There was no need to stay any longer, so An Jing and Xiao Changyi left Tao Aigui’s house.
When they left Tao Aigui’s house, it had already gotten dark. Since everyone now knew that Songlan was called Blue Grass here, An Jing and Xiao Changyi no longer went out personally. Instead, they sent people to inquire at the other four households that grew Blue Grass in the city to see if there were any Blue Grass Roots.
Unfortunately, the result was that these four households, like Tao Aigui’s, were reluctant to just throw away their Blue Grass Roots and had already used them all as firewood.
An Jing and Xiao Changyi even sent people to ask the other two dye workshops in the city.
These two dye workshops didn’t have any Blue Grass Roots either; they always bought Blue Grass leaves directly for dye extraction.
"My lord..." An Jing sighed deeply, full of disappointment. Everyone knew that Blue Grass Root was Isatis Root, yet there was not a single one in the city.
When Xiao Changyi embraced her and let her lean on his shoulder, he said, "We can only ask those outside the city to search for it now."
"That’s the only way." People in the city were not allowed to go out, and there were no Blue Grass Roots inside, so this was the only option left.
An Jing and Xiao Changyi had originally planned to have Wang Youbao search for Blue Grass Roots. However, when they stood on top of the city gate tower the next morning, they did not see Wang Youbao wandering outside. Instead, they saw Meng Zhuqing leading people to push grain to the city gate.
A lot of grain, all intended to be transported into Nanshen City.
An Jing shouted to the people below, "Meng Zhuqing, stop handling the grain for now. Let Qin San and the others do it. You and Qin Er hurry to find as many Blue Grass Roots as possible."
"Yes!" Meng Zhuqing did not ask what the Blue Grass Roots were for and respectfully fist-saluted An Jing and Xiao Changyi up on the city gate tower. Then, he and Qin Er rode out on horses to search for Blue Grass Roots in the nearby counties around Nanshen City.
It was six days later when Meng Zhuqing managed to bring the Blue Grass Roots.
Meng Zhuqing brought back more than a dozen sacks of dried Blue Grass Roots, which pleased An Jing and Xiao Changyi.
Qin Er did not enter the city with Meng Zhuqing; he was still searching for Blue Grass Roots outside the city.
During these days, people in Nanshen City were dying every day, and many new cases of the epidemic were reported daily.
However, the number of new daily infections was less than before An Jing and her party had arrived.
Before their arrival, thirty to forty people were infected and sent to the Medicinal Diet Hall each day, but now the number had dropped to twelve to twenty new cases a day. This showed that remedies like realgar were indeed effective against the epidemic.
If it weren’t for the technical constraints here, An Jing really wanted to make protective masks for everyone to wear.
But it was impossible to achieve.
Simply making a common mask would be ineffective; it was better not to wear one at all.
Fortunately, the continuous release of the medicinal odor from realgar and other drugs they wore on their chests and applied on their faces helped prevent the invasion of infectious agents. Otherwise, rather than the number of infections decreasing daily, it might well have increased.
During these days, Gong Juechen was extremely busy and distressed.
He was mixing various medicinal concoctions, then having people infected with the epidemic drink them, to see if they could cure the disease. Despite formulating many prescriptions, he was still unable to cure the epidemic.
In fact, they had no effect at all.
When An Jing and Xiao Changyi brought the Blue Grass Roots to the Medicinal Diet Hall to find Gong Juechen, he was in his room drafting a prescription, pondering what other herbs to add in order to cure the epidemic.
Gong Juechen was so preoccupied that he hardly took notice of An Jing and Xiao Changyi’s arrival.