Father Bai had originally wanted to give his job to his youngest son, but the Security Department refused. They stated that Father Bai either had to continue working himself or give up the position entirely. Hah, they were really going too far.
"Alright, I’ll stay at home for these next few days. The production team captain wrote me a letter of introduction for half a month, so I can celebrate the New Year here. Xingguo, just focus on your work with peace of mind," Bai Jiu said, as she had been planning to stay with her maiden family anyway.
"That’s good. Mother will be thrilled to see you back. She’s missed you so much these past few years, but she forced herself not to visit, afraid of causing you trouble."
The whole family cherished their youngest sister, but city life was nowhere near as glamorous as outsiders imagined—especially for an ostracized family like theirs. Their daily lives were honestly worse than those of rural folks.
"Mother cleans your old room every day. Come on, let me help you move your things in." This courtyard was the old residence of the Bai family. They hadn’t lived here for a while, but eventually, they had moved back. The courtyard was quite spacious; counting both the inner and outer areas, there were at least a dozen rooms.
It was only because they had pulled some strings back then to change their status that they had managed to keep this property. Every other asset belonging to the Bai family was gone. Of course, they still had their underlying foundation and heritage, but those things couldn’t see the light of day.
"Mhm." Bai Jiu didn’t stand on ceremony with him. They were family; being overly polite would only create distance.
Upon entering the room, the original owner’s memories resurfaced in Bai Jiu’s mind. She had to admit, the Bai family truly doted on this daughter. The room looked very simple. It had a kang bed with a small cabinet resting on it, and there wasn’t a single speck of dust on either. It was clearly cleaned on a regular basis.
"You were actually very lucky. It’s just a pity you couldn’t see it," Bai Jiu murmured with a soft chuckle to the empty air, pulling herself out of the memories. She then began to tidy up.
But when she opened the cabinet, she froze. The vast majority of its contents were books on traditional Chinese medicine. At that moment, another wave of memories surged forth.
After fully absorbing them, Bai Jiu smiled. Now, she finally didn’t have to pretend anymore.
The original owner actually knew traditional Chinese medicine. Not only that, she had a very profound foundation in it. She had learned it all from her grandfather, Old Master Bai. Unfortunately, he had passed away too early due to poor health. Due to their special circumstances, the original owner had completely hidden this trump card of hers. If she had revealed it sooner, her life in the village wouldn’t have ended up in such a miserable state.
Bai Jiu herself was an outstanding surgeon. Though she didn’t know much about traditional Chinese medicine, she still understood the fundamental principles of treating illnesses and saving lives. Medicine was medicine; there were simply too many overlapping concepts. She could absolutely try to master and integrate the original owner’s knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine. When that time came, she could become a brilliant doctor once again.
Truthfully, having been a doctor for so long, she had found it exhausting and arduous. Unless absolutely necessary, she hadn’t wanted to return to the profession because of the immense hardship. But now, with such a promising path laid out right in front of her, how could she let it go?
Once the college entrance exams resumed, if she could become a top student at a Medical University, she would secure a highly lucrative and stable career upon graduation. In this life, she wanted to lean more towards scientific research. If she could help the country develop those future medicines ahead of time, then...
Bai Jiu suddenly became thrilled. She began to treat the books in her hands with the utmost reverence. After her excitement passed, Bai Jiu slowly calmed down.
"It really is a way out. It seems I’m destined to never leave the medical field," she said with a smile, setting the book down. She then stored all the books in the room into her spatial dimension. This was the only way to keep them safe. The Bai family attracted too much attention. Although she didn’t know how they had managed to preserve these precious medical texts over the years, storing them in her space was infinitely safer just in case.
As she continued packing things away, Bai Jiu discovered a hole hidden underneath the kang bed. Driven by curiosity, she removed the surrounding bricks. When a tin trunk appeared before her eyes, she was dumbfounded.
Was the Bai family a bit too clueless? To think they had just left this thing sitting right here!
The tin trunk wasn’t locked, and Bai Jiu opened it with ease. She thought there would be something extraordinary inside, but to her surprise, it was entirely filled with books.
Once again, a flood of memories surged into her mind.
After zoning out for a moment, Bai Jiu started tearing the room apart. It didn’t take long for her to dig up several more tin trunks identical to the one under the kang bed. They were all filled to the brim with books, and they were all about traditional Chinese medicine. There were even ancient texts that would become world-renowned in future generations.
"This is the truest, most precious wealth." With trembling hands, Bai Jiu hastily flipped through the books inside.
Among the ancient texts was the *Collected Commentaries on the Classic of Materia Medica* from the Southern Dynasty. Not only that, but she also discovered an entire trunk dedicated solely to medical prescriptions. For instance, *Recipes for Fifty-Two Ailments*, *Liu Juanzi’s Ghost Legacy Prescriptions*, *Essential Treasures of a Thousand Gold*, *Arcane Essentials from the Imperial Library*, and more.
Among them was also a copy of the *Secondary Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion*, a book she had often heard her colleagues from the traditional Chinese medicine department mention in the past. Unfortunately, it had been lost after the Southern Song dynasty. The only surviving text from that lineage was Bian Que’s *Jade Dragon Classic*. That had been a massive loss for traditional Chinese medicine.
Now, although the few trunks of books here were incomplete, for Bai Jiu, this was enough knowledge to study for a lifetime.
According to her memories, her grandfather had left all these books to the original owner before he passed away.
Why give them to her? Simply because, apart from her, no one else in the family possessed the talent for studying medicine. Even Father Bai hadn’t managed to learn a single fraction of his own father’s skills. He had ultimately become a bookworm. If tragedy hadn’t struck the family, he never would have taken up the manual labor he had once looked down upon. There was no need to even mention the grandchildren’s generation. They had tried learning when they were young, but unfortunately, memorizing texts felt like torture to them.
Alas. In the end, the old man had no choice but to pick the best of a bad bunch, selecting the original owner. It was exactly because of a healer’s benevolent heart that the original owner had developed such a gentle and fragile temperament.
This time, however, Bai Jiu had hit the jackpot.
After filling in the holes she had dug out, Bai Jiu sped up her tidying. With all these items secured in her space, she would have plenty of time to read them later. Right now, it was better to use her time to review the textbooks of this era.
When Bai Xingguo noticed that his youngest sister hadn’t come out for a long while, he knew she was definitely looking at those books. He let out a sigh. It was getting late; he’d better start cooking.
When Bai Jiu finally came out, she saw her eldest brother bustling about in the kitchen alone. Xiuxiu and Zhengyang were also hanging out in the kitchen.
"Mother!" The two children were absolutely delighted to see her. After all, this was an unfamiliar environment. The two children were still struggling to adapt, even though the people here were their relatives.
"Why are you guys out here? Where’s Grandpa?" Bai Jiu felt a sudden wave of guilt. She had actually forgotten about her two children.
"Grandpa is sleeping. Uncle Xingguo told us to come out and warm up by the fire because it’s cold in the room," Zhengyang replied.
The room wasn’t actually cold. It was just that the two children were too scared to move, terrified of waking their grandfather. Seeing how tense and restrained they were, Bai Xingguo had told them to come out.
Who knew they would immediately ask for their mother the moment they stepped out? Knowing that his sister wouldn’t be coming out of her room for a while, Bai Xingguo had the two children keep him company.
"Father is asleep. I saw how stiff they were acting, so I called them out. You must be hungry. Come over here and have some sweet potato porridge to warm up," Xingguo said, as the porridge in the pot was just ready.
Looking at the watery porridge in the pot, which contained far more sweet potatoes than white rice, Bai Jiu felt a pang of heartache.