The ground was covered with a thick white frost. From time to time, a few yellow leaves would float down from the tree, which gave the impression that winter had finally arrived.
After her morning exercises, Yuxi would read her medical books in the study. The study was twice bigger than the one in the Rose Courtyard, and even now, in the eleventh lunar month, the light was still particularly good. She did not just sit in the study either but stood directly at the window.
After breakfast, Yuxi took her maids to the Main Courtyard. Today was the first day of the month, a day to pay respects to the Old Lady and Wu Shi.
When Yuxi arrived, Yuchen was already there. Yuxi walked up and gave a courtesy, "Good day, Grandmother."
The Old Lady's attitude towards Yuxi was now much kinder than before. She waved her hand for Yuxi to sit down and inquired, "The weather has cooled down recently, so have all the charcoals on your side been burnt?"
Yuxi answered with a smile, "The charcoal fire has already burned, and the floor dragon will burn later since it is not so cold now." Charcoal had not been burnt in Yuxi's bedroom yet, only her study did.
The jacket worn by the model is called a short close-fitting jacket or xiao ao.
Image Credit | 旗袍公馆 (身高不足160的女生，冬天建议“中式小袄+半裙”，美得惊艳时光！, Dec 13)
Image Credit | 旗袍公馆 (身高不足160的女生，冬天建议“中式小袄+半裙”，美得惊艳时光！, Dec 13)
The Old Lady never worried that there would be a shortage of things for Yuxi. In the past, Qiu Shi's stewardess would make sure Yuxi would not be lacking anything. Now, Yuxi herself will help Qiu Shi's with managing the household. Those old women servants and the stewardess mama would obey her and only give her the best. How would they dare to deduct anything from her? "Your clothes are too thin. Wear two more when you go out, or you will easily catch a cold."
Yuxi smiled as a reply.
When Yuxi and Yuchen came out of the courtyard, they went to the Biteng courtyard together. On the way, Yuchen asked, "Si Mei, how is the progress of your flute learning?" After their last conversation, the two of them had not spoken for several days. Eh, to be precise, they hadn't really gotten in touch with each other.
Yuxi smilingly replied, "I can already play several pieces, and Zisu says I'm playing quite well now." The maids did not know music theory, but it was still easy for them to tell if the sound was good or not. When Zisu and the few maids around her all said it sounded good, Yuxi would learn the next song.[+]
Yuchen still wanted Yuxi to learn the guzheng.
Yuxi shook her head and said, "I can't learn it, I don't have the time." She didn't have enough time every day now. She had to stay up at night if she had to learn the guzheng.
Yuchen frowned as she said, "Yuxi, don't spend too much time on the history books when you are free." History books and even military books could be read, but they were said to be light readings, instead of spending so much time studying them like Yuxi.
Yuxi smiled and answered, "I'm not reading history books, I'm reading medical books. Other times, I just embroider or learn cooking from the cook."
Yuchen couldn't say anything else at this point.
When they arrived at the Biteng courtyard, the maids inside treated them with respect. Even Wu Shi's personal maids did not dare to treat them with disrespect.
Wu Shi was lying in bed and began to cough when she saw the two of them. Old Woman Chen brought in a bowl of something dark from outside and handed it to Wu Shi.
Yuxi was fine since she often worked with herbs and would occasionally boil her own medicine. But Yuchen was frowning. It was clear that the smell of the medicine was making her uncomfortable.
Wu Shi stopped coughing after she finished drinking it and laid down again. She spoke to the two of them, "The weather is turning cold, so you should also take care not to catch a cold."
Yuxi replied with a smile, "Thank you for your concern Mother, but San Jie and I have always been in good health. We will not fall ill that easily."
After hearing this, Wu Shi started coughing once more, which made the people standing next to her feel uncomfortable.
