Chapter 50 Who Dares
Su Lun looked at Su Muge, who showed him a gesture to keep silent.
“Who is it?” Su Muge lowered her voice and asked.
“Lord Su, it’s me,” answered Granny Fang.
“Granny Fang, what’s wrong?”
“Well, Lord, you didn’t have breakfast and I was afraid that you might be hungry, so I brought some food.”
“No thanks, Granny. I ate some solid food outside. I am not hungry at this moment. You can go back to work.”
“Ok, then I will go back first. If you are hungry, please let me know.”
“Fine.”
The sound of Granny Fang’s footsteps drifted away.
Su Muge went back to her chair to sit down, looking at Su Lun, whose face was full of questioning.
“Father, believe it or not, at this point, we should think about how to solve the following matters.”
Of course, Su Lun knew what’s more important, and Su Muge was right on one thing.
If she hadn’t pretended to be him, his sudden disappearance would have surely been taken as an advantage by those who were up to no good. The whole Su family might have been punished by now.
But for Su Muge’s audacious behavior, Su Lun still thought it unbelievable.
“I will ask someone to send you back to Shunyang prefecture. Keep this as a secret until you die.”
“No, not yet.” Su Muge refused him without thinking.
The anger that Su Lun had just hold back rose again. “Do you think it’s a boudoir game? When do you want to stop!”
Su Muge sneered from her heart. She could be regarded as the one who saved the lives of the whole Su family, even though it was not her starting point. But Su Lun blamed her by saying she’s just playing.
Thinking of this, Su Muge showed her frosty face to Su Lun.
“Father, do you think I am playing? There may be an epidemic disease in the county, and I am the only one who knows about it. Are you sure that you want me to go back now?”
“An epidemic disease!” Su Lun’s pupils dilated suddenly in surprise.
“Father, relax. I am talking about the possibility.”
“Where are those patients? Get them out of Zhou county at once. They must not stay!” He didn’t care about the lives of the patients.
“Now Second Prince and Lord Xia are watching on it.”
“Lord Xia?” The moment he entered county yamen he was called directly by the Second Prince’s subordinate. The Second Prince mentioned the King of Jin in their talk many times. He didn’t expect that the King of Jin would appear in Zhou county. This King of Jin should be Lord Xia that Su Muge was talking about.
“Who do you think you are? And how capable are you to ensure to cure those patients?”
“I am trying.”
“How long, how long before you can cure those people?”
Su Muge didn’t answer but got up to open the medical kit and took out the porcelain bottle. She had soaked some worms in it yesterday.
Su Muge had expected to see dead worms, but the ones in the potion were still alive!
Su Muge looked at the porcelain bottle, shocked and speechless.
“With the same potion, the same proportion of worms and with the same time, these worms are still alive.”
What’s happening…
Did anything go wrong?
“I will give you three days. If you can’t cure those people in three days, you should go back to Shunyang prefecture immediately.” After Su Lun finished his words, he was irritated when he found that Su Muge hadn’t listened to him at all.
“Did you hear me?”
“Right!”
Su Muge looked up suddenly. If there was any difference, it was the blood that she had purposefully tricked Xia Houmo the other day to drop into the porcelain bottle with worms.
Was it because of his blood?
“Fine. I promise you. But until then, the ‘Lord Su’ can only be me.” Su Muge put the cap back on the bottle and looked at Su Lun.
Su Lun was about to refute, but since no one had seen through her disguise these days, he relieved slightly.
He set his eyes on Su Muge and had to admit that her fake face was indeed similar to his own. However, she was shorter in height, which could only be recognized by close people.
“Ok, but you’d better keep the Su family from any trouble, otherwise…”
“Father, I cherish my life more than you.” Su Muge interrupted Su Lun. What she wanted now was to find Xia Houmo soon and to prove her conjecture.
“I will stay in the inn in the street behind the county yamen for the next three days. Go and find me there if necessary.”
“No problem. Father, you should be careful and don’t let anybody see your face.”
“Sure.” Su Lun opened the door and checked if there was anybody around. He then went away from the back door of the county yamen.
After Su Lun left, Su Muge went to Xia Houmo’s room with the porcelain bottle in her hand. “I have something important to discuss with Lord Xia,” said her to the bodyguard who stopped her outside the door.
“Let him in.”
The moment Su Muge finished her words, there came the voice of Xia Houmo.
She walked in and saw him sitting in front of a table in a tidy dark robe.
“Lord Xia, I have a great discovery. I probably know the way to kill those worms.”
Xia Houmo’s eyebrows raised slightly. “Oh?”
“However, I need you to make some sacrifice.”
Before Xia Houmo said yes, Su Muge couldn’t wait to grasp his big hands, held up a finger and pierced it with a silver needle.
Xia Houmo felt a slight tingle from his fingertip, and a drop of his blood was already squeezed into the porcelain bottle by Su Muge.
