After finishing the noodles, she didn't dare let the man in front of her do the dishes. One reason was that the patient needed special care, and the other was that she was really poor. If the man broke her bowl again, she would have to pay for it.
When she picked this man up, she didn't see any valuable keepsake. As she said before, she didn't ask for anything in return from him in the future. She just hoped that he could leave as soon as possible and eat less rice from her house.
At night, she prepared a quilt and let the injured man sleep on her original bed, while she slept on the floor in the adjacent small room.
The next day, Hao Cheng got up early as usual. He cooked thick white porridge, boiled hot water to wash the clothes stained with blood, and dealt with the blood-stained oilcloth... After doing all the odds and ends, the porridge was almost done.
She then brought two bowls of porridge and placed them on the table, then turned around and knocked on the door of the room she had left: "Breakfast is ready, you should get up quickly, or it won't taste good if it gets cold."
For breakfast, she prepared a pot of white porridge, freshly fried golden dough sticks, salted duck eggs with red and oily yolks bought from the Dong family next door, and a plate of freshly pickled crisp cucumbers.
Country people cook porridge for the whole family. They cook a big pot of rice and add a lot of water. When the rice is almost cooked, they take it out and add the remaining water to cook porridge. The porridge cooked in this way has a lot of rice oil and is particularly fragrant and thick. The children can cook two meals at a time, which can also save firewood.
Now she is the only one in the family, so this method is not suitable. Fortunately, as a woman, although she looks thin, she has a big appetite. Hao Cheng uses a small kitchen, and she basically drinks porridge in the morning and eats lunch at noon.
Now she has a useless man, even though he is injured, she will not change her lifestyle for such a person.
After a while, the door opened, and the young man walked lightly, closed the door gently, said good morning to her, and then sat down on the chair with a missing corner opposite her.
Hao Cheng couldn't think of any particularly beautiful words to describe this man's behavior. He just felt that he walked in a rhythmic pace and sat upright and gracefully. Although his hair was not combed in a particularly complicated way, he looked different from the men in this village.
To sum it up, she has the unique temperament of a lady from a noble family; her every gesture, every frown and every smile is picturesque.
When he came out, Hao Cheng had finished two large bowls of porridge. She wiped her mouth with a handkerchief and looked up and down at the man sitting opposite her. He was neatly dressed, his hair was neatly combed, his face had a bit more color, and he looked rosy and much healthier.
Hao Cheng placed a small cloth bag in front of him: "This is the prescription written by the doctor. These are the unused wound medicines. The weather is very good today. Take these with you and go look for your relatives after dinner. There are cakes and water bags that I baked this morning. I don't have any extra money, but these things should be enough to sustain you for a while."
In fact, the requirements for men in Jin were not that strict, and the status of men was not very low. Regardless of whether they were married or unmarried, men did not need to wear veils when walking on the street. In places like Xinghua Village and the surrounding towns, no one was heard to marry more than one wife.
Even the ministers in the capital were limited in the number of concubines they could take, and the security in this area was pretty good, so it was not common for men to be robbed by bullies while wandering the streets. She had no worries about letting this man go out and look for his relatives on his own.
As soon as she finished speaking, the man opposite her widened his eyes: "Are you going to drive me away?"
Hao Cheng was even more surprised than him: "If you don't go to look for your relatives, do you want to stay in my house?"
Stop joking, okay? She would never do such a thing as watching someone die without helping him. But it doesn't make sense for her to save someone and then be responsible for feeding and clothing him. This young master who looks like he comes from a wealthy family, she can't afford to serve him. She just thought it was inconvenient all day, but now the weather is clear, he can leave whenever he wants.
Jiang Mengzhen finally realized that things were not what he thought. This person rescued him out of pure kindness, but he was not a good person to the end. He had the awareness of sending a Buddha to the west. Don't talk about drugging or doing dirty things. He didn't have such an idea at all. If it hadn't rained yesterday, he would definitely want him to leave quickly.
She gave him her rice out of kindness. She was so angry yesterday only because he wasted food and broke two bowls.
Looking at the man's expression, Hao Cheng's heart skipped a beat. Could it be that he was really being relied upon
After a while, she carried the basket on her back, picked up some medicinal herbs she had picked recently, and carefully wrapped the ginseng she had picked yesterday in a red cloth. She put them together in the basket and covered it with linen.
Today she was going to the town's pharmacy to sell her precious ginseng. If she had enough money, she would buy a house in town first. It was inconvenient to buy many things in Xinghua Village, and the mosquitoes were too poisonous. The mosquito repellent herbs were not very effective at all. She didn't feel anything when she was a ghost, but after becoming a scholar, she could hardly bear it.
Hao Cheng locked the door and closed the yard gate. He glanced at the man holding a small package outside the fence, but without looking at him for long, he left home.
Who says that if you save someone, you must help them to the end? This man fell from the mountain, so his home must be nearby. He can move, walk and talk, and he is not dumb, so he can't ask for directions.
It was good enough that she didn't ask him for compensation, but he also wanted her to pay for taking care of him. A single man and a single woman met by chance, and he really thought she was a sucker with too much money to spend.
Hao Cheng walked faster and faster, and soon disappeared from Jiang Mengzhen's sight. She shook the backpack and quickly put the image of the man standing there pitifully behind her.
After arriving at the bustling town, Hao Cheng first wandered around the town to find out the market price of a few-decade-old wild ginseng, and then entered a very impressive-looking pharmacy.
The waiter came up to greet her enthusiastically: "What do you want, lady? We have everything at Jixiang Pharmacy. Just tell us what you want and we will definitely have it."
Hao Cheng took down the backpack and said, "I'm not here to buy medicine, I'm here to sell it."
The latter's enthusiasm immediately faded, and his words became formulaic: "That depends on the quality of your stuff. We don't accept just anything here."
She dumped out all the things, and the waiter glanced at them casually: "Total of these things, I can give you at most two taels of silver."
Hao Cheng untied the red cloth again: "What about this?"
Decades old wild ginseng! Although there are many wild products in the nearby mountains, this kind of ginseng is still very precious. The waiter's eyes were immediately drawn to it, but he pretended not to care, playing with the ginseng, and then put it down: "This is more valuable, twenty taels of silver can be given."
Hao Cheng pushed the ginseng over and stretched out his hand: "I want this amount."
The waiter hesitated and said, "Fifty taels, let me think about it. Okay, fifty taels is fifty taels."
Hao Cheng shook his head, and the latter exclaimed: "Five hundred taels, why don't you go and rob it."
Hao Cheng wrapped the ginseng in red cloth, took the two taels of silver from the sale of other medicinal herbs, turned around and prepared to leave.
She had inquired around and found out that a ginseng that was several decades old could be sold for two to seven or eight hundred taels of silver, depending on its quality. A hundred-year-old ginseng was even more precious and could be sold for a thousand taels of silver.
But most drugstores that are not big enough cannot afford to buy such a precious thing. Fifty taels, they think she is a fool.
The waiter called out to her, "Wait a minute, I need to discuss this huge sum of money with the shopkeeper."
At this time, a young man interrupted: "Sell me that ginseng for six hundred taels of silver. I want it."