Chapter 35: Plague In The Village

The next morning, a man from the next village arrived at Granny Gao's door, looking pale and anxious.

"Granny," he said, voice rough from worry, "people in the next village are falling ill. We're running low on herbs. We need help."

Yuling didn't hesitate. "I'll go deliver the medicine."

"I'm coming with you," I said firmly before she could object.

She didn't argue.

We made our way toward their so-called infirmary—a narrow, crumbling building on the edge of the village. As soon as we stepped inside, the smell hit me. A mix of sweat, damp straw, smoke, and sickness. It clung to the air like fog.

The room was packed. Dozens of villagers lay on makeshift bedding—blankets spread on dirt floors, wooden slats propped against the wall. Their faces were pale, fevered. Eyes sunken. Skin clammy. The low murmur of coughing filled the space like a broken chorus.

And then I saw the rash.

Red welts. Fluid-filled pustules.

My stomach dropped.

Yuling moved to help a woman sit up, but I lunged forward instinctively. "Don't touch her!"

She froze, startled. "What—?"

"It's smallpox," I said, my voice sharp with urgency. "It's highly contagious. We need to act fast."

Yuling's eyes widened in horror.

She turned to the villagers and raised her voice. "This is Mei Lin, a healer from the city. She knows how to help."

A man stepped forward—tall and thin, with a long, wispy beard and a slightly stooped posture that still carried quiet authority. "I'm Master Chen," he said. "The village healer."

His gaze was steady, but I could hear the tremor beneath it.

"What can I do?"

I took a slow breath and switched into what I now called "emergency mode." "First, isolate anyone showing symptoms. Move them to one side of the village—no visitors, no wandering. Only those helping should go near."

I glanced around the makeshift infirmary—people lying shoulder to shoulder, sweating through their thin bedding, breathing the same thick, fevered air. No airflow. No separation.

This place was basically the petri dish of death.

"We need to disinfect everything," I said briskly. "Everyone who stays wears a cloth mask. Soak them in boiled water with mint or mugwort. Burn anything the sick have touched—blankets, clothes, pillows. Boil what you want to reuse. Honeysuckle for fever, ginseng for energy, mint for the lungs."

Master Chen nodded. "I'll begin preparing the herbs."

Yuling looked at me like I'd just grown glowing eyes. "You… you've seen this before?"

I gave a tight nod. "Yeah. Smallpox spreads fast. We need to move faster."

Her expression shifted—surprised, but then something flickered behind her eyes. "I had it when I was little," she murmured, already moving. "I still remember the fever."

We worked fast—clearing beds, boiling water, mixing whatever herbs we had left. I showed them how to fold cloth into masks, how to keep the sick separated by a few arm-lengths, how to tell who might still have time and who didn't.

And somewhere in the chaos—while yelling at villagers to stop crowding and trying not to dry heave from the smell of half-cooked sweat and panic—I had the strangest thought:

Huh. Guess surviving a global pandemic and doom scrolling WebMD for two years finally paid off.

In 2020, I'd spent months trying not to kill my succulents and accidentally hoarding canned chickpeas. Now I was here—ordering people to mask up and essentially running an ancient-world triage unit.

"Open all the windows," I ordered.

Someone blinked. "But the wind might carry the sickness!"

Oh, right. Pre-germ-theory logic.

"No," I said. "It carries it out. Fresh air is good. Trust me."

They looked at me like I'd just summoned lightning. Honestly, I probably looked like I was about to.

I didn't love suffering. But this? Helping? Making things even a little better?

That part felt good.

I was so smug right up until we lost our first patient.

He was an older man, maybe in his sixties, with kind eyes and a rasping voice that had faded throughout the day. I'd been checking on him constantly—adjusting his compresses, whispering encouragement, helping him sip the bitter tea I'd brewed from the dwindling herbs we had left.

But as the sun dipped low and shadows stretched across the infirmary floor, I noticed something was wrong.

