Chapter 66 No more medicine
The ancestral hall of Shitou Village.
Village chief Zhao piled up all the herbs he could find and asked the old doctor to examine them.
Unfortunately, after excluding those that are unusable or have grown rotten, what is left is only enough to cook a pot of medicinal soup.
This amount is barely enough to pour across a small path.
But last night the old doctor said in person that the entire village must be disinfected at least three times a day, and every household and every corner must be disinfected.
Nowadays, even basic disinfection cannot be guaranteed, not to mention the large amount of medicinal materials for prevention and treatment of epidemics. There is nothing we need.
Village Chief Zhao looked at the old doctor and was fully aware of the desperate situation ahead.
But the villagers were finally calmed down, and Village Chief Zhao didn't know whether he should tell everyone about this.
If we don't tell them, how long can the Stone Village, which has no medicine, last?
Half a day? A day?
Village Chief Zhao's face seemed to have aged several years in an instant.
The old doctor sensed his emotions and consoled him, "The runners outside the village have already gone back to pass on the message."
"Let's wait a little longer. The medicinal materials prepared by the government will be delivered."
Village Chief Zhao said worriedly, "No matter how fast the government moves, I'm afraid it will be tomorrow."
"How are we going to deal with it today?"
While the old doctor was talking to Village Chief Zhao, Gu Xixi paced and looked around the interior of the ancestral hall.
This is a large house with two rooms connected to each other, which will be used as a temporary isolation center to accommodate a large number of patients in the future.
Except for the incense table, all other furnishings were moved away and soft hay was laid on the ground.
The haystack is the bed.
Gu Xixi counted them and there were forty of them. It could be seen that Village Chief Zhao and others had tried their best to prepare them.
She walked to the west wall and suddenly sniffed hard.
Then he stretched out his finger and scraped the wall, then moved closer to smell it.
"Village Chief Zhao," Gu Xixi said with great excitement, "What did you use to paint the walls?"
Village Chief Zhao was obviously in no mood to answer such an irrelevant question, "Oh, gray powder."
Gu Xixi continued to ask, "Is it made by breaking up a specific kind of stone and calcining it?"
Village Chief Zhao finally moved and raised his head. "This is a craft passed down from our village. How come the girl knows about it?"
According to him, about a hundred years ago, our ancestors discovered that there was a kind of stone that could be seen everywhere in this place.
It was accidentally broken into pieces and calcined, and it was discovered that when mixed with mud, the houses built with this thing were more solid.
They named this substance "gray powder". Later, because of its white and gray color and fine texture after being added with water and matured, it was used to paint walls with great effect.
This is how the inner walls of the ancestral hall came about.
Village Chief Zhao sighed, "As Village Chief Qian said, Miss Gu has extraordinary knowledge at such a young age. It's a pity..."
It’s a pity that he was implicated by Stone Village and might die young.
Village chief Zhao sincerely regretted that he died a worthy death for Shitou Village, but he caused his two benefactors to suffer innocently.
He felt guilty and didn't dare to look after Xixi and the old doctor.
Gu Xixi asked again, "Can this gray powder still be made now?"
Village Chief Zhao nodded and said, "We can use local materials, but we need more strong laborers."
"That's great!" Gu Xixi clapped her hands and laughed.
Village Chief Zhao looked at her in surprise. What good thing could there be at this time? How could she still laugh?
Gu Xixi said, "Please bring some people to make ash powder. The more the better."
"The ash powder made can replace the medicinal soup used last night and be evenly spread throughout the village."
The old doctor has already reacted.
"Girl, do you think this thing can be used as a substitute for medicinal herbs to kill the plague?"
Gu Xixi nodded, "Not only the plague, but also other diseases. However, because it is very potent, it cannot be used directly on humans."
Village Chief Zhao ran out and said, "I'll go find someone to burn the ash powder!"
Although he didn't understand why gray powder could be used in this way.
But he believed in Gu Xixi and the old doctor unconditionally.
Next I have to go to the hospital where I stayed last night for treatment.
The old doctor had made a new discovery, and he was still full of emotion as he walked, "The things used to paint walls and build houses cannot be eaten by humans, but they can remove toxins and eliminate filth. They can be used as a substitute for medicine, but they are not medicine."
"In all these years in Stone Village, I have never found such a rare item!"
As soon as the gatekeeper saw Gu Xixi and the old doctor, he let them in.
The patient had taken the medicine early in the morning.
Gu Xixi listened to his coughing through the window. She didn't know if it was a psychological effect, but it seemed to be lighter.
The old doctor still went in by himself.
Gu Xixi had no choice but to stay outside and chat casually with the sister-in-law of the family.
I was too busy to ask last night, but now I know that his family is from the same clan as the village chief, and they both have the surname Zhao.
Because the head of the household is the fourth child in the family, villagers always refer to his family as "Zhao Si's family."
After waiting for a long time, the old doctor finally came out, but he looked more relaxed than last night.
The sister-in-law prepared some clean water in advance for the old doctor to wash his hands.
Gu Xixi held the hot medicine and fumigate the old doctor from head to toe before stopping.
The eldest sister-in-law asked worriedly, "I went to deliver medicine this morning, why hasn't my second brother's fever subsided yet?"
The old doctor said, "He just told me that he had a bowl of porridge early in the morning. This is a good sign."
"The course of plague is dangerous and extremely detrimental to the patient, so medication cannot simply be used for quick results."
"I see that his pulse has not worsened, which means the medicine is suitable."
The eldest sister-in-law didn't quite understand and asked, "When will he get better?"
"You are a miracle doctor, you can definitely cure him, right?"
The guard outside the door said that if they got the plague they would die, and avoiding their family was like avoiding a beast.
The whole family has been living in fear from last night till today, and they have no appetite for their meals.
The old doctor became their only lifeline.
So the eldest sister-in-law wanted to ask the old doctor a question, even if it was just empty words to comfort them, it would at least make people feel more at ease.
But the old man never lied, "Drink two more bowls of medicine today. If the fever can go down before dawn, there is hope."
In Huachidu Village, the teacher was away, so the school was temporarily converted into a nursery.
Aunt Zhang and Aunt Qin look after children for the entire village.
Mu Nanzhao hurried home so he wouldn't have to face Aunt Zhang's questioning.
He went to Gu Xixi's room and took out a small piece of oilcloth, a palm-sized wooden basin with a round hole at the bottom, and the third small bottle of powder from the left on the table.
Gu Xixi told him all these things at the entrance of the village, asking him to go home and marry her.
Mu Nanzhao gritted his teeth while looking for something.
The woman did not want any change of clothes (she was told she could borrow others') nor did she want any food.
Why do you insist on letting him take these things that don't seem to have any use!
Mu Nanzhao still gathered the few things together and carefully put them into the bag.
Before leaving, he suddenly thought, could it be that Gu Xixi would fall in love with some old trees and grass at this juncture?
If this is true...
Veins bulged on Mu Nanzhao's forehead.
As I was almost at the intersection, a beautiful figure ran over and blocked my way with her arms outstretched.
"Brother Chen, don't go!"
Gu Qingye looked at Mu Nanzhao earnestly, "I know where Sister Xixi went."
"There are already dead people in that place, and it's guarded by the government. If you go in, there's no way back!"
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