"Shen Jintang!" he shouted in a low voice.

"...Yes." Shen Jintang's voice was muffled, as if it were squeezed out from between her teeth.

She tried to get up, but her body trembled uncontrollably.

Gu Zhixing sensed something was wrong with her voice, abruptly threw off the covers, and walked downstairs barefoot.

He casually lit an oil lamp, the dim light casting a yellowish glow in the room. He walked a few steps to Shen Jintang's side and, by the light, saw that her face was deathly pale and large beads of sweat hung on her forehead, as if she had just been pulled out of the water.

"What happened?" Gu Zhixing reached out to touch her forehead, his tone tinged with doubt and a hint of disdain. "You're not that delicate, are you? You just slept on the floor, and you got sick before even a stick of incense had burned?"

Shen Jintang licked her dry lips and tried to force a smile to make herself look more energetic: "I...I'm so hungry my stomach hurts. I haven't eaten for five days."

Gu Zhixing was stunned, a look of disbelief flashing in his eyes: "Five days without food?"

His voice carried a hint of doubt, as if he was wondering if she was making up a lie to fool him.

How can someone go five days without food? Aren't they afraid of causing someone to die?

Shen Jintang glanced at him and tugged at the corner of her mouth. How could a young master living in an ivory tower understand the lives of ordinary people? Their lives were the least valuable.

Shen Jintang spoke with difficulty, her voice so low it was almost swallowed by the silence of the room: "I drank a few sips of water, and in between I was so hungry I picked up some vegetable leaves that other people at the market didn't want and ate a few bites."

Her voice was weary, as if those embarrassing moments were still fresh in her mind, and every word she spoke seemed to be digging into those unbearable memories.

Gu Zhixing frowned slightly, looking at her with a complicated expression.

The slave market was located at the entrance of the West Market, right next to the vegetable market, so it was indeed possible to find discarded vegetable leaves.

But why would anyone pick up rotten vegetable leaves to eat?

He was a little confused. Even the chickens and ducks in the mansion wouldn't eat rotten vegetable leaves, but he never expected to hear it from a living person.