Chen Song was just figuring out how to deal with the folks at the old homestead when the old woman ran up to him in a frantic panic, begging him to find a doctor to save a life.

Could Chen Song possibly miss this opportunity?

He immediately went out and hired an old doctor.

The old doctor was a traveling physician who just happened to be passing through, and Chen Song just happened to run into him.

And this old doctor, upon seeing the blisters on Chen Lin’s body, was utterly shocked and declared on the spot that it was syphilis.

The world of the old homestead came crashing down.

The old woman and Chen Dachang collapsed to the ground, too stunned to move. Mrs. Li wailed dramatically, packing her bags to return to her family’s home. Young Shou’an, not understanding what was happening, cowered in the chicken coop, crying as if his father had died.

The adults crying and the child wailing drew the whole village to come and watch.

When the old woman came to her senses, she refused to believe the diagnosis and wanted to carry her son to the county seat for treatment.

But Chen Lin was covered in blisters that would burst at the slightest touch, oozing pus when they did.

The traveling doctor said the condition was contagious. This scared the old woman so much that she immediately snatched her hands back and didn’t dare mention carrying her son to the county seat again.

In reality, it wasn’t syphilis at all. They were just ordinary blisters caused by exposure to the cold and his weakened body.

As for why Chen Song was so certain, it was because he had often seen such things on prisoners during his years assisting with trials.

Every year, during the sweltering heat of the seventh month or the dead of winter, you could be sure that the inmates in the jail would, to some extent, break out in these things.

Then there was the room Chen Lin was staying in.

Mrs. Li hated cleaning. The bedsheets and curtains were so filthy you couldn’t tell their original color. Dirty clothes were strewn all over, filling the room with a strange stench. Even in the dead of winter, there were insects and mice.

Chen Lin was recuperating in bed in the cold room. He had originally asked the old woman to light a brazier for him. But as soon as the brazier was lit and the room warmed up, the wounds that were healing began to itch unbearably, as if tens of thousands of ants were crawling inside them.

There was no choice but to take the brazier away and replace it with a hot water pouch.

But a hot water pouch doesn’t stay warm forever, and the old woman was too lazy to keep boiling water. So, for most of the day, Chen Lin was left to freeze.

Being so cold and living in such a filthy, chaotic environment, it was perfectly normal for him to break out in blisters. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Under normal circumstances, Chen Song would have just called a good doctor to treat him. But wasn’t he looking for an opportunity to teach that family at the old homestead a lesson?

It was the perfect opportunity falling right into his lap. If Chen Song didn’t seize it, he’d be letting down his own red, aching ear, which his wife had pulled and twisted.

However, the family at the old homestead had been wailing and moaning for days; they had learned their lesson. If all went as planned, when Chen Song returned from the county government today, he would be bringing an old doctor back with him to correct the traveling physician’s misdiagnosis.

Xu Suying said, "I don’t know if it’s really syphilis or not. I haven’t set foot in that house since we separated our households. I can’t say what the third brother’s blisters look like, so I certainly can’t be sure if it’s that terrible disease. But my Chen Song said that when he has a moment in the next day or two, he’ll ask a doctor from the county seat to come take a look. What if that traveling doctor misdiagnosed him? You never know."

A woman making a quilt sighed repeatedly. "You two are truly good people. Not long ago, the third brother was egging on the old woman to come demand fifty liang of silver from you as compensation. And now, you’ve already forgotten about it and are even helping him find a doctor from the county seat. Hmph, if that were my brother-in-law, I’d let him die for all I care."

This led to a discussion of everyone’s own family troubles.

For instance, one woman’s brother-in-law was a lazy freeloader. The old couple knew who was good and who was bad, but parents can’t bear to see any of their sons struggle, so they always saved food from their own mouths to give to the brother-in-law.

Another said her brother-in-law was promising, being a scholar after all. But to support his studies, her family could only afford to eat meat once a year, during the New Year. If his success were just around the corner, that would be one thing, but it seemed to stretch on indefinitely. After so long, who wouldn’t feel a little resentful?

As the women chatted, the work in their hands never stopped.

By the end of the day, they had managed to make four quilts and even cut the fabric for two sets of clothes.

At this rate, finishing everything within three days would be a breeze.

As evening fell and the light began to fade, Xu Suying brought out the fried dough snacks Chen Wanqing had made, gave each family a bowl, and saw the women off.

The women accepted the snacks and joked that they had better come early tomorrow, lest they be too impatient to wait for the treats to cool down. The words had barely left her mouth when they saw Chen Song approaching, driving an ox-cart carrying an old doctor with a white beard and hair.

Everyone called out greetings, and Xu Suying also asked, "How come you’re back so early today?"