"Song Yao, wake up. Don't fall asleep!" Xu Kaicheng's expression was extremely grim. Without thinking, he opened the exchange panel. Unfortunately, this cheat ability could only exchange for knowledge—the only physical items available were silver and seeds. There were no medicines in it.
After his cheeks were pinched several times, Song Yao finally came back to his senses hazily. His head rested weakly on Xu Kaicheng's shoulder, and he could only signal with blinks that he was listening.
He held the person for a while longer. As the sky shifted, the cook who lived outside the residence would soon arrive to cook. Xu Kaicheng could only carefully pull Song Yao's arms away. Looking up, he saw the person who had been forced to let go, weeping silently.
His heart clenched. Xu Kaicheng quickly pulled him back into his arms. "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid. I'm going to buy you some medicine. You have a fever—you need to take medicine. I'll go to the medical hall and buy some fever-reducing medicine, prepare it there, and then bring it to you, alright? Don't worry, don't worry. I'll be back very soon, alright?"
Song Yao slowly let go, still weeping silently. But this time, there was no despair in his eyes—only Xu Kaicheng, filling them completely.
Xu Kaicheng gave him one more firm hug, then carefully tucked him deeper into that worn blanket, closer to the wall. "Wait for me. I'll be right back."
Stepping on the edge of a nearby wooden chest, he quickly climbed over the wall. Xu Kaicheng rushed into the medical hall with a grim expression and paid an extra ten copper coins for the apprentice to brew the fever-reducing medicine. Normally, the patient would need to come in person for the physician to examine them, but Song Yao's condition made it impossible for him to come, so they could only prescribe the most ordinary fever-reducing medicine based on Xu Kaicheng's description.
No matter how hard Xu Kaicheng tried, brewing medicine took time. By the time he returned, it was already half an hour later.
The Song residence's back courtyard was noisier now; the kitchen had begun bustling. The hastily built shelter and the numerous wooden chests blocked the gap, leaving only a small slit through which one could see in or out.
Song Yao sat on the ground against the wall, face flushed red, lips cracked and pale. On the ground was a coarse grain steamed bun, as though it had been tossed to a dog.
Xu Kaicheng jumped over the wall again and threw that coarse grain bun directly outside. Holding the person close, he fed Song Yao the medicine he had poured into a waterskin.
Chinese medicine was very bitter — just the smell alone was enough to make him frown. But the person obediently curled up in his arms didn't even twitch an eyelid, drinking down every mouthful of the still slightly scalding liquid..
Xu Kaicheng pressed his lips tightly together. In just this short time, the dampness and chill rising from the ground had already made his legs uncomfortable. But for Song Yao, there was only a worn blanket.
"How about I take you away from the Song family?"
Song Yao's eyes sparkled. He did not speak, only looked at Xu Kaicheng and smiled. The corners of his mouth curved up, forming two small dimples. His eyes were full of trust, yet he only nuzzled his cheek against Xu Kaicheng's neck.
Xu Kaicheng held him, looking through that small gap toward the Song family's back courtyard. His arms tightened around Song Yao, and his resolve grew firmer. "Don't be afraid. Hold on a few more days. In a few more days, I'll take you away from the Song family. I will never let you suffer again after this!"
There may have been something sedative in the medicine, because before long, Xu Kaicheng could only hear soft breathing by his ear. He carefully laid the person down and slipped out once more.
When he returned, he had several wooden boards in his hands, along with some very ordinary firewood. He laid the split firewood on the ground just like in the Song family's firewood shed, placed a wooden board on top, and then laid Song Yao on it.
Another wooden board leaned against the wall, giving Song Yao something to lean on.
The clothes on Song Yao's body could hardly even be called proper clothes. At first, Xu Kaicheng had thought it was just a rag pulled over his head, but when he lifted it, he realized it was actually a woman's jacket and skirt. It was just so oversized that two of Song Yao could fit inside, which was why it had looked like a rag on him.
