The Prime Minister's Darling
Chapter 875 - 875 404 Princess Xinyang (Second Update)

Chapter 875: 404 Princess Xinyang (Second Update) Chapter 875: 404 Princess Xinyang (Second Update) “`

“Long Yi!”

It wasn’t until someone called out to him that the Dragon Shadow Guard finally let go of Gu Jiao.

Gu Jiao didn’t dare stay a moment longer and scurried away like a startled rabbit!

By the time Gu Jiao returned to Bishui Alley, Xiao Liulang had also come home from his duty at the Hanlin Academy, washing his writing brush in a basin of water by the well.

Gu Jiao approached slowly.

Heaven knows she was terrified that the Dragon Shadow Guard would catch up to her, unleashing the survival instincts she’d honed in her previous life fleeing after stealing military supplies. She plonked down on the small stool opposite Xiao Liulang, gasping for air.

Xiao Liulang gave her a puzzled look and asked, “What happened? Did something happen?”

“…Nothing,” Gu Jiao replied listlessly, “just played with… charcoal pencils all afternoon.”

Xiao Liulang wasn’t surprised by her cross-dressing; she often went out wearing Gu Yan’s clothes, and the Yao Family had even tailored several sets specifically for her.

His gaze fell upon Gu Jiao’s soot-covered hands, assuming she had just been playing with little Jing Kong, not suspecting anything. However, his expression became distant for a moment, as if recalling something from long ago.

Gu Jiao noticed Xiao Liulang’s daydreaming, leaned forward, and asked, “Husband, what’s wrong?”

Xiao Liulang snapped back to reality and fetched another basin of water for her to wash her hands.

“Nothing,” he said, looking down, “I used to play with them too when I was young.”

But I wasn’t really playing, I was being captured and tormented!

Gu Jiao silently vowed that her little burlap sack would come in handy one day!

Yikes—

My hands are so sore.

The next day, after the family finished breakfast, those who had school went to school, and those who had duties went their ways. Gu Jiao happened to have a house call that morning for a patient whose wound she had sutured a few days before; she was going to remove the stitches, and it was on the way to the Hanlin Academy.

The two of them took Liao Quan’s carriage close to the Hanlin Academy.

At this time, the street was crowded with Hanlin officials and scholars on their way to work, so congested that the carriage couldn’t get through.

Xiao Liulang got out of the carriage.

“I’ll walk you there,” said Gu Jiao as she also stepped out of the carriage.

Xiao Liulang did not refuse.

All the way, Xiao Liulang was silent.

“Husband, are you unhappy?” Gu Jiao asked.

“What?” Xiao Liulang was slightly taken aback.

“You’ve seemed unhappy recently,” Gu Jiao paused, correcting her own wording, “Not exactly unhappy, just…as if you have something on your mind.”

Ever since they rescued auntie, Xiao Liulang had been like this. Gu Jiao thought back carefully and realized nothing significant had happened that night, except, perhaps, that he had his face pinched by a member of the Dragon Shadow Guard.

Ugh.

She was angry too.

Only she was allowed to pinch her husband’s face.

“Not at all,” Xiao Liulang’s eyes flickered as he denied, “I’m not unhappy.”

As they talked, the voices of several Hanlin officials discussing something drifted from up ahead.

“Hey, have you heard? Princess Xinyang has returned to the Capital!”

“Are you serious? Princess Xinyang has really come back?”

“I heard it with my own ears, how could it be false!”

“But why would she return? Didn’t she say she would never come back in this lifetime?”

“Indeed, isn’t she afraid of being heartbroken again, reminded of the young lord who died in the big fire?”

…

These people walked into the Hanlin Academy, unaware that Xiao Liulang and Gu Jiao were just behind them.

There was no significant change in Xiao Liulang’s expression, but if one were attentive, they could detect a slight stiffness in his posture.

Seeing that he acted as if nothing were the matter, Gu Jiao repressed the urge to ask him about it.

After escorting Xiao Liulang to the entrance of the Hanlin Academy and personally watching him go inside, Gu Jiao turned back and got into Liao Quan’s carriage: “Uncle Liao, I need to go to Vermilion Bird Avenue.”

“Alrighty!”

Liao Quan drove the carriage towards Vermilion Bird Avenue.

This was one of the streets closest to the Imperial Palace, purportedly inhabited by either long-time locals or the most wealthy and powerful people of the Capital.

The household Gu Jiao was visiting for her medical call was located at the east end of Vermilion Bird Avenue. Due to recent roadworks, the carriage also couldn’t proceed.

“I’ll wait here,” Liao Quan said.

“Thank you, Uncle Liao,” Gu Jiao replied, exiting the carriage. She carried her small backpack and walked towards the patient’s home.

The patient was a thirty-year-old scholar who had accidentally injured his right hand, used for writing—from the back of his hand to his palm, almost making a full circle. Gu Jiao had to stitch more than a dozen sutures.

He was healing nicely. After removing the stitches, Gu Jiao let him move his hand around.

“How does it feel?” Gu Jiao inquired.

“`

“`

“It’s, it’s fine.” He was hesitant to use much force at first, but after trying a little, other than some minor pain, there was no other discomfort, “Will I be able to write in the future?”

