When Qiao Ruichen woke up again, the children surrounding him were gone.
The room was very quiet, giving him time to take a closer look at where he was.
More than two months had passed since he decided to use his own life to attract the enemy's attention so that a few guards with less serious injuries could break out.
Qiao Ruichen was thinking of confessing his mistake while escaping. The pursuers would feel relieved only if he died. The other party had no idea how many people were alive, so there would always be someone who could break through and escape back to Dayue.
Therefore, despite being seriously injured, he fought desperately with the pursuers several times.
But he fought desperately, and the guards around him fought even harder than him. Almost every time they would spare the lives of two or three people and use their blood to escort them to escape further.
Qiao Ruichen's heart was soaked in blood as if it were cut by a knife, and he didn't dare to fight to the death. If possible, he still wanted to take everyone back.
If he fights hard, these men will surely be left with no corpses in a foreign land.
So he changed his strategy and learned Cheng Shao's shameless methods, fighting guerrilla warfare against the enemy, setting traps, making a feint to the east and attacking in the west... He used all the military tactics that should be used.
There were only more than 30 people left around him. The pursuers must have been irritated by them and sent more people to force them into the deep mountains and forests, trying to capture them all by encirclement.
There were ferocious beasts in the old forest and pursuers outside. It looked like the situation was hopeless. Qiao Ruichen was so seriously injured that he was in a coma for most of the day.
He knew he could not leave, so he issued military orders, asking everyone to climb down the cliff, and he stayed behind to buy a way out for everyone.
But this time, the thirty or so men covered in wounds seemed to obey his orders, turned around and knocked him unconscious, and he woke up here.
Thinking of his thirty or so men, Qiao Ruichen began to cough violently. His chest ached as if it was about to explode, and his throat was filled with the taste of blood.
What exactly did they do?
Did they use their own lives to buy him a way out?
Qiao Ruichen could hardly bear the weight of these lives. The resolute look of his men with a smile in tears before they knocked him unconscious was so clear in his mind that he couldn't help but spit out blood.
Just as he was about to burst into flames, a hoarse voice suddenly rang out, "Hey, I say, if you keep going on like this, the herbs I gave you will be wasted."
Qiao Ruichen wiped the blood from his lips and raised his head. He was startled by the old lady's voice. There was clearly no one in the room just now. He didn't hear any sound before she spoke.
The old lady rolled her eyes and said, "Don't overthink it. If you want to die quickly, just tell me and I'll have someone dig a hole for you."
Qiao Ruichen: “…”
He was not one to dwell on his emotions. Even though he felt heavy in his heart, he remained gentle, "Thank you, Madam..."
"Stop! I'm an old woman, but I'm not married yet. How can I be a lady?"
Qiao Ruichen took a deep breath. The sharp pain in his chest made him calmer. "Excuse me, what should I call you?"
The old lady lit a fire in the small clay stove, poured some herbs into the medicine pot, and scooped a bucket of water into it. Only then did she have time to answer Qiao Ruichen's questions.
"Call me sweetheart."
Qiao Ruichen: “…”
The old lady raised her eyebrows. "Or you can call me Sister Jiao. Don't let me hear the word 'old', or I will poison you to death."
Qiao Ruichen compromised and said, "May I ask, Madam Jiao, why am I here?"
The old lady was quite satisfied with this name. "The little cubs found you. They always like to pick up things randomly, so I have to go to the city to buy food frequently. I should have thrown these cubs into the wolf den long ago to save myself from the trouble every day."
Qiao Ruichen thought of the group of little guys who surrounded him and called him daddy. Somehow, he suddenly thought of his own Taotao. His heart was soft and sad. It took him a while to continue speaking.
"Then...did they find anyone else?"
The old lady smiled. "You want to know if the pursuers have caught up with the bandits you were with, right?"
Qiao Ruichen's heart skipped a beat. He didn't need to ask any more questions. He could hear a lot of information from the words of this... pretty girl.
She knew that she and her guards were being chased. Since they were called bandits, the entry into the city she mentioned could only be the Western Region, not Dayue.
He should still be in the deep mountains and forests where they fled to. He just didn't know why there was an old lady whose Chinese was more erotic than his wife's, living here with a group of little kids.
The old lady didn't need him to ask. She just looked at the cold sweat on Qiao Ruichen's forehead and knew that his injuries were still very serious. He was half alive when he came, and he was relying on the herbs she collected to stay alive. If she asked a few more questions, he would probably faint again.
