Chapter 27: Corn 

Those who had thrown their coarse grain pancakes on the ground after hearing He Jing and his son claim that Madam Zhang was poisoned glared at them angrily. Silently, they picked up the discarded pancakes, carefully blowing off the dirt. At this moment, those pancakes were precious treasures. 

Saving Madam Zhang should have been a good thing, but Qiao Yanxin ended up resenting Shang Ruoyi for it. 

Day and night, she had hoped for her mother-in-law to die quickly. 

She had thought the mushrooms would take her life, but instead, Madam Zhang had only fallen ill for a few days. 

This time, it had been such a perfect opportunity—she had been on the verge of suffocating to death—yet Shang Ruoyi had saved her again. 

Qiao Yanxin glared hatefully at Shang Ruoyi. Such a meddler! 

Shang Ruoyi, who was warming herself by the fire, suddenly felt a gaze full of hatred directed at her. But by the time she turned to look, the gaze had already vanished. 

She couldn’t help but frown. 

In both her past and present life, she had always been extremely sensitive to any gaze fixed upon her. 

Aside from the second branch of the family, she hadn’t provoked anyone else on this journey. Who else could possibly want her dead? 

The heavy rain continued for a full day and night, showing no signs of stopping. 

Yet their supplies had already been completely exhausted. 

“Boss, what do we do? There’s not a single bite of dry rations left now.” They weren’t afraid of going hungry themselves—what worried them was the possibility of the prisoners rebelling. 

After all, if they were trapped on the mountain, starvation would be inevitable. But if they rebelled, they might still have a slim chance of survival. 

“This rain isn’t stopping. Someone has to go find food.” Zhang Hu glanced at Shang Ruoyi. Among them, she was the fastest at foraging. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have been a problem, but in such a heavy storm, sending her out to search for food while the rest of them—grown men—waited in the temple seemed somewhat heartless. Moreover, although the Dingguo Prince Residence had been raided, the Prime Minister’s Residence remained as powerful as ever. 

After some thought, he said in a low voice, “Give me the raincoat.” 

After He Jinghe was poisoned, Zhang Hu had stopped sending him to look for ingredients. After all, if he couldn’t even distinguish between what was poisonous and what wasn’t, no one would dare eat anything he found. 

He called for He Jingxi, who stood up with a pained expression. What did he know about foraging? Every time, it was Shang Ruoyi who shared her findings with him, sparing him from the officers’ scolding. In truth, he couldn’t even tell the difference between wild vegetables and weeds. 

Shang Ruoyi watched He Jingxi’s expression of grim determination and suddenly began to worry whether their evening meal would be poisonous. 

Sure enough, after an hour, Zhang Hu and He Jingxi returned with an assortment of items—either weeds or poisonous plants, none of which were edible. 

When Shang Ruoyi delivered the verdict, the expressions on their faces were truly a sight to behold. 

There was no doubt about it—they would be going hungry tonight. 

Some of the prisoners took out the leftover coarse grain pancakes from the previous day. Due to the damp weather, the pancakes had already begun to spoil. They carefully picked off the moldy spots and ate them in small bites. 

Madam Qiao and the others also took out their pancakes, wrapped in handkerchiefs, but the mold spots were so numerous that they couldn’t bring themselves to eat them. 

As for the officers, they didn’t even have a single bite of coarse grain pancake left. 

Seeing this, Shang Ruoyi had no choice but to pretend she needed to relieve herself. 

Braving the rain, she ran to the foot of the nearby mountain and harvested the ripe corn from her Space. 

As she picked, she murmured, “Preventing others from starving—I wonder if this will earn me some Merit Points.” 

When everyone saw her return to the temple with an armful of corn, they were nearly stunned speechless.

“Where did you find this corn?” Zhang Hu stepped forward, incredulous. “I haven’t seen anything like corn along the way.”

Shang Ruoyi replied nonchalantly, “I spotted it on my way back, in that grove over there.” She casually pointed to the dense woods outside the temple. Zhang Hu nodded in understanding—so that was it. Only that particular grove hadn’t been explored by him and He Jingxi. Who would have thought corn grew there?

He Jingheng frowned at this. When they had taken shelter from the rain earlier, he had surveyed the surrounding terrain thoroughly—there had been no corn. It seemed this woman had quite a few secrets.

After roasting the corn, Shang Ruoyi sent some to the officials, and the remaining ears were just enough for everyone, including Aunt Li and Fuzi.

The aroma of roasted corn filled the air, making everyone salivate as they gazed at the golden kernels.

So fragrant! Unbelievably fragrant!

The moment the corn touched their tongues, a refreshing sweetness flooded their mouths.

“Ruoyi, this corn is delicious! Can you find that place again? We should gather more next time,” Madam Lin exclaimed in amazement. “It truly tastes better than any corn I’ve ever had.”

Before marrying into the He family, Madam Lin’s father had brought corn back from the military camp a few times, so she had tasted it before. In Tianshun, corn was considered coarse grain, eaten only by commoners.

Shang Ruoyi shook her head. “There’s none left where I picked these. I gathered all the corn there. As for the difference in taste, Aunt, it’s probably because it grew in the mountains, absorbing some of the spiritual energy of nature, making it more flavorful.”

As for the rest of the He family, apart from He Jingheng, none had even known what corn looked like. When Shang Ruoyi handed them the ears, they hesitated, unsure how to eat them, let alone compare flavors. Only after watching Madam Lin did they realize they could simply bite into it.

They had assumed it was just a temporary means to stave off hunger, and that Madam Lin was exaggerating. But the moment they took their first bite, they were stunned—this food called corn was incredibly delicious.

One by one, they abandoned all pretense of refinement and devoured the corn ravenously.

Even the officials were astonished—this corn was nothing like what they had eaten before.

Zhang Hu chuckled. “You really are lucky, always managing to find food.”

Shang Ruoyi smiled faintly but said nothing.

Madam Zhang watched them eating with such relish, her jealousy flaring. She glanced at Qiao Yanxin beside her and poked her forehead in frustration. “Useless girl. Not only is your family background lacking, but you can’t even cook or recognize food. Our Jinghe might as well have married a peasant girl—what a waste.”

Qiao Yanxin hung her head, her eyes burning with intense hatred as she glared at Shang Ruoyi.

Why? Why did you have to marry He Jingheng?

If not for you, Madam Zhang wouldn’t treat me so poorly.

Once again, Shang Ruoyi felt that venomous gaze and frowned.

Who was it?

The next day, the long-awaited sunlight finally appeared, and the officials hurriedly urged the prisoners to continue their journey.

After two straight days of rain, the mountain path was treacherously muddy. What should have been a one-hour trip to the relay station took an entire morning, and they still hadn’t arrived.

“Boss, what do we do? We’re already two days behind. If this keeps up, we’ll definitely be reprimanded at the relay station.”

“Don’t even mention the prisoners who’ve been starving all along—even we can’t move quickly. The mountain path is treacherous; do they expect us to fly there?” Zhang Hu said coldly. “If they don’t believe it, let them try walking it themselves.”

After another half-day’s journey, they finally reached the relay station. 

As Shang Ruoyi and the others stepped inside, a familiar voice rang out: “This Heir Apparent has been waiting here for quite some time.”