CHAPTER 663: [657] QING CHUAN CHENG WANGFEI 26 (3 MORE UPDATES)

Xiyuan was in Beijing, and no matter what the situation was, she inevitably had to interact with those people from the palace during the day.

Yun Mi, however, did not want her to go back. For one thing, the city was unsafe with an overly dense population; if a large-scale riot occurred, he would not be able to control the consequences. Furthermore, it was not appropriate for them not to see each other every day. Since the Emperor had moved to this location, he was certainly going to stay.

Because of the Undead, he had qualified for the imperial morning court sessions. Pulling off such a thing at the age of seventeen was no easy feat.

So, he refused, mainly out of safety considerations. With no other choice, she had to continue staying in Yuanming Garden, but she never went out again.

To the outside world, they said she had been scared out of her wits, which, with this reason, avoided the possibility of anyone coming to look for her.

She also did not wish to remain idle, so she looked at medical books in her "space" and ground some medicine, making some small health-preserving Medicine Pills. Because she added spiritual spring water and Water Condensation Bead, the medicine was a bit more effective. Having so many good medicines and not using them would be a loss, wouldn’t it?

Right, last time in the secret chamber, she took not only Medicinal materials but also medicine furnaces of different sizes and all sorts of medicine-making tools. She had also soaked them in Spiritual Spring water to clean them thoroughly before drying them out for use.

As for the Zombie Poison, she admitted she didn’t have that skill—ancient times were not like modern times where you could just use instruments for detection. In ancient times, you had to come into contact with those corpses, blood, and even use those things for experiments on living people. She found it too bloody; even just seeing that underground chamber made her feel nauseous and frightened, let alone having close contact with it. So that was out of the question.

Before long, another month had passed, from June to July in the lunar calendar, and the situation was basically under control. With more people dead and widespread public awareness, nowadays, hardly anyone went out at night. As for the daytime, should someone encounter a corpse or a dead Rat, they were burnt on the spot, leaving no troubles for later.

Daily censuses were now conducted in the city, with every household participating in checks, and patrols searched every corner like a carpet, especially the darker nooks, almost as if they were digging three feet into the ground. The reason why they were so diligent was because of her reminders to Yun Mi, so the two of them had played an absolutely crucial role in this disaster.

By the ninth lunar month, the weather became colder day by day. Some of the Taoists who had fled were finally captured and brought back, but the most critical individuals were still missing.

The Emperor had no choice but to issue an edict: if they did not return and atone for their mistakes, their entire families would be punished.

From the moment they entered the palace, the Emperor had already scrutinized their family backgrounds thoroughly, so although the world was vast, if one did not consider the consequences and their entire families were involved in the punishment, even if they died, they would have no dignity left to face the world.

Ancients placed a lot of importance on such matters. Within a month, all those who had fled, as long as they were still alive, were obliged to return to Yuanming Garden.

However, when these people arrived at the secret chamber, they found it had already been plundered; nothing was left.

Fortunately, the materials were still available, so the Emperor could only replenish the medicines, allowing these Taoists and the Imperial Physicians and doctors to research together.

By October, with the city under strict control, Beijing became increasingly safe, and Xiyuan finally returned to Prince Manor. As she looked at the garden full of green plants and vegetables, she felt very satisfied.

However, the Prince Manor’s financial situation had tightened due to the incident. The manor’s daily expenses had been maintained by the income from the shops, but now people were reluctant to go out and spend money. Without the revenue stream rising, they could not earn money, naturally affecting liquidity.

Fortunately, the manor had a farm, and they had made a vegetable garden, so they all made do, managing to survive the year.

The Emperor’s health, due to the repeated severity of the killings, had become increasingly difficult to control since he refused to take elixirs.

In the end, he was afraid of death. After such an incident at the Taoist Temple, he could not shirk responsibility, especially after witnessing cannibalism. He was no longer as eager to ingest elixirs as before, even going so far as to burn the stored medicines.

Curing illnesses was always a gradual process. He had become dependent on the strength of those medicines, and now that he had stopped suddenly, his body was certainly suffering backlash.

Thus, not long after returning to Yuanming Garden, his condition worsened, and he could not get out of bed.

How could the Imperial Physicians be unaware of his health situation?

Yet his body was already at its limit; all they could do was to maintain his life.

The long-term toxins from the elixirs that had invaded his blood and organs could no longer be removed. Every medicine carries a bit of poison, and any medicine has a certain degree of toxicity—it’s just a matter of how much. Similarly, even the best bodies cannot withstand daily intakes of elixirs; the accumulated residual toxins made recovery impossible.

After consulting with Hongli, the Imperial Physicians continued to administer elixirs to the Emperor. Unexpectedly, after stopping for three days and then taking the medicines again, Yong Zheng’s health improved. He was very happy, thinking that the medicine was truly effective, little did he know his body had just adapted to these medicinal components.

The Imperial Physicians, seeking to survive, naturally chose the most favorable things to say after all, with the future Crown Prince as their safety net, they had no worries.

The research on the immortal medicine ultimately bore no fruit. After a month with no deaths, Yong Zheng declared an end to the crisis, and normal activities resumed. By this time, winter had entered Beijing, and it had begun to snow.

Beijing in November was much colder than in later times. Watching the snowflakes whirl in the wind, Xiyuan felt somewhat worried—were the Undead truly gone?

Though it was good that there were no more deaths until now, she could not shake a feeling of unease. And then there was Yong Zheng, who seemed afraid of being exposed for his crimes. After those captured Taoists turned up empty-handed, he completely eliminated them, not even leaving a chance for his own escape route. It was a ruthlessness that made one’s blood run cold.

Entering the twelfth year of Yong Zheng, Xiyuan began to focus on managing their family’s shops. Along with her dowry plus Yun Mi’s private assets, they had a total of ten shops and four farms, which spanned two hundred mu of land combined.

Yun Mi owned a pharmacy, a restaurant, a cloth shop, a grain shop, a gambling house, a tea shop, and an iron shop, while she had a rouge shop and an embroidery shop.

Managing so many shops well and making a profit was not easy. Even though the shops were located in various streets across Beijing and the locations were not bad, not all the shops made money. The two dowry shops dealt with women’s business, and she had no plans to change these shops to other varieties. After all, her maternal aunt had connections in Suzhou, and selling embroidery was quite profitable. As for the rouge shop, although the business was average, there was still room for improvement and value enhancement.

Among Yun Mi’s eight shops, the most profitable were the restaurant and the gambling house. The pharmacy, grain shop, and cloth shop were also doing well, but the iron shop and tea shop were the worst performers. So she planned to transform these two shops!