Chapter 14014 An Arm's Distance
Chapter 14
Meng Yuning entered the wooden house, passed the kitchen, and went into the inner room, where she saw Doctor Tang treating Qi Jingyan's legs.
However, unlike the last time when they were secretive in the camp, this time even though she walked in, they did what they had to do without any hesitation.
Qi Jingyan was lying on the bed in a black pajamas, with his loose pajama pants pushed up above his knees, revealing his two calves coated with brown medicine.
When he was imprisoned in the Heavenly Prison for treason, Emperor Kangwen said, "strict trial."
But logically speaking, before the conviction, the interrogators would not dare to humiliate the prince who was still the crown prince.
But the third prince did not want to miss the opportunity to bring down Qi Jingyan, so he took advantage of the situation, threatened and bribed the interrogating officials, and directly tortured Qi Jingyan.
Qi Jingyan refused to plead guilty. The Third Prince was so angry that he ordered his legs to be broken and did not call the imperial physician to treat him.
After the queen found out, she wrote a letter in blood and committed suicide that day, using her own life to save her son.
On the day Qi Jingyan left Beijing, Doctor Tang sneaked into the team and helped reconnect his leg. He has been taking good care of him these days.
Qi Jingyan's leg injury was serious, but fortunately it didn't take a few days to heal. Although the bone had not healed well after being reconnected, there was nothing unusual looking from the outside.
Meng Yuning didn't know whether it was because Doctor Tang's medicine had a pain-relieving effect, or whether Qi Jingyan could endure it. In any case, his expression at the moment was calm and peaceful, and he didn't look in any pain.
Seeing her looking at him, Qi Jingyan glanced at the bamboo couch that the two guards had just brought in and placed by the window: "If you are tired, take a rest first."
Meng Yuning waved her hands quickly: "I'm not very tired yet. Let's sleep together after Your Highness finishes treating his leg."
Qi Jingyan was one of the injured patients who had not slept yet, so Doctor Tang took out the silver needles and started to give him acupuncture. The seventeenth prince was obviously very sleepy and dozed off, but he still lay on Qi Jingyan's shoulder and patted his chest gently, as if he was comforting his brother.
Although the two guards who were setting up the bed had gone out, Mu Yun, Mu Feng, and Mu Shan all ran in, leaning on their knees, and gathered in a circle to watch Doctor Tang treat Qi Jingyan's leg.
Everyone in the room focused their attention on Qi Jingyan's injured legs.
So even though she had a sore back, she felt embarrassed to just lie down and sleep, otherwise it would seem that she had no empathy, and the little trust and goodwill she had just built might be lost.
She said it casually based on the actual situation, but she didn't expect that Mu Feng and the other two would all turn their heads to look at her, with a hint of weirdness in their expressions.
Meng Yuning was stunned and confused: "What's wrong?"
The three of them shook their heads in unison, then turned their heads back and continued to see Dr. Tang for acupuncture.
Meng Yuning looked at Qi Jingyan again and saw that Qi Jingyan was also looking at her. She recalled what she had just said and realized that it was very likely that the sentence "Let's sleep together" caused the misunderstanding.
Her face suddenly turned red, and she clenched her hands awkwardly, wanting to explain that her words did not mean what he thought, but Qi Jingyan had already turned his gaze away and looked at Yi'er.
She had no choice but to give up, picked up her bag from the table, and walked silently to her bed and sat down.
She opened the bundle and took out an apricot cloak with a white fur collar, intending to use it as a quilt tonight.
She hadn't looked at the bundle carefully yet, but she knew what was inside.
From several sets of clothes to extra clothes, a small box containing several sets of valuable jewelry, and all her private money, these were packed for her by her personal maid Yuzhu.
She really wanted to count how much money she had, but it was inconvenient with so many people around, so she tied up the bundle and put it on the head of the bed, intending to use it as a pillow.
Then he remembered something and took out three handkerchiefs from his bag, folded them up, tied them together, and made a mask that could be worn on his face.
While she was busy here for a while, Doctor Tang had finished the acupuncture. After waiting for a while, he took out the needle, fixed Qi Jingyan's calves with bandages and wooden boards, and carefully lowered his trouser legs.
