Chapter 353: Chapter 136: Night Meeting_1
In Hongfang Garden, the sun was gradually rising.
Golden sunlight drifted from afar like fine golden gravel, lightly coating the medicinal garden. A large cluster of scarlet flowers shimmered in the sunlight, exuding a thin mist, stunning and captivating.
He Xiu sat on the bluestone at the edge of the garden, staring blankly at the person who was picking herbs among the blossoms.
Amidst the thick and vivid colors, the woman’s dull dark brown hemp garment blended with the soil beneath the garden, mundane, muddy, and inconspicuous, yet her eyes were clear, her bends focused while picking each colorful flower, her movements practiced as if she had done this a thousand times over.
He Xiu felt like she was dreaming.
Hong Fang Xu was poisonous.
The flower was as alluring and enchanting as a beauty, true to its name, with numerous pink fuzzes growing on its branches and leaves. When the wind blew, the fuzz spread across the sky like a layer of silk mist, enveloping a person tightly.
Then, it flew into one’s nostrils, traveled down the throat into the body, and over time, the toxin spread.
That alone would have been enough, but the fragrance of Hong Fang Xu was also toxic. The rich and fragrant aroma caused one to feel weak all over. Stay too long, and one’s movements would grow sluggish, gradually leading to bleeding from the mouth and nose. If one didn’t leave in time to rest, one might even lose consciousness.
That’s exactly what happened to He Xiu. After half an hour amidst the Hong Fang Xu, she felt the world spinning and immediately retreated to the edge of the garden. She thought the newly arrived Lu Tong would be the same, but it had been an hour, and Lu Tong seemed unfazed, moving through the garden, selecting and picking ripe Hong Fang Xu to place on a wooden cart.
He Xiu was somewhat bewildered.
Lu Tong picked very quickly, much faster than He Xiu, who had been there for three years. She picked very cleanly, without wasting any branches or leaves. The rose-pink fuzz was lightly blown onto her clothes by the wind, embroidering her coarse cloth with gradients of flowers, making her features even more distinct.
She wasn’t even wearing a face mask.
A person without a face mask, completely unaffected by the fuzz and fragrance of Hongfang Garden, moving freely. Could it be... He Xiu thought to herself, did Physician Lu have no sense of smell?
But was the toxicity of Hong Fang Xu rendered ineffective by the mere loss of smell?
He Xiu didn’t understand. It had been so long since she left the Medical Officer Institute, and her days were filled with picking and cleaning the same herbs. Medical theories and pharmacology were all forgotten.
As she was pondering this, the rumbling sound of wooden cart wheels rolling over the muddy ground reached her ears. He Xiu looked up to see Lu Tong pulling the cart to the edge of the garden.
The cart was half filled with freshly picked Hong Fang Xu, piling into a small mountain. He Xiu was so amazed that she stammered, "You...you..."
"I’ve looked at the register," Lu Tong said, "It’s enough for today’s harvest."
He Xiu was somewhat at a loss for words.
Such a harvest, on a regular day, would take her from dawn till dusk to complete. Although there were now two of them, in reality, Lu Tong had done all the picking.
Lu Tong hadn’t even taken a break.
Lu Tong spread out a large cloth that had been on the cart over the picked Hong Fang Xu, to prevent the fuzz from blowing around and also to cover the scent of the flowers.
He Xiu mumbled a little, then asked quietly, "Do you want to take a break?" Seeing Lu Tong look over, she quickly explained, "I usually finish at dusk, returning too early would prompt the Medical Supervisor to assign you other tasks..."
In the Southern Pharmacy, it was always the same, people here were not treated as humans, but as beasts of burden, donkeys grinding mills, alive and that’s enough.
Lu Tong thought for a moment, then walked back in front of the garden, found a rock to sit on, and said, "Let’s take a break."
He Xiu breathed a sigh of relief, then remembering something, she took out a dry biscuit from her bag and handed it to Lu Tong.
Lu Tong took it.
"We ate before coming to the garden, and I usually eat again after I’ve finished work at night. A long day, two meals are necessary, that’s why I brought some dry biscuits." He Xiu explained.
Lu Tong nodded, took a bite, and the biscuit, not much larger than the palm of her hand, was coarse, hard to swallow, with a strange bitter taste.
Lu Tong was taken aback, "Did you add herbal medicine?"
He Xiu’s eyes lit up, "You can tell?"
She seemed pleased, "I’ve added detoxifying herbs to it. Sometimes when sorting herbs in the Southern Pharmacy, some broken branches and leaves are left over. I pick out the useful ones and bake them into biscuits in the kitchen. Hong Fang Xu is poisonous, and although the herbal biscuit can’t detoxify, it can alleviate some of the toxicity." She took out another one from her bag, took a cautious bite as if savoring a delicacy and then, looking at Lu Tong with embarrassment, smiled sheepishly, "It doesn’t taste good, but it’s beneficial for the body. Please eat more, Physician Lu."