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“Suihe, go and invite that old gentleman over,” Wei Yunlan instructed.
Cheng Yue’e was sitting beside her, feeding Little Jiarong some sheep’s milk porridge. The ewe they had before was gone, so they had just bought a new one here in Suijiang.
Hearing Wei Yunlan’s words, her gaze instinctively followed in the same direction.
Over there stood an elderly man with disheveled hair, an unkempt beard, and clothes torn to rags. His face, covered in wrinkles, looked utterly unfamiliar. “Who is that?” she asked.
Only then did Wei Yunlan remember—back then, Big Sister-in-law had been burning with fever and barely lucid. The old man had arrived while she was fast asleep.
“He’s the physician who treated sister that day,” Wei Yunlan said.
Cheng Yue’e’s eyes widened in surprise. “What a coincidence! I didn’t expect we’d run into him again here.”
And wasn’t it just that—a coincidence?
From Zhuozhou to Suizhou—despite the similar names, the distance between them was far more than just two or three hundred kilometers.
And let’s not forget the massive Mount Yueheng range lying across the way. Who knew how this old physician managed to make it all the way to Suizhou…
As they spoke, Suihe had already brought the old man over.
On the way, the old man muttered nonstop, “You’d better really need something. Otherwise, you’ll just be wasting my time when I could be lining up for porridge…”
Halfway through his grumbling, he caught sight of Wei Yunlan and Cheng Yue’e standing beside the mule cart. His eyes widened in shock. “Huh? It’s you two?”
Wei Yunlan gave a faint smile and nodded. “Good to see you again, sir. I didn’t expect we’d cross paths here.”
“It hasn’t been that long,” the old man muttered under his breath.
Just then, his stomach growled loudly—so loud, in fact, it overpowered his muttering. His face flushed in embarrassment, and he quickly pressed a hand over his belly.
“Ningshuang, bring a bowl of porridge.”
Wei Yunlan’s expression didn’t change in the slightest. “Sir, we just finished cooking some porridge. There’s still some left—would you care for a bowl, if you don’t mind?”
“Not at all, not at all.” The old man quickly took the offered bowl, the rich aroma of rice porridge right under his nose making his hunger even harder to bear. Without hesitation, he gulped it down in big, noisy swallows.
This was proper porridge, thick with real grains of rice—not the watery gruel they handed out at the city gates.
With one bowl down, the gnawing emptiness in his belly finally began to ease.
Just as he was about to put the bowl down, another ladle of steaming porridge was poured in.
Too busy drinking to speak, the old man simply kept slurping, faster than before.
When the second bowl was empty, he finally felt warmth return to his limbs. He let out a long sigh of contentment and looked gratefully at Wei Yunlan and Cheng Yue’e. “Thank you, young miss, and madam.”
“A meal like this, at a time like this, is no less than life-saving. Sadly, I’ve nothing left of me—my medicine box and all my money were stolen. I’ve nothing to repay you with. Unless… would you accept the recipe for that wound ointment I once gave you?”
“There’s no need, sir—you’re too kind,” Wei Yunlan replied gently. The ointment truly was effective. She had used it herself for a scrape on her thigh during their travels, and it had worked wonders on the bruise on Wei Maolin’s neck as well—all thanks to the old man’s gift.
Still, Wei Yunlan wasn’t the kind of person who would exploit someone’s gratitude to take their secret formula. Besides, what she sought… wasn’t just a medicinal recipe.
“If I may ask, sir—what brings you to this place?”
“Sigh!” The old man sighed before he even began to speak. “I’ve really been dealt a terrible hand!”
Turns out, not long after the exile convoy left the village, a young man who worked as an escort guard returned home and sought out the old man. He said that over in Hanzhou, a wealthy merchant’s only son had fallen ill with a strange disease. The merchant had been offering hefty rewards, hiring doctors from all over the land—regardless of whether they could cure the boy.
As long as they had real skill, he would cover all travel expenses and offer an extra fifty taels of silver as a red envelope.
If someone could cure his son, he promised a thousand taels of silver and the deed to a three-entry courtyard house in the city of Hanzhou.
As he spoke, the old man’s hands trembled as he pulled out a thin slip of paper from his robes.
Wei Yunlan, Cheng Yue’e, and Madam Gao—who had just stepped down from the carriage—all looked shocked at once. “You cured the merchant’s son?”
How else would he have ended up with a property deed?
The old man nodded, but there wasn’t a trace of joy on his face. “Sigh… I should never have been so greedy.”
Why on earth had he gone to Hanzhou? Wouldn’t it have been better to just stay quietly in the village?
“Don’t even mention it. Just after I cured that merchant’s son and received the silver and the deed, disaster struck Hanzhou. The entire city collapsed!”
He held up the deed and gave it a shake. “That courtyard? Completely buried.”
“But at the time, I still had the silver. I thought I’d head back to Zhuozhou right away, but then—”
“Someone stole your thousand taels?” Little Jiayan blinked his big eyes. He still remembered the old man saying earlier that his medicine box and silver had been stolen.
“Not quite,” the old man replied with a pained look. “Worse than being robbed by refugees—”
“That same young man from my village who took me to Hanzhou? He stole it.”
As for the medicine box and the small change he had left, those were taken later by refugees as he fled east.
Now, with so many people gathered and listening, the old man’s words poured out like a dam broken.
“That young man’s father is the village chief, and his uncle works at the county office. Even if I went back to confront them, I wouldn’t get any justice. If I’d known things would turn out like this, I never would’ve gone to Hanzhou with him in the first place.”
“No, I should never have stayed in that village practicing medicine!” the old doctor huffed, clearly bitter.
From his tone, it was obvious he had no intention of returning to that village in Zhuozhou.
It might’ve been a bit opportunistic, but Wei Yunlan’s eyes lit up at his words.
She promptly extended an invitation. “If you don’t have any particular plans right now, why not travel with us?”
“We’ve got more than enough provisions, and you’ll be compensated separately. Once we reach our destination, you’re free to go if you wish.”
The old man’s eyes flickered with interest, though he still asked, “Where are you headed?”
“Beiguan,” Wei Yunlan replied honestly, though inwardly she was bracing herself for rejection.
It was autumn, and the north was already turning cold—few would willingly head toward the borderlands at this time of year, let alone that far north.
Just as she thought he was about to turn her down, she heard two crisp words beside her ear:
“Deal!”
…
Leaving the disaster zone, they resumed their journey north.
The new addition to their party was Doctor Yu. Though he had been a rural practitioner, his skills far surpassed those of some of the so-called renowned physicians Wei Yunlan had met in the capital.
Not long after setting out, Gui Xiang’s persistent dizziness, which had plagued her for days, was cured with a few deft pricks of his silver needles.
In just one day, Wei Maolin’s neck wounds faded noticeably, Jiayan’s chronic cough eased up considerably, and even around the temporary camp in the wilderness, the number of mosquitoes and pests dropped sharply!
The guards from Tianshu Pavilion escorting the Wei family north were stunned by what they saw.
They had now entered the wild forest at the junction of Sui, Chong, and Lian prefectures—a no-man’s land. The nearest charcoal kilns or mines were less than a hundred li away.
As night fell, Seventh Lady Yu quietly approached Wei Yunlan and spoke in a low voice, “This Doctor Yu… doesn’t seem like any ordinary barefoot village doctor. Should we investigate him?”
Wei Yunlan had actually considered that very thought but shook her head nonetheless. “Forget it. If you suspect someone, don’t use them. If you use them, don’t suspect them.”
Just as her words fell, a sudden beastly roar echoed from deep within the forest, breaking the stillness of the night.