He put a pair of cotton socks on Song Yao's feet, then wrapped them with strips of cloth. When he tried to put shoes on him, he discovered there was actually only one shoe here.
His lips pressed tightly together in an instant. With a grim expression, Xu Kaicheng wrapped another layer of cotton cloth around Song Yao's belly. The late spring, early summer sun finally showed its strength at high noon, warming even this corner until it was stiflingly hot.
Xu Kaicheng didn't dare stay too long. He roused Song Yao, said goodbye, and only then let him lie back down to sleep.
Three hours later, he came again to deliver medicine. And deep into the night, he even brought over a somewhat worn but thick cotton quilt and slipped it inside.
With only five days left until the wedding, it was the first time Xu Kaicheng felt he truly could not sit still any longer.
He had sneaked out in the middle of the night to deliver medicine once more, and his anger toward the Song family had only grown.
Early the next morning, he wandered around the outskirts of the city with a hundred steamed buns and a hundred copper coins, and before long he got the information he wanted.
The tutor the Song family had hired for Song Yue, Lu Lande, was already a juren at the age of twenty. He had taught Song Yue for three months, and had taken his leave a month ago when Song Yue's wedding drew near.
Lu Lande had the refined air of a scholar and could be considered handsome. Add to that becoming a juren at twenty, and it was no exaggeration to call him immensely learned. His only real shortcoming, perhaps, was that he had few close elders left — only a widowed mother.
He could be considered a capital native; his ancestral home was in Lujia Village, ten li north of the capital's northern outskirts.
It made sense when you thought about it. If his hometown had been a thousand li away like the Xu family's, Song Yue's runaway-bride stunt would have landed her deep in some mountain gully, and Xu Kaixuan really would have had a hard time running into her.
Rather than letting Song Yue run away from the marriage, Xu Kaicheng actually preferred that those two marry smoothly. Song Yao's situation in the Song household was already dire enough. If Song Yue married smoothly, then he could simply take Song Yao away, and the Song family likely wouldn't pursue the matter.
With fewer entanglements with the male and female leads, Song Yao's tragic ending in the original novel could probably be avoided smoothly.
Xu Kaicheng spent a bit of silver and found a woman whose back resembled Song Yue's by about eighty percent. He had her dress specifically in the clothes Song Yue had worn that day, and even had her hair ornaments perfectly replicated.
As long as she appeared on the route Xu Kaixuan had to take and lured him to the Song residence, that would be enough.
Openly introducing a betrothed couple like this couldn't really be called a bad thing, could it?
Xu Kaixuan was, after all, a fourth-rank general. After returning to the capital, he had naturally been assigned duties. Every day he had to report to the Ministry of War, and every few days he had to go to the military camp outside the city for joint training.
On a very ordinary morning, Xu Kaicheng left the marquis household early. He sat on the second floor of a teahouse, opened half the window, and watched the road below that led to the Ministry of War.
Yinghong sat in a carriage, which was parked at the corner at the end of the road. When the time was about right, the moment the marquis household's main gate opened, Yinghong got out and stood at the corner. Compared to Xu Kaicheng, the one who had planned this, Yinghong clearly had a better grasp of men's minds.
Riding horses was not permitted in the capital unless there was an urgent official matter. Xu Kaixuan still had to maintain his perfect image, so naturally he wouldn't stumble on such a small matter. The marquis household's carriage had long since been waiting at the gate. Yinghong had presumably been afraid that Xu Kaixuan would get into the carriage and miss her, so before he had even stepped down from the marquis household's front steps, she had already gracefully walked out from the corner.
There were few people on the street in the early morning to begin with, let alone a woman with such a stunning back. Xu Kaixuan quickly had his attention drawn, and in a flash his eyes lit up. The distance between them was less than a hundred meters, and Xu Kaixuan hurriedly shouted loudly, "Miss, please wait!"
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