Entertainment Circle Ancient Female General

The author has something to say: Since a certain candy has been busy the past two days, today we will compensate you with 6K words. Not! A! Single! Word! Short! 

The strange old doctor and military adviser who followed her back then once said that scars and blood circulation were not separable.

To prevent scarring, it was best to use medicines that improve blood circulation to the wound. After the scab is shed, the cream that promotes regeneration of the skin should be applied to the wound. This combined with auxiliary techniques such as medicated baths, acupuncture, and massages would have excellent effects.

But regardless of how familiar Tuoba Yan was with the prescription and its effectiveness, the purpose of removing scars was based on the premise of sufficient resources.

To put it bluntly, General Tuoba couldn’t pay for the medicines.

The mother and daughter pair didn’t have a lot of money. When Qiao Chunyi divorced Tuoba Xiu, she spent half of the alimony she received on housing, and the other half was spent over the years on their livelihoods. Qiao Chunyi deposited the small amount of remaining money into a bank account as an education fund for Tuoba Yan, with the thought that her daughter would go to college in the future and she would need the money. She had already made up her mind. No matter how difficult their situation was, she would save the remaining money for Tuoba Yan.

Even after Tuoba Yan had left school, Qiao Chunyi didn’t use the money. It was only when she found her daughter lying in a pool of blood that day, that she panicked. After dialing 120, she quickly took out the card from the bottom of the bedboard and took it to the hospital to pay for her daughter’s operation and hospital expenses.

Tuoba Yan had coaxed this information out of Nurse Qiao and resolutely refused to stay any longer while insisting on going home to nurse herself.  Although Qiao Chunyi felt that she should stay in the hospital for a few more days, she could not bear her daughter’s pestering and coaxing tactics, so she went through with the discharge procedures and she took her daughter home to further recuperate.

[TL: So, a fellow TLer and I are interpreting that Tuoba Yan had found out her hospital expenses from the nurse’s mouth.]

The mother and daughter boarded the bus with their luggage. Since Tuoba Yan’s rebirth, her range of activities had always centered around the hospital. She didn’t know the specific location of the Qiao family’s house [their own house]. She adhered to the concept of talking less to make lesser mistakes. She followed behind Qiao Chunyi and was not relieved until they entered the house.

Their house was on the second floor of an old grey building, with a total area of seventy square meters that consisted of two bedrooms, one living room, a cramped kitchen, and a toilet. As there was no dining room, they would have their meals in the living room.

However, Qiao Chunyi had a very interesting lifestyle. There were tablecloths, dust covers, and fabric storage baskets for her old-fashioned sewing machine. The rooms were decorated with cheap, big, road green plants, such as hanging orchids. The display was comfortable and warm.

Tuoba Yan pushed the door open into ‘her’ bedroom. Sure enough, there were three large glass mirrors, exactly like what was written in the diary. There were various beauty and fashion magazines and books piled up in the room, and an outdated desktop on the desk in the corner.

Tuoba Yan put down her things and started tidying up the room. She went through the books one by one, sorting them before stacking

them under the desk. While doing so, she saw a small brass key stuck by a transparent piece of tape under the desk.

Tuoba Yan tore the tape, took the key, and looked at it closely. 

If there was a key, there must be a lock. She searched around and found a small metal box in the shoebox under the bed. Tuoba Yan inserted the key into the lock, and it miraculously opened.

Opening the box, the contents inside made Tuoba Yan suddenly feel like her problems had been solved. The box was actually a small fortune that Tuoba Yan had accumulated over the years! There were a total of seven pink 100 yuan bills, adding up the other 50 yuan, 20 yuan, and spare changes; it was a cumulative total of about 1,400 yuan.

[TLN: {Stepping through iron shoes} “means that it is like trying to find something to go through difficulties and it takes a lot of effort.”- Baidu]

In her former life, the riches of the Great General could rival that of an enemy’s entire country. The various war spoils collected from the Huns and the rewards awarded by the Emperor, when piled up together, couldn’t even fit in the treasury room. However, since she had died, it’s estimated that the self-indulgent Emperor and those maid-born shu children* were bathing in her riches. Once she had thought of this, Tuoba Yan couldn’t help feeling regret and heartache for herself. She should have burnt down the Imperial City and let that fatuous Emperor sleep in the streets along with his black-hearted concubines and his bastard children!

