Time Travel: The Best Doctor in Ancient Times

Xiao Cui scratched her head blankly, responding in confusion, “This is definitely the place, look, there’s the Liang Family Rice Shop next to us, and across the street is the Wang Family Textile Village, the maid hasn’t remembered wrong…”

You haven’t remembered wrong, then where is the grand Gu Family Medical Hall you spoke of? What’s the deal with this dilapidated shop in front of us that looks like it would collapse with a gust of wind? There’s not even a signboard!

It must be Xiao Cui’s memory that’s confused! Gu Changsheng looked at Xiao Cui regretfully and shook his head. At such a young age, her memory was already poor, which was really pitiful…

“Mother, is this our home?” Little Meat Bun, Gu Ze, pointed to the wooden door with holes, “Mother said we were almost home, why don’t we go inside?”

Gu Changsheng followed his finger and glanced, then firmly shook her head, replying, “No!”

But dreams are always full, while reality is undoubtedly gaunt.

“Miss?”

The word “no” from Gu Changsheng had just fallen when a voice came from the side, carrying a hint of hesitation and disbelief.

Gu Changsheng turned around as if struck by lightning, and saw a man in his fifties or sixties, clad in a coarse cloth shirt, clutching a bunch of vegetables tightly to his chest. His face, full of wrinkles, wore an undeniable mix of surprise and uncertainty.

This must be her illusion; she had braved mountains and rivers with great anticipation to go south, but what awaited her was this scene of ruin, not the carved beams of a luxurious house.

Heavenly Father must be playing with her; she needed to find a place to nap, maybe when she woke up, this nightmarish illusion would disappear…

“Old Daddy Song, Old Daddy Song, do you still remember me, I’m Cui Hua!” Xiao Cui snapped out of it, rushed over, her eyes shimmering with tears.

“Cui Hua?” Old Man Song turned around, looking at the nondescript girl in front of him. He remembered her as a pretty young maid with delicate features. How come she now seemed more and more ordinary?

Gu Changsheng watched expressionlessly as the scene of old acquaintances reuniting unfolded before her, with Xiao Cui getting very into her role, crying like a pear blossom bathed in rain.

Old Man Song also cooperatively wiped away tears, continuously lamenting the tragic fate of Xiao Cui becoming a mere maid and loudly criticizing Li Mansion for their ingratitude and heartlessness in repudiating the marriage, as if he was ready to take his old bones to the Capital City to seek justice.

While they were getting lively reminiscing in front of the medical hall, Gu Changsheng, standing on the side, was overwhelmed with a sense of deathly resignation. She was supposed to take care of two youngsters below and three maids in the middle; now look, with the old atop and the young below, damn it, the family was finally complete!

After listening to Xiao Cui’s prattle, Old Man Song remembered they were still outside. He promptly gave Gu Changsheng a bow, put down the vegetables from his arms, and opened the rusty lock hanging on the door.

“It’s good that Miss has come back, come back, let’s go inside and talk…”

Gu Changsheng followed Old Man Song into the medical hall bewilderedly. The main hall of the medical hall was quite spacious and clean, although the furniture looked old, it still maintained the appearance a medical hall should have. Two large rows of medicine cabinets stood against the wall, with a medicine distribution counter in front, on which lay a drug scale, gleaming from being well-polished. Directly opposite the entrance was a sizeable table with a faded wrist pillow on it, which Gu Changsheng knew, no doubt, was for pulse diagnoses. Behind the diagnosis table stood another table with an abacus on it, the beads of which still reflected light, seemingly handled often.

Although the main hall of this medical hall was in disrepair, it was still quite well-preserved and looked much better than the outside of the house. The layout was also sensible: patients would enter and approach the diagnosis table, then take their prescriptions to the back to settle the bill and fetch their medicine on the side.

“Miss, it’s the incompetence of this old man, I didn’t take good care of the medical hall, I have failed Master and Miss’s trust…” Old Man Song shut the door, turned back, and looked at Gu Changsheng, who was surveying around. He knelt down with a thud, beseeching forgiveness with tears streaming, “This old man is incompetent, managing only to barely recognize medicinal herbs after following the master for a lifetime, watching the medical hall fall to this state but powerless to turn things around, please punish me, Miss, it’s my fault… I’m incapable…”

Gu Changsheng turned around, glanced at the old servant kneeling in front of her, weathered and forlorn, then at the medicine cabinet drawers, empty and void, and finally at the several hungry souls awaiting her care.

She looked up in anger, pointed accusingly at the sky.

“Heavenly Father, dammit, have you picked a fight with me? I will not let this go!” To be swept out of one’s home wasn’t the worst, to be desolately helpless after wasn’t the worst either. The worst was to have riches turn to dust just as they were within grasp, and to have the hometown she sought refuge in fall to such decay!

What had Gu Changsheng done to deserve this torment?

To hell with transmigration, to hell with the female lead’s halo, all damn nonsensical!

Everyone had grown accustomed to such a lady, collectively choosing silence, even Little Meat Bun lowered his head and twisted his sleeves—Mother, she’s freaking out again…

But Old Man Song was not used to it, he, kneeling on the ground, raised his head in alarmed surprise, his tear-stained face frozen as he stared at the young lady before him…

“Miss, you…”

He couldn’t finish his sentence… He remembered the young Miss who used to sit on the swing in the backyard, kicking her legs while reciting “The Classic of Herbal Medicine”…

And when the Miss had grown up, she mostly stayed in the back yard and seldom came out, but even so, she looked so different from now…

Gu Changsheng, her resentment receding, beckoned to Xiao Cui, “Xiao Cui, help Uncle Song up.”

As told, Xiao Cui approached and helped the old man to his feet.

“Uncle Song, this isn’t your fault, it’s your mistress’s bad luck; dammit, I’m the Zhou Dynasty’s Tang Sanzang, looks like without undergoing eighty-one tribulations, it’s hard to achieve enlightenment,” Gu Changsheng sighed, “Godfather seems to be addicted to messing with me, there’s truly nowhere to reason this out!”