"Why are you asking so many questions? Anyway, Master doesn't have any dietary restrictions when he's out there."
Zhang Min carried down some salt and walked towards a thatched hut.
Yingbao followed behind, looking around the place.
Several children looked at her and Zhang Min curiously, and one of them even spoke to Zhang Min: "You are Zhang Min, right?"
Zhang Min grinned and said, "Yeah, don't you recognize me, Xiaodouzi?"
The boy called Xiaodouzi chuckled and said, "I almost didn't recognize you. You've gained a lot of weight."
Zhang Min: "I didn't gain weight, I just grew taller. Huh? You still seem that short." And thin.
Xiao Douzi's face darkened and he argued, "I'm not short at all, it's you who got fatter."
The two men entered the hut while talking.
The room was narrow, with dark walls. There were earthen kangs inside and outside the room, covered with torn reed mats.
Zhou Wuchang and the two old men had already sat on the kang and started chatting.
Zhang Min placed a large bag of salt and icing sugar on the kang and said, "Master, I'll take my junior sister out for a walk."
"Go ahead." Zhou Wuchang nodded in agreement and warned, "Don't go too far."
"We won't go far. Let's go to Stone Mountain and have a look."
Zhang Min lived in this village for half a year two years ago and became very familiar with the children in the village. Later, he went to Qinchuan County with his master and senior brothers.
Afterwards, the master was hired as an instructor in the Yin-Yang Department of the Medical Bureau, and he has been studying in the Medical Bureau ever since.
"Yingbao, I'll take you to see the cave here. It's so beautiful."
Zhang Min: "It's warm in winter and cool in summer. There is also an underground river. The villagers here carry water from the cave."
Yingbao was also curious.
She had never seen a cave with water.
Xiaodouzi and two girls about seven or eight years old also followed, each holding a small wooden bucket in their hands.
When guests came to his house, his father asked him and his sister to fetch water and make tea.
Several children came to a hillside two miles away from the village, climbed up along a path, and came to the entrance of a cave.
The cave was pitch black, but streams of clear spring water flowed out from it and gathered in a puddle.
The two girls squatted down and used gourd ladles to scoop water into the bucket, while Xiaodouzi filled the bucket directly with water and then carried it up.
Zhang Min poked his head into the cave and said to his junior sister, "Yingbao, do you want to go in and take a look?"
"No." The cave here is narrow, and there is water flowing under my feet. Although I am curious about what is inside, I don't want to go into the cave at all.
Zhang Min felt a little regretful. He kicked a stone into the water and turned to ask Xiao Douzi, "Xiao Douzi, did you bring a fire starter?"
He wanted to get a torch and go into the cave by himself, because he had hidden something in the cave and wanted to see if it was still there.
Xiaodouzi shook his head, "I didn't bring it."
Who would carry a fire starter with them? It can easily set your clothes on fire.
Yingbao squatted down and touched the water with her hand, feeling curious.
We are halfway up the mountain here, and it is incredible that water can come out of the cave.
A little girl at the side stared at her and asked, "What's your name?"
"Jiang Yingbao." Yingbao also smiled at her.
"My name is Cuihua, her name is Cuilan, and my father is the village chief of Zaoshu Village."
Cuihua said as she put a bamboo stick through the hole of the bucket handle, and lifted the bucket with her sister, saying, "Let's go back. When the sun goes down, there will be wild wolves here."
Xiaodouzi also picked up a bucket of water and walked back slowly.
Seeing that he was having difficulty carrying the water, Zhang Min took the initiative to help him carry the water.
Yingbao had nothing to do, so she looked around as she walked.
There are very few good farmlands here, and there are few big trees on the mountains. There are even very few shrubs and weeds. It is all gray and bare, with almost no vegetation.
Such a barren place is not even as good as the south slope of Dongchen Village. Perhaps this is the reason why their village is poor.
The pair of sisters in the front had their clothes covered in patches, and even in such cold weather, they were wearing straw sandals.
That little Douzi wasn't much better, with his clothes' sleeves tattered. He looked like he could go to the market to beg for food without any special dressing up.
It is incredible that his two brothers and sisters are actually the children of Muramasa of Zaoshu Village.
Several children carried the water to the kitchen, and Yingbao saw that there was water in Cuihua's water tank, but the water quality was not very good and it was a bit turbid, unlike the water from the cave.
Cuihua saw her confusion and said, "We usually drink water from the village well. It was because the general came today that my father asked us to go to the cave to get water."
Yingbao: I see.
She rummaged through her bag, took out a few pieces of candy and handed them to Cuihua and her sister Cuilan.
Cuilan happily took it and quickly put a piece into her mouth, smiling with her eyebrows curved. "So sweet!"
Cuihua took the candy, thanked him, and carefully put it in her pocket.
Then she washed her hands and started kneading dough to cook.
Yingbao saw that Cuihua was only about nine years old, and her sister Cuilan was only about six or seven years old, and both of them were very good at doing housework.
Yingbao had never seen the hostess of this house, so she couldn't help but be curious: "Where is your mother?"
Cuihua said while kneading the dough: "Mom is gone."
The "absent" she mentioned meant dead, and Yingbao understood it immediately.
Just when she didn't know what to say, she suddenly heard someone outside calling her: "Yingbao, Yingbao, come here."
It was the eldest brother's voice, and Yingbao quickly ran out of the kitchen.
"What is it?"
The eldest senior brother wouldn't have called her if nothing was wrong. It must be that the master asked him to get some pills again, or to see someone for a medical consultation.
Sure enough, Zhou Hao said, "Master asked you to see a patient."
Yingbao had no choice but to go to the carriage to get the medicine box.
The master once said that practicing medicine is also a form of spiritual practice. Whenever he went to a place, he would provide free medical treatment there if possible.
So along the way, Yingbao also examined several seriously ill patients and gave them some medicine.
Because the master said that he would pay for the medicine, but it had to wait until after he returned.
What could Yingbao do but agree.
But isn't the master a master of forbidden spells? Why does he need his disciple to feel people's pulses and diagnose diseases
When I came to the main room, I saw a man lying on the kang under the light. His face was thin and pale, and it seemed that he would not live long.
Zhou Wuchang waved to his young disciple and said, "Come over here and take a look at him. Can he be saved?"
Yingbao walked over and took the man's pulse.
Then he said to the man standing nearby, "Tell me about his situation."
The man next to him was a burly guy with a beard. He talked seriously about the man's condition.
"…His arrow wound has not healed yet and is now festering and rotting. Please, young doctor, save his life."
The bearded man almost choked as he spoke.
Yingbao lifted the blanket from the man and saw that he was shirtless with a bowl-sized wound on his shoulder. It was already festering and emitting a strong stench.
After checking, it was found that the man only had an injury on his shoulder.
She glanced at her master and said, "In his condition, we need to ask an ulcer doctor to remove the rotten flesh, and then we can use medicine to improve his condition."
Zhou Wuchang said calmly: "There is no doctor, so you can do it all by yourself. If you really can't do it, ask your senior brother to help you."