“Ugh!” ZiLi, lying on his stomach on the stone table in the courtyard, sighed dejectedly at the garden full of flowers and plants. “I can’t go out, and there is nothing interesting to do here. Do you want me to be like a woman who doesn’t come more than three steps outside of the lady’s chamber and does nothing but needlework?” he muttered to himself, grabbed a piece of pastry and bit into it. The food he thought was usually very delicious was now hard to swallow.
“This won’t do, I have to go for a walk, otherwise I will soon become insane!” ZiLi made up his mind and immediately jumped into action.
He got up and pretended to take a walk, thoroughly investigating the small palace where he was under house arrest. ZiLi was very disheartened to find that all his wishful thinking had been destroyed by a thick, high wall. He looked very depressingly at the high perimeter wall, twitched his mouth and said, “This is really preposterous! Why isn’t there even a dog hole?!”
He looked around. Very good, there is no one.
No dog hole? Then, I, this Young Master of the house, will dig one out myself!
As soon as he said he would, ZiLi sneaked into the kitchen and stole a kitchen knife for his escape, then stood by the wall and listened in silence for a while. He discovered that there were no human voices or footsteps outside, meaning no one would pass by outside the wall, if at all! ZiLi thought about it and still felt uneasy, so he picked up a fist-sized rock and threw it over the wall. It was a dull sound!
“Heaven is on my side!” The dull sound meant that the surface was not a stone-paved palace colonnade, but earth!
This time ZiLi felt reassured! Excitedly, he crouched down at the foot of the wall in the backyard and banged against the few stone bricks at the bottom. Compared to modern concrete and steel walls, a kitchen knife can easily scrape away the clay between two stone bricks from buildings built with only clay and water. As long as the clay is gone, the stone bricks can be easily removed.
Please read His Majesty's Hostage Chapter 5 on Project Bezemwagen :-)
After digging for about a quarter of an hour, ZiLi's digging project was completed. Carefully he stuck his head out of the hole and took a look. He had guessed it right! Outside was a small courtyard with weeds growing all over.ZiLi carefully climbed out and then properly closed the hole again.
“Phew――, that should settle it!” He straightened his back and wiped his forehead with a great sense of accomplishment.
ZiLi walked merrily through the courtyard, which had obviously been unused for a long time, and arrived at the edge of a man-made pond. The surrounding willows were actually verdant and dense, but the water in the pool was stagnant and filled with floating green algae, and it was also giving off a faint smell of rotting mud.
The shabby palace beside it, even when the sun shone during the day, could not conceal the dense darkness it emitted.
ZiLi walked quickly along the pebble path to leave through this desolated palace. His heart was beating with fear and he said, “Damn, it's really creepy! If it was used for a horror movie, it will definitely hit the box office!”
After walking for a while and turning around seven to eight times as he followed the confusing corridors of the palace, ZiLi had not met a single person so far. He could not help but rejoice in his good fortune and at the same time he wondered, Why isn't there even a palace maid in such a huge palace? As he thought about it, he suddenly heard the sound of something moving back and forth.
Please read His Majesty's Hostage Chapter 5 on Project Bezemwagen :-)
ZiLi curiously followed the sound and began to smell a strong scent of medicine in the air before reaching the source.He saw a thirteen or fourteen-year-old young man squatting down under the roof, his head bowed, grinding medicinal ingredients. There were a few roots and Chinese medicines laid next to him that ZiLi could not name. Outside the room, in the courtyard, there was also a trail of powdered medicine left to dry.
"Hello!" ZiLi approached him and greeted as pleasantly as possible.
The other person was clearly not expecting anyone. He stiffened and suddenly lifted his head to discover that the person who had come, whose face and outer clothes were dirty and covered with mud, was a young man he had never seen before.
“Who are you? What are you doing here? If His Excellency Li finds out, be careful or he will peel your skin off!” He thought that ZiLi was just a palace servant who had come in by accident, so he kindly warned him and wanted ZiLi to leave immediately.
But how could ZiLi be willing to leave? He simply also squatted down and said to this handsome young man, “ Little brother 1 , I'm not afraid of that Excellency Li! Hey, can you tell me what this place is?”
The young man looked at ZiLi strangely and said, “Are you not from the palace? Why do you not know that this is the Imperial Medical Palace?”
“Aha, it turned out to be the Imperial Medical Palace!” ZiLi nodded, understanding now clearly what this place was and asked again, “Since this is the Imperial Medical Palace, why don’t I see other people?
Please read His Majesty's Hostage Chapter 5 on Project Bezemwagen :-)
“This is not the main hall of the Imperial Medicine Palace, but a small pharmacy behind the palace. It is only natural that you do not see other people and besides, not everyone likes to come here,” said the young man with a sad expression.ZiLi who learned what was going on, continued to ask, “Then why are you here?”
“I― I made a mistake, so His Excellency Li sent me here as punishment to grind all these medicinal ingredients into powder.” The young man felt somewhat ashamed when he answered this honestly.
“Did you grind all of this?” exclaimed ZiLi in amazement, pointing to the medicinal powder drying in the sun.
“ En 2 ,” the young man nodded, “but this is not even half of what I have to grind.”
After the young man finished talking, he stopped looking at ZiLi, lowered his head and continued his work of grinding the medicine.
“It's too much for a child to grind so many medicinal ingredients by himself!” ZiLi saw that due to the grinding large and small blisters had formed on both palms of the hands of the young man, but he had not yet completed half of his task. If he would finish this task, then his hands would almost be gone! ZiLi was furious and could not bear it.
He seized the pestle from the young man and said, “I'll help you grind. Go get your palms bandaged up!”
“I can’t,” the young man shook his head repeatedly in astonishment.
"Why not? It's all right, come on, I'll help you."
"Well, thank you big brother 3 !" the young man was very grateful and thanked him, "Wait until I have bandaged the wounds, then I'll return and switch with you!"
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