A Farm Girl: Three Acres of Fertile Land Can Be Exchanged for a Country

“Wenxin didn’t come to eat.” At the dinner table, Wutong said to Xuyun with a worried expression.

Xu Yun picked up the food with a calm expression, his eating posture dignified and elegant, even more refined than Wu Tong, a woman, and he ate slowly and methodically.

"That means he's not hungry."

"But he hasn't eaten all day."

"People won't starve to death where there's food. The fact that he's not coming out means he's doing just fine."

"How can your master be like this..."

ruthless.

Wutong was afraid of angering him, so she kept the last two words stuck in her throat.

Xu Yun glanced at her indifferently. "Do you think I'm being unreasonable? I think you are. He gave you his whole heart, and what did you give him in return?"

Wutong felt ashamed and retorted, "It was clearly you who told me to do it."

“I’m just giving you a choice. You’re the one who has to make the decision. Nobody’s forcing you at knifepoint.” Xu Yun then looked away and said, “Besides, since you can be so easily swayed by me, it only shows that your feelings for him are so fragile that they’re easily broken… You’re the heartless one.”

Wutong held the bowl, her mind racing, unsure whether she was right or wrong.

Words spoken are like water spilled; they can never be taken back. She shoveled a large mouthful of rice into her mouth, chewing vigorously, forcing herself to stop thinking about him.

Just like Xu Yun said, there's food right outside the door, how could he possibly starve to death in the woodshed?

Things took an unexpected turn. Every morning, the first thing Wutong did upon waking was to check if Wenxin had left the house. Three days passed in a row, and the door to the woodshed remained completely still. Not only could Wenxin not get in, but even a fly couldn't fly in or out.

Her vague worries turned into strong ones, fearing that Wenxin might be heading down a dead end and do something foolish. So, under the pretext of getting firewood, she went into the woodshed.

Her toes pointed towards the pile of firewood, and she secretly glanced at Wenxin out of the corner of her eye.

He lay upright in the blankets, not looking at her, but you could hear his soft breathing.

Thank goodness, he's alright...

Wutong stood in the middle of the woodshed, carrying a stack of firewood, a meter or two away from Wenxin. She opened her mouth and said, "You don't need to take those words to heart, and you don't need to deliberately avoid me. Let's just pretend we don't know each other."

Wenxin turned over, turning her back to her, her resistance obvious.

Wutong had no choice but to leave the woodshed, her feelings complicated.

On the day Xu Yun treated Duan Fufeng's injuries, Wu Tong idly assisted him and checked on Duan Fufeng's condition.

Under Xu Yun's treatment, his complexion improved a lot, and he no longer looked like a dead man, but he just wouldn't wake up, making everyone anxious.

"What kind of medicine is this?" Wutong asked curiously as she watched Xuyun stick a dark, greasy plaster on his chest, just like the dog-skin plasters she had seen on the street before.

Xu Yun continued moving, casually replying, "You wouldn't know even if I told you."

Do you think we can wake him up now?

Xu Yun found her nagging, because he had already said before that whether or not she could be saved depended on luck.

Wutong consciously shut her mouth, not wanting to worry about Duan Fufeng anymore. Her eyes glanced elsewhere, and she could just see the woodshed through the window. Her heart tightened, and she said to Xuyun, "Wenxin hasn't come out to eat for several days. Can you go and check on him? After all, you don't want him to die in the temple, do you?"

"A cold won't kill you."

Upon hearing this, Wutong tentatively asked, "You mean... he caught a cold?"

Xu Yun was too lazy to answer and focused on feeding Duan Fufeng his medicine.

"How did you know?" Wutong asked curiously, as she had not seen Xuyun go to the woodshed.

Xu Yun snorted lightly, "If I didn't even know this, I wouldn't have the confidence to promise to wake up the King of Southern Xinjiang."

That's true... He's a master.

Wutong thought for a moment and then asked, "Could you get him some medicine? It's getting cold, and he's still sleeping on the ground. He's going to catch a cold."

Xu Yun neither agreed nor disagreed.

"The medicinal herbs are in the pharmacy; he can go and get them anytime he wants to be treated."

After saying that, he packed his things, stood up, picked up his medicine box, and walked out of the room.

Wutong retied Duan Fufeng's sash and looked at his peaceful sleeping face, feeling a sense of familial intimacy in her heart.

It's all because she saw him too many times along the way. Actually, if he could talk and dance, she wouldn't have this feeling.

After wiping the medicine stains off Duan Fufeng's mouth, Wutong wanted to do laundry. Carrying a wooden basin, she passed by the pharmacy and was tempted by the different scents of the herbs.

Wenxin doesn't cherish himself, and Xuyun doesn't care about him. Well, I'll just secretly brew some medicine and deliver it to his door.

With that thought in mind, she put down her clothes and quietly walked into the pharmacy.

Looking at the countless herbs in front of her, Wutong thought of a question—what medicine can cure a cold?

When she was at Yuemen Pass, someone taught her a simple method: boil ginger and dried tangerine peel into water, drink a steaming bowl of it, and she would be fine the next day.

She tried it once, and it tasted so bad that she didn't want to try it a second time.

But she knew nothing about this recipe, so she found dried tangerine peel among the herbs, went to the kitchen to get ginger, washed and sliced ​​it, put it in a clay pot, lit a fire and let it simmer slowly.

When I came back after doing laundry, the temple was filled with the smell of ginger and dried tangerine peel. Both were extremely pungent, and the combination of them was almost suffocating.

She was afraid that Master Xuyun would get angry, so she secretly glanced at the Buddhist hall while hanging out the laundry. Fortunately, he was chanting sutras and striking the wooden fish as usual, without any sign of anger.

The veteran who taught her the recipe told her that the ginger and dried tangerine peel must be boiled thoroughly, the longer the better, until the herbs have no taste left and all the flavor has infused into the water before it's considered complete.

With nothing else to do, Wutong spent the whole day tending to the pot. Every time it boiled dry, he would add water, and he lost count of how many times he did it. In the end, what came out was a bowl of thick, dark medicine. As for the ginger and dried tangerine peel, they had been boiled until they were soft and mushy, and they would fall apart when poked with chopsticks.

Now that the medicine has worked, how do I give Wenxin a checkup?

If he were to bring it in directly, he would probably kick her out with his back.

Wutong walked to the door of the woodshed, deciding to try anything. She put the medicine bowl on the ground in front of the door, knocked on the door three times, and then ran away.

She ran into a corner and peeked out. The moonlight shone on the medicine bowl and the tightly closed door, and she could hear her heart pounding.

The door creaked open, and Wenxin's pale face peeked out. He first looked ahead and to the left and right, but saw no one. Then he noticed something on the floor, looked down at it for a long time, and remained motionless.

"Hurry up and drink it... pick it up..."

Wutong urged anxiously in her heart.

But in the end, Wenxin didn't even touch it, and raised his head to return to the woodshed.

The medicine bowl sat there all alone, its warmth dissipated by the cold wind.