The copper bell of Banxian Medical Hall rang crisp and loud in the north wind. Huwa was leaning over the medicine cabinet, carving a "wind-repelling ghost-face" onto a traveling physician's medicine chest. His carving knife slipped on the iced camphor wood, turning the ghost-face's eyes into the shape of abacus beads. Su Wanyue raised her riding crop, just about to tap him on the back, when Traveling Physician Li rushed in, his head covered in melting snowflakes, the ghost-face wood carving on his medicine chest crusted with ice. "Manager Su! A freezing cough has broken out in the south-city shantytown, and the elderly, the weak, the sick, and the disabled can't hold on!"
"What are you panicking about?" Zhang Yifan walked out of the account room, tapping an abacus frosted with ice, the abacus beads still stained with crushed roasted chestnuts that Huwa had smuggled in. "Bring out Cyan Ox Village's improved perilla and dried ginger, and put Huwa's 'ice-swallowing ghost-faces' on every medicine chest. The camphor wood has been soaked in chili water—even bugs shiver just looking at it."
Huwa instantly perked up. His carving knife chipped out a grinning ghost-face on the frosted medicine chest, icicles hanging from its corners. "Brother Fan, look! The ghost-face's teeth are shaped like abacus beads, specially made to bite freezing-cough bugs!" Seeing the ice crystals on the tip of his nose, Su Wanyue suddenly recalled what Zhang Yifan had said last night: "It's time to collect …
Chapter 58