XH 229 - It's a crime to starve a young child
Without needing to ask for directions, Doctor Bai could find where the 19th Emperor was.
Eunuch Lau Liu opened the door to the study without announcing his arrival, allowing Doctor Bai in. That was how close the 19th Emperor and Bai Chuan was.
The 19th Emperor had already stood up, aware of Doctor Bai's coming from a distance away. Looking flustered, he stared at his long-time friend with stark fear. "Why had your cultivation dropped!"
With a gentle smile and calm eyes, Doctor Bai answered as if it was not a concern, "Only you, could sense my cultivation that accurately."
"Nonsense! All along, your cultivation is higher than mine!"
Long Yuen was the strongest cultivator in the Guilin Kingdom but was a rank lower than Doctor Bai's. However, Doctor Bai's cultivation had now dropped below his!
"Did you encounter great danger?" Long Yuan questioned seriously.
Doctor Bai shook his head. "I merely passed my cultivation to someone else."
Long Yuan's frown eased slightly and sat back down. "This tale will surprise me greatly." He waved his friend to take a seat as well.
"I came to find you because of your eldest grandson's body." Doctor Bai tried to remind Long Yuen of why he was here.
"That can wait." Long Yuen waved it away. After all, he had more or less known what happened to Long Qian. Doctor Bai's diagnosis was just to confirm it.
Doctor Bai sighed helplessly at his friend’s sense of priority. "That person is still quite a distance away from achieving a breakthrough to the next rank, so I just helped out in return for a favor."
"How would this person be of help to you?" His friend hardly needed anyone's help.
"You know of Xiao Hua's eyes?"
Long Yuen nodded. Eunuch Lau Liu had asked around about what happened during his absence and heard about Xiao Hua's injuries.
Because the kingdom's affairs had reached high up his neck, he did not pay much attention to other affairs, so he did not know that favorite grandson had locked up his fiancee. Even the healthy weight he gained during his years of travels mostly disappeared from this exhausting ordeal.
His stupid son created this mess yet he dared to remain dead to the world and forced his old man to clean up after him! Long Yuen had wondered if he had owed this useless son a great debt in his past life!
"This person you helped out could cure Xiao Hua's eyes?" Long Yuen asked grimly.
When Long Zhu had told him that Bai Chuan went to pick up his thousand-year-old ginseng, he thought that ginseng would finally be cooked to feed Xiao Hua for her eyes.
"It will be slow healing, better than only having half of her vision restored."
Due to the restriction of his character as Doctor Bai and the level of medical knowledge in this world, it was impossible for Xiao Hua's eye injury to be healed. The best he could do was to restore half of her vision.
But that was not the case for Yu Zheng, who had entered this world through the backdoor. He will not be punished by the world when he heals Xiao Hua's eyes. Until now, Bai Chuan has yet to understand how Yu Zheng would not be punished for breaking so many rules. But he would not question this fortune, yet.
"That person is also a talented doctor?"
"He is a better doctor than I am," Doctor Bai said truthfully. After all, everything about the medicine he had learned was actually taught by Yu Zheng.
Long Yuen was not surprised by Bai Chuan's humble answer, because that was the type of person he was. The fact that someone would be better than Bai Chuan when it comes to medicine was also not something Long Yuen does not believe.
The world was vast, and there would always be someone better. Only a short-sighted fool would claim themselves to be the best in their field and destroy other talented people.
Suddenly, Long Yuen laughed. "Good thing you found someone that could cure Xiao Hua. Your heart must be aching if you really need to cook your beloved thousand-year ginseng!" Now the ginseng could be spared as there was someone that could do a better job than it.
Doctor Bai smiled and waited until Long Yuen finished laughing. "That great person is actually my thousand-year ginseng."
With wide eyes, gaping mouth and trembling hand, Long Yuen pointed at his friend in disbelief. "Y-You…" He faintly remembered that his friend had joked about his worldly ambition to turn ginseng into a human.
Turns out that was not a joke at all!
"Grandpa! I don't want to work anymore! My brain is dead! Let's have dinner to restore our energy, okay?" Heise barged into the room without permission, acting like a small tyrant that expects his demand to be fulfilled.