She told him directly what he wanted to know, "I don't like dead bodies around, so I raised a lot of goodies. They haven't eaten anything messy lately, and there hasn't been any big noise in the forest. Your people should still be alive."
Qiao Ruichen suddenly raised his head, his eyes flashing with a bright light, but before he could say anything, his vision went dark and he passed out.
He was already at the end of his strength and was holding on. When he got excited, the wound hurt too much. In addition, he had lost too much blood in the past few months and he really couldn't hold on any longer.
When he fainted, Miao Wan suddenly felt a pain in her chest and her nose felt sore.
Geng and Qiao Shengwen accompanied her to finish the meal. Looking at the two lazy little guys chewing their toes on the kang, Miao Wan felt her eyes getting hot and quickly lowered her head, fearing that her parents-in-law would notice something was wrong.
But she had always been spoiled by her parents-in-law and husband. After a few years, Miao Wan had lost even the sensibleness she had in her previous life. She was now as spoiled as Taotao. Sometimes Taotao even had to give in to his mother. How could she hide this?
Qiao Shengwen also felt sad. He had already guessed what had happened. When Qiao Ruichen was not around, he was the pillar of the family, but he could not cry like his daughter-in-law and wife.
He sighed softly, and said in a gentle tone, "Awan, don't worry. Zicheng has had good luck since he was a child, and he married you. With his luck, he will definitely be able to turn danger into safety. Maybe he will be back soon."
Miao Wan was stunned for a moment, then raised her head in surprise, "Dad, why are you..."
Geng wiped her eyes, pulled Miao Wan into her arms, and suppressed her sobs as she scolded her, "Child, you can't handle everything by yourself. Dad and Mom are here. If you exhaust yourself, when Ruichen comes back, I'm afraid you'll blame us for not taking good care of you."
Miao Wan's eyes grew even hotter. She sniffed and gave a rather ugly smile, "How could that be possible? If he gets married and forgets about his mother, his father will definitely beat him."
Geng smiled and shook her head. "That's hard to say. A son takes after his father. Your great-grandmother used to beat your father a lot, saying he'd forgotten his mother after marrying a wife. After I gave birth to Ruichen, I was already mentally prepared for this."
Qiao Shengwen: “…”
Miao Wan was amused again with tears in her eyes, "Well, I have two more children, so I have to prepare in advance."
The three of them didn't say much as they watched Taotao, who was still playing with his younger brothers, or rather, playing with his younger brothers.
After seeing to the children that they were all asleep, Miao Wan took her parents to the study and told them about Qiao Ruichen's situation.
What surprised Qiao Shengwen and his wife was that Miao Wan had shed tears in the main room, but now she spoke clearly, without shedding a single tear, and seemed particularly calm.
"I have contacted merchants in Lin'an County to centralize the rare earth mines in Xining Town. Ayao and her husband will equip more soldiers of the Gubei Army with better weapons as quickly as possible."
"If we don't get any more news from my husband, Ayao and I have discussed sending some people to provoke on the Xifan border, and then have them infiltrate Northern Mongolia, the Western Regions, Dayuan and other places to create chaos. It may only be a small-scale friction at first."
"But if they have to fight, they definitely won't be able to catch up with my husband and his men. They will definitely focus all their attention on preparing for the battle. Then we can ask the Cheng family's secret guards to continue searching for us."
Miao Wan explained the current deployment in detail, mainly to Qiao Shengwen. Seeing that Qiao Shengwen was in deep thought and did not show any other expression, she paused.
Miao Wan spoke again, her voice a little hoarse, "Ayao said that no news about my husband is the best news, and I think so too. No matter what, my husband will definitely come back alive."
Except for that time in front of Gu Shuyao, Miao Wan never said again that she wanted to see the person alive or the corpse dead. She found the second half of this sentence a little unbearable.
Qiao Shengwen was also afraid of upsetting the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Even though he felt so uncomfortable that he felt a little dizzy, he still tried hard to suppress his anxiety and calm himself down.
"Your plan is quite thorough." Qiao Shengwen tried to speak slowly, fearing that his thoughts were not thorough enough. "But there is one thing to note. The people sent out to cause trouble must not be from Dayue. It's better to be safe than sorry. If they are from Dayue, they will give the other side a handle to attack them."
Qiao Shengwen thought for a moment, "Money can move people's hearts. No matter where you are, there are people who are willing to sacrifice their lives for money. Whether it's the merchants in Dayue or the locals, as long as we use the right methods and use money to pave the way, even if they don't know what they are doing, we can still achieve our goals."
