010 The Miracle Doctor is Gone
Just as the boy was about to close the door, Li Yang quickly stopped him.
She exclaimed urgently, "Impossible! I can't be mistaken! Three days ago, a young lady opened the door for me. Later, after I recognized him as a man, he invited me into the courtyard. Then he pretended to be an old man, claiming to be a miracle doctor who was deceiving me, but I saw through that too. Finally, he revealed his true appearance. He was a very handsome young man, probably around twenty years old, right?"
The boy slowed down his movements as he closed the door.
Li Yang continued, "He said he was the miracle doctor with the 'ghost hand,' asked me for a gift, and said he would come to this place to find him at the same time three days later."
What gift?
Li Yang lifted the cloth, revealing the wooden carving of Yama: "A statue."
The young man paused, his tone softening considerably: "My young master had to leave last night due to unforeseen circumstances. He didn't tell me about our appointment, Madam. And he hasn't returned yet. Please forgive me, Madam, but without him, I really cannot let you in."
"Did he say when he would be back? To be honest, I have something very important to discuss with the miracle doctor."
The young man said, "We are not allowed to ask about the young master's affairs, and I don't know when he will return. If you are not in a hurry, Madam, please come another day."
Li Yang stood in front of the door, holding the wooden carving, and remained silent for a long time.
Seeing this, the young man left a message saying, "I will tell you when you return, young master," and closed the wooden door.
Behind him, Yuan Chongjing was helped down from the carriage by Beihai at some point. Looking at the tightly closed courtyard gate, Yuan Chongjing asked, "What's wrong?"
He remained seated in the carriage and did not hear the conversation between Li Yang and the boy.
Li Yang lowered her head, her eyes darting around, her right hand unconsciously stroking the base of the statue: "He said the divine doctor went out and hasn't returned yet."
Yuan Chongjing glanced at the wooden door suspiciously: "Could it be that the miracle doctor changed his mind and hired someone to scam you?"
“Probably not,” Li Yang denied. “I saw the doctor that day. He didn’t seem like the kind of person who would go back on his word. He must have been held back by something.”
"You've only met him once, how can you tell what kind of person he is? Besides, you said before that he's a great actor, maybe he was just making fun of you that day."
Despairing, Yuan Chongjing felt a strange sense of anxiety. With no one else around, he vented all his frustration on Li Yang: "It's all your fault! You swore you were some kind of miracle doctor, but I think that guy is a fraud! You wasted three days of our time!"
Li Yang found a rock by the door and sat down: "Wait here for the miracle doctor to come back, and I'll let you see for yourself whether he's a fraud."
"I can't be bothered to talk to you!" Yuan Chongjing flicked his sleeve. "If you want to wait, then wait here. Beihai, let's go back to the mansion."
"Go back to your residence! All of you, wait here!" Li Yang shouted at them, "What kind of status does that divine doctor have? He heals the sick and saves lives. So what if he's so capable that he can put on airs? If everyone were like you, unable to endure even the slightest hardship, what would be the point of treating patients!"
Bei Hai, supporting Yuan Chongjing, cautiously echoed, "Second Young Master, the Young Madam is right."
Yuan Chongjing was somewhat tempted, but when he heard that Beihai had also sided with Li Yang, he became furious: "She's right, so you can stay here and wait with her! Let's see what you can come up with!"
After saying that, he shook off Beihai's hand and started to walk towards the carriage.
Bei Hai glanced at Li Yang, and seeing that she gestured for him to follow, he immediately took two quick steps to support Yuan Chongjing, and said with a smile, "How can this be? I'll drive the carriage for you."
Yuan Chongjing wasn't really trying to drive Beihai away. His wounds hadn't fully healed, and he shouldn't make any big movements. Without Beihai driving him, he wouldn't be able to get back on his own.
Fortunately, they were already some distance from Li Yang, and Yuan Chongjing was helped onto the carriage by Bei Hai with a mix of resistance and reluctance.
After the two got into the carriage, Bei Hai held the reins and looked at Li Yang, who was still sitting alone under the courtyard wall in the distance. He said, "Second Young Master, why don't we call the Young Madam back? We can come back later or tomorrow."
Yuan Chongjing lifted the carriage curtain to look outside. Li Yang was still holding the wooden carving, turning her head left and right, looking around. He immediately lowered the curtain and said in a low voice, "Go and ask her. If she doesn't leave, don't expect anyone to come and pick her up again."
Bei Hai responded, jumped off the carriage, and jogged to Li Yang's side: "Young Madam, the Second Young Master wants you to get into the carriage."
Li Yang shook her head: "I'm not going back. I'll wait here a little longer. Maybe the divine doctor will be back soon."
Bei Hai looked back at the carriage with its curtains tightly closed, bent down and whispered, "Young Madam, didn't you hope that the Second Young Master would forget all of this? I remember your words, and I haven't told the Second Young Master anything that happened in the past five years. What are you doing now? Once the Second Young Master regains his memory, no one can stop him from doing whatever he wants."
