The Hedelin Medical Academy, with its mission to train female doctors, quickly became well-known among the people of Vitlil—not only Mrs. Hedelin’s second and third daughters, but also Mrs. Clement’s “niece” Charlotte joined the ranks of those learning medical knowledge and nursing skills.
Half a month later, Duke Wilson advised the king to address the virulent diseases spreading in the slums. Unexpectedly, the king and the nobles agreed with Duke Wilson’s proposal. Masks were officially promoted in Osnabrock.
Ye Tang and Daisy’s clothing store was the first to sell masks, and the deliverymen under Ye Tang were the first whose faces never parted from their masks. Some self-proclaimed “the only sober one amid a drunken world” thought they had seen through Ye Tang’s cunning scheme to make money:
Mrs. Hedelin deliberately exaggerated the epidemic in the slums, colluded with Mrs. Clement to sway the nobles, making them truly believe the poor were threatened by the plague, and thus willing to help Mrs. Hedelin and Mrs. Clement promote these masks! In reality, masks—mere cloth with two strings sewn on—had no effect at all! The idea that masks could prevent disease was as laughable as priests claiming holy water could cure illness!
Those who insisted masks were an “IQ tax” and refused to spend money on them were soon slapped in the face by the Spanish flu—the Plague Knight loved to ride roughshod over the faces of arrogant humans. The more arrogant the person, the faster they fell before the Plague Knight.
By April, the people in Vitlil’s slums had grown accustomed to isolation life. Those outside the slums had also grown accustomed to mask life.
In May, Spanish flu outbreaks erupted in multiple places beyond Vitlil. Regions without isolation measures or enforced mask promotion fell one after another. Local nobles who had previously picked their teeth while mocking the capital could no longer sit idly by. Those who could flee to Vitlil did so, but before they even reached Vitlil, they were all captured by guards in the wilderness outside Vitlil and forcibly isolated in facilities on the outskirts.
Farmers abandoned by their lords had no idea what was happening. As people around them fell ill one by one, dying amid high fevers, coughs, and abdominal pain, the farmers were terrified and began self-flagellation. Many stripped off their clothes and whipped their own flesh, attempting through ascetic penance to tell the heavens: We know we were wrong; please do not punish us further…
If ascetic penance worked, humanity would not need antibiotics. The farmers soon discovered it was useless, while outsiders who covered their faces with strange cloths—and occasionally appeared—never fell ill.
The farmers believed the cloth covering the outsiders’ faces held sacred power, and the peculiar patterns on the cloth were gospels protecting them from disease. The farmers began covering their lower faces with wood scraps, metal pieces, and cloth, drawing symbols believed to produce these gospels on the wood, metal, and cloth.
Ted, traveling back and forth with his men, nearly had a heart attack passing through one village: the local farmers, for reasons unknown, had imitated the emblem Mrs. Hedelin had granted them, clumsily drawing it everywhere and wearing wooden, metal, and cloth pieces emblazoned with it over their faces.
Ye Tang choked on her tea upon hearing Ted’s report. Hope and Fian hurried forward to lightly pat her back.
The delivery company’s logo being interpreted as a graphic with mystical power… she truly had not expected that.
In June, the Spanish flu in Capital Vitril came under further control. New Spanish flu patients no longer surged dramatically, and the ill gradually recovered. The streets brimmed with vitality once more.
Meanwhile, the Sailan Principality sent a request for aid to Osnabrock. The Sailan Principality offered to waive tariffs on Osnabrock’s merchant ships in exchange for advanced anti-epidemic technology and experience. Osnabrock did not reply immediately.
In July, the Sailan Principality made another request to Osnabrock. This time, Osnabrock finally agreed to ally with the Sailan Principality, and the two nations became brother countries.
August, September, October…
In the blink of an eye, two years passed. The nineteen-year-old Claudia could already manage the clothing stores on Queen Road for Ye Tang and oversee the operation and development of the domestic delivery business.
Gloria and Cinderella had studied at the Hedelin Medical Academy for two years, their skills now far surpassing ordinary doctors. The Hedelin Medical Academy had also grown rapidly.
Remember the microbiologist Ye Tang had written to, offering to fund their research? Upon learning of the sponsorship, the scientist arrived in Osnabrock with family in tow. Amid Osnabrock’s effective epidemic control while surrounding nations lay in devastation, the scientist felt immensely fortunate to have come and sent telegrams and letters to several researcher friends.
Thus, in less than half a year, biologists and medical experts flooded into Osnabrock and, under that microbiologist’s introduction, joined the Hedelin Medical Academy.
The Hedelin Medical Academy had become a world-leading center for training medical talent and, in the hands of these luminaries, the strongest bastion for humanity against the Spanish flu.
Over these two years, Ye Tang expanded her delivery company to the Sailan Principality. She bought large merchant ships and organized a large fleet. Centered in Osnabrock, Ye Tang’s delivery company took root and sprouted everywhere, even beginning to accept national-level commissions.
The delivery company logo, treated as a divine seal during the Spanish flu outbreak, had become familiar in neighboring countries. When the company established branches in various nations, many locals even mistook it for a new chapel and went to pray there idly.
Ye Tang had transmigrated when Anna Rochel was thirty-seven. In theory, she should now be thirty-nine. Yet no one who saw her would think her nearly forty.
“Anna, you’re truly growing younger with age.”
Daisy sighed, touching the fine lines at her eye corners. Over these two years, not only had Anna Rochel’s apparent age not increased, but her complexion had grown more radiant day by day, now reaching the point of stunning beauty.
“Is that so?”
Ye Tang, who was drinking tea and reading the newspaper, had not done any beauty treatments behind Daisy’s back. When Daisy asked for the secret to her improvement, she could not explain it.
Fian, who looked like a sixteen-year-old boy and was a pigeon spirit, seemed quite smug—their vitality tonic for Anna Rochel had worked well.
Hope did not want Fian to expose them and expressionlessly stepped on Fian’s foot.
Given Anna Rochel’s workaholic ways, she should have collapsed long ago. To prevent Anna Rochel from collapsing, to keep her plans from failing, they often added nectar from the Millennium Rose to her tea and biscuits.
The nectar from the Millennium Rose kept a person’s bodily functions at their peak state. Becoming more beautiful and youthful was merely a minor side effect. Once Anna Rochel’s body fully recovered to its peak, she would stop growing younger. The replacing side effect would be that Anna Rochel would become very long-lived—extremely, extraordinarily long-lived.
Daisy had not noticed Hope and Fian’s rapid growth. Or rather, she could not notice. Hope and Fian had altered the memories of those around them; everyone believed the boys had already been fourteen when they started working at Hedelin House. Being sixteen now was perfectly normal.
Affected by the nectar, magic had little effect on Ye Tang. Thus, she retained intact memories of catching the two bread thieves.
“By the way, Anna, do you know? Next week, the king is holding a ball for the prince in the royal city, inviting all nobles and wealthy merchants to attend. They must bring all the daughters from their households.”
Ye Tang set down her newspaper.
What would come, would come; no avoiding fortune or misfortune. The ball that had changed Cinderella’s fate in the fairy tale seemed about to begin.