Chapter 89: Parting
Now that she remembered it, someone seemed to have a slip of tongue.
The guard who warned them not to open the carriage’s door.
He actually called them young masters and young miss despite their beggar appearance.
Ye Lingyue had heard what these guards called other people who had tagged along with the merchant caravan.
Guests.
Not young masters or young miss. Seeing how these people have always been so strict, it made her believe that it was a slip of tongue.
She wondered whether she was reading too deeply into things, so she directly found one of the merchant’s assistants to dig up some information.
The merchant assistant shook his head. "I am not clear about the details, Miss. But I am sure that they are not imperial soldiers."
He stared at her as though she was an ignorant girl. "Imperial soldiers can’t do private business or it will be considered a breach of duty."
She blinked. "But... if His Majesty allowed it, that should be possible, right?"
"Our merchant caravan doesn’t mean much for it to be personally escorted by the imperial soldiers." The merchant assistant was still patiently explaining to her, finding her words ridiculous.
However, when he remembered that she could actually fight against several bandits before, he just thought she was some girl from the countryside who had learned a little on how to fight.
Still, he found it was rather uncommon for a girl to like what men usually did instead of showing her feminine side.
"Then, they can be soldiers who have deserted the battlefields or retired soldiers," she insisted, just wanting to see his reaction.
The merchant assistant paused and frowned, "it sounds plausible..."
Then, he shook his head. "Don’t let your head wander too much with wild guesses, Miss. I have something to do now, so I will go."
She stared as the man walked away in a hurry as though someone was chasing after him. Shrugging her shoulders, she went back to her carriage to sleep.
Anyway, she was just curious. She was sure that she wouldn’t meet with this group of guards again, right?
From the merchant assistant’s reaction, she already determined that he knew nothing about it. But she could recognize that these guards were somehow too organized with each other.
If it were a mercenary team, she would understand, but the team seemed to be a little too big, numbered in dozens.
The next day, the Ye siblings parted with the merchant caravan convoy early in the morning. The family of three seemed to be relieved, but Young Master Han didn’t seem to be too happy.
"What did you do to that guy?" Ye Lanxi asked his younger sister when he saw the wicked look in her eyes.
They were currently heading deep into the forest again, just the three of them.
Ye Lingyue looked proud. "I put itchy powder, diarrhea powder..."
She listed several poisons that made Ye Lanxi’s eyelids twitch. However, these sufferings would eventually come to an end soon, better than losing that thing between his legs for life, right?
"Why?" She scrutinized him when she noticed that her second brother was silent. "You don’t feel pity towards him, do you? After all, you didn’t even lend me your axe."
Ye Lanxi wondered how he was called crazy when the craziest one in their family was definitely their youngest member.
"Don’t talk nonsense. Focus walking or you might stumble again," he reminded her. "Your shoulder’s wound will open again then."
The three siblings walked until it was nighttime, where they stopped to camp. This time, they decided not to hunt unless it was night so that their speed would be faster.
"These chickens will die if they stay in my storage space for too long," Ye Lingyue mumbled.
They were currently sitting in front of a fireplace.
"We didn’t buy the chicken coops," Ye Lingrui muttered. "As soon as we arrive, we will make the chicken coops ourselves."
Otherwise, if they had bought the chicken coops, she could have let it out for a while so that the timer reset.
Unfortunately, the animals needed to be outside for at least a day for the time to reset. They didn’t have the luxury of time to spend a day just to take care of the chickens.
"Think about what kind of supplies we should show to others," Ye Lingrui also reminded, already thinking it through so that people from other branches would feel less suspicious toward them.
If they kept bringing out supplies from Ye Lingyue’s space storage, they were bound to notice something was wrong. They needed to at least show a believable amount they had brought back from the market.
"It’s a pity we couldn’t get an ox cart or a donkey cart," Ye Lingyue muttered as she let out a breath.
With an ox or mule cart, they could show a considerable amount of supplies.
"Why is it a pity? So what if they are suspicious? What can they do about it? They can grab it from us if they think that their fists are bigger than mine," Ye Lanxi snorted.
The siblings discussed it for a while and they finally agreed to show four rice sacks on the brothers and two on Ye Lingyue—she would be the one bringing the herbs Song Yulan needed.
Of course, they wouldn’t be carrying these as they walked through the forest.
They were just one day away from arriving back to the village when Lingyue managed to trap a few games.
She had put the traps at night and checked them in the morning.
"Meat for breakfast?" She turned to her two brothers excitedly. It was their job to clean the game and cook them; she would laze around while she waited for them.
However, just as the brothers finished lighting the fire, Ye Lingrui suddenly turned in a certain direction.
He sensed something.
Not long after, they were surrounded again.
Ye Lingyue inwardly groaned. Not this again! Yet, when she saw the people who had surrounded them, she was pleasantly surprised.