After Xixi finished dressing, she followed the sound to the front of the courtyard and looked curiously at Zhu Yanyan in the space.
Zhu Yanyan was covered in welts from the whip, blood trickling from her mouth, and she was lying on the ground, panting heavily.
Zhu Yanyan walked with difficulty toward the crystals floating in the middle of the shelf. She grasped the crystals with her blood-covered hands and muttered to herself.
Xi Xi looked at him and found it increasingly strange. She scratched the back of her head in confusion. What was so strange about this person?
However, after Zhu Yanyan finished muttering, her yard suddenly became transparent, and her bracelet showed that it was running out of memory.
The supplies automatically popped out of the bracelet. After the supplies were cleared, the bracelet's memory was restored to its original configuration.
Xi Xi stared blankly at the gradually blurring courtyard, her delicate eyebrows furrowed together.
What happened? Why is this happening?
Before she could figure out what was happening, Xixi was thrown out of space by a tremendous force.
Xixi, who had just emerged from the space, woke up with a start, her brows furrowed in fear, and her lips pursed in grievance.
How terrifying! It was as if a giant hand was gripping her body, preventing her from moving.
"Mother, Xixi doesn't seem to be feeling well." Her daughter's sobs made Liu stop her work and anxiously examine her body.
The daughter-in-law's words made Old Mrs. Zhu immediately stop what she was doing, wipe her hands and come to Liu's side, and pull aside Xixi's clothes to check.
"You don't have any red spots on your body. Are you hungry? Or have you pooped?"
Grandma Zhu took her granddaughter from her daughter-in-law, placed her on the haystack, and checked her stomach and diaper.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he found that his granddaughter's diaper and stomach were normal.
"Perhaps she was having a nightmare."
Her mother-in-law's words made Liu feel guilty, so she hugged her daughter and pressed her haggard face against her daughter's.
"Xixi, don't be afraid. With your mother here, no demon or monster can get close to you."
The mother's touch gradually calmed Xixi down, and she slowly fell asleep again.
After falling asleep, Xixi found herself in a space that seemed to have no end. This space was empty, just a vast expanse of white.
In the middle of the space, there was a crystal floating in the middle. Xixi recognized that this crystal was the same one that Zhu Yanyan was holding.
She circled the crystal curiously, unable to understand how it was used.
Perhaps she was too tired. After circling around a few times without figuring out how to use the crystal, Xixi leaned against the crystal and fell asleep in a daze.
After putting her daughter to sleep, Liu put her on a pile of straw and covered her with a quilt before turning around and joining the work of sorting cotton.
Xixi didn't know how long she had slept. She woke up groggily and found herself still in a white, misty space.
She looked around curiously. In the past, she would leave the space after waking up. Why was she still in the space this time?
Suddenly, the white space gradually revealed the scene outside.
As dawn broke outside, Old Lady Zhu led the Zhu family in pushing the sorted cotton out of the warehouse.
Behind them, the village head and Chen Xiang and a few others followed closely, pushing their carts.
The appearance of the group puzzled the guards outside the village, who stared in horror at the unharmed villagers of Lujia Village.
"You...you're not dead?"
"Quickly, go and inform the master that the people from Lujia Village are about to come out."
Just as the guards were fleeing, Zhu Haotian and Chen Xiang quickly stepped forward and stopped them.
Chen Xiang held a large knife to one of the men's neck and shouted a warning, "If you want to live, take me into the city."
"There's no way. Without the master's permission, no one can enter the city now." The guard stared at the broadsword in terror, his whole body trembling.
"We just got in last night, what do you mean we can't do anything?" Zhu Haotian sneered as he stepped forward and kicked the guard hard in the shin.
The guard grimaced in pain and knelt on the ground. Seeing this, Chen Xiang placed his broadsword against the neck of another guard and warned him in a cold voice.
You only have one chance.
The guard trembled with fear, his legs shaking and his body quivering. He nodded repeatedly, “There is indeed a way. You can go through the south gate. There’s a side gate at the south gate, and our brothers are guarding it.”
"We all exit through the south gate."
Chen Xiang was satisfied with the guard's answer, so he used the hilt of his knife to stab the guard in the abdomen and threw in a pill.
"This is the Thousand Poison Pill. We'll give you the antidote after we've finished our business."
The guard clutched his neck in pain, trying to spit out the poison pill, but he had already swallowed it.
Left with no other choice, he led the group toward the county town with a long face.
Lujia Town is only about a thousand kilometers away from Lujia Village, before reaching Lujia Town.
Old Mrs. Zhu planned to get some information about cotton merchants from the village head.
"Village head, do you still remember which shopkeepers you used to trade with?"
"There are a few families we can inquire with after they come to town, but if they know the cotton comes from Lujia Village, they probably won't dare to buy it."
Besides worrying about not being able to sell the cotton, the village head was also concerned that Lujia Village had become a pariah, hated by everyone.
People in Lujia Town dare not buy cotton that comes from Lujia Village.
"That's true. You have to be honest in business. You can't deliberately hide the origin of cotton in order to sell it."
Zhu Laotian paused, then sighed with a weary expression.
Chen Xiang felt that as long as the products were sold, there was no need to care about that worthless integrity.
"Grandma Zhu, don't forget, we don't have much time left. If we can't reach the border in a few months, Zhu Shenghua's life will be in danger."
Instead of worrying about this useless matter of integrity, you should be more concerned about your son. We've wasted a lot of time on this journey.
These words felt like a stab to Old Mrs. Zhu's heart. It became extremely difficult for her to speak while decocting the medicine. A bitter taste spread in her throat, and she nodded with a choked voice.
"Yes, Lord Chen is right to remind you."
The village head wanted to say something more, but seeing Old Lady Zhu's silent and sorrowful appearance, he ultimately chose to remain silent.
The group soon arrived at the south gate of Lujia Town.
With a bitter expression, the guard led Chen Xiang and Zhu Haotian through the side door. The two of them knocked down all the guards at the south gate and fed them poison pills.
After tucking the guards into a corner, Chen Xiang and Zhu Haotian pushed open the south gate and gestured for Old Lady Zhu and the others to enter.
Seeing this, Old Lady Zhu quickly pushed the cart and led Zhu Chenfeng and the village head into the city.
In order to prevent the people of Lujia Town from discovering the village head, Chen Xiang instructed the village head to cover himself up and hide on a cart.
As the crowd entered the street, it was getting light, and street vendors and shops began to set up their morning markets one after another.
The Zhu family, who hadn't been to the city for a long time, looked at the familiar yet unfamiliar streets with a mixture of surprise and delight, swallowing hard as they gazed at the steaming hot buns in front of the vendors.
"It smells so good! Mother, do you think we can buy some mutton soup for Xixi?" Liu looked excitedly at the steaming mutton soup on the street, swallowed, and looked down at her daughter.
However, she found that her daughter's breathing was getting weaker and weaker, and her face was turning pale, as if she was about to lose her life.
"Mother... is happy..."
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