Chapter 3 What's your name?

He walked to the center of the yard, raised his head, and saw a man lying on the wall with only his black head exposed. He seemed to be planning to continue throwing stones into the yard.

Noticing Chu Ran coming out of the house, the owner of the skull quickly threw something into the yard and climbed down the wall in the blink of an eye.

Chu Ran walked over and picked up the thing wrapped in paper. His fingers could feel a little warmth when he passed it through his hands.

He opened the outer wrapping paper and inside were two clean, white, steaming steamed buns placed side by side.

Chu Ran didn't actually see the man's face clearly, but he could roughly guess it.

What on earth did this man do? He almost bit off half of the Third Prince's finger, but he was only punished to kneel for a day.

Their status and position should be quite high, right?

But judging by the way he is dressed, he doesn't look like...

He even picked up the dirty osmanthus cake to eat. The original Chu Qinglin would never eat such things.

And these two steaming big steamed buns, where did he get them from?

I don't understand.

Chu Ran's stomach was growling with hunger, but his low blood sugar level made it impossible for him to concentrate and think carefully. Chu Ran opened his mouth and took a big bite.

It smells really good.

In the next few days, Chu Ran would wait there whenever he was free, but he never saw anyone. Chu Ran looked at the ancient cypress tree in front of him, which was said to be 500 years old. There were many cypress trees in the palace, but this was the only ancient cypress tree with a history of several hundred years.

If he remembered correctly, the Fifth Prince Li Dingning's favorite thing was to secretly read the folk stories that the eunuch brought from outside the palace to him under this ancient cypress tree. But he had been squatting there for so many days, how come he didn't even see a ghost?

If he wasn't remembering it wrong, then there was definitely something wrong.

After asking around, Chu Ran finally found out why Li Dingning hadn't shown up recently. It was because he was sick.

According to palace servants, several servants and masters in the palace have caught a cold recently. They also said that at this time of year every year, many people in the civilian population and the palace would fall ill.

Isn't this just seasonal flu?

I heard that in ancient times even a minor cold could kill people.

Somehow, Chu Ran suddenly thought of the child with a cold and fierce face.

He looks younger than Chu Qinglin and doesn't look like he is being taken care of by anyone.

I haven't seen him these few days. I don't know how he is doing.

Forget it, let’s go and take a look.

Chu Ran guessed that he lived not far from here, so he walked around the area and finally saw an old and dilapidated outer wall. There were weeds growing in the cracks between the bricks and there were signs of collapse in some places, as if it had been abandoned for many years. Walking into the courtyard from the gate, it was noon and the sun was shining brightly outside, but it seemed that no sunlight could penetrate here. The cold wind whistled in from the cracks at the back of the neck, and I felt a gloomy coldness on my body.

The door of the main hall was slightly closed, revealing a gap. The entire yard was covered with gravel and weeds, and it was obvious that no one had taken good care of it for many years.

A gust of cold wind blew, and Chu Ran couldn't help but shiver.

He touched his neck which was chilled by the wind and thought, is it possible to live in a place like this?

At this moment, intermittent coughing sounds were heard in the room.

There are people living here.

Chu Ran hesitated for a moment, walked forward and pushed open the slightly closed door.

The hall was also empty. Apart from a few vermilion pillars on the roof, there was basically no useful furniture to be seen.

The coughing sound came from the next room.

There is a small door connecting the main hall to the side hall next door, but there is no door, only a gray fluttering curtain hanging down to cover it.

Chu Ran opened the curtain and walked in.

The room was very small, with only one small window, which was closed at the moment. There was a bed under the window. Chu Ran saw a little person tightly wrapped in a quilt, with only the dark back of his head showing from the top.

Although he could only see his back, Chu Ran still felt that he should be the child.

Chu Ran walked over and gently pulled back a corner of the quilt. Under the quilt, the child closed his eyes tightly, and his pale face was abnormally red.

Chu Ran felt something was wrong. He touched the child's forehead with the back of his hand and found it was severely burned.

I have a fever and I need to get rid of it quickly. If it continues like this, I'm afraid it will burn my brain.

Chu Ran first took out one of his own quilts and gave it to him. Then he went to the pharmacy. It turned out that there were too many sick people recently and he didn't know how long the queue for medicine would end. It just so happened that another eunuch Chu Qinglin knew was also sick. Chu Ran borrowed a prescription from him for emergency use. As for the medicine pot, Chu Ran took it out from under Guo Maoxue's bed.

When Guo Maoxue passed by the yard, Chu Ran was decocting medicine in the corridor. Perhaps thinking of the many people who were sick recently, he raised his sleeves to cover his mouth and nose from a distance.

"What's wrong? Are you sick too?"

Chu Ran just said "hmm", too lazy to explain so much.

Guo Maoxue only said, "Then you should have a good rest these days," and then hurried into the house. As soon as he entered the house, he quickly closed the door, as if the virus was following him closely.

Chu Ran entered the room carrying the freshly boiled medicine. He had never served anyone before, so he was a little flustered. He wanted to lift the quilt, but found that he couldn't move his hands. So he put the medicine down and helped the child up from the bed. Facing the child who had already lost consciousness due to fever, Chu Ran stood for a while, then sat down, picked up the medicine, then put it down again, changing countless postures, and finally found a posture that was more convenient for feeding the medicine, and fed the soup into his mouth.

A lot of medicine was wasted when feeding him. Chu Ran frowned, and there was nothing suitable at hand, so he simply used his sleeve to wipe the medicine flowing from the corner of his mouth.

After a lot of trouble, the medicine was finally fed.

Chu Ran was good at playing basketball and had even won second place in the 3,000-meter race at the school sports meet. He had a very good health and rarely got sick. Even if he had a headache or a fever occasionally, he would just cover his head with a good sleep and he would be almost fine. Therefore, he had no experience in caring for patients.

But he still has some basic common sense.

Chu Ran took his temperature several times and it still seemed a little hot, so in the evening, Chu Ran fed him some medicine soup again.

About half an hour after taking the medicine, Chu Ran touched his forehead again and found that the child was sweating on his forehead, behind his ears and neck. Chu Ran remembered that when he had a fever in the past, he would get better after sweating, so he thought that this should be the time for the fever to go away.

Although the child's fever had subsided, he was still sick and Chu Ran was worried about leaving him here alone.

Guo Maoxue has been afraid of being infected by himself these days, and he is too busy trying to avoid him, so he will definitely not care about him. So even if he stays here for a while longer, it shouldn't matter.

After a whole day of hard work, Chu Ran finally couldn't bear it anymore. He didn't know when he fell asleep.

Chu Ran was awakened by a slight rustling sound beside his ear.

He opened his eyes and saw darkness at first. He slowly waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. In the moonlight streaming in from the window, he saw a jade sculpture sitting at the head of the bed, with its face slightly tilted. The silver glow of the moonlight followed the soft outline of his forehead, cold eyebrows, raised and straight nose, and extended to the light pink lips, slowly outlining the contours of his profile.

The child has beautiful facial features, but his expression is a little cold.

After a moment, the child turned his head and looked at Chu Ran calmly with his deep eyes.

Chu Ran was stunned for a moment, then quickly gave him a natural smile, "Awake?"

The child pursed his lips slightly, not sure if it was a response.

"I'm glad you woke up. I'm leaving now."

Chu Ran yawned silently, stood up, picked up the empty bowl on the table, and prepared to leave. When he reached the door, Chu Ran suddenly thought of something and turned his head.

The posture was still the same as before, almost unchanged, and her eyes were still looking at him.

"I forgot to ask you, what's your name?"