Upon hearing the sound, the refugees realized that rows of armored soldiers were standing on the city wall, and they were all startled.
Remembering what the nobleman had said, the leader of the refugees mustered his courage and said, "We have come all the way south from the north. Please, sir, give us a way to survive."
"You're lying! You didn't come from the North at all." Lin Yinan's voice was cold, and her sharp gaze swept over the crowd.
The scene fell silent instantly, and everyone looked at the leader of the refugees.
What to do? They saw right through them.
They don't understand why they can't tell the truth.
After a long while, a violent coughing fit suddenly broke out in the group.
Lin Yinan's cold, emotionless voice rang out again from the city wall, "We have received news that a severe epidemic has broken out in Cangwu County, and more than half of the refugees outside the city have died. And you are from Cangwu County."
The refugees were shocked. They bypassed the city and took the most secluded mountain paths, afraid of being discovered.
The nobleman had said that if they entered the city, they might be captured by powerful families and made into their private slaves, and they did not want to become their private slaves.
The person who had been coughing violently suddenly lost consciousness, causing a commotion in the queue.
"Brother Pi, what do we do?"
All eyes were on the man in the lead, nicknamed Brother Pi.
Pi Ge threw down the stick in his hand, pushed through the crowd, knelt down, and kowtowed three times to Cheng Lin Yinan and the others, his forehead instantly swelling up.
He pleaded earnestly, "Please, esteemed officials, have mercy and save us!"
At this moment, another exclamation came from the crowd: someone had vomited blood!
The person next to him couldn't dodge in time and got sprayed all over their head and face.
Seeing that Lin Yinan on the city wall remained unmoved, Brother Pi continued to kowtow. Not only him, but the other refugees also knelt down and kowtowed to beg.
As a former general who protected the country, Yunye felt a pang of pity and silently looked away, his lowered eyes revealing endless sorrow and grief.
“They have contracted the disease. For the sake of the people in the city, we must not let them into the city,” Lin Yinan said, not because she was cold-hearted.
She remembered that there was an empty warehouse outside the city that had not yet been put into use. The warehouse was big enough to accommodate all of them.
"Should we send them away or find them another place?"
Yunye now has more concerns.
“Driving them away would only lead to their deaths. We have a newly built warehouse outside the city that can be used for isolation and treatment…”
Lin Yinan shared her thoughts.
"Alright, I'll talk to them." Yunye composed himself and turned to face the refugees below who were eagerly waiting.
"You now have two choices: one is to turn around and leave, and go back to where you came from. The other is to stay and be isolated for treatment. We can provide treatment and herbal medicine. Those of you with money can pay for it, and those of you without money can stay and work to pay it back slowly."
"What is isolation treatment?" a displaced person asked, puzzled.
Lin Yinan looked up at the people below, her gaze cold and clear. "If you are infected with the plague, we will lock you up and let doctors treat you. Your life or death is in our hands. Think it over carefully. We cannot guarantee your survival!"
The refugees looked toward their leader, Pige.
"Brother Pi, what do we do?"
Pi Ge glared fiercely at everyone, "Anyone who wants to leave, I won't stop them!"
The group looked at each other, speechless; they all wanted to live.
Everyone knows they've contracted the disease. For people like them, death is death anyway; their lives are as fragile as ants.
Although they are not guaranteed to survive here, at least they have someone to treat them, giving them a glimmer of hope!
An older woman, pulling a seven- or eight-year-old boy along, walked unsteadily to Brother Pi. Her body was extremely weak.
"Brother Pi, let's stay here. There are doctors here to treat us, and at least my child still has a chance to live."
Pige looked up and met the child's clear, lifeless eyes, like those of a dead fish, and his heart clenched painfully.
"Okay, we'll stay!"
"We are willing to stay, please, Lord City Lord, save us!"
The voices of hundreds of refugees echoed over Longtan, and the city's residents took to the streets, trying to look out through the tightly closed city gates.
Before long, a team of ten guards came out of the city. They were wrapped up tightly on their heads and bodies, and their faces were covered with a thick white gauze.
"Pack your belongings and come with us!"
The empty warehouse was about ten miles away from the city gate.
All the refugees were shocked when they saw the brand-new warehouse. They had initially thought they would be taken to a cave on the mountain to settle down, but they never expected it to be a newly built house.
The guards made the refugees line up in two queues.
Dr. Lin and Yun Wu, both bundled up tightly, emerged from the group and sat down at the tables and chairs brought by the guards, examining each of the refugees one by one.
Their current task is to separate patients with different symptoms, treat those with severe symptoms together, and place those without infection in the warehouse furthest away to observe their condition.
The woman was seriously infected, but her son was lucky not to have been infected.
The mother and son were about to be separated. It was the first time the child had ever been separated from his mother. He cried his heart out and was unwilling to leave her. Pi Ge hugged the child and kept comforting him.
"Be good, and Uncle Pi will hunt goats for you to eat next time."
Hearing that there was meat to eat, the child stopped struggling.
Lin Yinan, standing in the guard team, fell into deep thought upon hearing Pi Ge's words.
After initial diagnosis and treatment, the refugees were placed in different warehouses. The guards had already laid out soft, thick hay inside, and every so often there was a burning brazier to warm them up, which calmed the refugees' anxious hearts a little.
"Smell what it smells like?" Someone with a keen sense of smell was the first to detect the aroma of the food.
"It tastes like food."
"It's porridge," someone said.
He was from the north and this was the first time he had ever tasted the legendary white rice porridge in Cangwu County. However, the porridge tasted much better than the ones in Cangwu County.
Despite being exhausted, no one lay down to rest; instead, they all pressed their faces against the windows, watching the house from which the food floated out.
As the saying goes, "Heaven helps those who help themselves," and an hour later, everyone received a bowl of sweet and thick white rice porridge.
In an office at the farthest point of the warehouse, Lin Yinan was having a meeting with Dr. Lin and Yun Wu.
"Has it been found out what disease they contracted?" This was her biggest concern.
Dr. Lin frowned as he flipped through the booklet in his hand.
"Some patients presented with chills, fever, and swelling and pain in the head, face, and neck. A small number of patients had a dry and sore throat. I thought it was 'big head plague'."
Yun Wu's face was ashen. "Some of the patients I saw had red, swollen lumps like tumors that spread all over their bodies. Their condition was critical and extremely dangerous. This is called 'lump plague.' A few others had severe coughs, which seemed to be caused by hemoptysis plague."
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