Farmer girl swaps husbands: buys a sickly villain and pampers him

Chapter 159 The Truth
The middle-aged man was very thin and dark-skinned, looking more like a country bumpkin than an official.

He sat there letting Jiang Jing take his pulse and examine him, but his eyes were not idle, looking around as if he was very curious about the place.

"How many patients do you have here?" the middle-aged man asked.

"Why are you asking this?" Zhang Zhaodi said from the side. "These are all court secrets. Don't ask around, or you'll get yourself into trouble."

The gentle and refined man who had just spoken said, "Please don't take offense, everyone. We've heard that the epidemic here is quite severe. Our master just happened to be passing through and originally intended to stay here for one night before leaving. However, staying for one night has caused unnecessary trouble. This epidemic is so frightening that our master is worried that his illness won't heal quickly enough, which might affect the important business deal we're about to discuss."

"What kind of business do you do?" Zhou Wangshu asked. "Since you heard that the epidemic is serious here, how dare you enter the city? If you were taking a remote back road, you wouldn't have taken such a risk."

“The situation is not good now, and there are more bandits than before. If we take the back roads, there is no epidemic there, but there are bandits! We heard that the magistrate here is a good administrator, and we think that with such an official in charge, the epidemic must have been brought under control.”

“You’re lucky; there’s really no problem with you getting here at this time,” Zhou Wangshu said.

"Was there a problem before?" the middle-aged man asked.

"No, no problem." Su Yaoguang pretended to glare at Zhou Wangshu and said in a low voice, "Shut up if you don't want to cause trouble. Why do you have to tell everyone? Don't you want to go home?"

Zhou Wangshu gave an "oh" sound, looking annoyed.

The middle-aged man and the refined man exchanged a glance.

Zhang Zhaodi and the others had already guessed the identities of the two. Unlike Su Yaoguang and Zhou Wangshu, they couldn't keep secrets or play games, so they quickly went to take care of the patient.

“You’re fine; it’s probably just a common cold. A couple of doses of medicine for colds should be enough. My clinic is full of patients with epidemic diseases, so go to another clinic to get your medicine!” Jiang Jing said.

"Doctor, I don't trust any other doctors, I only trust you. You can even cure such a terrible epidemic, so our boss's cold is nothing to you. Just prescribe the medicine, and our boss will stay here with you to recover. You don't need to worry about the epidemic spreading to us. We'll find a place to stay alone and not have contact with anyone else, so the epidemic won't affect us."

"You two are really something. Everyone else is trying to stay far away, but you insist on coming this way. Are you spies sent by someone?"

“We are honest businessmen. What kind of spies would dare to mingle with the plague? What’s the difference between that and courting death?” the refined man said. “We just don’t trust other doctors.”

"Do as you please," Su Yaoguang said. "As you can see, we have many patients here and don't have the capacity to take care of you. You'll have to take care of yourselves."

Su Yaoguang and Zhou Wangshu exchanged a glance, and then left the room one after the other. As usual, they prepared medicine for the patients, recorded their recovery progress, and regularly disinfected the patients' residences with herbal fumigation.

The two men were secretly contacting the patients, trying to extract information from them. They quickly found out what Su Yaoguang wanted them to know. After getting the information they wanted, they made an excuse and left. They thought they had concealed it well; Su Yaoguang and the others saw through them but didn't say anything, acting as if nothing had happened. As for the 1200 taels of silver, they wouldn't accept that ill-gotten money. They would use it to buy a large quantity of rice and flour, distributing it to the poor to improve their lives.

While Su Yaoguang and others were helping the people in the neighboring city, Xiao Yanci recovered his strength and devoted himself to studying for the upcoming imperial examinations. Wen Shi continued to work at the academy. Although the day laborers who had previously worked at the academy had returned, Wen Shi refused wages, voluntarily staying to do odd jobs. Most importantly, Xiao Yanci was willing to keep her. The academy was now pinning its hopes on Xiao Yanci and wouldn't let such a small matter upset him. Besides, no matter how attentive Wen Shi was, she was still just a widow; Xiao Yanci would never be interested in such a widow.

"Hey Xiao, my sister hasn't come back yet. Where did you hide her?" The first thing Jiang Yihui did upon returning to the academy was to cause trouble for Xiao Yanci.

Jiang Yihui has been having too much fun lately and has no desire to return to the academy. In his view, his mother runs that shop and earns so much money every day; he already has more money than he can spend, so why should he suffer the hardship of studying?
To avoid returning to the academy, he would feign a stomachache one minute and a headache the next. This time, seeing that he still wasn't going back to the academy, Zhong Lanhua made up her mind and said that if he didn't study, she would cut off his allowance.

When Jiang Yihui returned to the academy, he learned that Jiang Yihuan was not there, so he immediately went to her door to ask for her.

Xiao Yanci was baffled: "Didn't your sister go down the mountain and go home a long time ago?"

He'd been down the mountain for so long, and Jiang Yihuan hadn't come to see him once; his heart had long since turned cold. In his past life, he'd loved Jiang Yihuan to the core, but now he began to doubt whether their love was truly as unwavering as she claimed. Otherwise, why was she even less than a Wen Shi in this life? Was this what she meant by "deep love like the sea"?
"She hasn't come back since she went up the mountain with you. When did she come down the mountain? Did you see her come down the mountain? Did she tell you she came down the mountain?" Jiang Yihui slammed his fist on the table and roared fiercely, "I'm telling you, if anything happens to my sister, I'll make you pay."

Xiao Yanci frowned: "You mean she hasn't been home?"

"of course."

Xiao Yanci stood up: "Then let's go report to the authorities."

Madam Wen brought in some pastries and said to Xiao Yanci, "Young Master Xiao, you must be tired from reading, so I made some pastries for you."

Jiang Yihui sized up Wen Shi.

Although Wen was dressed in coarse linen clothes, her figure was truly beautiful, and her appearance was very charming. She looked at me shyly, with the bashfulness of a young girl and the allure of a mature woman.

A strange light flashed in Jiang Yihui's eyes.

"I heard you and my sister had a fight. Did you do something to my sister?"

Ms. Wen looked startled: "No, I haven't seen Miss Jiang in a long time."

"You say you didn't see her, so you didn't see her? Maybe you did something to my sister, and she's probably in grave danger now?"

"Brother Xiao, Miss Jiang has fainted at the entrance of the academy. The gatekeeper wants you to go out and deal with it quickly," a student called out from outside the gate.

Xiao Yanci strode out: "Where?"