Then he turned around and went out, bringing in the medicine that had been simmered for a long time and had cooled for half a day: "Help your Highness get up and drink the medicine."
Mu Yun and Mu Shan hurried forward, carefully helped Qi Jingyan sit up, and let him lean against the head of the bed.
Qi Jingyan reached out to take the bowl of medicine, tested the temperature, then tilted his head back and drank it all in one gulp.
Meng Yuning felt that the medicine was unpalatable and couldn't help but wrinkle her nose.
Yi'er's face wrinkled into a bun, but he clapped his hands and praised in a baby voice: "Brother is really awesome."
Qi Jingyan put down the medicine bowl with an expressionless face, took the handkerchief handed to him by Mu Yun and wiped the corner of his mouth: "Okay, we've been tired all day, let's go and rest."
Mu Yun asked, "There's hot water outside. Your Highness, would you like to wash up?"
Qi Jingyan: "It's getting late, there's no need to bother, let's talk about it tomorrow."
After saying that, he seemed to remember something, turned to look at Meng Yuning, and said in a gentle tone: "Miss Meng, do you want some hot water?"
Meng Yuning quickly waved her hands: "I'm not in a hurry for this night."
She's been out for so many days and is already covered in dust. I wonder how comfortable it would be to take a hot bath. But there's no place for her to take a bath, so let's just forget it for now.
Qi Jingyan seemed to be just being polite. Seeing that she refused, he didn't say much. He let Mu Yun help him lie down, then he took Yi'er into his arms and covered him with his tiger-head quilt. Then he waved his hand and said, "Go down and rest."
Several people responded, and after paying their respects, they all retreated, taking out the two torches that were stuck in the house.
The room suddenly became dark. Yi'er leaned into Qi Jingyan's arms and whispered, "Brother."
Qi Jingyan soothed him gently: "Don't be afraid, Yi'er, brother is here."
The little boy asked again: "Brother, will mother come to see me tonight?"
Qi Jingyan was silent for a moment before answering, "Yier, go to sleep obediently. Maybe mother will come to see you tonight."
Hearing this, Meng Yuning suddenly felt a chill on her back. She quickly took off her shoes and lay down on the bed, wrapping herself tightly from head to toe with a cloak.
Then he put the "mask" in his hand on his mouth, tied a tight knot behind his head, tried to open his mouth to speak, and found that it was quite tight and it was difficult to open his mouth. Only then did he feel relieved.
The two beds were too close to each other. She pricked up her ears and listened carefully to the movements from Qi Jingyan's side, intending to wait until he fell asleep first before she went to sleep. However, she was too tired and fell into a deep sleep after lying down for only a few moments.
Yi'er also fell asleep, making a soft snoring sound.
Qi Jingyan listened to the two breathing sounds, staring at the roof quietly, unable to fall asleep for a long time.
I don't know how long it was before I heard a woman mumbling from the bed an arm's length away. However, her head was covered by the cloak and her mouth seemed to be blocked by something, so her words were unclear and inaudible.
Qi Jingyan didn't pay much attention at first, but later she kept talking and muttering.
He was afraid that something would block her mouth and nose and cause her to suffocate, so he reached out and pulled off the hood of her cloak.
He looked over in the moonlight pouring in through the window, and then he saw clearly that she had covered her mouth with something. No, it was more like strangling it than covering it. There was a dent on her slightly chubby cheek.
Qi Jingyan: “…”
He had never seen anyone do this while sleeping, and he was puzzled as to what she was doing.
It was obvious that she could still breathe normally and was not suffocated to death, so he did not interfere and covered the hood of her cloak back on her. Then he retracted his arm, touched Yier's head, and closed his eyes.
---
Half a day ago, on the official road a hundred miles away.
When the soldier came back with a doctor and a medicine boy, the escorting officers and soldiers had almost vomited all their bile. They were all lying on the ground with pale faces, and the seriously injured ones were still twitching.
The doctor's face turned pale with fear when he saw this scene, and his legs started to tremble. At the same time, he secretly felt lucky that he had asked the official about the situation in detail beforehand and had prescribed medicine in advance, otherwise he would have lost his life.
