Wang Jingkang was hardly willing to be so easily restrained by Yun Jiuqing.
He immediately raised his hand to grab Yun Jiuqing’s neck. “You wretch, hand over the antidote, or I’ll—”
Before his hand could even touch Yun Jiuqing’s neck, his entire body stiffened. He suddenly clutched his chest, staring at Yun Jiuqing with a pained expression, unable to speak.
“How is it? Does it feel like your heart and blood vessels are being pierced by a thousand needles?
Oh, right, and your bones too. If you don’t tell them to stop right now, I’ll make you feel what it’s like to have every bone and joint in your body crushed to pieces.”
As she spoke, she curled her lips into a smile, and even her eyes sparkled with radiant amusement.
Wang Jingkang looked at that brilliant smile as if he were staring at a venomous snake.
What was even more terrifying was that with every breath he spent locked in confrontation with Yun Jiuqing, excruciating pain spread from every joint and bone in his body.
Just as Yun Jiuqing had said, he truly tasted the sensation of every bone and joint in his body snapping apart.
Unable to endure the invisible torment any longer, Wang Jingkang shouted at the top of his lungs, “Everyone, stop!”
The officers stopped as commanded, though a few slower ones took a couple of extra blows from Xuan Qing and the others.
At the same time, the discomfort inside Wang Jingkang’s body vanished, leaving only a faint, lingering ache to constantly remind him of the poison’s presence.
He glanced at Yun Jiuqing with lingering fear, but she had already gone to find Wen Xin, holding Yuanyuan in her arms.
“Is Yuanyuan… asleep?” Wen Xin asked in surprise, looking at Yun Jiuqing.
The scene during the house seizure had given the child quite a fright. Along the way, even when the girl dozed off, she would twitch and convulse.
After entering the room earlier, Wen Xin had fed the child a bit and tried to coax her to sleep, but after a long while, she still couldn’t. Then Xuan Qing and the others started fighting with the guards, and Yuanyuan became even more afraid to sleep.
Yun Jiuqing handed the child back to Wen Xin, gently wiping the drool from the little girl’s mouth before speaking seriously, “I gave her a bit of medicine to help her sleep.
Otherwise, if she stayed up all night, Yuanyuan would suffer on the road tomorrow, and you’d be exhausted too.”
They say necessity is the mother of invention, but in truth, when conditions get harsh, people’s true natures come out.
Throughout the entire day, it had been fine at the start—everyone had helped hold the child.
But by the afternoon when everyone was tired, they all only looked after themselves. Wen Xin was so exhausted she could barely lift her arms, and only Ning Ruoyu had proactively offered to help.
When Third Master Ning tried to hold the child for a while, Third Madame Ning scolded him for it, and everyone else pretended not to see anything at all.
If Ning Yuan fell ill from exhaustion at a time like this, it would only make things worse for Wen Xin.
So when Wen Xin heard Yun Jiuqing’s words, she didn’t dare show her concern too openly, only asking quietly, “The medicine—it won’t harm Yuanyuan’s body, will it?”
“My medicine won’t harm Yuanyuan, but Aunt, if a child cries for too long, that can also cause problems.”
Recalling how the child had cried until she convulsed earlier, Yun Jiuqing patiently reminded her, “We don’t know what we’ll face on this road. You need to find a way to soothe Yuanyuan. Letting her cry herself out every time won’t work.”
Yun Jiuqing roughly understood—Yuanyuan was young, born when Cheng En Gong Fu was still at its peak, and had likely been raised by a wet nurse.
First Madam Ning truly loved the child, but she genuinely didn’t know how to care for one.
Throughout the day, Ning Yuan had spent most of her time crying, and Wen Xin had just repeated the same few phrases over and over without ever properly comforting her.
Hearing this, Wen Xin lowered her head in shame. “I understand. Tomorrow, I’ll find a way to soothe her properly.”
“Easy for you to say. What can such a tiny child do besides cry?”
