Chapter 17: Thank You Gift

Wei Yunlan got dressed and climbed out of bed. “Big Sister-in-law, I’ll go have a look too.”

Most of the villagers had gathered outside the village chief’s house. When Wei Yunlan arrived, she saw a servant from the Liang family leading a ewe out from the courtyard.

Madam Gao and Wei Mingxuan were deep within the crowd, and Wei Yunlan couldn’t squeeze through, so she found Manager Wang, who was also standing on the outskirts.

As it turned out, the village chief’s youngest son worked in a nearby town. Word had spread that some government officials had gone to Liwang Village, so at the crack of dawn, he requested leave from his overseer and hurried back to the village.

Along the way, he ran into a merchant caravan coming from the west. Since the merchants were in a rush to travel, they were offloading their cloth and livestock at bargain prices.

The prices were unbelievably low. After some quick thinking, the village chief’s son decided to buy out the whole lot. What his own household couldn’t use, he planned to resell to others in the village or nearby towns.

Aside from three milk-producing ewes, there were also three meat sheep, which had already been divided among a few families who had upcoming weddings to prepare for.

The ewe had originally been intended for sale in town, but the day before, the Liang family, who had been lodging overnight at the house next to the village chief’s, caught wind of it and came over, offering ten taels of silver to buy one on the spot.

Manager Wang lowered his voice and said, “I heard from their servant that the youngest son of Lord Liang and Madam Liang used to drink a bowl of sheep’s milk yogurt every day when he was still at home. He hadn’t had any in quite a while and even threw a tantrum about it. So, once they had the chance to get fresh sheep’s milk, they bought it right away.”

But that ten taels of silver…

It was clearly an inflated price. Even in the Capital, a ewe would fetch at most half that amount!

Fortunately, the village chief’s family understood that ten taels was an absurdly high price. Unless the Liang family wanted to buy a second ewe, it was impossible to sell the others at such a rate.

In the end, the ewe sold to the Wei family was slightly smaller than the one sold to the Liang family and only cost five taels of silver. Even so, that was still about twenty percent more than what they would have gotten if they’d brought it into town to sell.

The village chief’s son hadn’t expected the family members of these exiled officials to be so well-off.

Seeing that two families had already paid for sheep, he eagerly turned his gaze to the remaining two, especially the Feng family, which had a notably large number of children.

But Old Madam Feng had no intention of spending money. Her family still had a few dozen taels of silver at hand—more than enough to afford a ewe. But a milk-producing ewe couldn’t be slaughtered or eaten. It would be nothing but trouble to bring along on the road, and even then, it would only yield a few extra bowls of milk each day—hardly worth the cost!

Old Madam Bai, on the other hand, did wish to nourish her young grandson and great-granddaughter. However, their family—composed mostly of women, children, and the elderly—was already struggling to keep up with the group. There was no spare energy to gather grass or feed a ewe. It simply wasn’t something their household could manage.

The crowd gathered at the village chief’s gate dispersed as the supervising officer stepped out from the house. Glancing at the Wei family leading their ewe, he said coolly, “I don’t care what kind of animal you plan on raising. But if it delays the journey or disrupts the handover schedule—be prepared to pay with your hide!”

There was still half an hour before departure.

To keep the ewe from going hungry on the road, the entire Wei family went up the mountain to gather forage. Wei Yunlan finally found the chance to discreetly collect some wild fruits and grass into her spatial dimension.

She had followed the birds’ flight path through the woods and discovered the fruits that way. But as she placed them into her space, she was startled to find that the items she had originally stored along the edges seemed to have shifted again.

This time, she was certain it wasn’t just her imagination. On closer inspection, it wasn’t that the objects themselves had moved—it was that the edges of the space had expanded outward.

Which could only mean one thing—

Her space had grown larger!

What was once already a vast stretch of land within the space turned out to still be just a part of its full potential. Wei Yunlan was now burning with curiosity to see what it would look like when it reached its complete form.

If given the chance, she even wanted to ask at her great-grandfather’s grave:

Did he know how magical that piece of ancient jade truly was?

He must have. Otherwise, why would he have gifted it to her so solemnly on her birthday?

……

After gathering two large baskets of forage, everyone hurried down the mountain just before the constables came calling.

As departure time drew near, Wei Yunlan had Suihe and Ningshuang take Jiayan up ahead.

She herself lagged behind slightly, stopping at the edge of the forest. “Captain Yu.”

