The pork butcher is smoother than a pig butcher!

Chapter 331 Spread
There is a saying.

When you find one cockroach, there are countless cockroaches in the darkness.

No one knows the origin of the toad plague.

But those immigrants stayed for a longer period in Lintao Prefecture, as well as along the Jinzhou Pass and the entire Hexi Corridor.

Wherever people live, the toad plague makes its grand appearance in late autumn.

Initially, it was all children who were infected.

Afterwards, family members who had close contact with the child also suffered.

Following this, cases appeared in Huaiqing Prefecture and Biancheng.

After being diagnosed with toad plague by the most skilled military doctor in the camp, the number of children in the border town and Huaiqing Prefecture suffering from toad plague has exceeded three digits.

The toad plague is spreading rapidly.

The prescriptions used by the military doctors were very similar to those used by the doctors in Guazhou.

These herbal decoctions failed to curb the illness.

This caused widespread panic among the military families in the entire border town.

Children, whether sick or not, were kept at home and not allowed to go out.

Whenever a neighbor reports that a child's cheek is swollen, the surrounding neighbors react as if facing a major crisis.

Zhao Muyun, who had only enjoyed a few days of comfort, was no longer able to relax.

He sent urgent messages to various border garrisons, informing them of the epidemic while also seeking medical treatment.

Because of this plague, there are now very few people walking on the streets of the city.

Ganweixian and Zuixiangju restaurants in Biancheng, as well as the Zuixiangju branch in Huaiqing Prefecture, were deserted and eventually closed down.

Gan's parents were used to a life where they made a fortune every day.

At first glance, it sounds quite strange.

When Gan Mingshou returned home and saw the two of them looking like they'd lost their souls, he tried to comfort them:
“Father and Mother, before this plague ends, why don’t you come and live with me in the stone house halfway up the mountain in the pasture?”

Our saxaul trees have grown very lushly these past few months. When food is scarce in the grasslands and deserts during winter, they might attract wild camels again.

Dad can help me patrol and see if there are any tree roots that have been chewed up by prairie rats. Without the rat king to keep them down, those prairie rats love to dig holes in the sand.

I've stored two hundred bushels of wheat and enough salt on the mountain. Mother, you can help me cook on the pasture. Don't worry, there's plenty of meat on our pasture. You can cook it with mushrooms and the freshly hunted game, so we can have a change of pace."

Gan Hongzhen glanced at his son and said irritably:
"You're all talk! All you want is for me and your mother to go to the ranch and help you with the work! By the way, how many of those fairy herb seeds do you still need to collect?"

"Father, the prince said that as long as there are doggrass seeds from our ranch, the rabbit farm will buy as many as we have! I give those kids fifty coins for every pound of seeds they pick, and they work really hard every day. I estimate there are now a thousand or eight hundred pounds stored in the warehouse."

"That sounds like quite a lot!"

"This is nothing! The amount in the warehouse is only enough to plant about a hundred acres. I heard that the rabbit farm plans to expand its breeding scale again and make hundreds of thousands of preserved rabbits before the Chinese New Year."

Once they've finished cleaning up the workshop, they'll start planting grass on the kang (heated brick bed)!
Anyway, the order for me is no less than 5,000 catties, and I can get 150 wen per catty! Hehe, just by finishing this grass seed deal, I can make a net profit of 750 taels!

Gan Mingfu smiled smugly.

Is 750 taels of silver a lot?
Considering that Ganweixian's daily income is no less than sixty taels, and the income from purchasing pickling ingredients from the two Zuixiangju restaurants, it's really not enough.

But for most military families in the border town, this was an enormous fortune. In the past six months, their doorstep had been practically worn down by matchmakers.

Gan's mother clearly didn't care about the money her son was about to earn.

What she was more worried about was:

"I'm afraid that the person who raises rabbits might accidentally discover the secret of our magical herb."

Second brother, you don't know this. Grassland sheep and Tan sheep that have been fed these magical herbs for more than half a year not only gain fat quickly, but their meat also becomes more and more tender as they grow.

A large sheep weighing tens or hundreds of kilograms can taste just as good as a lamb that is two or three months old.

Nowadays, slaughtered mutton doesn't need to be soaked in cold water to remove the gamey smell. It's just boiled in a big pot with the meat and bones, and there's hardly any blood foam in the soup.

Many diners have praised your mother for her amazing meat-cooking skills!
Even though they raise sheep themselves, they're still willing to line up every morning to eat mutton soup at our restaurant for 100 coins a bowl.

The couple were deeply saddened.

I discovered this secret more than two months ago, and now that I've gotten to this point, I can't help but tell my son about it.

Gan Mingshou nodded. He had been busy picking grass seeds for the past two weeks and hadn't paid attention to the business of his mutton shop.

He said, “Mother, if the military supply department didn’t know that our grass was better than other grasses, why would they spend so much money to buy grass seeds?”
They certainly know what the wild rabbits they catch from the grasslands taste like, and how good the meat they've raised over the past few months is.

But their attention is now focused on the stalks and leaves; it's unlikely that anyone will figure out the uses of the roots anytime soon.

Don't worry, General Tian brought me a letter on behalf of my sister. My sister's idea is that if more mutton soup restaurants open in the border town during the winter, our family will slaughter a cow then.

Beef soup, that's an absolutely unique business!

Gan Hongzhen was so angry he was grinding his teeth. "There are only two hundred cows in total, and they're all females! They can still have calves next year, why are you killing them?"

“My sister said that she will have someone send a batch of sheep and cattle back to us next spring. The exact number will depend on how many she can bring back. My sister knows the business in the family.”

When Gan's parents heard this, they breathed a sigh of relief.

Since my eldest daughter regained her senses, everything she has done has been quite reliable.

Thinking of her daughter, Gan's mother suddenly slapped her thigh:
"Luckily, your nephew and niece aren't in the border town. Those kids in the town who got the toad plague have cheeks that are swollen like crazy, and I heard that in the end, pus even oozes from their mouths. It's quite pitiful."

Little did she know that the situation in Kansai was far worse than in the border town.

Gan Minglan had just led fourteen members of the vanguard battalion on wild horses to Flaming Mountain to search for the cactus.

Among the more than 2,000 patients who were subsequently isolated, more than 500 were children who rapidly progressed from typhoid fever to toad plague.

What's most worrying is...

Several of the young pharmacists who delivered medicine to these patients in the past few days have also shown signs of infection.

Inside the quarantine area, seven or eight children are now living in a dugout.

Their cheeks were burning and swollen.

It is also accompanied by symptoms such as chills and fever, headache and sore throat, nausea and vomiting.

They were already feeling extremely unwell, and the doctor wouldn't let them leave their dugouts or allow their families to come and take care of them.

This caused the ailing child to be filled with fear and anxiety, and the condition worsened.
(End of this chapter)