virus lives; if the gu dies, the plague virus dies.
She had no choice but to trust Ye Weiwan this once and gamble that these dead blood worms were not infected with the plague, in order to clear herself of suspicion of spreading the plague.
She had to do everything she could to protect herself and live as a member of the Ye family so as not to implicate the dozens of people in Jiuhua Manor.
After doing so, she will completely become Ye Weiwan.
Become her, and live on in her place.
Follow her path, experience the plague again and again, until even the obsessive her forces herself to quickly concoct a prescription for the Peach Blossom Plague.
Until the peach blossom plague is no longer present in the world.
Xingming asked, "What about the skeleton in the cave?"
Zhu Ying was unaware.
She didn't know anything about white bones; perhaps it was related to the bloodstains all over Ye Weiwan's body that day?
"He contracted the peach blossom plague and died of it. You might as well ask the skeletons in Waguan Village and the old people who were abandoned by the whole village about what happened."
Xingming chuckled.
Which prefecture or county doesn't have villages like this? This is a matter of the people's lives, not something they can interfere with. If they insist on investigating, the prefects and governors in office will all be held accountable, and no one will escape.
"Doctor Ye, you don't need to be so sarcastic. Their own children sent their parents up the mountain to die just to save a bite of food, and it's the government's fault? If you can't stand it, then take those old people into your home and care for them. Otherwise, don't pretend to be so righteous."
"Officials who neglect the people's livelihood have such a shameless attitude!"
Xing Ming couldn't save face, so he remained silent in anger.
If Yue Zhengyang, the sixth son of the Marquis of Chengyang, hadn't instructed during the summons that this was the imperial physician who examined Consort Shu's pulse, and that he was only allowed to question her and not to use torture, the instruments of torture at his disposal would have been used once by now.
Before he could finish asking the questions, Yue Zhengyang barged in impatiently, demanding the release of the criminal investigators. "Have you finished asking? So many patients are waiting for Physician Ye to prepare their medicine; we can't afford to delay."
The criminal investigation had to be suspended.
However, many questions remain about what happened that day.
Pei Danxing's behavior that night was highly unusual. His own wife, dressed in a blue robe, stood there, yet he desperately rushed towards the self-immolating Doctor Ying. Many people heard Pei Danxing call out "Azhu" to the woman in the fire, crying and pleading to take her home. Why did Zhu Ying commit suicide? This matter is highly suspicious. Afterwards, Pei Danxing disappeared; where did he go?
Before anything could be obtained, her interruption and Yue Zhengyang's urging abruptly disrupted the interrogation process. The imperial court had repeatedly emphasized the importance of controlling the epidemic, so the criminal investigator ordered Zhu Ying to be shackled to prevent her from being unavailable when summoned later. He then instructed Yue Zhengyang to take her away.
The Yue family had been sidelined for many years, and only this year did the Marquis of Chengyang, Yue Dun, finally gain favor with Emperor Zhenyuan. He was eager to have his son curry favor with the Marquis of Xuanping's family. Just as they did, Zhu Ying, the female physician by Chen Liangyu's side, committed suicide by self-immolation in Xiling. This matter required an explanation from Chen Liangyu.
Yue Dun sent several groups of people up the mountain to search for Pei Danxing. When they found him, he was in a state of madness and erratic behavior, huddled under a rock, his body nearing hypothermia.
The fire in Waguan Village burned away all the love, hate, obsession, and moral obligations of his life, leaving only a lifeless shell.
Zhu Ying dragged her shackles up to Pei Danxing and said, "Do you still recognize who I am?"
Pei Danxing lazily looked up and glanced at the person, his eyes brightening and dimming as he looked at someone else through Zhu Ying's face.
"The Marquis of Chengyang is asking you questions. Do you know what to say?"
Pei Danxing nodded blankly.
His appearance was completely insane. If he remained silent at this point, or if he insisted that he was so frightened by the sight of thousands being burned alive that he had mistaken someone for someone else, his confession would not be accepted.
After adding a physalis fruit to the antidote formula left by Ye Weiwan, it indeed became remarkably effective against the peach blossom plague. However, this plague was quite strange; a prescription that was effective today would be ineffective tomorrow, so it had to be constantly adjusted.
As the cure for the plague gradually showed its effectiveness, no one would risk the careers of so many officials in Xiling and the rise of the Marquis of Chengyang to hand over the imperial physician who devised the cure for torture at this moment. As long as the explanation was plausible, there were plenty of people willing to risk everything to whitewash the situation.
As for the future, she had no time to think about it; she would hide for as long as possible. Her only worry was whether Chen Liangyu would be implicated after the blame for hiding the plague and raising the blood worms was entirely placed on "Zhu Ying," who had committed suicide in the fire.
After a moment of silence, Zhu Ying thought of Jiuhua Manor again. She had not returned to Liangxi City for a long time. In the past two days, whenever she was extremely tired and closed her eyes for a short nap, she would frequently dream of a young woman and two twin girls in the manor.
The girl's appearance is that of herself as a child.
She lifted the curtain to go out for some fresh air, but in an instant, the swirling white fluttering before her eyes stunned her.
Snowflakes fluttered outside the tent, crashing against the gate tower and city walls, turning the dark tiles into blank sheets of paper.
It really did snow.
The first snow of the year didn't fall until November, lingering intermittently for many days. A thick layer of white covered the scattered houses of the mountain town, and travelers occasionally trudged along the official road. Officials braved the wind and snow, pushing wooden carts carrying baskets of fragrant lantern fruits. Their cart tracks stretched from the official road leading to other counties; soon, the tracks faded, and new tracks appeared. This went on and on, a busy and tireless process.
When the first snow stopped, the epidemic subsided.
The plague came fiercely, and then receded like the tide.
Like the woman who brought this disaster, she came like a fleeting shadow and left like scattered smoke.
She lost her mother, was disabled, lost her son, and was deprived of her love.
Having tasted all the bitterness of life, I have yet to receive even a wisp of spring breeze.
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