Old Woman Chen walked up and patted Wu Shi's back. Then she looked at Yuxi who didn't look even the least bit worried and let out a faint sigh. Her Lady was even sick, and the Fourth Miss hadn't even forgotten to jab at her. This was really too much. It was just that there was no place for her to speak here either.
One must not say too much, or one would suffer. In this case, Yuxi was a little sick that night because she had told Wu Shi that she would not get sick. The next morning she woke up to find herself with a fever, and not only that, but her body was also aching and weak. Her nose was stuffy and she had trouble breathing. Her voice was even hoarse when she spoke.
Yuxi said, "I will write out a prescription, later have someone prepare and boil it. Everyone in the courtyard will drink a bowl, as a precaution."
Zisu didn't hesitate because Yuxi had fed them such a prescription before, so she had nothing to fear. Then she told the people to take the prescription to be prepared. Afterwards, she went to the kitchen and instructed, "Once the medicine has been prepared, boil them. Make sure everyone in the yard drinks it."
After a while, a little maid came over and said a few words to Zisu. Zisu's face didn't look very good. She went into the room and informed Yuxi, "I just got the news. Third Miss is also sick. Her symptoms are the same as Miss."
Yuxi let out her surprise, "It's my fault for implicating San Jie into this." At that time, she should not have dragged Yuchen in by saying that Yuchen couldn't easily get sick. Thinking of this, Yuxi felt a little guilty.
Zisu said, "What do you mean by ‘implicating’"? I think it's 100% because the Lady has passed on her sickness to you." Yesterday, her Miss was fine, but she got sick after a trip to the Biteng courtyard. Nine times out of ten, her Miss had been infected by Wu Shi.
A certain momo was also thinking the same thing as Zisu. When Momo Gui heard Yuxi was ill, she said, "Miss, I'm afraid when Miss went to visit the Lady yesterday, she had passed her illness to both of you." Momo Gui was also very clear with the condition of Yuxi’s body, which was much better than Yuchen's. Even Yuxi had been infected, which showed the lethality of the disease.
Yuchen thought that it was very possible. "When will the physician come?" If the physician came early, she would suffer less.
Yuxi waited for a long time for the physician to arrive, so she couldn't help but mutter, "Why is the physician so slow in coming today?" Normally, the physician would arrive in less than a shichen. It was almost noon and the physician hadn't come yet. If the physician didn't come, she wanted to write her own prescription since she was getting very uncomfortable.
Zisu said, "The Imperial Physician has already come and is currently seeing the Third Miss at Tingyun Pavilion. He will be here later." Fearing that Yuxi was feeling uncomfortable in her heart, Zisu added, "The Imperial Physician's medical skills are better than Physician Bai's, so we can wait a little longer."
Yuxi really didn't have the strength to spit out. Who said that the Imperial Physician’s medical skills were necessarily better than those of the folk physicians? There were folk physicians who were more skilled than Imperial Physicians, but these people didn't like to be restricted, so they didn't want to go to the Imperial Medicine Academy.[+]
By lunchtime, the physician had not yet come. Yuxi could not bear it any longer that she ordered Bingmei, "Go and see what is going on?"
Bingmei soon returned and reported, "After the Imperial Physician finished seeing the Third Miss, he was originally going to come over here. But Old Woman Chen went to Tingyun Pavilion to invite the Imperial Physician to Biteng Courtyard."
When Yuxi heard this, she didn't even know how to spit it out, "How dare she grab the Imperial Physician from me? It's really......" For Wu Shi to actually grab the Imperial Physician from her, she really wasn't afraid of losing her face.
Zisu was a bit annoyed, "The Third Lady already saw a physician yesterday and he also had prescribed medicine for her. Even if she wanted the Imperial Physician to see her, she should have waited until after he had checked up on Miss. What's up with that?"
Yuxi laughed lightly, "Maybe Mother is so uncomfortable that she doesn't want to wait any longer. Well, I also feel very uncomfortable and don't want to wait either. I will say the prescription out loud and you will write it down."
