The fake daughter married into the mountains and had meat to eat every day during the famine

Fang Miao supported Xu Guixi and invited Xu Qingye and Song Yuntang into the yard.

It was already dark and there was no light at home, so Song Yuntang asked Xu Qingye to go home and get an oil lamp.

He examined Xu Guixi's legs by the light of the oil lamp.

His whole body was very thin, but his legs were swollen and red.

"After Brother Guixi broke his leg, did the doctor reconnect your tendons?" she asked.

Xu Guixi shook his head. "I don't know. It was so painful at the time. When the doctor was treating my leg, I didn't even have time to look at it."

"Will it hurt?" Song Yuntang asked again.

Xu Guixi nodded and said, "Yes, sometimes there is swelling and numbness, as if I have no feeling and can't use any strength."

Song Yuntang understood in his heart.

"From what I can see now, there should be fluid accumulation in your knee. The previous doctor didn't properly reconnect your leg tendons when he treated your leg. Coupled with long-term malnutrition, the wound on your leg hasn't healed properly, which led to the infection."

"What should we do then?" Fang Miao asked.

Song Yuntang looked at the two of them and said, "We need to open the injured area, find the broken tendons and suture them together, and then clean the fluid in the knee area. We also need to use Chinese medicine to prevent further infection of the wound. If we want his injury to heal faster, he also needs to improve his diet."

Fang Miao looked embarrassed.

Xu Guixi is an orphan who grew up in Lushan Village eating at hundreds of families' homes. He has no relatives to rely on in the village.

She did have a mother's family, and when her family was in financial difficulty, she had borrowed a few taels of silver from them over the years. However, her mother's family was not doing well now, and they had not yet repaid the money they had borrowed before, so she couldn't bring herself to ask her parents for more money.

Nowadays, food prices are high. She can’t even get enough to eat without treatment. If she needs to eat more, she really doesn’t know what to do.

Fang Miao knelt down towards Song Yuntang.

"I heard that you have servants. If you can heal my husband's leg, I am willing to sign a contract with you and serve you as a slave for the rest of my life."

Seeing that his wife was willing to do this for him, Xu Guixi felt guilty and touched, and his eyes were red.

"Wife, why are you doing this? If it's really difficult, I'd rather not have my leg cured."

Fang Miao cried and shook her head.

"Your leg must be healed. You are the pillar of the family. Without you, Xiaohua and I will have a hard time."

Life has been so difficult these past two years with a child.

Song Yuntang sighed in his heart and went forward to help her up.

"I have a few stone of grain left on the farm. If your family needs food, you can go there to buy some. I will ask them to sell it to you at the price before the price increase. As for the medicine money, I will pay it for you first. When Brother Guixi's leg is healed, you can come to my place to work and pay back the medicine money. As for selling your body contract, forget it. We are from the same village, there is no need for this."

Fang Miao took two steps back, knelt down again, and kowtowed three times to Song Yuntang.

"Thank you, sister. If it weren't for you, I don't know what I would do. When my husband can go out to work, I will go to work to pay back the money. From now on, I will let you do whatever you want."

Song Yuntang helped her up again.

"Before I treat Brother Guixi's leg injury, I still need to prepare some medicinal herbs in advance. It may not be until tomorrow morning. Sister Su Miao, please go to my house and get some rice to cook. The child is still hungry."

Su Miao simply gave all five Codonopsis pilosula to Song Yuntang.

"I don't know much about medicinal herbs, and I'm too lazy to take the other two Codonopsis pilosula to town to sell them. Can I just exchange them for some food from you?"

Song Yuntang nodded.

"Okay, you can first take two liters of rice from my house to cover today and tomorrow. Based on the current price of one liang and two qian of silver for five codonopsis roots, two codonopsis roots can be sold for about 480 wen. Before the price increase, brown rice was 80 wen a dou, so 480 wen can be exchanged for exactly six dou. Wencheng wants to borrow my mule cart to go to the county town to sell lotus roots tomorrow. I asked him to bring back six dou of brown rice from the farm on his return, but he might be late."

Six dou of rice weighs seventy-five jin.

It’s enough for a family of three to cope with for a while.

"It's okay if it's late." Fang Miao said embarrassedly, "It's just those two liters of rice..."

"Those two liters of rice, just consider them as a gift from me to you," said Song Yuntang.

Fang Miao thought for a moment and said, "Then I'll go to the mountains again tomorrow afternoon. If I find more herbs, I'll pay my sister back for the two liters of rice."

Seeing Fang Miao's insistence, Song Yuntang did not object.

After saying okay, he took Fang Miao home and scooped two liters of rice for her.

……

Xu Qingye didn't read tonight.

He lay beside Song Yuntang, looking at the girl beside him in the moonlight.

"You really won't go to the county town with me tomorrow?"

Song Yuntang shook his head. "You go first tomorrow. I'll be here a few days later. Madam Zhu said that there are a few ladies over there who want to invest money for me to open a clinic in the county. I'm hesitating whether to agree or not."

"What are you worried about?" Xu Qingye asked calmly.

"There are too many people involved, and my freedom will be restricted." Song Yuntang looked at him, "I don't want to be restricted too much."

Xu Qingye looked at her and asked, "Do you have enough money to open a clinic?"

"It should be enough."

"If someone else prescribes the medicine for you, you must share the profits. It's okay if there are many doctors in the clinic, but if you are the only one, you will be tired, have no freedom, and earn less. But if you open the clinic yourself, you must be able to bear risks. You have to take all these into consideration." Xu Qingye analyzed for her.

Song Yuntang lay on his side facing him.

"This problem has troubled me for a long time. Now that you have sorted it out for me, I don't think I'm so entangled anymore."

Xu Qingye curled his lips.

"Have you figured out what to do?"

Song Yuntang nodded, his face brimming with confidence. "I've figured it out. When we get to the county, I'll reject the good intentions of those ladies first. But I can persuade them to do other business. I'll open my own clinic. With those ladies backing me up, at least in the county, no one will dare to cause trouble."

"clever."

Xu Qingye also turned sideways to face her, his deep eyes were particularly clear under the moonlight.

"I'm leaving tomorrow. When I'm not around, take good care of yourself and be careful when you go out. Before you go to the county town, don't let Wencheng and the others go far away."

Song Yuntang nodded, "Okay."

Thinking that he was leaving tomorrow, she suddenly felt a little reluctant.

Gather up the courage to snuggle into his arms.

"Xu Qingye." Her voice was muffled.

"Yeah." The man replied in a low voice.

"I think I am..."

Song Yuntang buried his face in his chest, the words "I like you" lingered on his lips but he couldn't say them out.

The air exhaled by the girl made the man's chest itchy. Only when he got closer could he vaguely smell the light and refreshing fragrance that came from her body.

There was a hint of confusion in the man's tone.

"What seems to be wrong?"