Chapter 8 is actually better written than his!
After two days of rain, the sky cleared up.
In the early morning, the courtyard of Doctor Yu's house was filled with rosy clouds.
Xue Che sat on the bed and opened the window to see the rising sun and the newly born sunshine.
In order to help him recuperate, Village Chief Hao arranged for him to stay at Doctor Yu's house.
Xue Che knew almost everything about his illness.
Over the years, in order to take care of his health, the family not only invited imperial physicians from the palace, but also spent a lot of money to find many famous doctors from outside.
But all the good doctors who took his pulse shook their heads with regret.
They didn't say it explicitly, but their hesitant expressions made it clear that it couldn't be cured.
But when he woke up this morning, Doctor Yu told him clearly: "Your illness can be cured. As long as you cooperate, you can recover in two to three years."
Xue Che couldn't believe it at first.
After Doctor Yu explained the prescription and the method of recuperation, Xue Che felt a lump in his throat and bowed deeply to Doctor Yu:
"Doctor Yu, I will never forget your kindness. I will definitely repay you handsomely in the future."
Doctor Yu didn't care about this and handed him a bowl of black medicine:
"This medicine is to remove toxins from your body. Drink it twice a month and supplement it with acupuncture."
Xue Che swallowed the bitter medicine and heard Doctor Yu say:
"If you want to thank someone, thank Zhizhi. It was she who picked the thousand-year-old Ganoderma lucidum so that this medicine could be made."
After drinking the medicine, Xue Che thought back to what he had experienced during this period, and truly felt what it meant that fortune and misfortune go hand in hand.
It was a disaster for him to be captured by human traffickers, but it was a blessing for him to be rescued and brought to the mountains.
It was a disaster that he caught a fever after following Su Zhizhi in the rain, but it was a blessing that Su Zhizhi pulled out a Ganoderma lucidum in order to find an umbrella.
He thought of Su Zhizhi's bright eyes when she was holding the mushroom umbrella, and suddenly felt that he wanted to see her now.
At noon, Su Zhizhi came with a lunch box.
"Doctor Yu, A Che!"
She was full of energy, her hair was combed into two small flower buds, and her face was fair and rosy, so cute that people wanted to grab her.
Su Zhizhi was in a good mood, and the little flower bud on her head nodded lively.
She heard that Xue Che would not die, and that the mushrooms she picked could cure his illness.
Her parents said that since she had made great contributions in collecting herbs, they would not punish her this time, but she was not allowed to go out at night in the future.
"Doctor Yu, this is the fish soup my mother made." Su Zhizhi opened the lunch box and handed a bowl to Doctor Yu.
Then he brought another bowl to Xue Che.
"Ah Che, my mother made a huge pot of fish soup for everyone yesterday. The big fish has been eaten. Today's fish is smaller. My mother stewed it specially for you and Doctor Yu."
"I'm sorry to bother Aunt Ying." Xue Che felt guilty.
The villagers were all very kind to him, but he was sick and could do nothing for them.
He felt guilty, but that didn't stop Xue Che from drinking the fish soup.
The fish soup was very fresh, with ginger slices added to the base to dispel the cold and remove the fishy smell. It was also sprinkled with a layer of tender green onions.
Xue Che drank up all the soup and ate up all the fish in it.
He found that the fish in his bowl were all boneless parts, which must have been specially selected by Wu Yingniang.
Su Zhizhi went back with the empty soup bowl, but after a while, she ran back to Xue Che's room.
This time she didn't hold a lunch box in her hand, but a book box on her back and a sheep at the door.
Xue Che looked puzzled: "What else do you want to say?"
"I'll come to keep you company. It must be so boring for you to be sick alone." Su Zhizhi said as a matter of course.
She took out papers, copybooks, pens and ink from her bookcase...
"I'm practicing calligraphy here. I haven't finished writing the big characters my dad asked me to write yet."
The lamb at the door began to bleat.
Su Zhizhi actually took out a bundle of grass from under the bookcase and took it to the door to feed the lamb.
Xue Che: "You came here to practice calligraphy, why did you bring a sheep?"
Su Zhizhi put the grass in her hand on the ground and let the lamb eat it by itself:
"Because its leg was broken, I have to take care of it until it recovers."
Xue Che saw a board tied to the lamb's hind legs.
He realized that this was the sheep whose legs were broken by Wu Laosan and whose buttocks were burned by Su Zhizhi.
Xue Che thought of something: "Zhizhi, can I borrow your paper and pen?"