Xia Houmo’s lips twitched. “Can my blood really be used as medicine?”
Su Muge poured out the worms in the porcelain bottle, and the drop of blood melted into the potion at a quick and invisible speed. Soon, the color of the worms that were originally active in the potion changed, and died in a moment!
“Well, it does…” Su Muge looked at Xia Houmo’s bleeding finger greedily, like a wolf seeing meat.
Xia Houmo also straightened himself up in the chair and looked at the porcelain plate.
“I thought these worms were poisoned by the potion, but later I did another experiment and found that they weren’t be killed if just soaked in it. Lord Xia, do you remember that I took some drops of your blood into the porcelain bottle in the carriage before?”
How could Xia Houmo forget this?
Of course, Su Muge wouldn’t tell him that she had been intentional at that time!
“Yes.”
“Hold on, Lord Xia,” said Su Muge, then she turned around, running to her room. She had divided the worms from the child’s lungs into several shares to save them for the experiment.
She took two more shares of the worms back to Xia Houmo’s room.
“Lord Xia, try it again.”
Xia Houmo didn’t mind. He p.r.i.c.ked his finger again with a silver needle and dropped the blood into the porcelain bottles which contained the worms.
The red blood was dropped onto the snow-white worms and just in a moment, the lively worm withered and died.
“Lord Xia, I’m going to thank you on behalf of the people of Zhou county.”
The eyes of Xia Houmo became darker when he saw Su Muge trying to hold back her rising lips.
She took some blood from him for later study, determined to try her best to make the medicine in three days.
Xia Houmo looked at his fingers and frowned slightly.
Why could his blood kill those worms? Was it because he was poisoned by Red Blaze? And were they killed by the poisoned blood?
“Lord, Zuoqiu and the troop he led came back,” Donglin walked into the room and whispered.
Xia Houmo restrained his thought. “Let them in.”
Zuoqiu and Zuowei walked into the room.
“Lord.”
“Go ahead.”
Zuoqiu took a look at Zuowei and said, “Lord, we walked along the cave yesterday and found many messy footprints in it, and the tunnel leads to the foot of a mountain!”
There was a slight twitch between Xia Houmo’s eyebrows.
“We explored around the foot of the mountain for a while before we found that two more mountains from the exit, it was the boundary Chu,” Zuowei said.
“How long will it take to dig such a tunnel?” Xia Houmo asked him slowly.
“It will take at least a year to dig such a tunnel.”
Xia Houmo poked the chair lightly with his fingers. “They are going to work in collusion, collaborating from within with the other from outside. But who are those barbarians working with?”
“Lord, do you mean that some people in the state of Chu have colluded with the southern barbarians?” Donglin gnashed his teeth and said angrily. Their lord stopped those barbarians with his blood on the battlefield, but there were some people in collusion with those barbarians in the imperial court just for the sake of their selfish desires!
“Lord, what should we do next?”
Xia Houmo gradually raised his eyes and looked at the drizzle outside the window. His voice sounded remote. “Send someone to keep an eye on it secretly. I will report this to the emperor.”
“Yes.”
“Lord, there’s one more thing…” Donglin walked ahead to Xia Houmo and whispered to him.
Heard that, Xia Houmo’s black eyes squinted slightly.
…
After Su Muge ensured the worms could be killed by Xia Houmo’s blood, she made the medicine at night and went to the wards the patients were temporarily settled the next day.
Although she already found the way to kill those worms, she had to be more discreet just in case of an accident.
The moment Su Muge carried her medicine kit to the door of the ward, Xiaohu ran out.
“Lord Su, here you are. Come on. A group of people have rushed in from nowhere just now. They said all the patients with the epidemic disease should be taken away.”
There was a violent beat of Su Muge’s heart. “What epidemic disease! Nonsense!”
Su Muge ran in with Xiaohu and saw the patients were carrying out from the ward by a group of people who appeared like soldiers.
“What are you doing? Stop!”
All of them turned their eyes to Su Muge.
Their leader looked at Su Muge, startled.
“Who are you?”
Seeing patients thrown on the ground randomly, Su Muge took a deep breath to hold back her anger. “I’m the Chief of Shunyang prefecture. What are you doing, and where are you taking them to?”
The leader didn’t care about Su Muge’s ident.i.ty at all.
“The order was given by the Second Prince. Those who had the epidemic disease should be transferred out of Zhou county immediately. Those who disobey will die.”
“The epidemic disease? They, they have the epidemic disease?!”
“My G.o.d, they’re patients with the epidemic disease!”
Hearing what the leader said, those people who had been serving in and out of the wards were frightened and stared at patients lying on the ground. No one dared to come closer.
Su Muge clenched her fists. “Nonsense, the disease is not infectious. It’s not an epidemic disease at all. You can’t take them away!”
The leader sneered. “Stop your bulls.h.i.t. Take them away!”
Su Muge gritted and blocked the door bravely. “Who dares?”