allonlinenovel Chapter 207 Jiazhou City
Chapter 207 Jiazhou City
No matter what, Lan Qingwu must first get out of this predicament.
To this day, neither of them knew how the carriage escaped from the heavily guarded convoy.
Ru Ping said worriedly, "Master, can you move? We must subdue the people in the carriage."
Lan Qingwu gently rubbed his temples: "Yes! Go ahead! We don't know where we are right now, nor how long it has been. But we must get out of this predicament!"
Ru Ping nodded, and the next moment she had already darted outside the carriage. The sound of fighting rang out, and a moment later, shrill screams reached Lan Qingwu's ears. Ru Ping then reined in the horses and said, "Master, let's get off!"
Lan Qingwu's hands and feet were still a little weak. She forced herself to get off the carriage and watched Ruping drive the carriage deep into the woods and hide it. The two of them supported each other and walked out of the dense forest.
Lan Qingwu looked at the unfamiliar surroundings and felt something was wrong. "This place should be far away from Miaoling Palace. We have never been here before."
Ru Ping also frowned: "I have never been here either."
Lan Qingwu thought for a moment and said, "Ruping, we need to be careful about how we address each other and how we look. I'm afraid someone will come looking to hunt us down. From now on, you'll call me 'Mu'er' and I'll call you 'Zhi'er'."
Ru Ping nodded and said, "Master... Mu'er, luckily I brought some disguise powder with me. Let's put on some makeup first. This is the Disguise Pill. Please take it first. Your skin color is too eye-catching."
Lan Qingwu took it from Ruping without saying a word and swallowed it in one gulp. Ruping also ate one and then began to use makeup powder and other tools to put on Lan Qingwu's makeup.
After a while, their skin color slowly turned into wheat-colored, and two almost strangers appeared in their eyes.
Lan Qingwu and Ruping walked towards the populated area, at least so that they would not spend the night in the suburbs.
Luckily, they arrived at a small town just as it was getting dark. Strangely, the streets were deserted and desolate, with overturned stalls left by vendors lining both sides.
The two of them looked at each other as they watched the deserted streets. All the houses on the streets had their doors closed, as if they were afraid of something.
Lan Qingwu was even more confused: "Where on earth is this?"
Ru Ping's eyes quickly looked around, "Mu'er, there is someone behind that door, let's go ask them."
Ru Ping came to a doorway that was only a crack open and asked tentatively, "Excuse me, is anyone here? My sister and I are stranded here. I don't know where we can find a place to stay."
The person inside the door seemed to be in a panic and slammed the door shut, leaving no gap.
Ru Ping frowned slightly, then she seemed to be talking to herself: "Alas, it seems that my sister and I can only sleep on the street tonight. Poor us, we have been hungry for two days and can hardly hold on any longer."
An old voice sounded from inside: "You can't sleep on the streets. Something bad will happen at night. Go to the house next to ours. The owner of that house is gone. You can stay for one night. There may be some food in there."
Lan Qingwu and Ruping looked at each other, and Ruping said again: "Thank you so much, old man."
The two of them pushed open the door and entered the adjacent room, finding that the furniture and supplies inside were relatively complete. Ru Ping found some brown rice and pickled vegetables in the kitchen and started to cook.
Lan Qingwu was not really familiar with these things, so he tidied up the bed and the wobbly dining table in the room.
Ru Ping brought out brown rice and pickled vegetables and said guiltily, "Master... Mu'er, these are all the food we have. Please make do with them for now. I'll think of something else tomorrow."
Lan Qingwu shook his head: "At this time, some food would be nice, come sit down and eat together!"
Ru Ping knew that this was not the time to observe etiquette, so she sat down and had her meal together.
Lan Qingwu picked up a piece of pickled vegetables with chopsticks and thought to himself that it had been a long time since he had eaten something like this. "Ruping, is there any brown rice in the pot?"
Ru Ping replied: "There are still some."
Lan Qingwu gently swallowed the brown rice in his mouth and said, "Bring it out, add two pickled vegetables, and give it to the neighbor next door."
Ru Ping was quick-witted and understood immediately: "Okay, I understand."
When Ru Ping returned, she looked even more worried: "Mu'er... let's... let me get some information out of you..."
Lan Qingwu couldn't help but feel a little strange. What could have made Ru Ping look so hesitant to speak?
"you say!"
Ru Ping opened her mouth, then gently closed her eyes and finally said, "We should have been in the carriage for nearly two days. The eunuchs on this carriage took us to... Jiazhou City!"
Lan Qingwu's heart skipped a beat: "Jiazhou City? How could it be?"
"I suspect it was Prince Shen's undercover agent in the palace. I wonder how long they planned before taking the risk and drugging us and abducting us. Now that I think about it, they were definitely planning to deliver us to Prince Shen to threaten Your Majesty. It's just that I was trained to take drugs, so I woke up half a day early, disrupting their plans. Furthermore, the place where the agent took us is located in the outer city of Jiazhou City—a no-man's land, now under the control of the Hermit Mountain Forest. It's far from the City Guard House where General Leng and Crown Prince Jiang are."
Lan Qingwu sat there in a daze for a moment. No wonder the people here looked so frightened. If Ru Ping's guess was correct, then his situation would be extremely dangerous. If he fell into the hands of Prince Shen, then Emperor Shenwu would be in an extremely passive situation.
Lan Qingwu suddenly raised his head: "No! That's not right! Zhi'er, I'm afraid someone will come to hunt us down tomorrow! If the eunuch doesn't bring us back to report on time, it will definitely arouse suspicion! They will be here tomorrow afternoon at the latest! No matter how I am interrogated tomorrow, you are not allowed to step forward or look at me! They must be focusing on the two women together."
Ru Ping couldn't help but clench her fists. She had never thought that she and her master would fall into such a dangerous situation, and she seemed unable to protect her master.
Sure enough, on the afternoon of the second day, a group of young men wearing masks and resembling soldiers broke into the town. One arrogant soldier, holding a gong and drum, walked into the center of the town and started banging the gong loudly, causing the entire town to fall into a noisy panic.
The soldier said arrogantly, "Everyone, come out! All the women in the house, come out! If you hide, don't blame me for being rude!"
Doors opened one after another, and women walked out of their houses and onto the street, one after another...
The sound of horse hooves could be heard faintly, and the soldier who was beating the gong with his belly bulging suddenly became fawning: "Get out of the way! Get out of the way! Mr. Kobayashi, you're here, please go first!"
Mr. Kobayashi looked down at the soldiers surrounding him. "Let's start our investigation from this town! We should have arrived last night, but there was no movement. I figured something must be wrong, and sure enough, we found a carriage deep in the woods this morning! The two women couldn't have gotten far, so they must still be around here!"