Tangyuan was a girl who could calm her mind. Whenever she dedicated herself to sothing, she forced herself to excel at it.
She had left Beijing with the mindset of traveling for pleasure, so she and Elder Yin carried small bundles and each led a horse, striding out of Beijing, and then going from street to alley in search of patients. In Elder Yin’s words—
"If you read all the books but don’t interact with patients or directly face life and death, it’s all pointless. To improve your skills, you have to practice with patients and learn from them."
A good teacher surpasses everything.
Elder Yin truly treated her as his direct disciple when it ca to teaching, so he was extrely diligent in finding patients.
With the mindset of saving lives and accumulating rit, Tangyuan used this opportunity to travel through every village and town in Nanling Country.
In each place, they set up a small stand to provide free dical consultations. The villagers were only responsible for providing als and accommodations during their stay.
Because in that era, consulting a doctor and getting prescriptions were separate, as long as they had a prescription, they could obtain the dicinal materials, so they provided free dical consultations, wrote prescriptions afterward, and then went to collect the dicines themselves.
Of course, if they encountered truly distinguished officials or patients with complex and rare diseases in towns or county and prefecture cities, they were not sloppy and would charge reasonably based on the family’s circumstances and character.
While she was learning bone setting, spinal manipulation, and acupuncture massage for the neck and back, Elder Yin took her directly to the military camp because there were many patients with such conditions there. Of course, she had been in male disguise all this way, which avoided the suspicions of the common people as well as the trouble of entering and leaving the military camp.
Perhaps because she had studied dicine and had a strong foundation and good learning capability, Elder Yin was very optimistic about her. Whatever could be explained verbally, the old man would not lift a finger, giving her the utmost authority and support.
Elder Yin was often in and out of the military camp because all the generals there knew him and treated him as an honored guest. Although their days in the military camp were strenuous, they were definitely not suffering. Whatever good food there was, people would think of them.
In the space where farmland could grow dicinal materials, she would cultivate nothing else. If there was ever a shortage of dicinal materials, she would selflessly and secretly transfer out good dicine for the warriors to use first, because the military camp was truly too busy and desperately in need of help. Thus, after two years of traveling, she decided to stay in the military camp to save lives and help the injured.
Elder Yin couldn’t stay idle and would co to see her every so often. Normally, she would learn from the military doctors in the camp, acquiring much knowledge. Because of Elder Yin’s relationship, she had her own tent in the camp, so her disguise as a man had not yet been discovered.
It was in the spring of that year that Rong Heng succeeded the throne to beco the fifth monarch of Nanling Country. That year, he was thirty-one, and she was twenty-one.
Starting in June of the sa year, they began selecting consorts to expand the harem, yet the queen’s position remained vacant. Perhaps...
Never mind, what ’perhaps’ could there be?
With self-mockery, she curled her lips and continued to grind her dicines.
Little did she know that a thousand miles away in the Imperial Palace, soone held a letter from Elder Yin and kept flipping through it over and over, finally letting out a deep sigh.
"When will you rember that there’s soone waiting for you?"
So, Tangyuan didn’t know that she wasn’t just imagining things, there really was soone quietly waiting for her to change her mind.
Although Elder Yin didn’t always keep an eye on Tangyuan, he was well aware of her situation, so he would send a letter to his little friend from ti to ti, easing the pain of longing.
The elderly man was once young himself, how could he not understand the relationship between the two of them?
Sadly, Tangyuan, the girl, was too independent and had her own thoughts. She knew clearly what she needed and what she didn’t.
Matters of the heart could only be nudged by outsiders, but they couldn’t really help; after all, the person who tied the bell has to be the one to untie it!
At the mont, Tangyuan’s location was precisely at the border between Dongru Country and Nanling Country. Ever since a certain soone ascended the throne, an assault on Dongru Country had been launched.
With the absence of the National Guardian General Mansion in Dongru, the country was naturally vulnerable, and it was said that Ning Xu himself led the troops, ready to personally oversee the battle to maintain the current situation. However, his ally Xigu Country dropped the ball at this critical mont and failed to join forces with him as expected, to counter the external enemy (Nanling).
The mont this news spread, the first to beco restless was Rong Heng because Tangyuan was currently in a military camp just across the river from Ning Xu. What if that shaless Ning Xu discovered her?
Therefore, despite the opposition of his ministers, he resolutely chose to lead his troops personally.
This war was inevitable; sooner or later, he would cut down that scum Ning Xu, and he wanted to do it right in front of Tangyuan, to avenge her.
When Tangyuan in the Yuxi military camp learned that Rong Heng was coming, her heart imdiately tightened because they hadn’t seen each other for two years.
But when she left, he was still Prince Heng. After being promoted to Crown Prince and ascending the throne, she had not seen him again, and sohow, the idea of fleeing occurred to her.
However, there were constant skirmishes before the two armies truly clashed, and every day countless warriors waited for her help with treatnt in the camp. If she were to leave now, would she be treated as a deserter?
While Tangyuan hesitated, more warriors were injured and called for her assistance; she simply had no ti to think about her own affairs.
Amidst this indecision and delay, the army led by the Monarch in person was drawing very close.
Tangyuan had already gone several sleepless nights in a row. Ever since she learned that he was getting closer, her mind replayed the days when they had fought side by side, she cursed her own weakness, her foolish heart, and scorned herself for falling for each one she t.
But she couldn’t stop herself from thinking of him, and since she could not refrain, and worried that she might lose control upon seeing him, Tangyuan decisively sought leave from the General, saying she wanted to go out to collect dicinal materials and that it might take ten days or half a month to return, with an uncertain return date.
Because Tangyuan was brought over by Elder Yin, who also had a habit of disappearing without notice, and since there was no official arrangent for her, the General, despite his reluctance to let go of such a promising talent, had no choice but to approve Tangyuan’s leave. So that very night, she packed her belongings, led her horse, and quietly slipped away.
The official road in the night was pitch dark, but since there was no traffic, it was quite unobstructed, and the horse’s night vision was better than hers, so there was no fear of encountering any unforeseeable danger. However, as she rode along, she suddenly heard what sounded like horse hooves ahead of her. Compared to her own horse’s hooves, they were heavier, clearly not the sound of just one horse. She quickly pulled the reins to slow down, trying to avoid a collision and any unpredictable dangers that might be coming...
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