Li Yang's eyes froze for a moment.
This was also the question she had been hesitating about. Perhaps even she herself didn't know that when she heard that the divine doctor was not in the mansion, she felt a little happy.
But after the initial joy came even greater unease and uncertainty.
She said, "I don't know either. Let's just take it one step at a time. You take Jing back first, don't worry about me, I'll handle it myself."
Bei Hai felt somewhat helpless. He had said everything he should and shouldn't have said, and now he could only leave the rest to fate.
He went back to the carriage and said, "Second Young Master, the Young Madam wants to wait a little longer. She's doing this for your sake, Second Young Master. Why don't we leave later?"
"Let's leave now! Who cares about her? Take it or leave it!"
Seeing his resolute attitude, Bei Hai had no choice but to drive the carriage back to the Yuan residence.
After returning home, Yuan Chongjing locked himself in his room.
What angered him was not that Li Yang might have been deceived, nor that he had foolishly followed her to do wood carving for three days, but that he had so easily trusted Li Yang!
In his memory, Li Yang was lazy and undisciplined, wasting her time, joking around with the students of the academy all day long, and behaving in a vulgar and barbaric manner. She had no gentleness or elegance of a lady from a respectable family and was like a hooligan who was addicted to wasting his days.
How could this be? How could I have been so easily fooled by her words and so deeply believe in her claims of being a "miracle doctor"?
That's absolutely outrageous!
What happened in the past five years that caused such a big change in him?
He desperately wanted to know!
But he couldn't recall these things now. It was as if a sharp knife was hanging in his mind. Whenever he had the thought of trying to remember, that knife would come to life, circling and stabbing wildly in his mind, making his head feel like it was about to explode.
Yuan Chongjing lay on the bed, panting heavily. His forehead and face were covered in sweat from the pain he had just endured. Once his breathing calmed down, a wave of drowsiness washed over him, and he drifted off to sleep.
I don't know how much time passed before I woke up groggily again.
It was already dark outside the window, and the room was pitch black, without a single lamp lit. A strange sense of panic arose in Yuan Chongjing's heart. The night was like a lurking beast, its jaws wide open, hiding around him, ready to leap out from any corner at any moment.
He was abandoned by the world and all alone.
Yuan Chongjing sat up abruptly, instinctively shouting, "Li Yang!"
Hearing the commotion, Bei Hai, who was guarding outside the door, immediately came over with a lantern: "Second Young Master, the Young Madam has not returned yet."
Yuan Chongjing rubbed his temples hard; his inner shirt was soaked with cold sweat, clinging uncomfortably to his skin. He said, "Go and call her back!"
Bei Hai hesitated for a moment: "Second Young Master, if I go by myself, I'm afraid the Young Madam won't come back with me!"
Yuan Chongjing pondered for a moment: "Just tell her that Xiao Taozi was crying and looking for her. What's the point of her squatting by the wall like this! She's just embarrassing the Yuan family."
"Second Young Master, the Young Madam did all this to invite the renowned doctor to treat you. I think there are only two ways to bring the Young Madam back."
Yuan Chongjing was listening to him when he saw him pause, and said impatiently, "Speak!"
Hokkaido: "Either let her find a divine doctor and she'll come back on her own, or... we'll trouble you, Second Young Master, to go and call her back. Otherwise, even if we say Miss Momoko is crying, I don't think the Young Madam will come back."
After Bei Hai finished speaking, he realized that Yuan Chongjing was staring at him with a cold, scrutinizing gaze. His heart tightened, and he stammered, "Second...Second Young Master, what's wrong?"
Yuan Chongjing said calmly, "How much silver did Li Yang give you to make you speak up for her like this?"
Beihai tentatively extended two fingers.
"Two thousand taels?...Two hundred taels?..."
Bei Hai kept shaking his head and said sincerely, "Two taels. The young mistress promised me that as long as I serve the second young master well, my salary next month can be increased to three taels of silver."
Yuan Chongjing was amused by his tone, "Go, get me some hot water, I need to change my clothes, this sticky feeling is so annoying."
Seeing that he wasn't angry, Beihai quickly went to the kitchen to fetch water.
Yuan Chongjing's wounds hadn't fully healed, so he simply wiped them off and changed into a change of clothes. The window inside the room had been opened sometime earlier, and looking at the moonlight streaming in, he suddenly remarked, "The moonlight is truly beautiful tonight."
Beihai: "Huh?...Yeah, that's right."
Yuan Chongjing turned to look at him, as if he had just remembered: "Didn't Doctor Tao tell me before that I should move around more?"
“That’s right!” Bei Hai understood what he meant and loudly echoed, “Moving around more will help the wound heal faster! Second Young Master, shall we go now?”
Yuan Chongjing nodded seriously: "Okay, let's go. Let's just go out for a stroll, we won't go far."
Despite saying that, when he saw the carriage that Bei Hai had prepared beforehand, Yuan Chongjing didn't say anything. Without waiting for Bei Hai to persuade him, he quietly got into the carriage.
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