His chest wasn't rising.

I rushed to his side, pressed two fingers to his neck. Then his wrist.

Nothing.

"Master Chen!" I called, my voice suddenly raw. "Can you—can you check?"

He moved quickly, kneeling beside me. A hand to the man's chest. A brief tilt of his ear. Then, he looked at me and shook his head.

The room didn't go silent.

But I did.

He was still warm.

Still looked like he might blink, shift under the sheets, mumble something about needing water or missing someone named Jun.

But he was gone.

And I'd been right there when it happened.

A weight settled in my chest like a wet stone. I turned away before the tears came, but it was no use. Hot, sharp, sudden. I didn't want the others to see me cry—but maybe I needed to.

Yuling placed a gentle hand on my arm. "He's not in pain anymore," she said softly.

I nodded, but couldn't speak. I'd seen suffering before. People hurt, injured. But not this. Not death. Not the kind that came in silence and stillness and took everything with it.

In dramas, people always died with a final breath and a last poetic line. The background music swelled. There was closure.

This wasn't like that.

It was just… absence.

Final.

And I couldn't save him.

I felt so stupid.

All this time I thought I understood pandemics just because I survived COVID-19 from the comfort of a furnished apartment, binge-watching old medical dramas and stress-eating frozen dumplings. I thought I got it because I once stood in line for toilet paper during lockdown.

But that? That was survival with air conditioning and a stocked fridge.

This was war.

And I was losing.

There was no time to grieve.

Because less than an hour later, the wagons arrived—and my nightmare doubled.

Wooden wheels groaned under the weight as they pulled into the village square. Soldiers leapt down, opening the canvas flaps. Inside were people—dozens of them. Pale. Fevered. Some unconscious, others coughing so violently it echoed off the stone walls. Pustules across their skin. No mistaking it.

"The capital," Yuling said beside me, voice tight. "They're overwhelmed. They're sending them here."

Of course they were.

I was already moving before the sentence left her mouth, my clothes soaked with sweat, my hands still trembling from the loss I hadn't processed.

"Who's in charge?" I snapped.

A tall, stiff man stepped forward—one of those types who probably ironed his uniform with the same expression he used for funerals. "I am."

"Well then, sir," I said through gritted teeth, "perhaps you can explain how you thought it was acceptable to deliver a full-on plague caravan to an already collapsing village without a single wagon of supplies to match."

He blinked, clearly not expecting that tone from someone still covered in dried herbs and regret.

"We were ordered—"

"Ordered?" I cut him off. "So you were told to bring death and leave it here, like unwanted luggage?"

His jaw clenched. "The city is collapsing. We had no choice."

"And now we don't either," I said, voice low and cold. "We're boiling water in cooking pots, burning sheets for warmth, and rationing herbs we haven't even identified yet. You think this village is going to absorb a hundred more sick people without help?"

He hesitated.

"Send word for aid. Immediately," I said. "Because if you don't get us what we need—medicine, water, clean blankets—these people won't make it to dawn."

"I'll… I'll send word," he said, his voice smaller now.

"Good," I muttered. "Run if you want, but if you come back with nothing, don't come back at all."

I turned on my heel and walked back toward the infirmary, my throat tight, my heart pounding.

Was I angry? Yes.

But beneath that anger was something worse.

Despair.

Inside, the newly arrived patients were already being laid on the floor—mats, blankets, even straw. I crouched beside a young boy, maybe ten, his cheeks flushed deep red with fever. He whimpered as I touched his forehead, the heat radiating off his skin like fire.

I dipped a cloth into the herbal water and placed it gently on his brow.

We didn't have enough medicine.

We didn't have enough time.

We didn't have enough of anything.

The soldiers put up ropes and wooden fences to block anyone from leaving the village. Quarantine, old-world style. They brought more supplies and even sent a few more healers from the outskirts of the capital—but it still wasn't enough.

And the death toll kept rising.

