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Chapter 255: Foolish Sacrifice of the Innocent

Doctor Hu followed instructions and went over to check the boy's pulse.

Mrs. Zhang stopped crying all of a sudden, and with a nervous look on her face, she quickly took the boy off her back, held him in her arms, and allowed Doctor Hu to diagnose him.

Mr. Zhang's son looked about four or five years old. He was listless in his mother's arms, with his eyes opening and closing. He did not react much to his sister's death. He did not cry or make a fuss, probably because he did not know what death was.

Doctor Hu felt the boy's pulse and rolled his eyelids twice, then stood up and reported to Zhou Chang and Zhong Yu: "Your Highness Prince Yi, Mr. Zhong, the boy is fine, but he is still feverish. He can continue to take the decoction to reduce the fever."

Zhong Yu nodded and bowed to Doctor Hu to express his gratitude.

Then he turned to the Zhang family's wife and expressed his deep sympathy: "Alas, Zhang's sister-in-law, things have come to this point. Maybe Zhaodi was born with a short life and didn't make it. There is nothing we can do about it."

Zhou Chang gestured to the officer next to him, indicating that they should take the girl's body away.

These days, there are large numbers of deaths every day, which is unthinkable. The corpses are dealt with in a centralized manner and people are not allowed to linger on them.

People in the epidemic area have long been numb, and people like Mrs. Zhang who cry and make a fuss are actually a minority among the minority.

Two officers stepped forward and tried to carry the girl's body away.

Mrs. Zhang held on tightly, "No, no, she's not dead yet. Please, Master, give me another dose of medicine. There's only a little bit of medicine. How can I, how can I..."

"The dead cannot be brought back to life, please accept my condolences, sister-in-law of the Zhang family." Zhong Yuxiang advised, "Take Xiaobao back with you. In this icy and snowy place, Zhaodi will not feel cold anymore, but Xiaobao cannot be frozen anymore."

Mrs. Zhang refused to get up, nor let go of the girl's body: "No, Mr. Zhong, please help me, one dose of medicine is not enough, not enough, otherwise Zhaodi will not die..."

"The dead cannot be brought back to life, so please accept my condolences, Mrs. Zhang." Zhong Yu felt sorry for her and fumbled around in his pocket for two silver coins, which he handed over to Mrs. Zhang.

Mrs. Zhang just kept shaking her head: "No, no, I don't want money, I just want another medicine package."

Zhou Chang felt something was amiss when he was watching from the sidelines.

The girl's body was right in front of us, why did you ask for an extra medicine bag?

Before she could figure it out, Yuan Qi came forward and whispered, "Your Highness Prince Yi, can you ask Mr. Zhong to ask her if she had given her daughter the right amount of medicine?"

"Huh?" Zhou Chang was stunned for a moment.

Zhong Yu didn't need Zhou Chang to tell him what Yuan Qi said, and asked in surprise, "Sister-in-law Zhang, did you give the medicine to Zhaodi every time you took it? Did she drink it once in the morning and once in the evening? Did she not spit it out, or did the child find it bitter and secretly refuse to drink it?"

"She, she..." The woman from the Zhang family had disheveled hair covering her head and face, but one could still tell that she was avoiding his gaze.

Zhou Chang then understood what Yuan Qi meant and shouted, "Tell the truth."

Mrs. Zhang was startled and stammered, "It was like this at the beginning, and then she didn't have a fever much, and she hasn't had a fever at all in the past few days. But Xiaobao hasn't gotten better, and her fever hasn't subsided. I thought it might be because the dosage of the medicine was too little, so I gave Zhaodi's medicine to Xiaobao. But Zhaodi is fine. She has been able to boil water and cook for the past two days. Until today, she kept saying she was tired, and she lay down to sleep and never got up again..."

Now it's all clear.

"You gave all your daughter's medicine to your son because you were worried that he didn't have enough?" Zhou Chang suddenly became furious.

Mrs. Zhang nodded in acknowledgement and stared at her daughter's body in a daze, but she felt no guilt.

"Very well, since you killed my daughter, why are you still asking for medicine?" Zhou Chang was very angry, but he also knew that he couldn't do anything in this situation.

The woman from the Zhang family pretended not to hear anything. She raised her head and pleaded with Zhong Yu again: "Mr. Zhong, please have pity on me and my widowed son. Bao'er is the only child left in the Zhang family. He is ill and has not recovered. If anything happens to him, the Zhang family will be extinct..."

Zhou Chang watched coldly, the woman from the Zhang family was just pretending to be crazy and stupid.

To say she is pitiful is because her emaciated appearance is also pitiful; to say she is hateful is because she is so ignorant is also truly hateful.

It would have been better if she didn't mention it, but she actually mentioned the deceased Mr. Zhang.

Zhou Chang became even more angry. He had originally given them 100 taels of silver so that they could live a good life, but now what was all this worth?

The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. Prince Yi's consciousness was already churning.

"Mr. Zhong, why are you still talking to her? What's there to say? Send her away immediately." Zhou Chang couldn't bear to watch any longer, so he flicked his sleeves and turned away.

Zhou Chang strode towards the carriage, then he remembered that Yuan Qi had not left yet. Turning around, Yuan Qi followed him: "Miss Yuan, you..."

I was about to see Yuan Qi off, but suddenly I found that Yuan Qi's face was unusually calm, and there was no emotion in his eyes.

I thought I could empathize with others, but it was not the case.

Zhou Chang punched the carriage wall, his heart churning with emotions and he had no place to vent: "There must be something hateful about pitiful people. This is absolutely true. Today I have truly experienced it. Foolish people are no worse than treacherous and evil people, and they are good at harming innocent people."

Yuan Qiqiuhong's eyes seemed calm, but her voice was filled with sadness and injustice: "It's just a common thing that happens every day. It's just that His Royal Highness Prince Yi is a descendant of a noble family, so I haven't seen it before."

"Have you seen a lot?" Zhou Chang is not a flower in a greenhouse. A rich lady like Yuan Qi is.

Yuan Qi did not answer directly, but smiled faintly: "This world is the same everywhere, men are superior to women, isn't it natural? Even though I was lucky enough to be born into a wealthy family like the Yuan family, my mother was still worried about me before she died, because she was not a son but a daughter, and she was afraid that my daughter would be oppressed by the unfair world. I am like this, let alone the daughters of poor families?"

It was the first time that Zhou Chang saw Yuan Qi smile so bitterly, and his past life knot was also touched: "I know you have a half brother, but should your father always treat you like a jewel in his palm, or is that just to pave the way for your brother?"

"No, Your Highness Prince Yi, please don't misunderstand. Just think that I just said something wrong because I was distracted for a moment." Yuan Qi lost her composure for a moment, and quickly adjusted her expression and smiled, "My father treats me very well, not like that woman just now. I am content with my life, and I can't even repay you."

Zhou Chang naturally believed it, and she could get a glimpse of it from He Xi's earlier memories. This was also the reason why she envied Yuan Qi and wanted to become Yuan Qi.

As a woman, Zhou Chang never received equal treatment in her previous life. Although Yuan Qi could not receive equal treatment in this life either, she could get family love that was more precious than that.

Just as he was thinking about this, Yuan Qi said, "Your Highness Prince Yi was born a nobleman and doesn't know the people's feelings, or maybe it's not common in this imperial city. In the south, after floods and plagues, you can see people mourning and starving everywhere, and it's even more common for the poor to sell their wives and daughters."

"Alas..." Although Zhou Chang had never seen such a scene with his own eyes, he could imagine that it was no longer a question of men and women, but a basic survival issue as a human being.