The Whole Village Thrives After Adopting a Lucky Girl

The next day, Yao Yuanzheng and two Imperial Physicians came to take the pulse of the prince regent, confirming that his health had stabilized. Afterwards, they returned to the Imperial Pharmacy with Yingbao to gather the medicinal herbs for her to prepare.

This time, Yao Yuanzheng insisted on observing the medicine preparation process.

Yingbao complied, instructing several attendants in grinding and boiling the herbs.

When the preparation was almost done, she secretly added a bit of Wudingzhi into the mix, stirring it into a dense paste. Once it cooled, she instructed them to roll it into individual pills and wrap them in wax paper.

On another side, an attendant was making wax shells, also known as hanging wax skin.

First, they melted wax in a pot. When the wax oil lowered to a warm temperature, they dipped a wooden ball that’s fixed on an iron branch into the pot, afterwards immediately putting the wooden ball into cold water to solidify.

They repeated this process of dipping in wax and cooling until the wax skin reached a certain thickness.

Latterly, they used a small knife to cut open most of the wax skin around the wooden ball. Once the wooden ball was removed, they placed the pill wrapped in wax paper into the wax shell and sealed it, polishing the wax stem smooth.

Then, they heated the Bull Horn Seal, applied red clay to it, and stamped the name of the medicine onto the sealed area.

Yingbao expressed interest in the tools used to create the wax shells and requested a set from Yao Yuanzheng to take with her.

In the future, if she wanted to sell her own medicine, she would need to encase each pill in a shell and brand it with her own seal – only then would it be truly grand.

Yao Yuanzheng did not begrudge her and readily agreed to gift her a set of the tools for creating wax skins, additionally gifting her several hand-copied volumes of palace medicinal diets.

Yingbao reciprocated by gifting him a small bottle of her handmade pills.

The concentration of Wudingzhi in these pills was far greater than that in the ones they had just prepared.

Upon her return from the Imperial Pharmacy, Yingbao found that Xiao Chengjun had moved from his previous location and was now staying next door to her, separated by only one room.

Changxiu brought back the hedgehog from the orchard and handed it over to Yingbao. “Following your instructions, I’ve been tying the hedgehog in the bushes of the orchard where no one could see.”

“Thank you, Sister Changxiu.” Yingbao took the hedgehog, put it on the ground, and fed it some pumpkin seeds.

These seeds were given by attendants in the Imperial Pharmacy. They said the seeds were brined with salt and then roasted to a savory taste.

Yingbao found the seeds too salty and didn’t dare to eat too much of them, so they were perfect to feed the hedgehog.

The hedgehog didn’t seemed bothered and ate them one by one.

As evening arrived and Changxiu went to the Imperial Kitchen to fetch their food, Yingbao sneakily slipped out of her room and made her way into Xiao Chengjun’s room.

At this time Xiao Chengjun should have been accompanying the prince regent in Qilin Hall, meaning his room was empty.

Yingbao tossed some pumpkin seeds under the bed, added a piece of rock honey, and then pushed the little hedgehog in.

Then, she hurried back to her own room, where she calmly sat on the Arhat Couch, waiting for Changxiu to bring back their food.

After dinner and cleaning herself up, Yingbao asked Changxiu to sleep inside the bed while she herself slept on the outside, closing her eyes to listen to the sounds around them.

Only after dining with the prince regent did Xiao Chengjun return. He had the palace eunuchs inspect everything before finally laying down to rest.

The incident the other day had scared him terribly. Late into the quiet night, he had heard coughing sounds but sending people to investigate found nothing.

Ever since then, he had the eunuchs stand guard outside every night, as he was too terrified to fall asleep otherwise.

After these circumstances persisted for several days, even the eunuchs began to complain. Whenever they saw him, they would go out of their way to avoid him, fearful of being assigned to stand guard at night again.

Luckily, no disturbing sounds were heard for a few days, so Xiao Chengjun began to relax. He no longer required people to guard his door through the night, though he still needed a lamp to be lit in his room.