“Of course you will,” said Gu Jiao. “Take your time to practice. Don’t rush and don’t be afraid.”

“Great!” He was overjoyed, and then, thinking of something, he suddenly became sneaky, walked to the door, looked around to make sure no one was there, and then whispered to Gu Jiao, “By the way, Doctor Gu, your medical skills are so good, can you… can you cure tuberculosis?”

“Tuberculosis? Lung tuberculosis?” Gu Jiao looked at him and asked.

The scholar spoke in a low voice, “It should be. I heard my mother talking about it, and she also told me not to go to their house anymore.”

Gu Jiao said, “Lung tuberculosis is contagious to a certain extent. It’s right that your mother doesn’t want you to go there.”

The scholar sighed, “I understand. I don’t blame my mother, it’s just… it’s a pity. Their family isn’t doing very well. Their ancestors lived here for generations, and they were once very prominent, but now there’s not much left. If this disease isn’t cured, I fear their whole family will be dragged down, and they’ll have to sell this mansion.”

Gu Jiao asked, “This place? Do they live on this street too?”

“Yes,” the scholar nodded. “It’s… it’s my classmate… ‘s mother.”

Classmate? Almost a beloved one.

Gu Jiao saw through but didn’t say through, “Where exactly?”

A quarter of an hour later, Gu Jiao appeared at the back entrance of another courtyard at the east end of Vermilion Bird Avenue…

Yes, the back entrance.

The scholar didn’t dare to leave through the front door, fearing his father and mother would catch him. He took Gu Jiao through the small alley at the back door, but unfortunately, they were caught halfway by his mother.

In his panic, he pointed Gu Jiao the way.

He also paid the consultation fee.

Gu Jiao looked at the half-open back door in front of her, “This should be the place, right? Strange, why is there no one here?”

Indeed, this family, with its fortunes in decline, had long dismissed their servants. During the day, her classmate studied at the Academy, leaving only his sister and the patient at home.

But because of the contagious nature of tuberculosis, the patient lived in the second part of the courtyard and hardly ever let her children come over.

So it was right for Gu Jiao to take the back door. Once inside, she could see the patient’s room.

“Which one?”

Gu Jiao stepped over the threshold.

The courtyard was very tidy, with some flowers planted on both sides. Gu Jiao didn’t know much about flowers, but she felt that these were even prettier than those in the Imperial Garden.

Ill but still having the leisure and spirit to tend to flowers, it didn’t quite match the picture the scholar painted of a lingering illness and living each day passively.

A low coughing sound came from one of the side rooms.

Gu Jiao put on a mask she took out of her first-aid kit and approached the room, gently pushing open the door.

There was indeed someone inside, sitting on top of a beam. Gu Jiao didn’t notice him, but he saw her straight away.

However, he did nothing and simply let Gu Jiao draw closer to the bed.

A mosquito net was draped over the bed. Gu Jiao gently lifted the net.

She had expected to see a tuberculosis patient with a sallow complexion, emaciated and in dire condition, but instead, she saw an indescribably beautiful face and hair.

She laid under a thin blanket, her black hair smooth as satin, making her skin appear as delicate as white porcelain.

Unfortunately, Gu Jiao only had a glimpse before the woman turned over in her sleep, her face turned away, and Gu Jiao could no longer see her face.

But the stunning glimpse remained clearly etched in Gu Jiao’s mind.

“Is this really the tuberculosis patient the scholar said was on the brink of death?”

It wasn’t that a tuberculosis patient couldn’t be beautiful, but in severe illness, one’s complexion is usually poor. Plus, the scholar had been warning her all along the way not to be frightened by the patient’s appearance, to expect dishevelment and what not.

Disheveled? There were none cleaner or more elegant than her.

Gu Jiao was confused. She didn’t yet realize that she might have walked into the wrong house.

She gently extended her hand to take the other’s pulse.

From the pulse, it didn’t seem like tuberculosis.

She also took out her stethoscope and listened carefully, eventually determining this was not tuberculosis.

It was myocarditis, also a heart condition.

Heart conditions are very complex and each type can be quite tricky to deal with.

Luckily, her heart condition had not reached the stage where surgery was necessary, but she could not be careless. Judging by her appearance, she must have suffered greatly on a regular basis.

For such heart conditions, taking beta-blockers and amiodarone was effective, but the Research Institute had its own specially developed drugs that worked even better.

Gu Jiao opened her first-aid kit and took out a box of the special drug. She planned to pack it in her own porcelain vial, only to find that she had run out of vials in her small basket.

By chance, there were several medicine bottles on the table. Gu Jiao picked one up, poured out the pills inside and sniffed them.

“These are just high-quality health pills with no specific therapeutic effect,” Gu Jiao said as she emptied the bottle, put the special white medicine tablets into it, affixed a small cloth strip to the bottle with the dosage and instructions written on it, and then she got up and left.

Meanwhile, in the front courtyard, a woman in her thirties wearing a light green cloak was seeing the Crown Princess off in her carriage.

“Madam Yujin, please stay a moment,” the Crown Princess said gently.

The woman addressed as Madam Yujin replied courteously, “Thank you, Crown Princess, for visiting the Princess and bringing her medicine. When the Princess wakes up, I will report that you have been here.”

“`