"Long Yuen, it's a crime to starve a young child," Doctor Bai said as humor danced in his gentle eyes. As well as child labor.
"Ah! Fellow cut sleeve!" Heise brightened when he saw Doctor Bai, his usual dislike to the surname Bai missing. "You are back! Did you find a way to fix Xiao Hua?"
Eunuch Heng quickly closed the door and waited outside with Eunuch Lau Liu.
Like the 19th Emperor, Heise was cut off from any unnecessary news, including Xiao Hua being grounded.
When Long Zhu tells his grandfather to have the Eighth Prince help him, he was actually serious about it. It was also time for him to discard his mask and reveal that he was 'cured' to the public.
Since Long Yu, the Fourth Prince, does not have a strong resolution that an Emperor should have, the candidacy falls to Long Zhu and Heise. However, Long Zhu had no interest in being the Guilin's Emperor, especially when he needed to search for the gate. He would not have the time and energy to juggle between the two tasks.
That was why Long Zhu decided to have Heise be the next Emperor instead. Heise has the guts, even if he may have too much of it, but he understood the value of restraint. There was no greed or cruelty without a good reason in him, which may be a better change of future for Guilin to head to.
"Long Ming! Be respectful to Doctor Bai!" Long Yuen scolded, but not as fierce he would towards the 20th Emperor when he was still a teenager.
At first, he wanted to throttle Long Zhu for tossing his youngest grandson to him as his assistant, but he quickly discovered a huge surprise. He was not surprised that Long Ming would pretend to be silly, but it was the ideas he came up with that shocked him. Long Ming's new ideas helped to speed up the time needed to get the Kingdom to run normally again and at that moment, Long Yuen finally recognized his value to be the next Emperor.
His plan to have Long Zhu be the 21st Emperor was quickly replaced with Long Ming!
Heise's knowledge he had from his world was helpful in this older time era where things were still traditional and inflexible. As a second-generation rich kid, he was forced to learn the ropes of his father's company, in preparation for the future when he takes over the company once his father retires. No matter how much Heise dragged his feet when he learned, or distracted by his sports club or writing brain dead novel to woo his girlfriend, he still has learned something.
His little knowledge was enough to run a Kingdom properly.
Heise frowned. "I don't like him."
Long Yuen coughed. "Even if you don't like him, you still have to be respectful to an elder. Don't invite criticism that leads to trouble for your future."
Once the major problems were dealt with, Long Yuen will throw his Eighth grandson to the best etiquette teacher! Then he will invite the Grand Tutor Ping to teach him!
Heise knew his grandfather's plan, so he set himself loose and acted wildly, until the day his freedom would be taken away!
But did he know the wilder he became, the more restrained he will be in the future? When your past actions made others lack trust in you, it was miserable!
Doctor Bai was used to Heise's hostility anyway, so he ignored it. "The Crown Prince was fed with a drug that enhanced his fear and made him hallucinate. The hallucination focused on making him fear a certain smell, which was the Empress' perfume. The perfume manipulated his mind to view the Empress as a monster he imagined in his mind. It is a work of a master to make the Crown Prince fear that perfume."
"Bai Chuan…" Why did you suddenly speak of Long Qian's death? And right before his youngest grandson too!
Long Ming may be intelligent and mature for his age, but death was still too much for a ten-year-old to listen to!
“The Crown Prince was purposely fed the drug in high dosage to quicken his deterioration with no chance of recovery. The person that made this drug and does not hesitate to use it on the Crown Prince is too dangerous to remain loose.”
How could Long Yuen not know what his friend hinted? He wanted Liu Chu Chu to be hunted down at any means, even if he was to make use of other Kingdom’s manpower. But if he does that, the other kingdoms will know that the Gulin Kingdom was currently weak.
Long Zhu had eliminated a few households with considerable power and it made Guilin filled with holes that would bring them down if another country attacked them! They must stabilize their Kingdom first!
"That's all I've found out. I shall take my leave now, for my daughter will miss me." Doctor Bai left the room, leaving the grandfather and son duo.
Long Yuen: '...' Bai Chuan, what do you want me to do!
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