While lying in bed, Xiao Chengjun read for a while, and then gradually fell asleep.

Seeing that he had fallen asleep, the Palace Attendant doused a few of the lamps, leaving only two lit before going to rest in the outer room.

In the middle of the night, Xiao Chengjun was suddenly awakened by coughing sounds.

He furrowed his brows, listening attentively. The shock came when he realized the coughing sounds were not coming from outside, but rather from underneath his couch.

Xiao Chengjun screamed in fear, jumping off the bed and running barefoot out of the room. He yelled loudly, “Somebody! Somebody!”

Two attendants came running with lanterns asking, “Xiao Langjun, what happened again?”

“There’s…there’s…there’s a ghost in there…qu…qu…quickly… go check…” Xiao Chengjun stuttered in fear, his teeth chattering and his entire body trembling like a sieve shaking chaff.

The two attendants looked at each other, too scared to go in.

“Why don’t you go to Qilin Hall first, Xiao Langjun? We’ll find more people to help check,” suggested one of the attendants.

Xiao Chengjun agreed without hesitation and allowed one of the attendants to escort him to Qilin Hall.

The other attendant hesitated, raising his lantern to head back, when suddenly a small head peered out from a partition beside him, giving him a fright.

“Oh my goodness young doctor, you almost scared the living daylights out of me.” The attendant recognized the figure as Yingbao and clutched his chest, “You should go back to your room. Xiao Langjun said his room is haunted again.”

Yingbao blinked and asked, “Why does his room keep getting haunted? Has he been in contact with someone recently that could cause this?”

The attendant quickly hushed him, “Young doctor, you can’t just say things like that. Xiao Langjun has been spending a lot of time with the Prince recently.”

“The Prince is of royal blood and his health is excellent. His vital energy is very strong at the moment, it’s a miracle Xiao Chengjun hasn’t affected him.”

Yingbao gently persuaded, “Think again, who else has Xiao Chengjun been interacting with recently?”

The attendant thought for a moment, smacked his forehead and said mysteriously, “I got it, Xiao Langjun has been spending a lot of time with the new palace maid. I even saw him take her to the orchard to pick lychees.”

Yingbao nodded, “That’s it. Alas, quickly go find some people to come to the rescue.”

The attendant nodded at Yingbao and hurried to find others.

Yingbao turned to Changxiu who was already out of bed, “Older Sister Chang, you stand guard here. I will go check in Xiao Chengjun’s room.”

Changxiu looked worried, “Young doctor, why are you going there? It’s quite scary, let me… let me accompany you.”

“No, no, I really don’t believe that there are ghosts in this world. It must be something wrong with Xiao Chengjun’s mind. He is always suspicious and fearful, may have even become delusional by now.”

As Yingbao said this he ran towards Xiao Chengjun’s room, “Older sister Chang, you wait here, I’ll go in and see if there really are any ghosts.”

Although Changxiu wanted to follow, she was even more afraid of ghosts, so she paced anxiously on the spot.

Yingbao entered the room and saw it was still lit.

It appeared that Xiao Chengjun was so terrified that he would even sleep with the lights on.

Yingbao quickly crawled under the couch and caught the string tied to the hedgehog’s leg, pulling it out.

Carrying the hedgehog, he ran to Changxiu and said, “There’s definitely no ghost in his room, let’s go back.”

Changxiu followed Yingbao back to their compartment and settled on the couch, watching the little boy feed water to the hedgehog.

Yingbao grumbled, “Why on earth are you running around so late at night? What if someone catches you and mistakes you for a ghost?”

The hedgehog drank some water and then curled up quietly.

Unable to resist asking, Changxiu said, “Yingbao, did the hedgehog scare Xiao Langjun?”

“Hush…” Yingbao signaled her to be quiet: “Older Sister Chang, you mustn’t say anything. If Xiao Chengjun blames us for this, we will be in big trouble.”

Changxiu quickly nodded: “I won’t say anything.”

With that, Yingbao seemed pleased. He covered the hedgehog’s basket with a piece of cloth and got back into bed to go sleep.