After finishing her meal, Song Zhuiyan gave two sickles to Zhuyu and Liumei, saying, "These next few days, I'll have Tantan take you to cut pig feed. If you cut a lot, I can exchange it with you for grain; if you cut too little, you won't get anything."
"How much is too much?" Zhuyu asked expectantly.
“A basket of pig feed can be exchanged for an ounce or two of rice,” Song Zhuiyan replied.
That's it?
"What kind of expression is that? Are you going to do it or not?" Song Zhuiyan saw the reluctance on their faces and sneered.
"Go ahead, we'll definitely work hard." Liu Mei tugged at Zhu Yu, telling her to keep quiet so as not to upset Ruo Song Zhuiyan.
Cutting pig feed was a relatively easy job, but Zhuyu and Liumei hadn't done any hard work for many years. Although they were sold to a brothel, they were still children from poor families and had to help with chores since they were old enough to understand. However, it had been so long that they couldn't remember anymore.
The two women were beautiful from a young age. After being sold to a brothel, they were not mistreated by the madam. Instead, they were carefully cared for. Apart from the hardships they endured during their escape, they had not suffered any other hardships over the years.
As a result, they are still clumsy when working, especially Zhu Yu, who cut her hand before she could even cut a couple of pig feeds with the sickle.
"Ah, my hand is bleeding, what should I do?" Zhu Yu screamed and cried with tears streaming down her face.
"Shut up, you're so noisy." Ye Moxun's beautiful peach blossom eyes flashed with impatience, her voice cold and indifferent.
Zhu Yu was stunned for a moment, but soon started sobbing again, looking so pitiful. Unfortunately, there was no man here who knew how to cherish a beautiful woman. The only boy, Ye Moxun, glared at her with eyes as cold as ice.
"Don't cry, it's just a small wound, why are you crying like this?" Song Tantan's eyebrows furrowed into two little worms. She then searched around in the surrounding grass and quickly found some herbs that could stop bleeding. She picked them, crushed them with a stone, applied them to the wound, and then bandaged it with a strip of cloth.
The whole process took only fifteen minutes. After Song Tantan treated Zhuyu's wound, she said, "Can you still cut pig feed? If you can't, go and collect firewood. If you don't want to do anything, go home."
"Can we really go home?" Zhu Yu shielded her forehead with her uninjured hand. The scorching sun made her dizzy and lightheaded. She didn't want to stay here at all.
"Whatever." Song Tantan didn't want to talk to her and pulled Ye Mo to find another place to cut pig feed. In addition to cutting pig feed, they also had other tasks every day, such as collecting and identifying medicinal herbs.
There was no other way; Songlin Village didn't even have a doctor. After thinking it over, they could only rely on themselves. Song Tantan had many books in her space, including quite a few on medicine, such as "Compendium of Materia Medica," "Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica," and "Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases." She couldn't concentrate on reading them herself, but Ye Moxun had a photographic memory. After reading them, Ye Moxun memorized them. They went out together to find herbs to identify.
Once they've identified all the herbs, they'll start making their own medicines, mainly traditional Chinese medicine, and then see if they can make pills or something similar.
If it weren't for her aunt asking her to bring these two to cut pig feed, she wouldn't have brought any unrelated people to disturb her and Ah Xun's medicine-making plans. Especially that girl named Zhuyu, she's really too spoiled. Even in this situation, she still can't see reality and is always thinking about shirking her duties. It seems she didn't suffer enough during her escape.
Zhu Yu wanted to go home to rest, but Liu Mei stopped her and made her go gather firewood. "Do you still want to stay? Others may not know, but I know you too! You clearly cut your hand on purpose just now. You just don't want to work. Don't try to be clever. The people of Songlin Village have all struggled to survive in piles of corpses. In their eyes, food is the most important thing."
This isn't the capital, nor is it a brothel. We've tried it before; those burly men might have the desire, but they didn't have the guts to actually sleep with us. Why? It wasn't that they were afraid of anyone; it was because they were worried about food. They couldn't even feed themselves, so how could they bear to give us food?
After yesterday's events, Liu Mei has come to terms with reality. If they want to sell themselves, other people's families need to have enough to eat. Nowadays, everyone is struggling to make ends meet. She and Zhu Yu have virtually no chance of earning a living by selling their looks, except by relying on their own hands.
The women in the village had been watching them closely for a long time. If they made the slightest move, they would probably be tied up and thrown into the deep mountains to be eaten by wolves. For the sake of their lives, it was better to behave themselves.
Zhu Yu's face flushed red. She had been harboring some unrealistic fantasies, but after Liu Mei's rebuke, all those thoughts vanished. Yet, she was still unwilling to give up.
But what could he do, no matter how unwilling he was? He could only stomp his feet in resentment, and in the end, he still had to obediently go and gather firewood.
“This is dandelion, plantain, hyssop, burdock seed… so many kinds! I recognize some of them before, and I’ve seen many of them in the village before, but I didn’t recognize them. I never knew they had these effects.” Song Tantan’s voice rang out from time to time in the quiet mountain forest.
"There are too many herbs; the two of us can't handle it alone. We should find more people to help," Ye Moxun said softly, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
Song Tantan agreed. She wasn't cut out for medicine either. Although Ye Moxun was talented, he clearly wasn't interested in being a doctor. "Let's call over Azhu, Jixiang, Chunsheng, and the others to see who has talent. Then we can select a few to study medicine. Maybe we can train a few miracle doctors."
Seeing her so confident, Ye Moxun couldn't bear to discourage her, but he still couldn't help but pour cold water on her enthusiasm, "We're only half-baked ourselves. We should be content if we can cure a cold or flu. You call yourself a miracle doctor?"
"Don't say discouraging things. I've always thought you're not only narcissistic but also extremely confident. We have medical books. As long as we put our hearts into it, we can definitely become a divine doctor. Medical standards in ancient times were so poor. With the support of our predecessors' achievements, we are many times better than others just in terms of medicine preparation. Even if your medical skills are average, you can definitely be considered a divine doctor in this era."
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