The side room was filled with the bitter smell of herbal medicine.
The mansion's medical officer had just come to change his dressings. Now, with splints binding his hands and feet, unable to move, he could only stare blankly with hollow eyes at his surroundings.
Green locust trees and tall willows stifled the new cicadas' song; pomegranate blossoms were about to burst into flame.
Through the half-open window, voices could still be heard.
In the early morning, a maid came to deliver meals to the guest temporarily staying in the front courtyard's side room. The Ministry of War men were sitting under a tree, idly playing chess. The clicking sounds of the pieces falling, like firecrackers, mixed with the cicadas' drone, drilling hysterically into his ears, gradually pulling him back to this world.
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