Wei Nanxun was carried to the bed, while Zhixia was carelessly dumped on the floor. She only woke up slowly after the two people had left.
Seeing the person lying on the ground, she hurriedly stumbled out of bed to wake her up.
“Miss, did we, did we really succeed? Where, where is this?”
Wei Nanxun helped her up, and the two of them fumbled for a flint to light the candle before they had time to look around. They were in an extremely simple room with only a wooden bed, a table, and a few scattered benches, not even as good as the servants’ side room in the mansion.
They first observed the room to make sure no one was around before tiptoeing out. They found that the outside was a small, enclosed yard with a room on each side, presumably the kitchen and the main room.
Beyond that were large fields, with no houses or lights nearby.
“Miss, when I was drowsy, I heard the old woman say something about sending us to the old house in the countryside. This doesn’t look like an old house at all, the environment is too poor, and there’s not even anyone to serve us. How will you get used to living here?”
Wei Nanxun shook her head: “I’ve already given her the opportunity, how could my good sister let me live a good life?”
“It’s good that there’s no one, otherwise how would we leave?”
Zhixia realized belatedly: “You mean, we’re not going to live here in the future?”
“Of course, but we have to stay here for a few days to prevent them from coming back. We’ll leave after they relax their vigilance and forget about us.”
“Miss is so clever! I never dreamed that it would be so easy to get out.”
Wei Nanxun smiled without speaking. It looked easy, but it wasn’t that simple to do.
That day, she went to Wei Mingzhao for help, but didn’t say much about her plan, only asked her to find a way to add some almonds, dried fruits, and other things to her food.
She was also betting on whether Wei Mingzhao would help her.
Fortunately, she knew her good sister well enough. Within two days, she saw almonds in the snacks that were sent.
Wei Nanxun picked out the dried fruits one by one and swallowed them all in one go, gritting her teeth. Soon, she felt itchy all over, nauseous, and even had difficulty breathing.
She had accidentally eaten almonds in her previous life and discovered that she was allergic to them. That time, the imperial physicians also thought she had contracted the plague or smallpox, and no one dared to approach her.
Even Wei Mingzhao, as the crown prince’s consort, was in such a hurry to send her out of the palace without even confirming what her illness was.
If Zhixia hadn’t desperately protected her and begged for an imperial physician from Pei Yuyan, and taken care of her day and night, she would have died long ago.
This time, she used this allergic reaction to pretend to have the plague.
In order to look more like she had a fever and a cold, she and Zhixia secretly took several buckets of cold water baths in the middle of the night and blew on icebergs, forcing herself to fall ill.
Her plan wasn’t perfect, but she had calculated people’s hearts. She knew that Wei Mingzhao and Madam Wang didn’t want her to enter the palace. All she had to do was throw out the fuse, and the rest was up to them.
Sure enough, Wei Mingzhao not only prepared almonds for her, but also arranged for a doctor to cooperate with the plague story. Finally, with the addition of their mother and daughter’s crying, she was able to leave the city so smoothly.
She had taken the allergy medicine early on, but the rashes on her body hadn’t disappeared yet, so she still looked extremely frightening. As for Zhixia’s body, it was painted with rouge, which disappeared with water. It was just that those people were frightened by the contagious and terrible disease and didn’t dare to come close to check, otherwise they would have discovered the flaw.
“Zhixia, now that we are no longer in the mansion, we can no longer address each other as master and servant. From now on, you must call me Elder Sister.”
“This, how can this be? You are the young lady, and I am just a little girl…”
“Who said that? I burned your indenture a long time ago. We grew up together since childhood, and I have always regarded you as a sister.”
Seeing that she was still shaking her head, Wei Nanxun had to scare her: “If you don’t agree, you’ll slip up and be discovered, and your young lady will be caught back to be a concubine again.”
Frightened by her, Zhixia immediately fell silent, “Servant, servant will call, that is…”
“And you are not allowed to call yourself servant.”
“Serv… I, I remember.”
Zhixia made many slips of the tongue before finally learning to say “I” with difficulty. During this time, the two of them were not idle. They simply cleaned up the house, and using the water drawn from the well, ate the dry food left on the table.
They were carried out wrapped in quilts. She secretly sewed interlayers into her clothes, shoes, and socks, and hid valuable paper items such as silver bills and deeds on her body. They didn’t have to worry about money for the time being, but where should these two weak women run to?
The conditions were harsh, and after eating dry food and washing up casually, the two of them lay down with their clothes on.
This time, without Wei Nanxun saying anything, Zhixia obediently stayed by her side. In this strange and remote place, they only had each other to rely on.
“Zhixia, is there any place you want to go? Do you remember where your hometown is?”
Zhixia tried hard to remember and said: “I don’t remember. I was sold by my father when I was very young. He said that my brother wanted to marry a wife but didn’t have money, and daughters are money-losing goods. But I remember a small stream in front of my house. In the summer, my mother would take me to pick fruits, and I would catch fish in that stream.”
Wei Nanxun held her hand tightly, but she didn’t feel sad.
“Thanks to my father for selling me, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to serve the young lady. You have a good temper and give many rewards. You don’t know how envious the others in the backyard are of me.”
“Silly Zhixia, you said it wrong again. It’s not young lady, it’s elder sister. From now on, you will take the surname Wei with me. Since we don’t have anywhere we want to go, let’s walk and see, and find a small town with a stream in front and a mountain behind.”
She originally planned to look for her father, but thinking carefully about her affairs involving Pei Yuyan, his words that day were still vivid in her mind. If he knew she had run away, he would definitely not let it go.
Even her uncle had to bow down to him. She didn’t want her father and brother to be implicated by her. It was better for her to disappear for a while.
“Okay! I can embroider flowers and handkerchiefs, I can also cook, wash clothes, clean the house, and do needlework to sell. I can do anything.”
“Silly girl, your elder sister has money. I can buy a big house and even find an old woman to take care of us. You can’t forget that we are looking for relatives…”
That night, the two of them talked a lot, gradually falling asleep with anticipation for the future.
Half a month later, in a small town not far from the capital, a pair of sisters came, saying that their parents had died and they had come to look for relatives…