Chapter 772: Chapter 765: Prestige in the Countryside

The well-informed Xiao Chong, although not yet having met the new Imperial Censor of Chang’an, had already heard about his sworn brother-sister relationship with Lin Wanwan.

Regarding this matter, he felt it was unexpected yet within reason.

He had heard of Ma Zhou long ago; this year, he has become quite renowned in the officialdom of Chang’an.

After all, not everyone can achieve “a farmer in the morning, ascending the Emperor’s Hall by evening,” those who do are exceptional talents, naturally attracting attention.

Xiao Chong had read Ma Zhou’s memorials, greatly admiring them, and had long respected him. Now, with Ma Zhou coming to Mao County, it was a good chance to finally meet him.

From his essays, memorials, and what he heard about his background, he seemed to be a carefree and unrestrained person, naturally attracted to the similarly unconventional Lin Wanwan.

Xiao Chong wasn’t surprised at all; after all, wasn’t he initially drawn in the same way?

While Xiao Chong was preparing to receive Ma Zhou, Lin Wanwan was comfortably taking a nap at her seaside estate, replenishing the spiritual power consumed by time travel.

She then followed her schedule, got up, gave a lesson to the children, and, on a whim, conducted a baking class before lunch, making many cookies and bringing immense joy to the children.

That’s why spending time with children is said to save your soul!

Lin Wanwan loves teaching the kids in the kindergarten class. Kids at this age are the cutest, most innocent, and the easiest to handle. As they grow older and develop their own thoughts, teaching them becomes less fun.

So she usually leaves the older children to the teachers hired for the academy.

She herself holds the nominal position of the academy head, occasionally giving group lessons on moral character.

Young Qingyu is increasingly showing the demeanor of a noble girl native to Great Tang, behaving like a small adult, managed strictly by the tutor Madam Cui Ying. Lin Wanwan sometimes can’t help but feel a sense of loss, often engaging in some rebellious activities behind Cui Ying’s back with little Qingyu.

Skipping class to fish on a mountaintop ice lake yesterday was one such instance.

Lin Wanwan doesn’t want her adopted daughter to be raised as a virtuous lady bound by the three obediences and four virtues.

Her daughter should live freely and unrestrained; even if she doesn’t have the ambitions of Wu Zhaao, she should at least have an awareness of defying worldly norms.

Regarding the customs of Great Tang, one should take the essence and discard the dross. Entirely seeing oneself as a man’s appendage does not align with Lin Wanwan’s expectations.

Little Qingyu could even live as flamboyantly and wantonly as Princess Anle or Princess Taiping, rather than becoming an exemplary virtuous woman like Princess Xiangcheng.

Being an exemplary virtuous woman is living too harshly, depressively, and wearily. Whoever wants that reputation can have it.

After finishing the lesson, in the afternoon, Lin Wanwan went to Wanghai Town to check on her Chinese Medicine Hall, where two old traditional Chinese medicine practitioners were invited to sit in.

The rule Lin Wanwan set was that for the poor, consultation fees were waived and medicine fees were discounted; for landlords and rich farmers, normal prices were charged.

Although her medical skills were better than the two old doctors who were akin to barefoot doctors, she did not sit in herself.

In modern times, Lin Wanwan worked at the Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital with her elder brother Kang Hongjing every Friday.

Those patients mainly sought her elder brother, and Lin Wanwan mostly assisted and copied prescriptions, with not many hands-on cases.

Since returning to Mao County, Lin Wanwan mainly treated the clan members of Lin Family Manor and her own servants, and she had also saved the eldest son of Lu Clan Leader from Lu Family Manor from acute appendicitis.

Other cases were rare, except for critical maternity cases that came seeking her famous name.

Lin Wanwan’s reputation as a Divine Doctor had already spread when she first came to Great Tang. Back then, she was actually just a lucky half-baked barefoot doctor.

Now, her medical skills were indeed high, and her fame as an obstetrics expert had spread from Beijing to Mao County.

When the midwives couldn’t handle it, families with the means would bring large sums to seek her help, and Lin Wanwan naturally wouldn’t refuse to save lives.

However, under such circumstances, there was a lot of pressure for Lin Wanwan.

She wasn’t worried about patients’ families causing trouble; with her current status in Great Tang, she could practically do as she pleased in Mao County, who could bother her?

She only feared she couldn’t save someone, letting a young life die before her eyes. After all, if encountering extremely dangerous symptoms like amniotic fluid embolism, she was still only human and couldn’t save lives.

Lin Wanwan hadn’t been in a modern hospital for long, nor was she a full-time practitioner in Great Tang.

The department she worked in rarely encountered emergencies or terminal illnesses, even though cancer patients came with a mindset for regimen, she rarely encountered them, so she hadn’t experienced much life-and-death separation. She still lacked training in this area.

Fortunately, since entering the field, Lin Wanwan hadn’t encountered such situations yet.

After spending half a day in her medicine hall pharmacy carefully sorting herbs, and meeting two herb farmers selling medicine to the hall, Lin Wanwan hesitated over one issue.

Now in Great Tang, almost all medicines are wild, harvested by herb farmers from various places.

Wild herbs naturally guarantee good medicinal properties but have the drawback of limited quantities.

So Lin Wanwan was thinking whether to spread the knowledge of cultivating herbs.

On her own manor, she had opened several herbal fields, but those herbs weren’t even enough to supply her own pharmacy, let alone sell outside.

To change the whole Chinese medicine market in Mao County, it would require official power to promote herb cultivation.

With more herbs, prices could drop, even if the efficacy wasn’t as strong, it would surely be a good thing for the patients who can’t afford medicine. Having medicine is certainly better than suffering without.

However, such an approach would cause many butterfly effects involving herb farmers, other pharmacies, and the government, although the benefits certainly outweigh the drawbacks, it’s not easy to implement.

Even if she could ensure cultivated herbs had their own pricing and wild ones had theirs, it couldn’t be guaranteed others wouldn’t mix the two deceptively.

So, she needed to consider it carefully.

After spending half a day at her medicine hall, Lin Wanwan took Kun Lun and several other members from Xingluo, who acted as her personal female guards, and rode back to Lin Family Manor.

She had to travel back to modern times this evening.

The countryside in the evening portrayed a scene of rising cooking smoke and the sounds of chickens and dogs, rich with the essence of everyday life.

Around Lin Family Manor, it was now rare to hear of anyone starving to death.

With the transformative butterfly effect of Lin Family Manor, everyone’s lives had improved significantly. Even just following to plant some cotton could earn substantial subsidies, not to mention the high-yield crops present.

The level of grain production directly affects the farmers’ happiness index. Looking at the status of Grandpa Yuan in the eyes of older generation farmers, you can gauge how high Lin Wanwan’s prestige is in this countryside.

As her horse passed by, there were greetings from familiar and unfamiliar farmers along the way.

Some emotional ones even knelt down spontaneously as she passed by.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep