LIGHTNOVELONLINE
Chapter 34
If it was said that she had approached Li Deshun earlier just to gain his favor, then now the only thought left in her mind was to treat his injuries.
In her previous life she was a doctor, and in this life she also aspired to study medicine. A doctor's duty was to save the dying and heal the injured, and she could not remain indifferent to a patient's suffering.
Finally, under Jiang Yuqing's guidance, the little eunuch successfully peeled off the medicinal paste and neatly applied it to Li Deshun's pair of red and swollen knees. Afraid that the paste would not stick well, Jiang Yuqing subconsciously reached out with her little hands to gently smooth it down.
After finishing, Jiang Yuqing patted her little hands satisfied and said, "Change the medicinal paste, one day, one change! Take medicine, no spicy food!" Change the medicinal paste every day, and avoid spicy foods while taking medicine.
With the issue resolved, Jiang Wenyuan also bid farewell and returned to the county office. With the year-end approaching, there were far too many affairs for him to have any free time.
However, there was still a big Buddha residing in his residence. For both public and private reasons, he could not just leave the person there unattended. He had no choice but to commute back and forth between Xijin Ferry and the county office every day, which was truly exhausting. But there was no alternative.
After Jiang Wenyuan left, Baby Dumpling sat back down beside Li Deshun and earnestly began looking through the book, puffing out her chubby, rosy cheeks.
Only then did Li Deshun clearly see that the cover of the book was prominently titled "Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica" in five large characters, which made him smile silently.
He really could not tell that this little girl was actually a "little genius doctor".
A "little genius doctor" not even two years old who could barely speak clearly. He was again filled with the urge to tease her: "Little girl, can you recognize characters?"
Baby Dumpling glanced at him and nodded. Of course she could recognize them.
Li Deshun raised his eyebrows: "Then that's good. I'll test you today."
He took her copy of Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica and flipped to the first page of the preface, randomly pointing to a line of words and coaxing her: "Here, you read this sentence to the end. If you can read it all correctly, I'll reward you with a treasure. What do you think?"
"Okay!" Of course it was okay! Baby Dumpling looked at him with a thousand words surging forth. She thought to herself, you're the one insisting on giving me gifts, if I don't accept them wouldn't I be letting myself down?
There's a saying, free stuff not taken is a wasted opportunity!
So Baby Dumpling started reading: "To cure illness, first examine its source, first observe the circumstances of the illness. If the five viscera are not deficient, the six palaces not exhausted, the vessels and channels unobstructed, and the spirit yet gathered, taking medicine will certainly effect a cure. If the illness has already formed, one may obtain half-recovery. If the illness has already worsened, life will be hard to save."
Her little tongue was not yet very nimble, and she really could not read four-character phrases, so she could only break them up and read word by word.
"Read it, read it all. Not a single word wrong!" It took the little eunuch a good while to find his voice again. The way he looked at Jiang Yuqing was full of amazement and admiration.
Good gracious me, isn't this little girl not even two yet? To be so amazing already. She really lives up to being the daughter of Zhuangyuan.
The little one's performance had truly dumbfounded the two eunuchs in the room.
Li Deshun, who often attended the emperor, boasted that he had seen many child prodigies among the talented sons and daughters of the capital.
His Highness the Crown Prince was the most shockingly brilliant talent among them, able to compose poetry by age three and skilled in martial arts by five. Now this not-yet-two-year-old little shrimp was not far behind at all, she really made one's chin drop in astonishment.
Li Deshun patted Baby Dumpling's head in amazement and gratification, and immediately fulfilled his promise: "Go, bring that box of South Pearls."
The little eunuch responded and went into the inner chamber, soon returning with a beautifully crafted wooden box the size of an adult's palm. Opening it, one could see it brimming full of pearls the size of a fingertip, each one round, lustrous, and glowing with a smooth radiance.
Baby Dumpling's eyes immediately lit up: "Ah--pearls, so pretty!"
Li Deshun smiled and said, "You like them? If you like them then take them back and have your mother make some jewelry for you to wear."
"Mm-hmm." Baby Dumpling was extremely delighted, nodding her head repeatedly, while her eyes smiled into little crescent moons.
The pearls of this ancient era were not artificially cultivated, but purely wild-harvested, making them difficult to obtain. Among them, the east pearls were considered the best, followed by the south pearls.
