Chapter 806: The Medical Immortal Who Conquers All Diseases: the Divine Doctor of the Life-and-Death Pill (2)

Suddenly, the number of patients had increased, so the work had exploded, too.

Where would they lay down the newly arrived patients, and where would their families stay?

They would gather the critical patients and lay them down in the Jangyun Sect manor, and set up beds for the less critical patients in the nearby private homes.

Then the people who had been staying there would have to move their living quarters, but the private homes inside the quarantine zone weren’t spacious, so they’d have to designate multiple households to live together, and......

“Even though it’s this busy, you’re really leaving?”

“......Help a few more days, then go.”

Lord Physician had been the one telling her to leave immediately, but in the face of the work piling up, he seemed at a loss.

And that made sense. This was the work of increasing the number of beds and reorganizing the living quarters of the quarantined—matters where, even if people were afraid the Lord Physician might abandon them and couldn’t say it out loud, dissatisfaction could only build in their hearts.

Moving out of the room you’d been staying in was a hassle to begin with, and if the new room was narrower and more run-down than the old one, or if it was farther from the Lord Physician’s quarters, you couldn’t help but feel wronged.

Even between the existing group and the newly arrived group, the mood wasn’t good. The existing group had a system in place, so they’d think, These rolling stones came in and now look at this mess, while the newly arrived group had been driven out of the neighborhood they’d been living in and shoved into this situation, and if they got sharp looks for it, their mood couldn’t help but sour.

So for this process, it was better to have a martial artist with a sword at their waist do the organizing.

Swords were scary.

To commoners, weren’t martial artists, like officials, frightening and dangerous beings?

So they moved patients, and moved the original lodging, and moved the new quarantined people into new ground—and after that busy day passed and the sun set—

-Sir, I think you should come out.

“What now?”

-Um, it looks like relief arrived, sir—

The relief grain had arrived.

Lord Physician couldn’t believe it.

He said the way officials handled work was like the turning of the seasons.

Meaning, if an official processed even one matter, the seasons would turn and turn—spring, summer, fall, winter—dragging on for a thousand years, ten thousand years, with no sign anything would ever get resolved.

He had heard that Qing persuaded them and got a promise of relief grain, but in truth, Lord Physician had almost not expected it.

Instead, his worries came first.

Because the heavenly maiden had a temper that flared, and she could be somewhat forceful, and he wondered if, like a martial artist, she had treated human lives lightly—no, if she had snapped and threatened the officials.

They said an official’s heart was so narrow and narrow it couldn’t hold even a single teardrop, so even if you threatened them, it would only matter on the spot.

Once they turned their back, wouldn’t they change their expression immediately and grind their teeth in resentment?

But then?

In half a day?

And at night?

Unlike Qing’s homeland, in the Central Plains—in this era beyond the Central Plains—no matter how urgent it was, night was not a time when people worked.

Because it was dark.

That government office, infamous for being slow, sent relief grain in the middle of the night, even carrying torches?

What kind of sorcery was this?

And on top of that—

“AHEM. Lord Physician, you’ve suffered greatly. With you striving this way in every direction, I, Yang, have nothing but gratitude in my heart, isn’t that so?”

“Prefectural Magistrate? You came out at this hour?”

“Ha ha ha. AHEM, well—when the cries of the people’s suffering are this loud, I simply couldn’t stay seated, so I ended up...”

Lord Physician had to seriously consider whether Prefectural Magistrate Yang had eaten something bad.

Of course, for an official, he was a man with considerable popularity—someone who did not extort excessively, who valued the laws of the state, and was counted as a fairly clean official.

But hadn’t he been the one who drew a hard line, saying he could quarantine patients but could not provide aid?

And yet he suddenly appeared in person, leading the relief-grain wagons.

While Lord Physician blinked, Prefectural Magistrate Yang quietly shifted his gaze and checked the expression of the woman standing beside Lord Physician.

‘Uh, Magistrate, it seems you should provide some relief grain to the quarantine zone....’

‘What are you talking about? Why relief grain? There’s no reason to release it for patients who’ve already been dealt with. What a waste.’

‘Um, Lord Physician is caring for the patients in the quarantine zone.’

‘Tch. If you just let them all die, the sickness will retreat, too. But his name is famous, so we can’t throw him out.’

‘Um, the Royal Censor is helping Lord Physician—’

KYAAAAH!!!

They said the Royal Censor wore a face veil, and her belt’s upper part was something incredible—an astonishing lady.

She truly was astonishing.

Since the Royal Censor had not revealed her identity, it wasn’t like he could act like he knew.

But he also couldn’t not explain the current situation.

So the prefectural magistrate, awkwardly, made an excuse that no one needed to hear.

“Um. So. Under state law, relief grain is loaned—at low interest—to the people suffering from natural disasters like floods and droughts and locust swarms, so, um, isn’t that right?”