Human lives were at stake, so after a moment of panic, he quickly calmed down and asked the medicine boy to quickly boil water in a large pot to make the medicine, which he then distributed to the twenty soldiers who were not poisoned, and asked them to feed it to them one by one.
For those whose symptoms were severe, he went forward and fed them an antidote pill.
More than 20 people worked hard for almost an hour and finally completed the treatment. Most of the people survived.
But none of the people who had carried the ingredients and watched the cooking were rescued, and they all died.
Zhang Hujun pointed at the doctor and was furious: "How come they saved so many people? They all ate the same food, but everyone else was fine, but they all died?"
These people have been with him for many years and are his confidants. They are very capable in getting things done. He didn't expect that they were all dead now. It would be difficult for him to find such capable people in the short term.
Seeing his superior's anger, the doctor turned pale, with cold sweat on his forehead. "May I ask, sir, do these officials eat more than others?"
A thin-faced soldier lying nearby spoke in a weak voice, "They eat the most. Each of them has a full bowl, and we wait until they've finished before it's our turn."
Even though there were two large pots of food and a large pot of soup, there were as many as four or five hundred people. Especially after a lot of food was served away by those few people, each person actually got very little, and some even got less than a spoonful.
Before, they had privately complained that they couldn't taste the food, but now looking back, they were extremely grateful that they had survived because there were so many people and so little food.
The twenty soldiers who did not receive any food because they were on duty felt that they had turned a disaster into a blessing.
The doctor nodded. "That's right. No wonder they're more severely poisoned than the others. Also, these officials have other symptoms. Did they eat or drink more than you?"
Zhang Hujun looked at the others and asked, "Do you know?"
The thin-faced soldier replied, "They also drank wine, sir."
Zhang Hujun's face darkened. "Where did you get the wine? Did you steal it from me?"
The thin-faced soldier said, "It's not yours, sir. It was brought here by the guard named Mu Shan beside King Shen. I wanted to drink a sip, but they refused to give it to me, so they just shared it among themselves."
Doctor: "What was the wine in? Is it still there?"
The thin-faced soldier said: "It's just a small wine jar. I threw it away after I drank it."
Because he was greedy for wine, he paid more attention to them, until they finished drinking and threw the jar of wine on the ground, then he stopped looking.
Zhang Hujun was so angry that his teeth itched. He grabbed a soldier's medicine bowl and smashed it on the ground: "You've made me useless. I can't stand with you."
He didn't mention anyone by name, but the soldiers guessed who he was scolding, and they all lowered their heads and didn't dare to respond.
After Zhang Hujun finished cursing, he kicked a soldier who had just been rescued at his feet and cursed, "You bunch of useless people, get well quickly and follow me to chase the enemy."
---
Meng Yuning slept soundly and had many dreams.
In her dream, she was carrying a basin of peeled wild bamboo shoots to the river to wash them, but her foot slipped, her body tilted, the bamboo shoots scattered all over the ground, and she fell to the ground...
She fell heavily in her dream, and her legs hit the bed with a thud. The noise was so loud that she scared herself awake.
She opened her eyes and saw nothing but darkness. She was stunned for a moment before pulling off the hood on her head. Her first reaction was to look at Qi Jingyan, wanting to know if he had been woken up by her.
But the man seemed to be asleep, lying there motionless, even his chest was not rising or falling.
She stared at him for a while, and suddenly a thought popped into her mind: Could he be dead?
After all, he was seriously injured in prison, and it had only been about ten days.
He didn't die in the book, but he didn't hide in the mountains to recuperate in the book either. Now that the plot has changed, she really doesn't dare to believe the information in the book.
Thinking of this, Meng Yuning suddenly started to feel uneasy. She crawled closer to the bed, then stretched out a finger and struggled to reach under Qi Jingyan's nose to test his breathing.
Before she could figure it out, a slightly cold hand suddenly grabbed her fingers. Then the man opened his eyes, looked over, and said in a calm tone: "What?"
People scare people, scare people to death. Meng Yuning was shocked and trembled all over. She blurted out: "I have no ill intentions. I just want to see if you are still breathing."
Qi Jingyan: “…”
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