I was doing everything I could, but despair settled over me like a second skin. As someone from the modern world, I'd probably been vaccinated without even remembering it—just a tiny prick on my arm during childhood. But here? People were dying from a disease I used to think was long gone. Worse, even the healthy were starting to fall. Volunteers. Helpers. Some of the strongest were getting sick.

Yuling and Master Chen were still standing, still working like they had an endless well of strength—but I could see it in their eyes. They were holding on by threads.

I looked around and realized just how naïve I'd been in the palace infirmary—how easy it had all felt back then. A few fevers, sprained ankles, nothing more than controlled chaos with clean beds and silk curtains. This was different. This was war. Raw, terrifying, and completely out of control.

The village was drowning in grief. People crammed together in repurposed huts and tents, their skin blistered with the telltale pustules. The air stank of sickness—sweat, blood, rotting herbs, and despair. Children cried out for parents who couldn't answer anymore. The elderly whimpered in pain, eyes glazed with fever. Some just stared at the ceiling, waiting for the end.

And we couldn't stop it.

Yuling moved through the chaos like a ghost of herself—strong, capable, but worn thin. Her hands never stopped moving, wiping brows, spooning bitter medicine into slack mouths. Master Chen kept up as best he could, organizing, preparing, steadying the rest of us. But it wasn't enough. No matter how many people we helped, more came in.

More died.

That night, I lay on a straw bed, staring at the thatched ceiling as if it held answers. Sleep didn't come. It couldn't—not with everything clawing at my chest. I kept seeing faces. The old man from the first day. The boy who hadn't made it through the afternoon. The mother who begged me to save her child, and the child who begged me to save their mother.

I missed the palace—the relative safety, the clean halls, the illusion of control. I even missed Lady Zhao's grumpy morning scoldings and the endless rules Madam Hui made me follow. At least there, I knew who I was supposed to be.

Here, I was someone else.

Here, every day felt like gambling with the lives of people who had no idea I wasn't even from this world. And I was losing.

Tears gathered in my eyes, hot and unwanted. I blinked hard, wiping them away before they could fall. There wasn't time for weakness.

If I broke now, others might follow.

We had to keep going—even when it felt hopeless.

The next morning, I was boiling strips of cloth to use as bandages, the heat from the fire stinging my face, when shouting erupted near the village gate. For a moment, I froze—panic was a muscle memory now—but then I dropped the tongs and rushed toward the noise, heart pounding.

A small crowd had gathered, villagers murmuring anxiously. The soldiers guarding the entrance stood rigid, their spears crossed to block someone outside.

And then I saw him.

Jian Yi.

He looked the same—composed yet commanding—but his usually unreadable face was tight with urgency, and his robes were coated in dust from the road. He was arguing with the guards, trying to push past them, eyes locked on me the second he spotted me through the crowd.

As soon as he saw me, his eyes filled with relief and worry. "Mei Lin, you need to get out of here," he said firmly. "I've come to rescue you."

My heart clenched at the sound of his voice, familiar and steady like a thread pulling me home. But as I looked around—the makeshift infirmary behind me, the villagers huddled in fear and sickness, the stench of smoke and despair—I couldn't just pretend none of it was real.. "What about these people?" I asked, my voice trembling with emotion.

"Mei Lin, You are Luyang royal consort. you don't belong here," Jian Yi insisted, his voice growing more urgent. "You need to go back to Luyang. Wei Wuxian is on his way to Daqi."

I blinked. They're coming for me. Joy surged in my chest for half a second—Wei Wuxian must've sent him. That meant they knew I was alive. They hadn't given up.

But then I looked at the villagers behind me. Their eyes were wide with fear. Mothers clutching feverish children. Elderly men barely able to stand. Yuling, worn thin but still working. They all watched us like I was their last lifeline.

I turned back to Jian Yi, my voice firm. "If you really want to rescue me, then help me save them first."