That was right. Relief grain was not free.

When a year’s farming was ruined by a natural disaster, it was “loaned” at low interest.

So if you released relief grain to patients who might recover or might not, you couldn’t guarantee whether it would be repaid.

If you weren’t careful, it could end up being an act that only squandered the nation’s assets.

“Mm, then I’ll write you a draft, so—let’s see—about two kwan of gold—”

“No no no, AHEM, how could the prefectural magistrate responsible for affairs within the city turn his face away from the people’s loneliness? This time, this prefectural magistrate will fill it with his private funds......”

“Come on, don’t refuse—take it. And somehow, I don’t think that’ll end up being ‘private funds,’ either?”

“Ha ha ha.”

The prefectural magistrate poured sweat.

Even if you emptied your personal wealth, you’d try to fill back in as much as you spent. And the way an official filled wealth was, in the end, the “sincerity” of those beneath him.

And where would that sincerity come from?

So even if the prefectural magistrate said he was paying out of pocket, wouldn’t it still end up as the people of Kunming all pitching in together?

At that—

The prefectural magistrate’s cold sweat ran down even harder.

“Ah. I’m not trying to blame Prefectural Magistrate Yang. I heard you’re deeply respected. You can’t handle state affairs with personal feelings.”

“Th-that’s right.”

“Still, you were a little cold?”

“I will correct it......”

The prefectural magistrate went back and forth between heaven and hell.

When you were the prefectural magistrate of a whole city, there weren’t many people above you—and the few who were above you were the kind who could wipe out your entire family and relatives cleanly with only a three-inch tongue.

You could say they held power over life and death.

And the Royal Censor was even more frightening.

Even if some high person wanted to cut down the prefectural magistrate, a high official of his level could mobilize every connection, tie, and faction he’d built up to defend himself, at least.

But the Royal Censor was the sort who would send a courier straight to His Majesty with, That guy somehow rubs me the wrong way—should we just kill him?

Still, from Qing’s standpoint, she had no particular intention of wielding her authority.

Even to her eyes, his evil karma wasn’t extremely high.

A high official in the Central Plains, and yet his evil karma was below beasts—at a passing human level?

Wouldn’t that make him a clean official, a heaven-sent paragon of character?

There was no reason to torment a capable person further over some petty offense.

She accepted the Royal Censor post because they gave it to her, but in truth, Qing didn’t want to swing it around.

The taste of power was sweet beyond measure, but if you got drunk on it, you stopped being Seomun Cheong the martial artist and became Seomun Cheonhwa the Royal Censor.

Of course, that didn’t mean she had to be overly stingy with it, either. But still.

Even so, the prefectural magistrate had to watch her mood.

He couldn’t tell well because her face was covered, but it was something like an instinct baked into him from long years in the government office.

He felt a great relief, thinking the mysterious Royal Censor didn’t seem to be showing outright hostility.

“AHEM, um, Lord Physician—if there’s anything you request, please send word. You suffer for the people, so I, Yang, will help as much as I can.”

That wasn’t really him saying he would help. It was just what you said—an expression of greeting.

Like how the people of Qing’s homeland would casually say, Let’s have a meal sometime, it was only a signal that he should slowly be going back.

But in that moment, Qing’s eyes flashed.

Come to think of it, what if the prefectural magistrate did empty out some private funds?

It would all come from the city’s commoners?

They were all city people suffering in the same situation—maybe they could all help and get through it together.

“My goodness. You truly are a model of a true public servant who knows how to pity the people. Then I’ll shamelessly ask for about twenty bolts of clean, plain cotton cloth. We have absolutely nothing to use, so we’re tearing up perfectly good clothes. And to restore the patients’ vitality, we should feed them some meat—so while you’re sending grain, meat too—any meat is fine, so even scraps and tough cuts are fine. Ah, right. Send plenty of salt, too. Uh—sir, what else do we need?”

Lord Physician’s eyes flashed, too.

Since he had been going around shaking down wealthy people for support anyway, this mood—

He really caught a sucker this time!

“What do we need—one or two things? If I’d known Prefectural Magistrate Yang was such a generous man, I would’ve asked for help again and again. Do you have something to write with? No—wait. Just a moment. I’ll write it up and bring it to you shortly.”

“No, you’re even making a ledger—AHEM.”

And so, Kunming’s prefectural magistrate got stripped clean.

It wasn’t only a trick of the eye that his retreating back looked rather pitiful.

Lord Physician, watching that back with a satisfied expression, tossed out a question.

“Heavenly maiden. If you become an incredible master, do even high officials like a prefectural magistrate start crawling and fawning like that?”

The reason the prefectural magistrate crawled wasn’t because Qing was a master.

But?

After thinking for a moment, Qing answered.

“Probably, yes? Everyone values their life, don’t they?”

