While Zhen Cheng was arguing with Meng Yan inside the house, the neighboring household to the east was sighing mournfully.
This was a typical farming family, a household of six: an elderly couple, a young couple, and the young couple's two children. Such families were common in the countryside outside Lingwu City; if anything, their household was considered rather small.
In recent days, the young couple's son had fallen gravely ill. He drank medicinal soup every day, could not endure wind or cold, yet showed no signs of improvement. They had therefore hired a somewhat renowned physician from the city to treat him.
The consultation fee was one thing, but what the farming family truly could not bear was that the physician's prescription contained a precious medicinal herb worth its weight in gold. Only by using this herb to replenish the child's vital energy could they drive out the sickness and cure him completely.
Yet they were merely ordinary farmers with meager incomes, utterly unable to afford such a costly treatment. But they could not simply leave him untreated either. That boy was the root of their family. If the root was gone, what meaning was there in living?
At their most desperate, the young couple had even considered selling their daughter to obtain money for their son's treatment. It was the typical mindset of valuing sons over daughters, yet in this world and under these social conditions, it was hard to condemn them for it.
Fortunately, although the elderly couple also ached for their grandson, they were unwilling to sacrifice their granddaughter, especially when things had not yet reached the end of the road. The key was that the old man of this family was a follower of the Pudu Cult.
Cult followers differed from ordinary believers. They had