The dungeon.
Zhu Zhuqing sat slumped on the ground, weak and listless.
Looking around in all four directions—dim and desolate.
The stench had circled around her nose time and again.
However, Zhu Zhuqing could no longer smell it.
Having not eaten for seven days, she had almost lost all her strength.
Her bodily functions had greatly declined, and even her sense of smell had dulled.
Zhu Zhuqing struggled to lift her eyes, gazing at the ceiling of the cell made of wooden rafters.
A bitter smile emerged at the corners of her mouth.
Perhaps she was going to die here.
And from starvation at that.
Zhu Zhuqing very much wanted to end her own life.
But she was afraid Ye Tian would retaliate against Aunt Tang.
At this moment, Zhu Zhuqing had already recognized her mistake.
She was just a vase.
Completely unable to execute any mission.
Only causing trouble for others.
Initially, when imprisoned in the dungeon.
Zhu Zhuqing had thought Ye Tian would harbor ulterior motives toward her.
So she was quite worried.
She had even made up her mind.
If it really came to that, even if she died, she wouldn't let Ye Tian have his way.
Now it seemed all her worries were just delusions.
In Ye Tian's eyes, she was nothing more than an ordinary prisoner.
Forget about high-ranking officers coming to interrogate her—even the guards hadn't visited this cell.
"Am I, Zhu Zhuqing, really going to die here?"
Zhu Zhuqing bit her teeth, harboring a trace of unwillingness.
She suddenly sat cross-legged.
Closing her eyes tightly, just like the countless times these past days when she had tried to break through the seal on her dantian.
Zhu Zhuqing's power gathered once more.
As if hysterical, disregarding even the damage to her body's meridians, she rushed toward her dantian.
With a 'crack'.
Inside her dantian.
Something seemed to shatter.
Blood appeared at the corners of Zhu Zhuqing's mouth.
An almost crazed smile appeared on her face. "I broke through!"
This smile only appeared for an instant. Zhu Zhuqing quickly wiped away the blood at the corners of her mouth, restraining her expression and acting as if nothing had happened.
Quietly waiting for nightfall.
She had to escape this hellish place!
Above the dungeon.
Xiao Bai pressed one hand against the ground, speaking thoughtfully: "I've already weakened the restriction on Zhu Zhuqing to ninety percent. Even though she's quite weak, she should still be able to break through."
"But there's one thing I don't understand."
Xiao Bai dusted off her soil-stained hands and looked back at Ye Tian with confusion:
"We went through so much trouble to capture Zhu Zhuqing. Why let her go?"
"If we don't let her go, how can we destroy her spirit?" Ye Tian said leisurely, then turned to face Thirteen:
"Replace all the surrounding soldiers with the old, weak, sick, and disabled. Give Zhu Zhuqing space to escape."
"This..." Thirteen somewhat disagreed.
Ye Tian pressed his hand down. "Don't worry, everything is under control."
...
The moon rose above the treetops.
The old soldier guards watching the cell almost simultaneously dozed off.
The cell door creaked open.
Zhu Zhuqing's already pale face became even more pallid.
Her jade hand pushing the door froze in mid-air.
Looking around.
Two or three old soldiers were still fast asleep.
Zhu Zhuqing lightly patted her chest, showing disdain.
From the lax security of the cell guards, one could see that although Ye Tian had two or three capable ministers under him.
The soldiers he led were nothing but a mob.
Well, of course.
Ye Tian had only been rebelling in the Star Luo Empire for two months.
What kind of army could he possibly have trained?
Zhu Zhuqing even believed that just a few thousand elite troops would be enough to defeat Ye Tian thoroughly.
However, now was not the time to think about how to attack Ye Tian.
Starving, she needed to escape quickly and obtain food.
Breaking through the restriction had already consumed most of Zhu Zhuqing's energy.
At this moment, Zhu Zhuqing was extremely weak and could faint at any time.
Licking her utterly parched lips, Zhu Zhuqing picked up a curved wooden stick to use as a crutch.
Her form swaying unsteadily, she crawled outward with difficulty.
This journey lasted half the night.
Until the latter half of the night, when Zhu Zhuqing no longer had even a bit of strength to walk forward.
Her vision blurred.
Then went black.
She collapsed on the ground.
...
"Miss, miss?"
Zhu Zhuqing felt someone calling her. Extremely weak, she slowly opened her eyes.
What came into view were unfamiliar faces, about a dozen or so, all elderly farm women.
Coarse linen cloth clothing, uniform wooden hairpins, varying in weight.
The only thing the same was that these women's faces all bore kindly smiles.
"Miss, where are you from?"
"Looking at these ragged clothes, are you a famine refugee?"
"My neighbor Er Niu is eighteen this year, honest-looking with plenty of strength."
"Miss, my nephew is twenty-six this year. He works as a laborer for Lord Ye at Heavenly Star Port and was allocated five mu of land!"
The women's competing voices exploded in Zhu Zhuqing's ears.
Making her involuntarily cover her ears with her hands.
But the voices still came through.
Fortunately, her mind gradually recovered from its frozen state.
Zhu Zhuqing finally didn't find the surrounding voices so piercing.
From the women's discussion, Zhu Zhuqing roughly understood what had happened.
This village was called Peach Blossom Village, not far from Heavenly Star City.
After she lost consciousness, she was rescued by women who had gone up the mountain to gather firewood at dawn.
Today was already the third day since she had fainted.
"It seems they've mistaken me for a famine refugee."
Zhu Zhuqing's beautiful eyes glanced at her own linen clothing, which had indeed been torn to tatters by thorns during her nighttime escape.
"Alright, let the miss rest quietly for a while!"
At this moment.
A rather authoritative woman in red clothing extended her hand to stop the women's discussion.
The woman in red pointed at Zhu Zhuqing. "Can't you all see that this miss has delicate skin and clearly didn't come from working in our countryside!"
These words made Zhu Zhuqing's heart leap to her throat.
Spirit power in her hands secretly circulated.
In her heart, she struggled with whether to eliminate these people before her if her identity was exposed.
But the red-clothed woman's next words dispelled Zhu Zhuqing's concerns.
"This miss is clearly a young lady from a landlord's family."
"Perhaps she's even been to school!"
"Lord Ye has long promulgated the Twenty Articles of Village Covenant! Article Thirteen states that abducting women will be severely punished!"
Having been to school meant being literate.
If this miss later reported them, everyone would be in serious trouble.
At these words.
All the women fell silent. No one mentioned matchmaking anymore.
The red-clothed woman came to Zhu Zhuqing's side and said kindly:
"Miss, don't be afraid. Heavenly Star Province is no longer ruled by the Star Luo Empire, but has been changed to Lord Ye's governance."
Ye Tian?
Zhu Zhuqing wondered in her heart.
The red-clothed woman explained: "Some days ago, Lord Ye sent people to re-measure the land in every village, confiscating these lands from the nobles and distributing them to us commoners according to the number of people—women count too."
"That's why they're all busy arranging marriages for their unmarried sons and nephews."
These words greatly shocked Zhu Zhuqing's heart.
What exactly had Ye Tian done in Heavenly Star Province?
He distributed the nobles' land to commoners??
Was he trying to thoroughly offend all the nobles?
(End of Chapter)