350: Chapter 339: Taking Effect 350: Chapter 339: Taking Effect Manbao ran ho in a flash, stopping by the kitchen to grab an empty bowl before dashing to her room.
She took a deep breath, extracted the tube of dark green dicine under Keke’s guidance, opened it, and poured the contents into the bowl.
The deep green liquid, reminiscent of the juice squeezed from grass, made Manbao curious; she sniffed it and detected a faint, fresh fragrance.
Manbao confird with Keke once more, “Just drink it directly?”
“Yes.”
“Are there any dietary restrictions?” Every ti her mother switched dications, there were many things she couldn’t eat to avoid interference.
“None.”
Reassured, Manbao carefully carried the bowl to find her mother.
Ms.
Qian’s cough had grown more severe, so she had to stop taking her usual dicine.
Suffering from two ailnts had left her spirit wilted, so she didn’t go anywhere and just lay in bed.
When Manbao entered, her mother was coughing.
Upon seeing Manbao, she covered her lips, continuously waving at her and turned her head to cough before turning back and saying, “Didn’t I tell your eldest sister-in-law that since I’m sick, you little ones must not co in?
What if you catch the illness?”
The weather was getting colder, and since Ms.
Qian believed her illness had started from a chill, she kept the doors and windows tightly shut.
The room was unlit and thus quite dim.
Manbao hadn’t thought about disguising the dicine.
While Keke was still planning how to covertly convince Ms.
Qian to take it, Manbao simply walked forward bowl in hand, “Mother, here’s so dicine for you.”
Ms.
Qian, without even looking at what was in the bowl, took it and drank in one go, hoping Manbao would leave sooner.
Only after drinking did she sense the flavor was off and asked, “This isn’t water, what is it?”
She looked down and saw only the green stains along the rim of the bowl.
“It’s dicine, mother.
Once you take the dicine, you’ll get better,” reassured Manbao as she took the bowl outside, poured so water into it, stirred with chopsticks, and had her mother drink the water used to rinse the bowl as well.
Ms.
Qian: …
Although unsure where her daughter had sourced these things, she drank them anyway, reasoning it’s all just water.
After drinking the water, Ms.
Qian handed the bowl back and motioned, “Go out, quick.”
Yet Manbao was unwilling to leave.
Instead, she squatted by the bedside and intently watched her mother, but after a long while, she couldn’t detect any change.
Seeing that Manbao was unmovable, Ms.
Qian could only have soone from outside take Manbao out.
“There’s no one at ho, so, mother, no need to call.
No one can hear,” Manbao said.
Ms.
Qian frowned and asked her sternly, “Will you leave, or not?”
Manbao suggested, “Mother, why don’t you co outside as well?
It’s stuffy always staying indoors.”
Her main concern was observing her mother’s condition after taking the dicine in a brighter space.
Curious, aren’t miraculous dicines supposed to imdiately heal the body?
Why was her mother still coughing?
Unable to persuade Manbao to leave, Ms.
Qian got up and went outside.
The air outside was cool, but the breeze was refreshing.
Ms.
Qian felt her mood lift, a stark contrast to the oppressive atmosphere of her dim, stuffy room.
Whether it was the better mood or just an illusion, Ms.
Qian felt lighter as soon as she stepped outside.
Manbao helped her mother to sit on the threshold and then squatted in front of her, staring intently at her face.
Amused, Ms.
Qian asked, “What are you looking at?
Don’t recognize your own mother?”
“Mother, after taking the dicine, do you feel lighter and refreshed?” Manbao inquired.
Ms.
Qian covered her mouth and coughed twice before chuckling, “This dicine isn’t given by gods; how could it work that quickly?
By the way, where did you get that dicine earlier?”
“I bought it from a friend.”
Without suspicion at that mont, Ms.
Qian asked with a laugh, “Which friend?
Does he know dicine?”
Considering Keke the most amazing person in the world, knowledgeable about everything or able to look it up in the encyclopedia, Manbao nodded, “He know it all.”
Right after Manbao spoke, her eyes suddenly brightened, “Mother, you’re sweating!”
Ms.
Qian touched her forehead, feeling sowhat feverish, and nodded, “Yes, it’s deep into autumn, almost winter, how co I feel so warm all of a sudden?”
Feeling thirsty, Ms.
Qian asked for water, which Manbao eagerly provided.
Even after a bowl of water, Ms.
Qian’s thirst persisted, prompting her to frown and say, “Manbao, touch your mother’s forehead.
Is it very hot?”
Manbao imdiately reached out to feel her mother’s forehead and took the opportunity to check her eyes and tongue before grabbing her hand, “Mother, let feel your pulse.”
Although Ms.
Qian never hindered her daughter from taking her pulse, deep down, she didn’t trust her self-taught dical skills.
With no alternatives, Ms.
Qian let her proceed, and Manbao closed her eyes, tuning in to the changes within her mother’s body.
The pulse was sporadically rapid and slow, but with each shift, it grew steadily stronger, a clear departure from its previous weak and erratic state.
Manbao’s other hand tapped lightly on her knee, aligning with Ms.
Qian’s pulse, and she found herself becoming increasingly elated.
She was convinced that the green vial was effective.
At least, the pulse suggested so.
Ms.
Qian continued to sweat profusely and felt certain she had co down with a fever, a condition even graver than her cough, which could be fatal if not managed properly.
Thus, as she drank water and observed Manbao, she noticed her daughter seed quite happy?
Ms.
Qian paused in her drinking, and suddenly, she felt less urgent.
Mother and daughter spent the ti, one with pulse-taking, the other drinking water, until Junior Ms.
Qian and the others returned from the field.
They had gone to the vegetable garden to harvest crops and had dug up so ginger roots and yams on the fallow land to take to town with Zhou SiLang’s group the following day.
Junior Ms.
Qian was the first to notice sothing amiss with Ms.
Qian, “Mother, why are you sweating so much?”
Thinking it was a fever, she reached out to feel Ms.
Qian’s forehead only to discover it wasn’t very hot, perhaps only slightly warm, leaving her uncertain and asking, “Mother, should we take you inside to lie down for a bit?”
“No need,” Manbao interjected, “it’s too stuffy inside.
Mother needs fresh air here.”
Junior Ms.
Qian slapped her shoulder, “Who needs fresh air when sick?
Help your mother back inside imdiately.”
However, Ms.
Qian weakly waved her hand, “Eldest daughter-in-law, never mind that now.
Go make a flatbread for first, I—I’m a bit hungry.”
Not only Junior Ms.
Qian but even Ms.
Feng and others behind her were gaping.
Due to her poor health, Ms.
Qian seldom ate flatbreads or other tough foods.
Upon hearing this, Manbao imdiately took out a piece of candy from her pocket and stuffed it into her mother’s mouth.
Right, she had forgotten that to fight illness, one needed to eat well for the required energy, didn’t they?
By then, Ms.
Qian had lost interest in what her daughter was doing; she felt very hungry, a sensation she had not been a stranger to over the years, but this hunger was different from any she had felt before.
It reminded her of the famine ten years prior when she was so famished that she saw stars and wanted to bite into anything she laid eyes on…
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