At noon, Qiao Chunyi made three dishes and a soup for lunch. The soup was a fragrant and mouth-watering stewed beef brisket with tomato, with a helping of deep-fried pork tenderloin strips, braised hairtail (fish) in soy sauce, as well as a plate of pan-fried vegetables with garlic. The two of them held their bowls and ate their fill(ate the meat, drank the soup, the whole meal). Overflowing praises spilled out from Tuoba Yan’s mouth as they ate, “It’s still better to eat my mom’s first-rate dishes.” Qiao Chunyi was very pleased.

Of course, so many dishes couldn’t be finished by the two in just one meal. Qiao Chunyi cleaned up the kitchen while Tuoba Yan was responsible for putting the leftovers in the refrigerator, cleaning the table, and then mopping the floor. Qiao Chunyi carefully controlled the speed of the water flowing from the tap and cleaned the pot with a pot-scorching brush bought from the market. 

“Yan Yan, since it’s your first day home after a long time, mother carefully cooked a lot of dishes. But in the future, it will be just plain food.”

Tuoba Yan responded enthusiastically as she tied up the garbage bags, “I just want to say that our family is not like those rich and influential families; we don’t have to be particular about what we’re eating. I’ll eat whatever my mother cooks, I’m not picky about food now, so you can rest assured.”

“Ai!” Qiao Chunyi responded and turned her head as she smiled. Her daughter had really become sensible. 

After cleaning up the house, Qiao Chunyi put on the blue pinstriped supermarket uniform shirt, picked up her bag, and apologetically said to Tuoba Yan, “I’m going to work now, today’s the supermarket’s month-end inventory, and I may need to work overtime. So I won’t be able to have dinner with you tonight. You can use the microwave to heat up the leftovers from lunch. There’s some change in the paper box on the sofa, buy yourself whatever you want.”

Tuoba Yan nodded. Qiao Chunyi picked up the two garbage bags in front of the door and hurried downstairs.

With her ears perked up to listen to the sound of the corridor door opening, Tuoba Yan rushed to her room with big strides and, from the windows, saw Qiao Chunyi throwing away the garbage bags and walking out of the compound.

After a few more minutes, Tuoba Yan estimated that Qiao Chunyi should have gotten on the bus by now. Tuoba Yan lay on the ground and dragged out the shoebox from under the bed. She used the key to open the metal box hidden inside, took out 500 Yuan, and put it into her purse. Then, she took some coins from the paper box as the bus fee and stuffed them in her trouser pocket.

She put on her shoes, before putting her purse, umbrella, and a water bottle into her backpack before going straight to the market for Chinese herbal medicine.

Under the scorching sun, Tuoba Yan specially selected herbal medicines at the cheap scraps stall. These kinds of stalls were mixed with genuine and fake products, but she had sharp and experienced eyes and could identify defective herbs and inferior products mixed in with authentic goods at a glance. After wandering for an hour, she had bought dozens of herbs such as Astragalus, Chinese Angelica, the root of red sage, medicinal leech, etc. to be used in the first stage of making the cream. She had the vendors sort and wrap them with paper and tied them with a thread each. Finally, she bought a cheap marmite for decocting the herbs.

Taking those things home, Tuoba Yan had another dilemma. It wasn’t appropriate to decoct the medicines at home since the smell would be too strong and her mother would find out, which would make it difficult for her to explain. She looked around the room and noticed the old factory building from her west window, and immediately an idea came to her mind.

She made an on-the-spot investigation and found a desolate, broken courtyard with an old well in it. Although it was dilapidated, she figured it would not collapse for a while. She carried over the required things in her backpack in just two trips.

Tuoba Yan picked one of the relatively less dilapidated rooms in the north and cleaned it up a bit. She picked up a dozen intact bricks and built a simple stove with them. This was not a difficult task for her. In her former life, when she led the soldiers to fight, she would be camping on the spot. Tuoba Yan was used to doing these jobs and faced no difficulties.

She took a bucket of water from the well and tasted it. The water quality was still clean. Tuoba Yan sorted out the herbs and soaked a portion of them in the water. Then, she made a fire to sterilize the medicine jar. She boiled it three times, pouring the out water each time, before beginning to decoct the herbs with ease.

She worked until nighttime came when the striking pungent smell of the medicine began to reach her nose.