He stared at me like I had just grown another head. "Mei Lin—"

 "No," I said, my voice steady and resolute. "I won't leave them. Jian Yi, these are your people. If you want to save me, send more supplies and people. Once this place is under control, then I'll go back."

For a moment, silence.

Then the villagers, realizing who I was—really was—began to kneel, one by one.

"Royal Consort… please don't leave us," someone whispered.

"Save us," another begged.

My throat tightened. I didn't feel like a royal anything. I felt like a mess in wrinkled robes and soot-streaked hands. But I couldn't turn away.

Jian Yi looked at them, then back at me, his jaw tight with frustration. "You stubborn woman," he muttered.

He sighed, the weight of a thousand decisions on his shoulders. "Fine. I'll send more supplies. And more people. But don't make me regret this."

And for the first time, I saw something flicker in his eyes—something like admiration.

Tears stung my eyes as I watched Jian Yi disappear beyond the gates, his promise echoing like a distant lifeline. For the first time in days, I let myself believe that help was really coming. That maybe, just maybe, we had a chance.

***

The next morning, carts rolled up to the village gate, overflowing with supplies—herbs, food, blankets. A few soldiers dismounted to help, their faces tight with unease as they glanced at the quarantine ropes.

Then I saw it.

A crimson flag with the golden emblem of Luyang fluttering in the breeze. A sleek carriage pulled to a stop, its doors thrown open even before the wheels stopped turning.

And there they were.

Wei Wuxian. Ming Yu. Lan Wangji.

All three stood tall and fierce, demanding entry as the guards scrambled to stop them.

My heart leapt—and then plummeted.

"No—Wei Ying, stop! You can't come in here!" I shouted, rushing out of the infirmary. My voice cracked, panicked, more command than plea.

Wei Wuxian froze. "Mei Lin?" His voice was tight, laced with worry. "Are you alright?"

I held up my hand sharply. "Stay back. All of you. Do not cross that gate."

His brows knit. "What's going on? Are you hurt?"

I shook my head hard. "No, I'm fine. But the plague—smallpox—is spreading inside. If you come in, you could be exposed. It's too dangerous."

Ming Yu stepped forward, his voice low but urgent. "We're not leaving you here."

I looked at him, at all of them—three people who had crossed a kingdom to find me. My heart ached with gratitude. But this wasn't a moment for reunions.

"I've already had it," I said, my voice calmer now. "So I won't get it again. That's why I can stay. But you can't. You're too important. If anything happened to you because of me…"

Lan Wangji's eyes narrowed, as if calculating risk and honor at the same time. Wei Wuxian opened his mouth to protest again, but Ming Yu gently placed a hand on his shoulder.

"She's right," Ming Yu said softly, never taking his eyes off mine. "We came to protect her. If we truly respect her… we have to listen now."

Reluctantly, Wei Wuxian nodded. "Alright, Mei Lin. But if anything changes, if you need us, we'll be back in an instant."

"Thank you," I whispered, my eyes filling with tears. "I'll be fine. Just stay safe."

As they turned to leave, I felt a surge of hope. With the supplies and help they had brought, we had a fighting chance. And knowing they were in the city gave me the strength to keep going.

Then, Ming Yu did the unthinkable.

He jumped over the gate and landed gracefully inside the village.

"Ming Yu!" I screamed. "What are you doing?"

He turned to me, calm and resolute. "You mentioned that those who already survived the plague won't get it again, right? I had it when I was young."

Wei Wuxian's eyes widened, and Lan Wangji stepped forward instinctively, but Ming Yu raised a hand in silent reassurance.

"I'll be alright. And I can protect her from inside the gates."

Wei Wuxian's expression tightened, the weight of a hundred unspoken emotions flashing across his face. Slowly, he nodded. "Take care of her," he said, voice low and rough. "Both of you… come back alive."

"I will," Ming Yu replied firmly. He then turned to me, his eyes softening. "Let's go, Mei Lin. We have work to do."