Chapter 58: The Earth God’s Temple (With heartfelt thanks to my dearest supporter, "The Soaring Kite," for your recommendation vote! Thank you!)

In the end, that foolish disciple stubbornly refused to sit at the table. Wang Keyue dined alone, and although the four dishes and one soup were still delicious, something felt missing.

After finishing lunch, the two young maids cleared away the leftovers. Sated and content, Wang Keyue simply lay down on the bed for a short nap. She had slept late last night, and was woken up early this morning by Dali; now she was truly exhausted.

She slept for nearly an hour before the door was knocked. Wang Keyue blinked open her eyes and leapt out of bed, her hand instinctively going to the dagger at her waist. It was only in the next moment that she realized her current circumstances, scratching her head in slight embarrassment.

Opening the door, she saw Dali standing outside. "Master, Magistrate Chen has brought the herbs."

The two of them went straight to the main hall, where a large pile of medicinal herbs was already stacked in the yard outside. Magistrate Chen was directing some laborers in sorting them.

As soon as he saw Wang Keyue, he hurried over. "Doctor Wang, may I trouble you to inspect these herbs and see if anything is amiss?"

Wang Keyue put on a look of grave seriousness, going through the heaps of herbs. Judging by their appearance, these must be the combined reserves of all the pharmacies in town. Some were so shriveled and moldy that she might have complained, but she didn’t mind—after all, in her concoction, it was not truly these herbs that produced the real effect.

She directed the laborers to set up stoves in the yard, preparing batch after batch of decoctions.

Meanwhile, Wang Keyue secluded herself in the large kitchen, claiming that she was preparing a special family recipe pill for the magistrate’s nephew—a secret recipe of the Wang clan, not to be shared with outsiders.

An hour later, Wang Keyue handed two kinds of pills to Magistrate Chen: one mainly for mild liver rupture and the other for pulmonary inflammation—a hemostatic and restorative pill, and an anti-inflammatory one.

She also added her plague-curing medicine to the herbal decoctions. Magistrate Chen, puzzled, asked, "Doctor Wang, what are these pills you’re adding?"

Stroking her beard with an air of mystery, Wang Keyue replied, "This is my ancestral secret formula, the Divine Plague-Clearing Powder. Combined with disease-expelling herbs, it works especially well for moderate and severe patients."

"Oh my! This is truly an immortal’s prescription!" Magistrate Chen’s eyes gleamed with excitement.

Soon, over a dozen buckets of medicinal soup were ready. Wang Keyue prepared to accompany the laborers to the Earth God Temple outside the east city gate, where the plague was most severe.

It was said that several hundred of the gravely ill refugees were held there, and that every day, more than a dozen people died.

The dead had become so numerous that their bodies could not be properly dealt with; they were simply hauled away by cart to a hollow at the foot of a nearby hill and dumped, unburied.

When Wang Keyue first arrived in this area, she had encountered a mass grave—no doubt the final resting place for these discarded corpses.

From afar, she could see a somewhat dilapidated temple. Outside stood a dozen or so soldiers with spears, and in the open space, some able-bodied young men were boiling medicinal soup over fires.

On the other side, two or three elderly men who looked like doctors, accompanied by their own apprentices, were covering their faces with cloths as they diligently concocted herbal remedies.

The sharp-eyed soldiers spotted the group approaching with buckets of medicinal soup and were overjoyed. All the guards here had volunteered for duty, as many of the afflicted were their own friends and relatives.

The soldiers called out to the sick refugees, organizing them by households of ten, each led by a head and two able-bodied members to collect large bowls of medicine in the open courtyard.

Magistrate Chen once more made a speech about his achievements in front of the crowd. But as Doctor Wang was present, he dared not take credit for himself. As usual, he declared Wang Keyue's merit before everyone.

Wang Keyue listened with pleasure as the system chimed with gratitude points. Yet her good mood was short-lived, for soon the air was filled with the wails of grief.

"Father, mother! Please, don’t take my father and mother away!"

"Don’t touch them—they’re still breathing!"

"My son! Wake up! The medicine is here, drink it, quickly!"

Cries of anguish and desperate pleading rang out. Magistrate Chen’s face darkened with anger, though he could not vent it in public. Wang Keyue bypassed the crowd and headed straight toward the source of the wailing. The soldiers, not daring to stop her, stood aside respectfully.

Behind the temple, more than twenty people lay sprawled on the ground, while four or five constables were moving them onto a mule cart.

Wang Keyue activated her system’s scan. Most of these people were in multi-organ failure, their breathing shallow and labored—already at death’s door.

"Host, their conditions have deteriorated for too long. Ordinary medicine cannot save them. Only organ transplants and subsequent treatment in a recovery capsule could help, but you don’t have access to that equipment yet," said 9538.

There was nothing Wang Keyue could do; the medicine she had could only delay their decline and prolong their suffering.

She instructed that the bodies be laid out neatly in the open courtyard and asked for white cloths to cover them.

For those not yet gone, she allowed their families to give them a large bowl of medicine, so that, at the very least, their loved ones’ last wishes could be fulfilled.