Su Zhizhi's eyes lit up with a small flame: "Do you want to write big characters for me?"
Xue Che: “…No.”
Village Chief Hao said yesterday that the people who were delivering letters to Chang'an and the Northwest would leave in the next two days, and asked Xue Che if he wanted to write a letter home.
Xue Che felt that it would be safer to write a letter by hand, as his father would recognize his handwriting.
"Here, write the letter first."
Su Zhizhi handed the paper and pen to the bed, but Xue Che insisted on getting out of bed and writing at the table.
Xue Che's body was not fully recovered yet, so he couldn't go out in the wind, but fortunately he could stay indoors.
The table in Doctor Yu's house was a little high for a child, so Xue Che wrote while standing.
He dipped the pen tip in ink and wrote a few words on the rough yellow paper:
My dear father:
My son was murdered by a traitor and ended up in exile in Xunzhou. Fortunately, he was rescued by a kind citizen and is now safe.
After writing, fold the paper.
"You've finished writing it already?" Now it was Su Zhizhi's turn to be surprised.
She thought Xue Che would have to write several pages, but he ended up writing only a few words.
Xue Che: "My correspondence with my father has always been brief."
Xue Yucheng lived away from home for many years and would send letters back home during the holidays.
But the content of the letter was only one or two lines, nothing more than:
[I hope my father is well. How is my son?]
Xue Che's reply was also simple:
【My son is doing well, don't worry. 】
Su Zhizhi stuffed the pen back into Xue Che's hand: "No, no, it's not true enough if you write this little. If your father receives the letter, he might think we forced you to write it!"
Xue Che looked at Su Zhizhi: "How can I write it to be true?"
"You want to write about how you were kidnapped by Wu Laosan, how I saved you, and how you drank the snake meat soup and fish soup my mother cooked..."
Su Zhizhi kept counting with her little mouth, as if she had endless things to say.
Xue Che: "Write these trivial matters in a letter?"
Su Zhizhi: "Aren't family letters just for trivial matters?"
Xue Che dipped the brush in ink and continued writing the previous line.
It was not because he was persuaded by Su Zhizhi, but because he felt that if he did not write a few more lines, Su Zhizhi would not let him put down his pen today.
Xue Che recalled recent events and wrote in detail about how he was kidnapped in the Mingguo Mansion. He skipped the hardships he and Wu Laosan had suffered on the road, and then wrote in detail about his experience in the Black Bandit Mountain.
He wrote that the village chief of Liangmin Village had an outstanding temperament, that Aunt Ying was an excellent cook, and that the giant eagles on the mountain would fight.
He also wrote about how Su Zhizhi took him fishing and caught a fish taller than him; how Su Zhizhi found an umbrella for him and brought him the life-saving Ganoderma lucidum...
Before he knew it, Xue Che stopped writing and realized that he had finished three pages.
Su Zhizhi pretended to be an adult and said, "This child is teachable."
Xue Che dried the ink on the letter, folded it carefully, and turned to look at Su Zhizhi:
"It's your turn to practice writing big characters."
Su Zhizhi: …
Su Zhizhi reluctantly picked up the pen and began to practice calligraphy.
Xue Che looked at Su Zhizhi's expression and couldn't suppress a smile.
But soon, he couldn't laugh anymore.
Xue Che noticed that although Su Zhizhi looked unhappy, she held the pen very straight and wrote very steadily, with the horizontal strokes being light and the vertical strokes being heavy.
The end of the hanging needle vertical stroke is sharp, without any sense of dragging.
Xue Che was taught by famous masters in Beijing since he was young, and his handwriting is considered to be very good among his peers.
But now he saw that Su Zhizhi's handwriting was more beautiful than his!
This discovery shocked Xue Che deeply, even more than the village meeting he had seen two days ago.
Even though Dayu encouraged girls to study, most of the time only the daughters of wealthy families had the opportunity. Only a few daughters of ordinary people could read and write, let alone in this remote mountain area.
Su Zhizhi who grew up in the mountains, Su Zhizhi who sneaked out to catch fish in the middle of the night, Su Zhizhi who played with fire and burned a sheep's butt... She actually wrote better than him!!!
Xue Che's hands were shaking a little.
He suppressed his emotions and continued to watch Su Zhizhi write. As he watched, his expression changed again.
He pointed at the word "True" that Su Zhizhi had just written, and his voice was shaking:
"Zhizhi, why do you write in Master Zhang's style?"
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