Transmigrated as an Unwanted Ugly Girl

At the Zhang family home, Qin Feng sat at the square table. Looking at the sumptuous country-style dishes and the warm, smiling faces around him, he felt a deep sense of warmth and closeness.

Zheng Changhe and Qingmu had been invited to keep him company. He was so happy to see Qin Feng that he couldn’t stop grinning, and he said to Juhua, "Juhua, hurry and get some rice crust for Doctor Qin to soak in his soup. Use this fish soup. Doctor Qin loves rice crust! He even took some with him the year he left."

He quickly put down her bowl and chopsticks. "I’ll go get it," she said, trotting off to the kitchen.

Juhua chided Zheng Changhe, "Dad, let Doctor Qin eat his meal first. If he wants rice crust later, we can just scrape some from the pot. Who serves someone rice crust the moment they sit down?"

Qin Feng quickly said, "It’s no trouble. A bowl of it would be nice. I haven’t had it in a long time, and I’ve really been missing it."

Zheng Changhe grinned smugly at Juhua. "See? What did I tell you? Of course he’d miss it after so long. If I go three days without munching on rice crust, I get a real craving for it." He was good at putting himself in others’ shoes.

He returned carrying a medium-sized earthenware jar. She lifted the lid, filled a bowl more than halfway for Qin Feng with the golden-brown rice crust, and ladled some crucian carp soup over it. She smiled and said, "Don’t fill up on the rice crust. You should have a bowl of rice and some more soup later."

Qin Feng quickly thanked her. Chewing on the crunchy rice crust and inhaling the long-missed aroma, he was filled with emotion.

As they ate, they all talked about what they had been through since they had last seen each other.

Qin Feng explained that he had been detained by the Fifth Prince for many years and was only able to get away when the prince came to the capital. In turn, Zheng Changhe and Zhang Dashuan excitedly told him all about Qingnan Village’s acorns, pig farming, double-crop rice, fish ponds, and fruit orchards. They also mentioned the workshop that had been abruptly sold, and finally, the newly appointed corrupt official, County Magistrate Li.

The two men’s expressions shifted from animated excitement to regretful disappointment, and finally, to teeth-grinding anger. Qin Feng listened intently, at first smiling and nodding along, but eventually, his brow furrowed.

Qingmu and Huai Zi sat with them, occasionally chiming in to add details.

After they had finished their stories, Zhang Dashuan finally asked the question on everyone’s mind. "Doctor Qin, now that you’re back, you won’t be leaving again, will you? Oh, if you stay, we’ll all be so overjoyed we won’t know what to do! None of us want you to go!"

Qin Feng smiled. "I’m staying, for now."

When everyone heard he was staying, they burst into cheers, ignoring his last two words. Only Juhua was unsatisfied. ’I have to find a way to turn his ’for now’ into ’forever’,’ she thought.

She smiled at Qin Feng. "Doctor Qin, as a doctor, you help the sick wherever you go, right? It’s one thing to travel to gain experience, and that makes sense. But you’ve been wandering for a long time now. It’s about time you settled down to focus on your medical research. And if you’re looking for medicinal herbs, our Little Qing Mountain is enormous. No one’s ever ventured into the deep mountains, so what kind of herb could be missing? That’s why I think you should just settle down here, take on a few apprentices, and build a great medical family."

Qin Feng put down his chopsticks and asked with a smile, "You really want me to stay here?"

Juhua nodded. "Of course. My parents and the entire village want you to stay. Our village is doing quite well now, you see. If it weren’t for that corrupt official, this place would be no different from a paradise. The village has a school, and if a doctor like you were to stay, we’d have a clinic, too. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Besides, there’s a limit to how many people you can treat on your own. If you stay here, you can practice medicine while training apprentices. If you train a whole new generation of doctors, won’t you be helping far more people than you could alone?"

Zhang Huai quickly added, "That’s right, Doctor Qin! You could open a school just for teaching medicine. There are plenty of smart kids for a hundred miles around here."

Qin Feng chuckled and nodded. "That’s an idea. I’ll give it some serious thought. In any case, I definitely won’t be leaving within the next year. It’s too early to worry about all that right now."

Zhang Dashuan and the others laughed heartily.

Juhua also smiled happily. ’As long as the idea has been planted, things will be easier. There has to be a way to make him stay.’

She said to Qin Feng, "After dinner, you should get some rest, Doctor Qin. Tomorrow, I’ll have to trouble you to check on Liu’er. She seems much better now, but none of us know what her illness actually is. We need a doctor to examine her to know for sure."

Qin Feng hadn’t yet heard about Liu’er. After listening as everyone chimed in to explain the situation, he sighed. "I’ll go take a look after dinner," he said. "Since she’s been recovering for a while and her health has improved, I suspect it’s just as Juhua says—she probably wasn’t seriously ill in the first place. It was likely a matter of the heart. After being divorced, she returned home and married Changling. Her heart was put at ease, and so she got better. Otherwise, it’s impossible to recover like that without medicine."