Bai Shan’s eyes twinkled slightly, and he smiled, saying, "Salt is rare, as you know. We can only bring enough salt for ourselves, but we did bring so tea..."
So, the two parties moved a little closer and stood on the hillside talking.
The herdsn wanted to buy so tea from them, and so people kept glancing at the basket on Zhou Man’s back. The leading herdsman couldn’t help but ask, "Do you have doctors in your caravan who know about herbal dicine?"
Manbao smiled and said, "Yes, I know so dical skills. Why, do you have a patient?"
"Are you a doctor? Then do you know the prescription for curing smallpox? I heard that over in Xiazhou, they posted the prescription on the city gate."
Manbao: ... The city gate hasn’t posted it, but it’s never been concealed. We also promote it among doctors.
After all, this involves dication, and it must be given by a doctor after review. Otherwise, if the prescription is made public, anyone can morize it, and if they get sick, they won’t consult a doctor, and will self-diagnose and dicate. What if they take the wrong dicine?
Manbao asked them, "Do you still have smallpox patients?"
Seeing that they were not afraid upon hearing of smallpox, for so reason, the herdsn felt more trusting of them. He said, "No, but we want the prescription. The gods say that if smallpox has occurred once, it will certainly recur next year, so we want to prepare so dicinal herbs in advance."
After all, no one knows if the court will send them dicine next year, and even if they do, it’s uncertain if it will be enough. The back-and-forth always delays things.
Last year, soone got sick in the twelfth lunar month, but the dicinal herbs didn’t arrive until the first month of the following year. Many people in our tribe died. Later, the effect of the dicine wasn’t very good. They all said it was because it was taken too late; if people took dicine as soon as they got sick, many could have been cured.
The herdsn intently stared at Zhou Man with glittering eyes, and soone sensed sothing was off. A young man from the back squeezed forward to whisper in the lead herdsman’s ear.
The leading herdsman then couldn’t help but turn his head to stare at Manbao.
Manbao and Bai Shan were sowhat tense under his gaze, holding hands a little tighter. Daji also stepped forward quietly, standing on Manbao’s other side, just half a step behind them.
"You..." The herdsman looked up and down at Zhou Man and finally fixated on her eyes, "Do you know soone nad Zhou Liang?"
When Bai Shan heard the surna Zhou, he turned to ask Manbao, "Do you know him?"
Manbao: "...That’s my fourth brother, don’t you know him?"
The herdsman’s eyes lit up, and he exclaid, "So you are Zhou Laodi’s sister! I know you. Zhou Laodi said you’re an imperial doctor, specially treating the emperor, very skilled."
Manbao’s eyes lit up, her surprise evident, "You know my fourth brother."
"Yes, yes, year before last and last year, he bought a lot of furs and cattle from our tribe, and sold us lots of tea and porcelain." The herdsman relaxed and curiously asked, "Aren’t you an imperial doctor?"
Manbao nodded, "Yes, but now I’m on a study tour. You want the prescription for smallpox, but do you know how to diagnose it?"
Manbao shifted the topic, saying, "Smallpox is easily confused with general rashes and high fevers, especially in the early stages. You cannot take the wrong dication. You first need to learn to diagnose smallpox before using the dicine for it."
The herdsn listened intently, hesitating before asking, "Can you teach us? We can pay you."
Manbao thought for a mont and then smiled, "I don’t want money. Do you know about the wild antelopes on the grassland?"
The herdsn shook their heads collectively, indicating they didn’t know.
"Do you want sheep? We have them. How many do you want? We’ll give them to you."
Manbao paused and said, "I just want wild antelopes."
She looked at Bai Shan, who took out a small notebook and a very fine pen, with a string attached to a small bamboo tube about the length of a finger.
He opened the bamboo tube and handed it to Manbao, who held it for him. He dipped the pen in a little ink and started drawing in the notebook. Soon, a lifelike wild antelope appeared on paper.
He showed it to the herdsn.
The herdsn exclaid, "Ah, yes, we know this, wild sheep. There are many over there. It’s too thin and not tasty, not as good as the sheep we raise."
The herdsn eagerly recomnded their own raised sheep, stating if Zhou Man were willing to teach them, they would give her many sheep as paynt.
Manbao laughed, "I’m not going to eat them. I want to study them, so I need them alive. Can you help catch two live antelopes?"
"If we catch the antelopes, will you teach us how to diagnose smallpox?"
Manbao nodded.
The herdsn thumped their chests in agreent and led them down the hillside, saying, "You should et our chief."
Their tribe has a shaman, soone who can’t learn this kind of thing, but the shaman and chief should be able to learn—they’re the smart ones.
Manbao and Bai Shan nodded and rode with them towards the distant tribe.
The tribe’s chief was already waiting. He had received the report earlier, so let the others go while he hung back with a few people.
There was so initial wariness, but from afar noticing them talking on the hillside, not like they were going to fight, and since there were only three of them, he relaxed and leisurely strolled forward with the tribe.
When they ca down, he stopped and waited for them.
A herdsman ran ahead, dismounted, and whispered to him. When Manbao and the others arrived, the chief was already wearing a smile, greeting them warmly.
The chief seed to be in his forties, with a thick beard covering half his face. With his age, Manbao and Bai Shan naturally showed a bit more respect.
Both sides were willing, and the exchange went smoothly.
So they temporarily halted their migration and planned to set up camp. The herdsn quickly pitched large tents, and the shaman soon brought two children over.
The chief enthusiastically introduced their shaman to Manbao using Chinese, then in their tribal language told the shaman, "This is Miss Zhou, sister of Zhou Silang, the imperial doctor who treats the emperor. You must learn all her skills in diagnosing smallpox."
Even though he spoke fast and their tribal dialect was a bit different from the Mandarin they learned, Manbao and Bai Shan understood about seventy to eighty percent: ...
They remained silent.
The nearby herdsn hesitated, wanting to tell the chief Manbao and Bai Shan could speak their dialect, but it seed too late now, and might make the chief feel awkward, so they were troubled about whether to ntion it.
The chief gave them no chance, finishing with the shaman before focusing on Zhou Man, "You can teach now."
The shaman smiled politely at Manbao. He seed much younger than the chief, about twenty-four or twenty-five, roughly the sa age as Yang Heshu.
His Chinese was even more standard than the chief’s, bowing slightly in greeting to Manbao and introducing himself, "My na is Gulu."
Bai Shan took the opportunity to ask, "My na is Bai Shan. I don’t yet know your tribe’s na."
The shaman smiled, "Our tribe is called the Tutu Tribe."
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