Moments later, Seventh Lady Yu lightly dropped down from a tree. “Miss Wei, were you looking for me?”

Wei Yunlan pulled out a bundle of silver notes she had prepared beforehand. “I don’t know how much effort this mission will cost you, but take these for now. If it’s not enough, just let me know.”

And if it ended up being more than necessary, that was fine too—there would still be plenty of times along the journey when she’d need to rely on Tianshu Pavilion.

As things stood now, hiring their services had definitely been worth the money.

But Seventh Lady Yu didn’t take the notes from her hand.

“Miss Wei, you don’t need to pay us any more.”

Could it be that Tianshu Pavilion was in the business of losing money?

Wei Yunlan looked puzzled, only to hear Seventh Lady Yu continue, “Miss Wei, this ewe is a gift from my master.”

“Your master… the Pavilion Master of Tianshu Pavilion?”

Wei Yunlan couldn’t recall ever having crossed paths with such a figure. “May I ask why?”

Seventh Lady Yu hesitated—her master hadn’t instructed her to keep it a secret, but hadn’t told her to explain either. After a brief pause, she said, “It’s a token of thanks from the master.”

Wei Yunlan was even more baffled. A thank-you gift? For what?

Seventh Lady Yu offered no further explanation. With a tap of her toe, her figure lifted lightly and vanished into the treetops once again.

Wei Yunlan turned back to look at the forest behind her, but there was no sign of where Seventh Lady Yu or her team of guards might be hiding.

The skills of Tianshu Pavilion were truly extraordinary.

And to be able to cultivate such capable subordinates, what kind of peerless genius must their Pavilion Master be?

In her past life, Tianshu Pavilion had only emerged publicly six years later—when Princess Changping was sent to the north as part of a political marriage alliance.

They had stood firmly against the faction of the imperial concubine and the second prince, never submitting to court control, and not even the powerful Jinyiwei could do anything about them.

Yet for all their defiance, they were driven by a sense of justice. When the court abandoned the people of the capital, it was Tianshu Pavilion who protected them, guiding them to safety.

Wei Yunlan had always admired them for that.

If not for their reputation and moral integrity, she would never have dared to hire them as her own guards for this journey into exile.

But no one knew where the mysterious and formidable Tianshu Pavilion had come from—or who they truly served.

In the final two years of her past life, Tianshu Pavilion had become a legendary name throughout the capital, yet not a single person had ever seen its master.

There had even been whispers in the streets—

That Tianshu Pavilion… might be connected to the Crown Prince.

But the Crown Prince had already passed away by then, so it was naturally impossible for him to be leading Tianshu Pavilion. Most people who heard such rumors merely laughed them off as idle talk.

Leaving Liwang Village behind, the exiles resumed their journey northward. The scorching sun blazed down relentlessly, and before long, beads of sweat gathered on everyone’s foreheads.

Wei Yunlan accepted the handkerchief passed to her by her sister-in-law and dabbed at her brow, her mind still turning over what Seventh Lady Yu had said earlier.

“This sheep is a token of thanks from my master.”

Could it be… that the master of Tianshu Pavilion was someone she actually knew?

But when had she ever helped such a person? She had no memory of it at all.

Still, whoever it was, as long as they bore goodwill toward her and the Wei family, it could only be a good thing.

By midday, the heat had grown even more unbearable.

Complaints rippled through the ranks of the traveling party. Even the escort officer slumped on his horse, listless from the heat. He’d thought this assignment would be an easy one—who could have guessed the weather would be such a nightmare?

Annoyed and irritable, the officer turned around to bark, “All of you, pull yourselves together and move faster!”

Wei Yunlan swayed slightly, dizzy from the heat, and Suihe quickly stepped forward to steady her.

“Miss, just hang on a bit longer. Once we pass Mount Yueheng up ahead, it’ll get cooler as we enter the Liangzhou region!”

“Really?” Tingxue perked up at those words, wiping sweat from her face with her sleeve.

Suihe nodded firmly. “It’s true. I used to hear the elders talk about it all the time. The reason everything north of Liangzhou is so cold is because Mount Yueheng blocks the southern heat.”

“That’s wonderful news. I can already see the mountain ahead!”

At most, they’d reach the foothills within two days.

But as Wei Yunlan looked at the long, undulating stretch of green mountains in the distance, her eyelid suddenly twitched.

A faint, uneasy feeling crept into her chest—like a warning from deep within.