Chapter 66 "Your Highness! Your Highness, something terrible has happened..."
The turmoil in one person's heart cannot stir up the storms around others.
No matter how dark the clouds were surrounding Ren Guchunwen, the sky remained clear. The people of the Flying Fox tribe happily passed the inspection and entered the market. Another group of people also walked forward, their steps uneven.
They were dressed in rags, their faces covered in dust, and they did not look like foreigners. They also did not look like merchants from Dayong, but rather like refugees.
Just as Feng Mian was about to send a guard forward to check, the village chief in front of the fruit and vegetable stall dropped his stall, happily rushed forward, and roared, "Old Yu!"
Huh, they know each other?
Seeing the village chief and an old man at the front holding hands and looking at each other with tears in their eyes, Feng Mian remembered that he had said before that some people from other villages in Heishigou had gone south. He understood that these people must be the people he had mentioned who went south.
The man the village chief called Lao Yu looked him up and down. Seeing that he was healthy, had a ruddy complexion, and was dressed neatly, he knew that Lao Yu had been doing well recently. Seeing the prosperity of the trade market, he looked on with envy and said, "You are so lucky, Lao Peng, to have encountered such a great thing as the opening of the trade market!"
As for his good fortune, Village Chief Peng readily admitted it. If he weren't lucky, how could he have met the princess? He'd probably be eating tree bark in some remote mountain valley right now.
Thinking this to himself, he saw his old friend's gaunt appearance and couldn't bear to compare them. He could only comfort him verbally, saying, "You came back just as the trade market was completed, right when it was at its most bustling. Your good fortune is about the same as ours. We've finished all the work, so you can just enjoy it!"
"Come on, I'll take you to see Her Highness the Princess. By the way, didn't you go south? Why are you back so soon?"
Village Chief Peng led the group to Feng Mian. Village Chief Yu, trembling, gave a respectful greeting. Upon hearing the question, he was so angry that his wrinkles twitched. "We do want to go south, but the officials have to be willing to let us pass!"
“When they saw that my grandson was sick, they refused to let us enter the city and even tried to drive us back! We were really desperate. On the way back, we thought we were going to die. Some of the weaker ones couldn't hold on and wanted to commit suicide. Fortunately, we heard that the Heishigou trade market had opened up and things were different from before. That's when we mustered up our strength and managed to walk back!”
"Sick?" Feng Mian's gaze sharpened as she looked behind the village chief. The group of fifty or sixty people were all skin and bones, their hair disheveled, clearly having suffered a lot on the journey. They were staring at her expectantly, as if afraid that she would also turn them away.
Feng Mian couldn't bear it, but still asked, "Where is your grandson? Has he recovered?"
Village Chief Yu hesitated for a moment, a look of annoyance crossing his face, inwardly blaming himself for being too talkative. The crowd behind him also stirred, all hiding a woman behind them. Clearly, the memory of being turned away when heading south had left them somewhat traumatized, fearing that even after all the hardships of returning home, they would still be denied entry.
Feng Mian didn't say anything more, but instead instructed Wu Liu: "Have someone fetch some water and some easily digestible soup."
"Please rest for a moment and have some food." Feng Mian glanced at Feng Jia, who immediately led the village chief and his party aside with his guards, forming a human wall to separate them from the crowd at the entrance of the trade market.
Village Chief Yu thanked them profusely and led the villagers over. Soon they received steaming hot rice porridge. The thick porridge had distinct grains of rice, and the delicate aroma of rice wafted through the air. The long-lost smell of clean food brought tears to their eyes.
They didn't care about anything else and started wolfing down their food.
Feng Mian waited until they had warm food in their stomachs before speaking: "I don't mean to stop you from going home, but I'm worried about the risk of disease, so I would like to ask the physician to examine the sick children and all of you. Especially the young children, when they have a fever, we can't leave it untreated, even if it's not a disease, it can easily lead to other problems."
While the village chief was still hesitating, a woman holding a two- or three-year-old child suddenly stood up and said urgently, "My child is definitely not infected with the plague! Your Highness, look, this child is strong. He has been running a fever and then it came down all the way, but he has managed to get through it all by himself. I heard that those who don't get better are the ones who have the plague. Our child is perfectly fine."
Feng Mian took two steps forward, about to raise her hand to test the temperature of the child's forehead, when a hand reached out from the side, blocked her hand, and gently touched the child's forehead.
Fu Ciyan frowned: "It's burning hot, she has a fever."
"It will go down soon!" Although she had just eaten hot porridge and felt somewhat relieved about Feng Mian, the woman was still afraid that Feng Mian and the others would not let her and the child go home. She hugged the child tightly and took two steps back. "She was fine the day before yesterday, but the fever returned because she caught a chill while traveling these past two days. It will go down soon!"
Village Chief Yu nodded in agreement: "Yes, yes, the child just caught a cold, it's nothing serious, Princess, please don't worry."
Feng Mian and Fu Ciyan exchanged a glance, both with worry in their eyes.
With a gentle smile returning, Feng Mian advised, "I know the child will be alright. But for everyone's safety, please stay on the outskirts of Black Stone Gully for a couple of days. I will send a physician to examine each of you every day. Once it is confirmed that everything is fine, you may all go home. Is that alright?"
“We…” The woman seemed reluctant and wanted to say something more.
Village Chief Peng quickly chimed in, "Back then, when we returned to Yunzhong County with the princess, it was the same. We stayed outside the city for a few days, had the physician examine us, and only after we recovered could we enter the city."