Zisu looked at Yuxi in horror and argued, "Miss, this is absolutely impossible."
No matter what Yuxi said, Zisu was still unwilling, and Yuxi herself was too weak to move her hands, so she could only wait for the physician to come.
It was not until the end of wushi that the Imperial Physician eventually came over. As soon as he walked into the Taoran House, the Imperial Physician could smell some medicine and question with an unpleasant expression on his face, "If you have already hired a physician, why do you want me to come here again?"
Bingmei, who was leading the way, answered while feeling puzzled, "Imperial Physician Zhang, our Miss has all along been waiting for you. She hasn't requested another physician!"
Hearing this, Imperial Physician Zhang looked even more wrong as he asked, "If no other physician has been invited, why is there the smell of medicine in the courtyard?"
Bingmei smiled when she heard this, "This medicine is for us to drink. It's to prevent us from getting infected too." After she said this, Bingmei hurriedly explained some more, "This prescription was prescribed by my Miss. She used to learn about medicine from a momo. So today, as soon as she fell ill, she had someone prepared the medicine and boiled it for us to drink."
Imperial Physician Zhang's look was getting even worse. How could one drink this medicine casually? "You people let her fool around. What if someone died after drinking it?"
Bingmei replied with a smile, "We did ask the physician at the herbal medicine shop and the physician there said the prescription was fine before we prepared it." Zisu was also afraid that there was something wrong with the prescription prescribed by Yuxi that she would ask the physician to look at it first before preparing it in case something went wrong.
It was only then that Imperial Physician Zhang did not speak anymore. When he entered the room, he looked at Yuxi's delicate face as she laid on the bed, his heart became heavy again. If not for what Bingmei had said back then, he would have lectured Yuxi.
Yuxi looked at the Imperial Physician’s stern face. She next looked bafflingly at Zisu and Bingmei. Seeing Bingmei shake her head towards her with a bitter face, Yuxi also had the sense not to say much.
As Imperial Doctor Zhang got up, he looked at Yuxi and asked, "After reading a few medical books, you think you already know the art of medicine, so you can write prescriptions randomly? Do you know that this can get people killed?"
Now Yuxi knew why Imperial Physician Zhang had shown a straight face at her as if she owed him a debt. She did not argue with him, as this would leave a very bad impression. She just weakly said, "This prescription was left behind by my Momo and it has been used before. If the Imperial Physician feels that it is not good, then Imperial Physician, please have a look at it." Chinese medicine had this advantage, even if it didn't cure a disease, it wouldn't kill anyone just by eating it. Of course, if poisonous herbs had been used then that would be a different story.
After reading the prescription, he looked at Yuxi with some complicated eyes. He put down the prescription, nodded gently and said, "There is no problem with this prescription." After saying that, he walked out and wrote the prescription for Yuxi outside.
What Yuxi didn't expect was that her Eldest Aunt had also fallen sick, with the same illness as Yuxi's. Yuxi said depressingly, "I told my Eldest Aunt not to come near me, but she still got infected by it." The good thing was that this was just an ordinary fever and would be cured with a few medicines. Like her now, she felt much lighter after taking the medicine and would be cured in a few days, so she was not worried.
If it was in modern times, everyone would know that this condition was influenza. Yuxi did not know that it was influenza, but she had instructed all old women servants and maids at Taoran House to drink a bowl of medicinal soup every morning and evening. Of course, the effect was remarkable, as all the other courtyards had people who were sick at one time or another, but everyone in Taoran House was fine except for Yuxi.
Ps (Author): I remember back in August when I was so happy saying how good it was that I hadn't had a cold for a year. As a result, I got a cold the next day. o(╯□╰)o
Noob Translator's Musing
I finally understand what dilong/earth dragon/ground dragon really meant. They were long, block of woods that were heated and then put under wooden beds. I read it in a pdf file here.
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The Rebirth of Han Yuxi