Sold immediately after wearing it? I took my family and fled the famine.

They spent another night in the cave.

Before dawn, Dr. Gu got up to take pulses, walking from one end of the cave to the other, examining each patient in turn.

Most people's high fever has subsided. They have been given herbal decoctions for three days. The young people have pulled through, and more and more people are able to sit up and drink porridge on their own.

But two more refugees from Yongzhou collapsed. One was an old man who was already seriously ill, and the other was his daughter-in-law, who started having a fever last night and whose forehead was frighteningly hot this morning.

Colds are unpredictable; once you catch one, you catch it. Herbs can only suppress the symptoms; whether you can overcome it depends entirely on yourself.

Zhang's high fever had subsided, but she still lacked energy. She leaned against the bedding with her eyes half-closed, her lips were dry and cracked, and the sallow complexion on her face was fading very slowly.

The swelling in her knee showed no signs of subsiding; her skin remained taut and shiny, and the bruise around the edge had turned from bluish-purple to dark brown, making it appear as if the bruising had deepened.

Third Uncle's knees weren't much better either; he still walked with a limp, his knees couldn't bend, and he had to use his hands to support himself against the stone wall to slowly sit down.

He doesn't say it, but his lips twitch involuntarily every time he stands up.

Jiang Xing saw it all. The night before last, she woke up in the middle of the night and heard Zhang Shi biting her sleeve and panting in bed, trembling with pain, but she didn't utter a sound.

The same goes for Third Uncle. He acts like nothing's wrong when he's chopping wood during the day, but he tosses and turns in bed late at night, unable to sleep because his knees hurt so much that his forehead is covered in cold sweat.

Both elderly people were enduring it, trying not to let her see it, trying not to cause her any trouble.

In the evening, Jiang Xing invited Dr. Gu over. Dr. Gu squatted down in front of Zhang Shi, rolled up his trouser leg to examine her knee, and then gently pressed the swollen area twice.

Zhang gritted her teeth and didn't make a sound, but her fingers were clenched so tightly under the blanket that they turned white.

"The bruising hasn't subsided yet." Doctor Gu withdrew his hand, his voice low: "The old lady is getting on in years, and her blood circulation is slow. This kind of injury can't be rushed. I've already used up all the blood-activating medicine in my medicine box. Ordinary mugwort and wild ginger applied to the surface won't work. We need to use herbs like clematis, achyranthes, and safflower. It's best if they're freshly picked, as they have a stronger medicinal effect."

He told Jiang Xing about the medicinal herbs he needed, and Jiang Xing nodded and silently made a note of them.

I'll go look for it tomorrow.

Dr. Gu glanced at her, seemed to want to say something, but ultimately just nodded.

The next morning, when Ma Dadan walked in from the cave entrance, his face was even more somber than it had been a few days earlier.

He called Shen Dehou and several village leaders together and held a short meeting in a well-ventilated area near the cave entrance.

"We can't wait any longer." Ma Dadan's voice was low. "We've been stuck in the cave for two whole days, and it's still at least three days' journey to Nanping County, with the Black Wind Pass in between. Our food supplies are almost gone. You saw the pot of porridge yesterday; you could count the grains of rice. If we keep going like this, we'll starve to death before we even reach the Southwest Prefecture."

Shen Dehou squatted down beside him, clutching a straw in his hand, without saying a word. He knew that Ma Dadan was telling the truth.

Dr. Gu straightened up from the stone wall, walked over, and squatted down next to the group.

He cupped his hands in a respectful gesture, speaking calmly and slowly: "Captain Ma, if I may offer a word of advice, most of the people in this cave have just recovered from their fevers. Although the high fever has subsided, they are still very weak. It looks like the rain has stopped these past two days, but the clouds haven't cleared, and it could start raining again at any moment. These villagers can't withstand the rain. If they relapse halfway through their journey, and there's no village or shop in sight, that would truly be a matter of life and death."

Ma Dadan's brows were furrowed so deeply they could trap a fly. He squatted on the ground, tapped his fingers twice on his knees, and looked up at the hazy sky above the cave entrance.

The clouds were indeed not dispersing; they were very low, and raindrops would fall whenever the wind blew, sometimes stopping and sometimes falling, without any discrepancy.

"Two days," Ma Dadan said through gritted teeth. "Two more days. After two days, rain or shine, we have to leave. We've already wasted too much time."

No one objected; everyone knew this was the final deadline.

But the phrase "wait two more days" carries different weight for different people.

When the news reached the cave, the first to react were not the people of Jiangjia Village, but the refugees from Yongzhou.

The man who was leading the group squatted on the innermost bedding. When he heard "Wait two more days," he bit the grass stalk in his mouth in two.

The refugees next to him exchanged glances without saying a word, but their eyes all drifted toward the middle of the cave, where the Qian family's carriage and Liu the carpenter's cart were parked.

Those families still had grain. Their eyes weren't just filled with envy; they had the undisguised, staring look of someone starving at food.