Although the box of south pearls Li Deshun had gifted were not as valuable as east pearls, there were quite a large quantity of very fine quality. Their value was at least over a thousand taels of silver.
Baby Dumpling accepted them with a clear conscience, not even considering what manners were.
Or rather, she simply did not think to decline out of politeness. She had earned them through her own abilities, so why refuse? When he leaves, I can just give him some ginseng to repay him.
"Thank you, Grandpa Li!" Baby Dumpling thanked him very sincerely. Given his age, it was fitting for her to call him "grandpa". There was no other meaning, just a term of address denoting seniority.
Being called "Grandpa Li" by such an adorable, pretty, and well-behaved child really warmed Li Deshun's heart.
He had entered the palace at seven years old when his family sold him in, and had worked hard and diligently for decades. From a powerless and lowly little eunuch whom anyone could bully, he had climbed to the position of Head Eunuch, becoming the emperor's confidante. Along the way he had suffered much bitterness and injustice.
When he was down and out, others insulted and took advantage of him. When he gained power, others flattered and cajoled him. The most disgusting thing was they would fawn over him to his face, yet call him a castrated dog and lowly person behind his back.
He had no family or friends, only a mutilated body and a cold, hard, scarred heart full of wounds.
Only this child, this girl who had just learned to walk and could barely speak clearly, would take the initiative to ask if his knees hurt, and take the initiative to find medicine for him. When he doubted she was unwilling to take medicine, she even brought her own father to help explain.
Without any reason or motive, purely wanting to alleviate his pain.
In fact, to her he was just a stranger temporarily staying in her home. Yet she treated him so attentively. Truly the heart of an innocent child.
Li Deshun dabbed at the corners of his somewhat sore eyes, and looked down at the adorable little girl beside him, "Since you call me Grandpa Li, I'll call you Good Baby too.
I remember your elders all call you by this name."
"Mm-hmm, Good Baby." Yes, that's what they call me. If you want to call me that too, you can.
Jiang Yuqing was concerned about the dishes in the rear courtyard, so she returned after staying with Li Deshun for a while.
Li Deshun was extremely reluctant to part as he had the little eunuch deliver both the box of pearls and Baby Dumpling to her mother, which would save the little girl the effort of laboriously crawling over the doorsill.
When Jiang Yuqing's mother Lady Lu saw that Li Deshun had gifted her daughter a box of pearls worth thousands of taels, she was quite shocked. After inquiring clearly about the reason, she finally accepted and put them away, saying they would be kept for her daughter's future dowry.
Having accepted such a valuable gift from someone else, Jiang Yuqing felt she should reciprocate somehow. She searched around her spirit realm and suddenly caught sight of the hundreds of thousands of catties of chestnuts and fruit she had procured a couple months ago.
She had nearly forgotten about them!
In the dead of winter, fruits and nuts were extremely scarce to begin with. And with New Year approaching, if they were put out for sale now, they would definitely fetch a substantial profit.
Baby Dumpling thus selected the most beautiful oranges and dates to pack a basket for Li Deshun, planning to tell her father about selling the fruits when he returned home that night.
That evening, when Jiang Wenyuan returned from the county office, Jiang Yuqing brought up the idea of selling fruit. Jiang Wenyuan said this would be easy to handle. Among their cooperative families, the Jiang's business involved fruit shops, so they would certainly need the goods.
The next day on his way to the county office, Jiang Wenyuan asked Jiang Yuqing for a fruit basket.
That afternoon, the Jiang Family Master himself came to Xijin Ferry, and purchased nearly 40,000 catties of chestnuts and over 5,000 catties of walnuts, plus 20,000 catties of various fresh fruits for an extremely generous price.
The Jiangs had over a dozen confectionery fruit shops in Qingzhou and neighboring counties. These were all rare delicacies before the new year, and he was worried there wouldn't be enough to sell.
After the Jiang Family Master left, when Jiang Wenyuan calculated the bill, heavens, just this one transaction had earned nearly 17,000 taels of silver. Adding the profit distribution from the food processing workshop, they would absolutely be able to enjoy a prosperous new year.
Jiang Yuqing's medicine was indeed effective. Both oral medication and external application worked together, and Li Deshun's knees were back to normal just two days later.
After recuperating for another two days, the pain was completely gone. Li Deshun was overjoyed at this.
His knees were an old recurring issue that would often pain him for many days whenever it flared up, which the imperial physicians also had no good solutions for, making it a nagging affliction.
