Chapter 2381: Chapter 2356: I’m Not Hungry
There are three checkpoints in the Emperor’s Manor, and at the last one, no one other than the people from the Imperial Hospital is allowed to enter or exit. Once someone enters to undergo the smallpox inoculation, unless it is confirmed that the pox has erupted and healed, they cannot leave.
Inside, rooms have been built, but it’s not for individual accommodation. Each room houses six people, and there are about fifty newly built rooms.
Currently, half of them are occupied, not only by selected inoculation test subjects but also by servants waiting for orders.
The Imperial Hospital has set up a courtyard here. The main hall is for meetings, with the pharmacy and consultation rooms on either side. Everything inside is well-prepared, with most necessities ready.
The western and eastern wings are for accommodation. When Director Xiao and the others come to inspect, they must also change their clothes here before entering.
However, Manbao doesn’t live in this courtyard; instead, she stays in the small courtyard next door, where several servants on standby also reside. Manbao stays in the main courtyard with two maidservants.
The courtyard walls are very low. There’s no help for it as the house was built in a hurry. A large area of the house was built in half a month, so how high could the walls be?
Anyway, Manbao can see the situation in the neighboring courtyard while standing inside her own, and naturally, Imperial Doctor Lu can too. A simple turn of the head allows him to see Zhou Man’s two maidservants unloading large packages from the carriage. One maid even takes down a jar from the back of the carriage, seemingly a pickle jar.
Imperial Doctor Lu shook his mustache and couldn’t help saying, "Imperial Doctor Zhou, we are here to treat patients, not for a spring outing. Why did you bring so many things?"
Manbao was surveying the courtyard where she would be living for quite some time, and upon hearing this, turned her head to glance at Imperial Doctor Lu. She straightforwardly leaned on the wall to look at his carriage, "It’s precisely because we’re here for treatment that we need to prepare more things. If it was a spring outing, I wouldn’t prepare so much."
She said, "For a spring outing, you can just buy what you’re missing. But here, there’s nowhere to buy anything, Doctor Lu. For a batch of test subjects, from inoculation to eruption and then recovery to test whether they can resist smallpox, the shortest time needed is twelve days. So, for at least twelve days, we can’t go out. Didn’t your family prepare any food, drink, or clothing for you?"
Imperial Doctor Lu also brought a servant, who carried down two large bags from the carriage. One contained his own clothes, and the other was for Imperial Doctor Lu. That was all.
Manbao naturally noticed and instantly understood. She looked at Imperial Doctor Lu with sympathy and patted her chest, "Doctor Lu, don’t worry. How about I treat you to my sister-in-law’s steamed pork with rice flour tonight?"
Clearly, this wasn’t what Imperial Doctor Lu meant, but under Zhou Man’s gaze, anything he said now seemed envious. So, annoyed, he turned and walked away.
Manbao just leaned on the courtyard wall, watching him huffily enter the house.
With a look of sympathy, Manbao sighed, "Doctor Lu doesn’t have it easy, does he? At his age, with parents above, siblings in the middle, and a wife and children below, yet he was sent on a duty in the first month and his family didn’t even prepare some chicken or duck or meat for him to bring along. Sigh..."
Jiu Lan came over with two wooden basins and said, "Miss Man, these are the wooden basins prepared for the house. Would you like to use the ones we brought from home, or the new ones?"
"I’ll use the ones from home. I’m used to them. The new ones can be for the servants in the courtyard. If there are extras, keep them. They might be useful later on in the patient wards."
Jiu Lan acknowledged and then asked, "Madam, what would you like for lunch? The kitchen seems fairly well-stocked."
"Anything’s fine, prepare what you see fit. But for now, maybe we can start with some snacks," Manbao said. "Take out the snacks Bai Shan bought and heat a plate. I’ll share it with Doctor Lu later."
This amount exceeded Bai Shan’s allowance, but Jiu Lan hesitated only a moment, thinking that for two people, it wasn’t much, so she went to heat them.
Imperial Doctor Lu, in his prime, didn’t like sweets, so ultimately the snacks ended up in Manbao’s stomach.
Manbao took a sip of tea, swished it around her mouth lightly, then wiped her fingers, looking outside as she asked, "Why hasn’t Director Xiao and the others arrived yet?"
Imperial Doctor Lu, flipping through documents at the table next door, lifted an eyelid at her, "I thought Imperial Doctor Zhou was so focused on snacks you’d forgotten about official duties."
Manbao said, "I’m just being prepared. It’s obvious Director Xiao and the others will be late. By the time we go to inspect the patient wards, we probably won’t be done by 1 pm. I’m just eating a little early to avoid panic."
Manbao glanced at the empty plate and said to Imperial Doctor Lu, "I did invite you to eat earlier, but you didn’t."
Imperial Doctor Lu just hmphed. Did he need her invitation?
Which Imperial Doctor doesn’t have a few pieces of snacks and candies tucked in their pockets, ready in case they miss a meal?
Director Xiao and his team arrived half an hour later than expected. Without explanation, Director Xiao nodded approvingly after inspecting their courtyard and said, "Alright, let’s go see the patients."
Patients had been transferred to the patient ward two days in advance, where they were being nourished according to Zhou Man’s previous practices.
It was merely introducing some meat and eggs gradually, and plenty of white rice and flour so that they wouldn’t go hungry.
Today, Director Xiao and his team were there to check each patient individually, sifting out those unfit for inoculation.
Without needing to write prescriptions, Director Xiao’s team took a handful of bamboo sticks and got to work. After taking pulses, they nodded if suitable or gave the patient a bamboo stick if not, allowing them to report to the steward and leave.
The process of pulse-taking and consultation was quite fast, but no matter how quick, there were many patients. As Manbao suggested, they didn’t finish until 1 pm.
The Imperial Doctors were quite hungry by then, so during the switch to the next ward, they took out their snacks to eat. Seeing Zhou Man still energetic and heading directly to the next ward, Imperial Doctor Liu stopped her, "Didn’t you prepare any snacks for yourself?"
Feeling compassionate, Imperial Doctor Liu offered her one, "Here, have one."
Manbao glanced at the snack in his hand, the most reputedly effective hunger-quenching and dizziness-relieving but badly tasting snack from the Imperial Hospital—the dry hard dough cake.
Made by compressing layers of flour, it was only known for its unpleasant taste and hardness.
Mass-produced in the Imperial Hospital’s kitchen, the Imperial Doctors could take as many as they wanted. When Manbao first entered the Imperial Hospital, she naively stuffed many into her pockets. Later, she learned that one bite felt like nothing, but soaked in water, a piece half the size of a child’s palm could fill a bowl.
It worked really well at staving off hunger—one was enough, two would undoubtedly fill you up.
Seeing this piece, Manbao immediately shook her head and retreated two steps, "Thank you, Doctor Liu, but I’m not hungry yet."
Imperial Doctor Lu drifted past her from behind, "Of course she’s not hungry, she just finished a plate of snacks late in the morning."
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