Cholera at the Emei Sect
Hwiyeom took a large quantity of salt, malt syrup, fruit, and honey from the Sacheondang Family’s food storage warehouse.
As for sugar, although cane sugar brought from India had been cultivated in the southern regions of China since the Tang Dynasty, it remained far too expensive to mobilize in bulk.
On the road to the Emei Sect, Hwiyeom briefly discussed the plan ahead with the medical team and the Emei nuns who had come out to meet them.
“Cholera is a dreadful disease. Its source of infection is contaminated drinking water. The fact that cholera is spreading through the Emei Sect means the water sources you normally use must already be polluted.”
“There are several wells on Mount Emei. Which ones are contaminated is…”
“Any water source used recently must be considered dangerous.”
“That…”
“How far are the other sources?”
“…Halfway up the mountain. An ordinary person without martial arts would need at least half a shichen just to climb up and fetch it.”
“…That won’t work. Hauling water that far, people will die of exhaustion long before the cholera gets them.”
With patients who would already need continuous oral rehydration solution on a massive scale, an unreliable water supply would only create more problems.
Hwiyeom decided, as a stopgap, to boil every drop of well water thoroughly before anyone drank it. Even if the water was contaminated with cholera bacteria, boiling would kill the germs in the end.
For reference, a single load of dry firewood in this era cost more than a modern gas cylinder produced by mass industry. Cutting, hauling, drying, chopping, and hauling again demanded an enormous amount of labor. In short, Hwiyeom had resolved to burn money.
Well, pouring precious salt and malt syrup like water was already… Aigoo, if only we didn’t have the coal mines and sulfur…
Calculating the sums that would vanish from the ledgers, Hwiyeom fought down the heartburn and asked seriously,
“Is the firewood stockpiled at the Emei Sect sufficient?”
If they had a large reserve, he could at least save some expense.
“Ah, yes, reasonably so…”
“If we use all of it solely to boil drinking water, how many days will it last? Assume people are drinking four or five times their usual amount.”
“Well… about three days, perhaps…”
He had expected as much, but it was still absurdly short. Under normal conditions that stockpile would have lasted a fortnight or more, and this was not even the season for laying in winter wood, so the amount itself was not small. The crisis simply demanded more.
“Not enough. Ye-eun, don’t follow us right away. Stop at the market town and buy every stick of firewood you can get your hands on. Charge it… hm, put it on my name.”
“Yes, Young Master.”
Ye-eun bowed and vanished toward the market with one of the bodyguards Hwiyeom had assigned her.
He could have billed the Emei Sect, but demanding money from them right now would look unseemly, and negotiating with anyone who actually held decision-making authority would only waste precious time. Moreover, from Hwiyeom’s perspective, saddling the Emei Sect with a large debt was a deliberate move to seize the psychological and moral high ground for the land-lease negotiations that would come later.
This is an investment… damn it, an investment!
Suppressing the heartburn that came with the temporary but massive outlay, Hwiyeom addressed the medical team.
“Cholera only infects you if it enters through the mouth. Boil every drop of drinking water until it rolls. No—everything that goes into the mouth must be boiled or thoroughly cooked. Before you put any food in your mouth, you must wash your hands with a good lather of the soap I distributed. If you do only that reliably, you can prevent infection for the time being.”
“Is that true?”
“It is. Even the armies of Temujin, the Great Khan, nearly perished when they met cholera, yet they overcame it and went on to destroy the Khwarezm Empire, did they not?”
“I have never heard that story… Might I be allowed to read the book myself?”
“I’ll show it to you when the chance comes. I left it behind this time. More importantly—do you doubt me? I’m only human. Would I play games when my own life is on the line?”
“N-no, of course not. I never meant to say the Young Clan Head was lying.”
Some still harbored doubts about the knowledge Hwiyeom spouted, but the fact that he himself was leading the medical team calmed them.
By the time they climbed the rugged mountain path and passed beneath the Emei Sect’s hanging plaque, the afternoon was long gone and the sun was sinking behind the western peaks.
“I have brought the medical team of the Sichuan Dang Family! From this moment, give them your full cooperation!”
At Hyejeong’s thunderous command the nuns came rushing from every direction. Hwiyeom and the people of the Sichuan Dang Family, however, fell speechless at the horrific scene that opened before them once the mountain gate swung wide.
“How can this be…”
Someone murmured the words into the stunned silence.
In ordinary times, neatly laid flagstones would have been thronged with worshippers coming to offer incense; the clear sound of wooden fish and the martial shouts of training nuns would have drifted on the wind. Now dozens of yellow hemp sacks, hastily covering corpses, lay scattered across those same stones. Smoke from burning clothes and pillows rose from every corner of the courtyard, and a nauseating stench of feces rode the breeze.
We’re supposed to treat people here…?
Won’t we end up just like them soon enough?
The medical team swallowed dryly, staring down at the bodies with instinctive dread. Hwiyeom clicked his tongue.
“Did we come here to die? We came here to save lives! If the physicians who arrived to treat the sick wear faces like that, what patient will trust you with their body?”
At Hwiyeom’s sharp rebuke the shaken physicians straightened their postures. He turned to Hyejeong.
“I would like to begin relief work at once after speaking with the Sect Leader…”
Hyejeong answered,
“I have already obtained the Sect Leader’s permission. Young hero, set your mind at ease and begin without delay.”
Huh?
Hwiyeom’s eyes narrowed. Unless he formally met the Sect Leader and received permission, or at the very least held a written record of that fact, the Emei Sect could later change its story—hearts before and after using the privy being famously different—and there would be nothing he could do about it.
