At the moment the white jade bowl landed in their palms and they felt its warmth, many people could not react in time.
A hand as withered as dry wood held the white porridge, its fingertips trembling violently, yet it hesitated to bring the bowl to his lips.
Stiffly, he lowered his head and stared at the steaming white porridge in the bowl. A thin layer of rice oil floated atop the gruel; he had never seen such thick porridge in his entire life.
As he stared, he suddenly burst into tears.
His tears splashed into the bowl, creating tiny ripples.
Seeing this, he hurriedly shielded the rim of the bowl with his hand, terrified his tears would ruin the porridge, yet he simply could not stop weeping.
Not far away.
Inside a ruined house, an emaciated woman sat on a tattered straw mat in the corner, cradling a child in her arms.
Holding the white jade bowl, the woman carefully fed the white porridge into the child's mouth, whispering softly, “My darling, please, I beg you, drink it. If you drink this porridge, you will live.”
As she spoke, she glanced at the straw mat beside her. Her home was so impoverished that only four bare walls remained. Her husband had failed to survive the previous night, and she could only wrap him in a tattered straw mat and leave him lying there, lacking both the money and the strength to bury him.
After feeding her child the very last spoonful of porridge, she turned the white jade bowl over and scraped the remaining rice grains from the bottom with her finger, placing them into her mouth bit by bit.
It was only when the white jade bowl vanished before her eyes that she blankly lowered her hand. She looked up at the magnificent clouds in the sky, her tears unconsciously trickling down the deep creases of her face, splashing onto her child's head one by one.
“The Divine Lady is merciful...”
At the other end of the long street.
A man with a broken leg was struggling to push himself up from the ground. With only one functional leg, he supported his emaciated body with a broken wooden staff, shuffling forward step by step.
He carried a bowl of porridge, his steps incredibly unsteady.
Several times he nearly fell, yet he cradled the bowl of porridge so closely to his chest that not a single grain of rice was spilled.
After a long while, he finally shuffled over to a corner of the wall.
There lay a gray-haired elderly woman, her face ash-gray and her lips parched and cracked, seemingly having fainted from starvation.
The one-legged man squatted down. “Mother, wake up, please wake up! There is porridge! We have porridge!”
Seeing no response from her, the one-legged man's hands began to shake uncontrollably, and his voice carried a hint of sobbing.
“Mother! Wake up! Open your eyes and look! It is porridge! It is white porridge! The porridge bestowed by the Divine Lady!”
The elderly woman still did not respond.
“Mother...” The one-legged man froze, holding the steaming bowl of white porridge, utterly dazed.
The steam rising from the bowl blurred his vision. With a heart as cold as dead ashes, he lowered his head, staring at the pristine white rice grains in the bowl as his tears fell into it drop by drop.
“Move aside first. Let me check her pulse.”
A calm, steady female voice rang out.
The one-legged man subconsciously shifted his body out of the way.
Physician Liu dismounted her horse and walked toward the elderly woman.
She first peeled back the elderly woman's eyelids, then pinched her slender wrist to feel her extremely faint pulse.
“The cold has penetrated her bones, and she has not had a drop of water or a grain of rice for days. She is on the verge of death. However, all hope is not lost.” She pulled a cloth roll from the leather pouch at her waist.
When unrolled, it revealed gleaming silver needles.
After she inserted a few needles, the elderly woman's fingers twitched slightly.
The one-legged man felt a surge of joy. He wanted to ask something, but feared interrupting Physician Liu's treatment.
He could only kneel nearby, propping himself up on the ground with his hands, silently praying that his mother would be safe.
“Water.”
Physician Liu said without turning her head.
An apprentice, who was closely watching Physician Liu administer the needles, hurriedly unfastened the waterskin from his own waist and handed it over.
Physician Liu took the waterskin and fed some water to the elderly woman.
Before long, the elderly woman's eyelids fluttered, her cloudy eyes rolled slightly, and she slowly opened them a crack.
“Mother...” The one-legged man threw himself forward, yet did not dare touch her. “Mother! You are awake! Look at me!”
The elderly woman's pupils were dilated, and her vision wavered for a long time before finally settling on her son's tear-stained face.
She lips quivered, her breath as thin as silk: “Erlang?”
“Mother, it is me...”
The one-legged man wept with joy.
Physician Liu had already stood up and packed away her silver needles. “If your mother can eat some white porridge tonight, she will have truly reclaimed her life. Come find me at this time tomorrow for another session.”
The one-legged man called out, “Divine Physician, please wait. Where should I bring my mother to find you tomorrow?”
“I do not deserve such a title,” Physician Liu said with a warm expression. “Among the Divine Lady's followers, there are many whose medical skills far surpass mine. How could I possibly bear the title of Divine Physician?”
Just then, a young military physician ran over, panting as he spoke, “Physician Liu, please come with me and take a look. There is a patient ahead whose entire body is festering. We have never seen such a disease before and are completely at our wits' end...”
Physician Liu's expression changed drastically.
“Take me to see!”
When first entering Wuling City and seeing the foul atmosphere, with the living and the dead piled together, she had already felt a bad premonition.
In such a terrible environment, it was extremely easy for an epidemic to breed and spread rapidly from one person to another.
With this thought, she grabbed her medicine chest, swiftly mounted her horse, and turned to the one-legged man. “The Zhenbei Army is currently stationed outside Wuling City. If you bring your mother out of the city tomorrow, you will see our camp. Even if I am not there, other military physicians will administer the needles for your mother, and we will not charge you a single coin.”
Watching the riders gallop away, two lines of fresh tears streamed down the one-legged man's red-rimmed eyes.
From the time he was born to his adulthood, the thing he had heard the most was that the lives of the poor were worthless; if they died, they died.
And indeed, that was the reality.
He still remembered how, in the past, he had been hawking goods on the street as usual when a wealthy young master suddenly ordered his guards to break his leg in broad daylight, simply because he found him eyesore.
Later, he found out that the wealthy young master was the son of the Chief Administrator, someone he could never hope to provoke.
After that, he could only swallow all his grievances and silently endure the agony his broken leg brought him.
Sometimes, he would also wonder why living in this world was so bitter.
He had thought he would probably suffer for his entire life, but the appearance of the Divine Lady and the Zhenbei Army allowed him to see a glimmer of dawn.
“The Divine Lady's followers, the Zhenbei Army...”
“Mother, we have truly met good people...”
“Good people, truly good people...”
As more and more soldiers of the Zhenbei Army entered the city to save lives, similar voices echoed in every corner of the city.
Pei Du and Shen Jue stood on the main road of Wuling City.
“Wuling City has actually been ravaged to such a state. That Chen Chao truly deserves to suffer death by a thousand cuts!” Shen Jue's face was filled with indignation.
Pei Du sighed. “If we want to help the people of Wuling rebuild Wuling City, I fear it will not be an easy task.”
Hearing this, Shen Jue spoke with a firm tone, “Since it is the Divine Lady's wish, we shall naturally spare no effort!”
Yun Shu happened to be sitting on the roof right next to them, so their conversation naturally drifted into her ears.
“Tongzi, I've thought of a way to lower his Favorability,” she said, watching the two of them walk toward the camp outside the city.
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