Third Madame Ning had somehow appeared beside First Madam Ning. “Who knows where you got those medicines from?
Giving Yuanyuan random medicine for no reason—if anything happens to her, we’ll skin you alive!”
Third Madame Ning had the typical look of a sturdy northern woman, and her temperament matched the world’s stereotype of such women perfectly—sharp-tongued and unwilling to suffer any loss.
Yun Jiuqing was about to snap back when she noticed Third Madame Ning had placed her hand on Ning Yuan’s neck in a seemingly practiced manner, as if checking her pulse. Thinking back to her words, though harsh, they did carry a hint of protectiveness toward Wen Xin and her daughter.
Caring for someone in such a roundabout, prickly way—Yun Jiuqing almost wanted to laugh.
Looking around and not seeing what she wanted, she turned to the Ning family members. “None of you came in for water? Where did you get it from?”
The energy spheres could replenish her strength, but going without water was still uncomfortable.
Besides, during the morning house seizure, she had been too focused on gathering valuables and dried food to remember to store water.
She had no idea what the road ahead would be like, but the road of exile was never easy. If possible, she wanted to not only store water in her Space but also carry some on her person for drinking along the way.
Wen Xin said softly, “There’s a well nearby—you can draw water from there, though it costs one copper coin per bowl.”
She looked toward the filthy ceramic bowl in the corner—it was the kind of bowl ordinary households used for meals, and it was even chipped. Using that bowl to hold water, it probably couldn’t even hold half a bowl, yet they were asking for a copper coin for it, no different from outright robbery.
Just as Yun Jiuqing glanced over, one of the officials stomped his foot onto the bowl, looking at her with an arrogant sneer. “Want water? Pay up—one tael of silver!”
“One tael of silver? Why don’t you just rob us!”
Ning Ruoyu gasped in shock. “It was just a copper coin a moment ago—what gives you the right to raise the price whenever you feel like it?”
The Ning family were all military officers, and although Ning Ruoyu was only sixteen, she had been trained in martial arts since childhood. Hearing the official’s words, she clenched her fists and was about to step forward to argue with him, but before she could take a few steps, a whip lashed out at her face.
Fortunately, Ning Ruoyu was agile enough to dodge it neatly.
“Keep yapping, and it’ll be two taels!”
The official kept his foot planted on the bowl they used for drinking water, casually flicking the whip in his hand. He was just a low-ranking official at the very bottom, yet facing a group of exiled convicts, he acted as if he had risen to become their master.
Yun Jiuqing suddenly understood the saying: when a servant rises to become the master, he only treats the current servants worse than the original master ever did.
Ignoring the arrogant official, she directly asked Wang Jingkang, “Do you have a water skin?”
The road of exile was long, and from Chu Jing to Bei Huang, one had to pass through an extremely vast uninhabited area. She believed that these people, with their experience, would have prepared ahead of time.
Wang Jingkang had just suffered a loss at Yun Jiuqing’s hands. Though still shaken, he remained resentful. He deliberately stiffened his neck and denied it. “No. We’re the officials in charge of escorting you, not your servants…”
Without a word, Yun Jiuqing rushed forward and snatched the water skin from his waist. “No need then—this one’s mine now.”
She grabbed it and handed it to Xuan Lie. “Go rinse it out and fill it with water for me.”
She gave the order with complete confidence, and Xuan Lie, for reasons he couldn’t quite explain, inexplicably obeyed, taking the water skin and heading toward the well.
Wang Jingkang, furious, clutched the broken strap at his waist, his face flushed red with rage. “You wretch, don’t push it too far! Don’t forget you’re just a prisoner!”
“That’s right! A convict daring to snatch our boss’s things—that’s adding crime to crime. Looks like you’re tired of living!”
One of the nearby officials swung his sheathed blade at Yun Jiuqing.
Xuan Lie seized his wrist in a firm grip, while the other officials and the guards of Prince Yan’s Residence all began rolling up their sleeves, ready for a fight.