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Suddenly, the weather changed drastically as fierce winds began to howl.
“What’s going on? It was just sunny a moment ago!” The officers frowned and said, “Looks like heavy rain is coming. We must find shelter.”
“Boss, there’s an abandoned Taoist temple ahead. Let’s take cover there!”
By the time the group reached the temple, they were already drenched by the downpour.
The officers watched the intensifying rain with furrowed brows.
“This damn weather—it started pouring out of nowhere.”
Shang Ruoyi gazed at the sky, where thick dark clouds loomed. It seemed the rain would only grow heavier and wouldn’t stop anytime soon.
They managed to scavenge some dry firewood from the surroundings, but even huddling around the fire couldn’t dispel the chill from their bodies.
People began sneezing incessantly. The Old Princess, already weakened by age, had also been caught in the rain. Now, with the added exposure to the cold, she immediately developed a fever.
“Mother, what’s wrong with you?” Madam Qin exclaimed anxiously upon feeling the Old Princess’s burning skin. “Mother, you’re running a fever!”
Madam Lin stepped forward and touched the Old Princess’s forehead. “So hot.”
The men of the He family gathered around the Old Princess, frantic with worry but utterly helpless.
“Without any medicine on hand, if Mother’s fever doesn’t break, things could take a turn for the worse!” He Zhiyuan said gravely.
His ominous words sent a chill through everyone’s hearts. Falling ill under such conditions could very well be life-threatening.
Madam Zhang sat a short distance away, watching the He family coldly without approaching.
Just as He Ning’an was about to step forward, Madam Zhang held her back. “They’ve never cared whether we live or die. Why bother getting involved now?”
Over the past two days, she and her son He Jinghe had suffered terribly from the poisoning, yet the He family hadn’t even glanced their way. They hadn’t shared any food either. If the old woman died, so much the better—out of sight, out of mind. After all, hadn’t she always made life difficult for her?
Shang Ruoyi stepped forward and placed her fingers on the Old Princess’s wrist to check her pulse.
The He family exchanged glances—could she actually know medicine?
Madam Zhang scoffed from afar. “Putting on an act.”
“Grandmother has caught a chill, compounded by exhaustion and pent-up frustration from recent days. Multiple ailments have flared up at once, which is why she’s in this state.”
“Oh no, what should we do?”
“Will Mother be alright?”
Shang Ruoyi frowned. The Old Princess’s clothes were still wet, and with the cold seeping into her body, no medicine would be effective.
At that moment, He Qinian arrived carrying He Jingheng on his back.
He grasped the Old Princess’s damp clothes, and a surge of Inner Force emanated from him. In moments, her clothes were dry.
Shang Ruoyi blinked in amazement. Impressive. Truly impressive!
She discreetly retrieved a white pill from her Space and slipped it into the Old Princess’s mouth while helping her drink water.
After massaging certain acupressure points for a while, the fever gradually subsided.
“Ruoyi, you really do know medicine!” Madam Qin grasped her hands excitedly. “This is wonderful, truly wonderful!”
All the prisoners’ eyes were now fixed on Shang Ruoyi. During exile, the two most crucial things were food and medical knowledge.
When Fuzi’s fever had broken last time, everyone had assumed it was a fluke—after all, in Tianshun, medical practitioners were almost exclusively men.
But if it happened once, could it still be a coincidence the second time?
The Old Princess’s fever breaking was clearly Shang Ruoyi’s doing.
Now, they all envied Aunt Li, who had aligned herself with the He family—at least she had food and safety assured.
Was it too late to try and join her now?
The rain showed no signs of letting up. Shang Ruoyi placed a pot over the fire. Earlier, when buying seasonings, she had purchased a large amount of ginger. She brewed a big pot of ginger soup, and the officials made all the prisoners drink a bowl to minimize the chances of falling ill and delaying their journey.
After all, once they reached the exile destination, no one would care why they had been delayed.
With the warm ginger soup in their stomachs, everyone felt their bodies warming up.
Their gazes toward Shang Ruoyi carried a hint of gratitude. If she hadn’t bought ginger in advance, where would they have gotten this warming ginger water to drink?
Soon, it was time for dinner. The supplies they had gathered along the way were nearly exhausted, and with such heavy rain, they couldn’t go outside to forage for food. So today, everyone had to make do with coarse grain pancakes.
During this time, the He family hadn’t been eating delicacies, but most of their meals had been made from fine grains. Coarse grain pancakes like these were truly hard to swallow.
Once again, they couldn’t help but sigh over how much they missed Shang Ruoyi’s cooking.
Shang Ruoyi nibbled on her coarse grain pancake in small bites, mentally planning to check her Space later to see if the corn had ripened. If it had, she could roast some corn, or at the very least, have a baked potato—either would be far better than this pancake.
Madam Zhang gnawed on her coarse grain pancake, cursing Shang Ruoyi inwardly once more.
If it weren’t for her father, how could the Dingguo Prince Residence have been exiled? Why would she be suffering like this?
Lost in these thoughts, she bit down harder on the pancake in her mouth and suddenly choked. She collapsed to the ground, her eyes rolling back, startling He Ning’an and He Jinghe’s couple into screaming, “The pancake is poisoned!”
“What? Poisoned?”
Hearing this, the other prisoners instinctively threw their pancakes away.
Madam Zhang writhed on the ground, desperately pounding her chest, her appearance terrifying. Yet the second branch of the family merely watched from the sidelines, afraid to approach lest they be injured by her flailing limbs.
The other prisoners grew anxious, fearing they might end up the same way.
The officials, hearing the commotion, came forward to check. Madam Zhang’s face had turned purplish-red, and she was clearly struggling to breathe.
Could it really be poison?
Shang Ruoyi had initially intended to ignore it, but then she recalled how saving Fuzi had earned her Merit Points, leading to a Space Upgrade. Her heart stirred.
She had already set He Jingheng’s bones and treated the Old Princess’s illness. If she now saved Madam Zhang, perhaps she could accumulate more Merit Points. She wondered what surprises the next upgrade might bring.
With this in mind, she pushed through the crowd and stepped forward for a closer look. Poison? Nonsense—she had simply choked from eating too fast.
Had Madam Zhang gone mad with hunger?
Who ate coarse grain pancakes in such huge bites?
She helped Madam Zhang sit up and struck her back firmly with the heel of her palm.
After a few strikes, Madam Zhang let out a loud “wah!” and vomited the food stuck in her throat.
Her purplish-red complexion gradually returned to normal, and her breathing steadied.
“Miss Shang, what happened to her…?”
“She choked,” Shang Ruoyi said, glancing at Madam Zhang, who was still panting heavily on the ground. “It was just a coarse grain pancake—no one was fighting her for it. Why eat so frantically?”
The others looked at Madam Zhang with disdain. So much for being a noblewoman—she acted like she’d never eaten before.
Madam Zhang tried to calm herself, realizing she had nearly died from choking on a single coarse grain pancake.
What chilled her even more was that none of her own family had stepped forward to help her.
In the end, it was this jinx who had saved her.
“Don’t think I’ll be grateful just because you saved me,” Madam Zhang said coldly. “This is what you owe me. If it weren’t for your father, we wouldn’t have fallen to this state. The son must pay for the father’s debts!”
Shang Ruoyi rolled her eyes at her. If it weren’t for the Merit Points, she wouldn’t have bothered saving her at all.