“.......”

*****

Thanks to the prefectural magistrate’s astonishing generosity, the quarantine zone’s household could now live at a level where they weren’t starving.

In truth, relief grain was old grain, and the other ingredients they requested (shook down) were also things where they said the quality was worthless and only the quantity mattered—so every last one was a low-grade item that you trimmed and threw away parts of.

Still, not being hungry—and even having a few side dishes on the table with fish sauce—what more could you ask?

Compared to the days when they ladled out too little of that unidentifiable “nutrition porridge” boiled by tossing grain and whatever ingredients they had into water, it was truly a sea-change—the world splitting open, heaven and earth being remade.

But what truly pleased Lord Physician was something else.

Ever since the heavenly maiden and her friends raised hell, people’s expressions had clearly improved.

Why?

Because young, handsome men and women were walking around.

Even if the heavenly maiden had to hide her face because it was too pretty—so pretty it was a problem—her friends’ look was just plain good.

The sturdy one with muscles, and the strange one who covered his face even though he was a man—but just from the exposed lower half of his face, you could tell he wasn’t some ordinary handsome man.

With those people walking around, the quarantined began to look less like they belonged in a ditch and more like human beings.

Originally, the quarantined had looked like beggars.

First, they didn’t have enough food, so they were hungry, and in a situation where they were quarantined and trapped, it wouldn’t have been easy to tidy up their appearance.

But if you got exhausted by a hard life and let yourself go, a person stopped dressing up, stopped washing, stopped working—and didn’t they become wretched like a beggar?

Hair frizzed and wild, clothes wrinkled and filthy; commoners were never the type to wash well to begin with, but these quarantined people had even stopped pretending to wash.

It had reached the point where you couldn’t tell whether these were quarantined patients and their families or a pack of beggars.

But now, one by one, they combed their hair neatly and smoothed it back, put on decent-looking clothes properly, and even in the eyes that had been blank and dazed as they sat and lay wherever, vitality began to return.

And then, even in the middle of this quarantine, you would occasionally see a man and a woman locking eyes, then shyly holding hands as they walked around.

Illness depended on pulse reading, prescriptions, and medicinal properties—but the patient’s will to live, the will they clung to, was important, too.

If a patient got sick and then saw their family trapped with them in a situation where they might starve to death at any time—on top of that, with the family dressed like beggars—how much would the patient have blamed themselves?

But now, it didn’t look like they would starve, and the family’s faces had brightened, too—so as the patients’ hearts grew lighter, it would surely be a great help in overcoming the illness.

So now—

“You’ve suffered enough. Go.”

“No, sir. Why do you keep trying to chase us out like this.”

“I told you to go. Seeing how things are going back, I’m saying it because you don’t need to be here anymore. Heavenly maiden, don’t you see the neighborhood mood? There’s no such thing as a patient village this bright. For the rest, I just need to keep using medicine and complete the prescription that works.”

“Wouldn’t the prescription be completed faster if Tang Nanna is here?”

“Since things have improved, I intend to go around Kunming’s medical clinics and find Therapists. If I say we’re trying to make a prescription for a nameless strange plague, there’ll be some who find it tempting. If it looked like a beggar pit like before, they would’ve run the moment they saw it, but if they see people who aren’t patients walking around properly, they’ll feel reassured, thinking it isn’t pestilence, after all.”

Even if you said the same words, there was a mood that came out of nonverbal expression.

Before, when he spoke, hadn’t the air clearly been that he was forcing her out?

But this time, it held satisfaction and pride—You really did well.

So from Qing’s standpoint, too, she felt, Then I can leave the rest to him and go.

“Are you sure we can really go?”

“What, the only trouble left is those doglike bastards of drug peddlers crawling in. But the prefectural magistrate is helping, so shouldn’t you just have those blockade soldiers throw them out?”

“Huh. Drug peddlers?”

“They exist. Those human trash of the world. Before you came, didn’t one or two show up and make a mess?”

The easiest people in the world to deceive were the desperate.

And patients were desperate.

So there were people who targeted patients to scam them, and those were wandering drug peddlers.

“Ah. Those bastards.”

Qing understood immediately.

Because in Qing’s homeland, “drug peddler” also meant a scammer selling fake medicine.

Medicine from a pharmacist, treatment from a doctor.

But some guy who wasn’t even a pharmacist went around selling medicine, so they called him a drug peddler—and those people had no reason to sell proper medicine, either.

It was then.

-Sir? I think you should come out.

In the Central Plains, there was a proverb: speak of Cao Cao, and Cao Cao comes.

In Qing’s homeland, they said even a tiger would appear if you spoke of it.

It must be a law of the world proven since long ago.

-They’re talking about life and death? A divine healer? Someone really grand—this Therapist came and said there’s medicine that works, so we should gather the people.