Only then did Lin Shutang release her.
Mrs. Yang hastily took off the thumb ring and handed it to her. “Here.”
Lin Shutang received it, then turned and gave it to Madam Jiang.
Madam Jiang held it in her palms, overwhelmed with gratitude.
Mrs. Yang looked at her belongings with a pained expression, then said to Lin Shutang, “Can you treat my illness now?”
“Of course.” Lin Shutang nodded. “Go fetch a brush and ink. I’ll write you a prescription, and you can take the medicine according to it from now on.”
Mrs. Yang was overjoyed and hurried to fetch the brush and ink.
Lin Shutang took them and, with a flourish of the brush, wrote down several medicinal ingredients. Besides the antidote herbs, she also added a few other things.
Mrs. Yang received the prescription, delighted, and thanked her repeatedly.
With Madam Jiang’s mother’s belongings recovered, Madam Jiang and Duan Feng did not linger. They left the Yang residence with their eldest sister-in-law and Lin Shutang.
By then, the third sister and Duan Yanzhou had already fed the horses and had even bought some food for the journey from the market, along with a carriage and two fine horses.
This way, the family no longer had to squeeze together, and Lin Shutang could ride alone with Duan Yanzhou in one carriage for convenience.
Before Lin Shutang boarded the carriage, her eldest sister-in-law asked her, “Did that Mrs. Yang really have a serious illness?”
Lin Shutang smiled and shook her head.
The eldest sister-in-law lowered her voice and asked, “Then the prescription you gave her?”
Lin Shutang grinned. “The prescription is certainly useful, but I added some fresh boy’s urine and boy’s feces to it, enough for her to take for three full months.”
The eldest sister-in-law couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
Lin Shutang climbed into the carriage, where Duan Yanzhou was already waiting for her inside.
The family continued on their way, but while Madam Jiang and the others weren’t paying attention, she pulled Duan Yanzhou through Kongjian to the Yang residence’s storeroom.
The Yang family’s storeroom was extremely well hidden—in a cellar in the backyard.
This uncle-in-law was truly a corrupt official.
The low-ranking Xiancheng’s storeroom contained at least twenty thousand taels of gold.
In this small county, that was no small sum. Lin Shutang took it all in one sweep.
Besides the gold, there were also large quantities of grain and Hongluotan.
Truly extravagant.
She left nothing behind, taking everything.
Before leaving, she also made a quick trip to the kitchen and the backyard.
With Kongjian’s teleportation ability, they could simply dart in and out quickly, storing everything they saw into the space.
Sure enough, in the time it took Mrs. Yang to take her servants out to buy medicine, the residence had been emptied.
When Lin Shutang emerged from Kongjian, she noticed Duan Yanzhou was holding a booklet in his hand.
She asked, “What’s this?”
Duan Yanzhou looked down at it seriously, flipping a page. “It’s Assistant County Magistrate Yang’s account book—records of his corruption, bribery, and embezzlement. I grabbed it along with everything else while we were in the storeroom.”
Lin Shutang really wanted to give him a thumbs up.
Just then, Duan Yanzhou pulled something else from his chest.
He handed it to her.
Lin Shutang was startled, then took it in her hands. “This is for me?”
Duan Yanzhou nodded, turning his head slightly as if to hide his slightly reddened ears, and said in a serious tone, “Mm. I bought it for you while I was getting the carriage at the market.”
“While he was getting the carriage”—as if. He had searched several streets before finding it.
It was a small square bronze mirror in a case.
The kind of small mirror one carries on one’s person.
Even though she already had some stocked in Kongjian, Duan Yanzhou had still gone out to buy one, simply because he wanted to give her something.
Lin Shutang held it in her hands and examined it closely. It was pure silver with carved patterns, inlaid with a bronze mirror—quite beautiful.
The craftsmanship was exquisite and compact, easy to carry on one’s person and use at any time.
She smiled and said, “Thank you, husband.”
When Duan Yanzhou heard the word “husband,” his eyes trembled slightly. This time, it wasn’t just his ears that turned red—his neck flushed as well.
But the blush quickly faded, leaving only a smile secretly curling at the corners of his lips.
The carriage continued onward. In the carriage ahead, Madam Jiang and the eldest sister-in-law had no idea that the two had made another trip to the Yang residence.
But they hadn’t been idle either. First, they emerged from the Kongjian and took out a portion of the gold they had found at the Yang residence earlier, tossing a piece into each household where the residents couldn’t afford shoes.
Afterward, they went to the residence of the prefect, who was the superior official of Wanhexian, and quietly placed the account book on his desk.
By the time the two had finished all this, it was already dusk.
They didn’t linger that night but urged their horses forward at a rapid pace.
That night, Lin Shutang was so exhausted that she fell asleep, curling up snugly in the thick blankets and sleeping soundly.
But Duan Yanzhou, in the same blankets, was far from comfortable.
He was a healthy adult man, and lying beside him was his newlywed wife.
Sure enough, with all the jostling along the road, he felt unbearably hot and restless.
Lin Shutang, however, slept soundly. She turned onto her side, wrapped her arm around his waist, and buried her face in his chest.
Duan Yanzhou’s eyes, which had been closed, flew open abruptly.