Shall I probe a little?
While he was still choosing his words, Hyejeong’s sound transmission brushed his ear.
[Forgive me for putting it this way… but I cannot let outsiders know. Will you keep this secret?]
Hwiyeom nodded, wondering what she meant. Hyejeong continued.
[Our Sect Leader has also contracted cholera. Her consciousness comes and goes…]
The highest elder and supreme authority of the sect had collapsed from cholera. Of course they would want to keep it secret. In the Central Plains martial world, where face was not merely something that put food on the table but something for which people would literally cut throats, cholera was an especially undignified plague. No matter how noble the character, profound the learning, or peerless the martial skill, the disease reduced its victim to something wretched: a person who poured rice-water diarrhea from their backside until they shriveled into a husk. For the sake of the Sect Leader’s dignity and to prevent unrest within the sect, the truth could never be allowed to leak outside.
[Emei will not go back on its word. I stake my honor on it.]
In the end it meant: there is no authoritative statement or document that can actually guarantee anything, so just trust me. Hwiyeom sighed inwardly, but even he was not devil enough to demand a written pledge under these circumstances.
“I will divide the medical team into three groups. Please gather every disciple of the Emei Sect who is still healthy. Anyone showing even the slightest symptom or whose condition is not completely normal must be excluded.”
A quick count showed that the disciples of the Emei Sect—martial nuns, scholarly nuns, and ordinary nuns combined—numbered a little over six hundred. All the long-term guests who normally resided at the sect had already fled, so even the patients’ meals had to be prepared by the nuns themselves because the kitchen maids were gone.
“We will divide the people. First, the martial nuns, this way.”
The martial nuns, whose training gave them superior strength and stamina, were assigned to draw water from the wells, build fires with firewood, and boil the water until it rolled, as well as to collect every cloth, blanket, garment, and undergarment soiled with patients’ waste and burn them. Supporting the sick, washing them, and emptying the chamber pots also fell to them. Not a single disciple complained that the work was filthy. The lives of sisters who were as close as blood hung in the balance.
“It does not matter if you see no visible filth. After touching anything at all, never forget to wash your hands thoroughly with a good lather of this soap.”
The scholarly nuns, under the direction of some of the physicians, began preparing the oral rehydration solution.
“Mix salt and malt syrup in a fixed ratio. Fruit juice or sugar may be used in place of the malt syrup. You must use every scrap of what the Emei Sect already possesses, in addition to what our Dang Family has brought.”
The remaining physicians and nuns devoted themselves entirely to making the patients drink the prepared solution without pause.
“…I will go to Bohyeon Hall myself. Senior Sister Hyejeong, please oversee the overall movements of the nuns, and assign me only two sisters to assist.”
“It shall be done.”
Seeing Hwiyeom act so carefully to keep the Sect Leader’s condition secret, Hyejeong brushed her chest in visible relief.
The moment he opened the door of Bohyeon Hall and stepped inside, the stench of feces trapped behind the closed door stabbed at his nostrils. An elderly nun lay breathing weakly, her eyes sunken and her lips cracked like a drought-stricken rice paddy. A half-full chamber pot stood beside her, yet the quilt was stained yellow where she had soiled herself while lying down.
“…You… are…”
The mummified Sect Leader opened her eyes and looked at Hwiyeom with a blurred gaze. He answered with proper courtesy.
“I am Hwiyeom, Young Clan Head of the Sichuan Dang Family. I have come to save the Sect Leader and the Emei Sect.”
“Can I… live?”
“Of course. That is exactly why I am here.”
“A child… as young and flower-like as you?”
“What parent would send a child as young as me—and the legitimate heir at that—if they were not certain of success?”
Hwiyeom stepped closer and clasped the Sect Leader’s hand firmly in both of his. Dried feces clung to her fingers, yet he showed no disgust and only smiled.
“Do not grow weak. Is the Sect Leader not the very spirit of this Emei Sect?”
“…Thank you…”
Hwiyeom fed her the oral rehydration solution he had prepared, ordered the nuns to throw the windows wide for ventilation, and instructed them to change every quilt for fresh ones.
“If we do that, the fact of the Sect Leader’s illness might be discovered…”
“Then keep everyone away from this area. Leave things as they are and even a curable disease will not improve.”
Smoke rose without pause from the Emei Sect. Because there were not enough kitchen hearths, they stacked stones in circles in the courtyard, set up pot hangers, and boiled water without rest until Mount Emei itself seemed to glow with heat.
A short while later Ye-eun crossed the mountain gate leading more than a dozen laborers bent under loads of firewood. Behind the wood-bearers came more servants carrying white cotton cloth and cloth-wrapped bundles.
“Ye-eun, who are those?”
Ye-eun lowered her eyes.
“I know that when treating an epidemic one always needs a great deal of clean cloth. And the people will need food to eat right away, so I took it upon myself to purchase plain cotton and steamed buns. This lowly maidservant has acted presumptuously, relying on her master’s favor. Please punish me.”
“…Ye-eun.”
“Yes, Young Master.”
“Are you sure you’re not on your second life?”
“Pardon?”
“Ah, never mind. How did you know we would need these things…”
“My own family was also wiped out by an epidemic, so…”
“Ah.”
Instead of asking further, Hwiyeom simply patted her shoulder.
“You did very well. Yes—sometimes a secretary needs to take independent action when she judges something necessary.”
“…I am overwhelmed.”
“All right! Everyone wash your hands with soap and eat the buns first! From now on this is a battle of time and stamina!”
And so the war to survive the cholera that had swallowed the Emei Sect began.