Yet using Jiang Yuqing's medicine, after just three or four days it was cured. Truly miraculous.
Moreover, it seemed this little one had taken it as her personal duty to heal him.
Over the past few days she came to his door like clockwork at every meal to supervise him in taking his medicine on time. She would not allow him to eat anything too spicy at meals, and at night she would even come knock on his door to see if he had soaked his feet in the medicinal soup.
He really carried out the duties of the "little divine doctor" to the fullest extent.
Sometimes, he deliberately behaved badly to provoke her. She would get very angry and yell at him incoherently in a cute, fierce, and fierce manner.
Li Deshun's leg was better, and the days were up to the new year. The Old Man in Heaven finally changed his gloom of the past few days and gave a smile.
The winter sun and spring rain are always particularly precious. It makes people reluctant to waste a bit.
On the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth lunar month, it was the stove year in the south.
On this day, the people living in the Jiang's courtyard, from top to bottom, whether they were the master, servant or guest staying here, all worked together to clean up the houses, grounds, furniture and articles, wash bedding and bed curtains, and it was extraordinarily lively.
Li Deshun also participated in the cleaning personally. This kind of work was also commonly done in the palace before. It's just that doing things in the palace and doing things here are completely different in mentality.
The former was cold and numb, while the latter was warm and alive.
The twenty-fifth day of the twelfth lunar month. The Jiang family started making rice cakes, making rice cakes, and making glutinous rice balls.
There were a lot of things to do and a lot of manpower.
The guards who came with the angel were all burly, and they were strong.
Most of them were Northerners. The New Year in the north and the south are completely different, and the food prepared for the New Year is also different.
They thought it was interesting when they came, and secondly, they were also curious. They rarely had the opportunity to experience the completely different New Year customs from the north, so they all participated enthusiastically.
Because there were many people and a lot of rice, the Jiang family borrowed three sets of stone mortars and wooden pestles, and they were busy like hot flames.
The rice cakes, rice cakes and glutinous rice balls made were piled up like a mountain.
Baby Dumpling pulled Li Deshun around the various operation stations, playing with great joy, and eating a belly full of rice cakes, stuffed that she didn't even eat lunch.
This really made Li Deshun feel distressed. He hurriedly asked someone to fetch some hawthorn juice for her to take.
In the afternoon, this pair of pseudo-grandfather and granddaughter who were destroying in the name of helping sneaked into the place where glutinous rice balls were made.
They asked for a piece of rice dough from the man who was kneading the dough, saying they wanted to make a New Year's gift exclusive to each of their family members.
As a result, these two overestimated their own artistic creativity. After playing for an afternoon, they got covered in white rice dough, but in the end they only pinched out a bunch of things that they didn't even know what they were.
It's just...frustrating.
Finally, they had no choice but to knead these artistically unique works back together again, rub them into a long noodle as thick as a thumb, and then coil it around...
As for what it looked like, well, it was no longer important. The important thing was not to waste it.
On the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh, every family was busy sending New Year's gifts and buying New Year's goods.
There were many more people in the Jiang family this year, and the things that needed to be purchased were several times more. Food, daily necessities, everything was available.
Whether it was angels or guards, they were all here for their own affairs, and couldn't even spend the New Year with their families. At the very least, they couldn't neglect the host family. They had to prepare good food and drinks for others.
Therefore, the Jiang family also mobilized all personnel to purchase New Year's goods.
With the current status of the family, it was also the first in Lingzhou Prefecture. They no longer needed to deliberately please anyone.
To put it rudely, nowadays Jiang Wenyuan's superior, the prefect of Lingzhou, also had to yield to him three points and respectfully call him "Uncle".
Li Deshun was taken along by the Jiang family. Along the way, he watched all kinds of practical and impractical things being bought in large quantities. Most of them were bought for Baby Dumpling.
No matter what Baby Dumpling looked at more than twice, he would let the eunuch pay for it. It could be said that he pampered the child very much.
He had also accompanied the emperor on private visits to the city when he was in the capital before.
At that time, he was nervous about being assassinated by some shortsighted assassin at any time, so how could he have any mind to look around the market.
But today is different. Today, he is just an ordinary old man who is pulled along by his brother, surrounded by his juniors, noisy and crowded while shopping together.
He liked days like this, without intricate scheming and deceitful calculations. Ordinary yet vibrant, just like the warm and comfortable sunshine in winter.
This is how people should live their days.