If a person does not strive, he will be eliminated. Zhao Shu was unaware that Emperor Mingde had played a trick on her. At this moment, she was leaning against a red pillar in the covered walkway.
Liang Xi, Su Xiu, Xiao Guozi, and others surrounded her, while Wei Tingsi, Yan Shiren, and others went to handle the city lockdown matters.
"Princess, it will probably be ten days before Physician Peng arrives," said Xiao Guozi, who was very worried that Zhao Shu would be infected. "Princess, let's go back to the capital."
"Ten days? Which imperial physician is accompanying you from the capital to control the floods?" Ten days might kill many people, and they can't wait that long, but the other doctors won't believe her.
Now she's become increasingly hard-hearted, always thinking about killing some people to teach Zhao Bi and the others a lesson. But the common people are innocent, and besides, Zhao Bi and the others wouldn't care anyway.
“Imperial Physician Lu,” Xiao Guozi replied, “The Crown Prince sent Imperial Physician Lu to find you, but he refused. When he arrived, you were taking a bath, so he left. He is currently discussing a prescription with the doctors in the city.”
Speaking of Physician Lu, he got angry. The princess's medical skills were no worse than Physician Peng's. How dare he look down on the princess like that? Just wait, wait until he can't cure her, can't come up with a prescription, and someone dies before he regrets it.
Zhao Shu didn't care about these things. Apart from Physician Peng and a few close relatives, probably no one knew that she understood medical principles. Ordinary doctors would definitely not listen to her, and she was too lazy to explain, let alone prove herself to others.
For the sake of the Crown Prince, it is only right that we do our part.
"Alright, I'll write down a prescription. Take it to him. If he doesn't believe it, you can take some people to do it and don't worry about him."
Leading the people back to the courtyard, Xiao Guozi ground ink, Su Xiu found paper and pen, and Zhao Shu wrote down all the prescriptions she remembered, including some common sense about isolation, methods of prevention and care, and also drew pictures of matching clothes, hats, masks, gloves and boots, which were made for the doctors to wear.
After sorting out what was in his mind, half a day had passed. He entrusted the matter to Xiao Guozi, whose duty was still to protect Zhao Shu, and then handed it over to the Crown Prince.
In the late afternoon, Chen Jianbo sent someone to report that a suspicious person had been spotted trying to break out.
Many people want to break free, since being locked up means they could be infected at any time and might die. Chen Jianguo came specifically to report this, so the person must be the one they are looking for.
Zhao Shu put on a cloak and led her men on horseback at breakneck speed, finally arriving at the exit of Lianhua Village in Jiangnan Prefecture before nightfall.
In fact, locking down a city is easier than locking down a village. Villagers can easily go into the mountains at the slightest disagreement, and once they're in the mountains, finding them one by one would be extremely costly.
Chen Jianbo was merely using the imperial court's disaster relief supplies and medical prescriptions as leverage, since he would get nothing after entering the mountains and might even die.
Therefore, the villagers were still quite obedient, but even so, many people still managed to escape.
It took a lot of effort to catch the suspicious person.
With many tasks and few people, since the dike was breached and the plague broke out, the Crown Prince, Yan Shiren, Wei Tingsi, Chen Jianbo and others have all scattered and traveled around, while Zhao Shu stayed in Jiangnan Prefecture to take charge.
At this point, a suspicious person was spotted, and everyone gathered around.
Upon seeing Zhao Shu, Wei Tingsi walked towards her first, shielding her behind him like a large tree.
"Your Highness, Lord Yan." Zhao Shufu bowed.
"Princess." Chen Jianbo and Yan Shiren also greeted her.
As soon as the group met, Chen Jianbo called Hu Yichen, who had noticed something amiss, up and said, "Bring the person up."
Time was tight, so everyone was concise and to the point.
After bowing respectfully, Hu Yichen waved for his soldiers to bring over a burly man and said, "This man crawled out of the mud. I suspect that the tunnel was flooded and couldn't survive inside, so he came out. When he saw our people had set up a checkpoint here, he tried to escape. I sent people to dig, and sure enough, there was a tunnel inside."
Zhao Shu glanced at the burly man and noticed that he was indeed soaking wet, with mud on his head and clothes. "You're like a rat, are you going to dig Suzhou up like a mine before you're done?"
"After digging through, my subordinates found a map. It must have been during the digging of a new tunnel that the map was preserved." Hu Yichen handed a wet map to Wei Tingsi. "Everyone in the tunnel is dead, only this big man is still alive."
Zhao Shu frowned. "Has the coroner examined it?" If it's the plague, it will be troublesome. Who knows how many tunnels the Hermit of Jiecao has dug in this beautiful land of Jiangnan.
"I've checked, it's the plague," Hu Yi said gravely. Calculating the time, it had been less than two days since the plague outbreak, a speed that was chilling.
Everyone fell silent upon hearing this.
Time passed slowly, and in the middle of the night, Hu Yichen came to report again, "We've found the Fourth Prince's hiding place."
No one returned to Jiangnan Prefecture. Braving the night rain, the soldiers cleared the tunnels, following each one they cleared.
They dug up the entire ground and finally found Zhao Bi's hiding place in a large village.
He chose a good hiding place: a large village with nearly a thousand people, inhabited by distant branches of seven or eight major clans.
In such a large village, it's too easy to hide one's identity, and one won't be easily discovered.
They gathered 20,000 soldiers and surrounded the village so tightly that even if Zhao Bi had wings, he wouldn't be able to fly out.
Hu Yichen kicked open the tightly closed door, and some soldiers filed in. Only after confirming that there were no explosives, traps, or hidden arrows did he let Zhao Shu and the others in.
Zhao Bi was a man of principle. He led his men and sat upright in the center of the main hall, where the lamplight illuminated the entire room.
Actually, he had just arrived at this place. The original hiding place was in a much better environment, but Zhao Shu and her men had a large number of soldiers and conducted a thorough search. Even if his men had three heads and six arms, they were no match for them and were forced to come here.
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