He emphasized, "That epidemic is no joke!"
Village Chief Yu then pulled the woman behind him and said with a smile, "Alright, alright, we'll listen to the princess and not go back yet."
"Food and bedding will be provided for you, so you don't need to worry about anything. You just need to rest well."
The group nodded in agreement and followed the guards further away.
Even as Feng Mian walked away, he could still hear the woman asking, "Don't we know our own bodies are healthy? We're already at our doorstep, and you're still stopping us from going home..."
"Just respond to what the princess says, why say so much useless stuff!" Village Chief Yu scolded in a low voice.
The only thing people can do while in seclusion is to secretly pray that there will be no epidemic; that would be a cause for great joy.
"Brother Gu, why are you so absent-minded?" Lu Mingzhu had just signed the contract with the seed merchant and was happily carrying the documents back when he passed by Gu Chunwen. He accidentally bumped into Gu Chunwen's shoulder and noticed that Gu Chunwen was staring blankly in the direction where the village chief and the others had disappeared. He thought that Gu Chunwen was worried. "The princess has experience in handling these kinds of things, so you and I can rest assured!"
Seeing that he seemed carefree, Gu Chunwen suddenly realized that she had been overthinking things and had been led by the nose by Fu Ciyan's words. There is more than one path in the world, and life is extremely short. Thinking too much only adds to the burden on one's mind. It's better to enjoy each day as it comes.
Seeing each other every day now is already wonderful.
He smiled and patted Lu Mingzhu's shoulder, "Don't worry, I'm completely at ease."
The physician returned after taking the pulses of Village Chief Yu and his party, saying that the adults were all fine, a few children had slight fevers, and Village Chief Yu's grandson was in stable condition for the time being. He prescribed some medicine for them to take and see how things went.
In the evening, Feng Mian, still worried, sent his physician again. Not long after, the physician returned with his medicine chest, brought back by the guards. He was sweating profusely, "They...they've disappeared!"
"Gone?" Feng Mian wondered if she had misheard. Just in case, she had sent four guards to watch over him under the guise of taking care of him. How could she have lost him like that?
The four guards, ashamed, begged for forgiveness, "Please forgive us, Your Highness, we somehow fell asleep and failed to keep an eye on things..."
"It's not their fault. Perhaps their food was laced with sleeping pills," the physician hurriedly explained on behalf of the guards. How could they have imagined that while protecting their own people on their own turf, they would be poisoned by them?
The physician recalled that when he went to take pulses during the day, the villagers surrounded him, asking him all sorts of questions, such as when he could go home. They all assured him that they were not sick and hoped that he would be lenient with them. So he guessed, "I think they probably went home secretly."
"This is so disregard for the children's safety!" Liu Ying interrupted angrily. "They were still burning up, how could they have run away so secretly? The princess sent people to treat them, she wasn't trying to harm them, and she didn't say they couldn't go home. Why the rush?"
"I wonder what frightened them on their way south. They were really afraid I wouldn't let them go home," Feng Mian said helplessly.
The physician shook his head and sighed, "I don't think it's just because of that. The village chief is someone who avoids medical treatment. He initially asked me if he could stop giving his grandson medicine, thinking that all medicine has some toxicity, and that young children are too weak to handle it, so he thought some folk remedies would be enough. You tell me..."
Upon hearing the saying "all medicines have some toxicity," Feng Mian, Liu Ying, and Wu Liu couldn't help but glance at Fu Ciyan.
Fu Ciyan: "...I meant don't take medicine randomly if you don't need it, I didn't say you can't take medicine if you're sick. Don't compare me to those ignorant people."
It's not like he's living too long; he'd take the life-saving medicine even if it made him mute.
“Go ask Village Chief Peng which village Chief Yu and the others are from…” Feng Mian thought for a moment and said, “Take more people with you and ask Village Chief Peng to lead you on the trip. If they don’t want to stay outside, they can go home, but none of them are allowed to leave the village until the physician has checked and everything is fine.”
"yes!"
The day after tomorrow, the sky will be clear and blue.
Dressed in light armor, Baili Xunzhou rode on horseback and received the intelligence from the scout. "The Alna tribe has been making a lot of small moves lately, apparently looking for someone... Do you know who it is?"
"All I heard was that he was from Dayong, liked to wear an indigo-blue robe, and had a scar on his face that ran horizontally from the upper right to the lower left."
"It's just clothes. Even if you like them, can you wear them forever? It's too easy to change them. The scar on his face might not even be real. Try to get a portrait of that person and find out why the Alna tribe is looking for him."
"Yes!" The scout hurriedly retreated, brushing past the servant from the Prince's mansion who was rushing over.
"Your Highness! Your Highness, something terrible has happened! Your Highness's Consort..." He slipped and fell flat on his face.
In a panic, Baili Xunzhou immediately dismounted, grabbed the person, and asked, "Tell me slowly, what's wrong with the Crown Princess?"
The servant tried to calm his breathing. Being stared at so closely by Baili Xunzhou, he was so nervous that whatever came to mind spilled out, “Today, as usual, I went to deliver a mountain of cheese pastries to the princess. I was stopped about four or five hundred meters away. The guard said…”
He stammered, and Baili Xunzhou frowned, his hands clenched so tightly the veins bulged, and he almost stopped breathing. "What did you say?!"
"They say an epidemic has broken out in Yujia Village, Heishigou!"
It felt like a thunderbolt had struck me; a strong, tingling sensation instantly spread to my heart, causing it to stop beating for a moment.
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