[*移情别恋- yí qíng bié liàn – change of affection, a shift of love (idiom); to change one’s feelings to another love; to fall in love with sb else]
Ye Zhen and Huangfu Chen came to the gates of the village. The shock in their eyes turned into anger. The fence at the entrance of the village had been removed and replaced with dried firewood. Not only the gate but also the surrounding area was filled with dried firewood. Also when they walked over earlier, the smell of oil assailed their senses.
“What are you guys trying to do?” Ye Zhen looked at Xu Ji who was outside. It was hard to believe that he would actually use such a method to treat the people in the village who had the plague.
Xu Ji smiled and looked at Ye Zhen and Huangfu Chen and said, “Governor-general Zhang has ordered that since the plague would never get better, in order to prevent it from spreading to other places, we have to burn the people in the village who were infected with the plague.”
Ye Zhen was furious. “Are you going to burn them alive? What you’re doing is completely inhuman!”
“If I allow these people to continue to live, the plague will never end. If more and more people get infected, who is to be blamed?” Xu Ji sneered.
“How do you know they can’t be cured? They’ve clearly improved. In a few days, they’ll definitely recover.” Ye Zhen looked angrily at Xu Ji. In the past, she only felt that this guy was reckless and stupid. It was only today that she knew that he was actually very vicious.
Xu Ji snorted coldly. “Yesterday, two people in the city had typhoid fever. If I hadn’t killed them, they would have infected even more people today.”
Huangfu Chen’s calm eyes were also filled with anger. “You didn’t even give them a chance to heal, and you killed them?”
“You also had typhoid fever. Who else could cure them?” Xu Ji asked.
“Xu Ji, what you did today will be repaid to you in the future.” Ye Zhen clenched her fists. Ever since she has started studying medicine, she had never truly faced such a thing. Originally, she had learned medicine for the sake of getting revenge on Mo Rongzhan. Later, she was gradually influenced by the spirit of the divine doctor, Empress Qi Yanling through the 《Qi Medical Classics》. It was only then that she truly understood the meaning of being a doctor.
Xu Ji cupped his hands to the sky. “I, Xu Ji, am capable of doing the right things worthy of heaven and earth. Today’s slaughter is for the sake of the commoners. If there is retribution for this, then, I, Xu Ji, am willing to bear it.”
He had turned black and white upside down and treated his selfishness and cruelty as salvation!
“Our princess is inside and you dare not burn the village. The empress dowager and the emperor will not let you off!” Dai Mei stood outside the village and shouted loudly.
“Princess? What princess?” Zheng Yulong, who was clueless about the goings-on, looked at Ye Zhen in surprise.
Dai Mei said, “Our Miss is Princess Furong, the title the empress dowager conferred upon her. If the princess is in the village, who would dare burn the village?”
Zheng Yulong looked at Ye Zhen in horror. “You… Are you a princess?”
Huangfu Chen nodded gently. “She is the only princess in Jin Country today.”
“Commander Xu, don’t burn the village!” Zheng Yulong hurriedly shouted. “Quick, hurry up and remove the firewood.”
Xu Ji immediately shouted, “If those villagers come out, the city will be filled with plagues. Lord Zheng, can you handle it?”
If those villagers came out to infect others, he, the prefectural magistrate, would also lose his head! Zheng Yulong looked at Huangfu Chen in panic.
“Xu Ji, wait and see if the villagers inside will die.” A sneer appeared on the corner of Ye Zhen’s mouth. “If you dare to set fire, that means you have determined to bury the Xu family with you — go ahead and light it. I’ll wait for you inside. If you don’t dare to set fire, then wait. When the people inside heal, this princess will definitely settle things with you.”
This was the first time Ye Zhen had called herself a princess. In the past, she had never been willing to use this identity to suppress others.
Xu Ji smiled, walked in front of Ye Zhen, and said in a low voice, “Do you think the empress dowager and emperor still care about you, Princess?”
Ye Zhen lifted her eyes and looked coldly at Xu Ji. “If not, do they care about you then?”
“It seems that the princess is still not clear about anything.” Xu Ji smiled and gloated, “You don’t know that the emperor has recently doted on a stunning beauty, right? That was the person who saved the emperor’s life when he was young. Now she lives in Palace of Earthly Tranquility. Not only does His Majesty dote on her, but Her Highness the Empress Dowager also dotes on the girl. Do you think they would still remember you?”
The savior? What? Ye Zhen thought back to what had happened in the small forest back then. Mo Rongzhan’s so-called savior was her when she was young, right? Her face turned deathly pale. “What did you say?”
Xu Ji seemed to think about it seriously. “By the way, I heard that Miss Ye had been under house arrest for a few years. It wasn’t easy for the emperor to find her. Isn’t she the beloved he hasn’t seen for many years? Why wouldn’t he be fond of her?
“Impossible!” Ye Zhen shook her head. Lu Wushuang was already dead. Mo Rongzhan knew that someone was pretending to be Xiao Yao from back then, so why would he easily treat others as her?
Xu Ji looked at Ye Zhen’s panic-stricken face with satisfaction, thinking that she was afraid of losing her favor.
“Yaoyao, are you alright?” Huangfu Chen looked at Ye Zhen worriedly.
Ye Zhen shook her head lightly. She could roughly guess what had happened.
The so-called savior must have been created by Lu Lingzhi. How did he do it? Other than him, Ye Zhen couldn’t think of anyone else who would create a false savior.
What she was worried about was that, no matter how good Mo Rongzhan’s words were to her, as long as someone else brought out a little girl that he had never forgotten, no matter genuine or fake, he would immediately ignore and forget her.
“Master, let’s go back inside,” Ye Zhen said to Huangfu Chen. “If he dares to set fire, then let him.”
Huangfu Chen didn’t even bother to look at Xu Ji. He walked back to the village side by side with Ye Zhen.
“Ah Zhan is not someone who can easily fall in love with others. Don’t listen to his nonsense.” Huangfu Chen didn’t know how to comfort her, so he could only say this softly.
Ye Zhen smiled faintly. Mo Rongzhan wasn’t someone who could easily fall in love with others, but as long as he believed he had met the savior from the forest, he would immediately forget the person beside him.
Perhaps in the future, when he knew that the person who saved him was Ye Zhen, he would completely let go of this person in his heart.
As for Ye Zhen, she was very grateful that Mo Rongzhan’s memories from when he was young still lingered on. But she also felt sad, because he wasn’t really willing to look for the person who had actually saved him. He had subconsciously excluded Ye Zhen.
She felt very uncomfortable right now. It was as if something was blocking her way and she didn’t know what it was.
“Master, let’s give them medicine first,” she said. She did not want to think about Mo Rongzhan anymore, nor did she want to know how he doted upon the so-called savior. In the end, he and she were never destined to be together.
Seeing how she was reluctant to say anything, Huangfu Chen also kept quiet. “I’ll go and get the brewed medicine first.”
“I might need to make some more medicine today. Xu Ji brought all the patients from the neighboring village over. Imperial Physician Qi might have been tricked into going to the city to treat patients,” Ye Zhen pointed out.
If not how could the extra patients surface? And how could he have snuck them out from under Qi Jin’s nose? The only plausibility was if she was sent away and what better bait than fresh infections to lure her?
“Xu Ji’s intentions aren’t pure. I won’t let him off this time,” Huangfu Chen said softly.
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