It is not difficult to cause a conflict by making one disturbance after another as long as one is careful enough and taking advantage of the friction and disputes over interests between foreigners and Dayue.
Apart from Xifan, as long as there is an alliance, Dayue must not be the first to cause trouble.
Otherwise, the imperial court would not be a single solid block, and if other small countries had legitimate reasons to unite, when a war broke out, the military would be unstable and morale would be insufficient, making it difficult to predict the outcome.
Miao Wan wasn't good at these intrigues. She glanced at her father-in-law with some embarrassment, "Anything that requires money isn't a problem. As for the rest, how about I ask the general and A Yao to come over?"
Qiao Shengwen couldn't wait for all these notifications to be passed back and forth. His son was still in dire straits. Although he had never expressed any love to his son on weekdays, his love for his son was no less than Geng's.
He put his clenched fists behind his back and stood up. "I'll go to General Dingbei's mansion and discuss what to do with the general. Awan, you will support us."
Miao Wan nodded eagerly, "I'll go with you."
"I see that you are quite tired. Ask your mother to tell you about the interesting things that happened to the two little ones recently. Take a good rest." Qiao Shengwen could see that Miao Wan had been very busy recently, and she couldn't even hide the dark circles under her eyes.
Geng also followed suit, "Your father is right. Only when you have a good rest can you provide support for them and find Ruichen as soon as possible."
She was also extremely anxious, but she knew that she could not help much. The most important thing right now was to take good care of her daughter-in-law and grandchildren. No one could collapse now. The most important thing was to find Qiao Ruichen as soon as possible.
Before Miao Wan could answer, Ah Chun suddenly rushed in from outside, startling everyone, "Boss, someone from the General's Mansion has sent a message saying they've found the person!"
Well, now no one needs to persuade anyone else. Qiao Shengwen and his wife and Miao Wan have all lost their composure. No one blames Achun for being scary, and they all run out.
After arriving at General Dingbei's residence, Cheng Shao explained, "The secret guards noticed a sudden increase in the number of pursuers at the Western Region border, and they were heading in one direction. They took the opportunity to throw a few smoke bombs to distract the pursuers and rescued everyone. There were more than 30 people in total, and the few responsible for the breakout were also found."
Miao Wan held her breath and looked at him. She opened her mouth, but her lips, which were pursed until they were pale, trembled and she couldn't speak.
Qiao Shengwen asked, "What about Zicheng?"
Cheng Shao felt a little numb on his scalp. He didn't know what to say, but he had to say it.
"Zicheng was hidden in a cave by the guards. When they went back to look for him, Zicheng had disappeared. The secret guards searched the area for a long time but couldn't find him."
What he didn't dare say was that there were too many wolves in the mountains, and there were also big beasts. With more than a dozen secret guards protecting more than thirty people who were seriously injured, there was really no way to continue searching deeper and they could only retreat first.
During the retreat, the secret guard passed a message to another team of secret guards, asking them to continue searching. However, the others had already been sent back to Dayue, and there was still no news from Qiao Ruichen.
Geng felt dizzy and she held Miao Wan's hand tightly, unable to utter a word of comfort.
Everyone was more worried about Miao Wan, whose face was as pale as paper.
Miao Wan, however, was calmer than Geng. She supported her mother-in-law steadily and was able to speak. "If possible, I hope the general can continue to send those three teams of secret guards to search for my husband. If there is no news, it proves that my husband is still alive."
Cheng Shao nodded. "Of course. Besides the secret guards, we can also enter the Western Regions through the Western Region merchants. Then we can arrange for some people to enter the Western Regions openly. They don't dare to tear each other apart yet. As long as we can find Zicheng, I will find a way to bring him back."
"Okay, if you need money, just tell me, any amount is fine." Miao Wan didn't say anything polite, she just said what she could do.
In the past, the most important thing to her was making money. When Xining Town was burned down and she learned that all her money might be gone, she wanted to die.
Now, she had only one idea, she was willing to lose everything as long as Qiao Bailao could come back.
Even if you lose money, you can still earn it again. Qiao Bailao is gone, and Miao Shiren doesn't even want to earn money anymore.
She didn't understand what love was before, and she may not understand it now. For people who have struggled to survive since childhood, grasping the most important things to survive is the only instinct.
And Qiao Ruichen became one of her instincts.
With the old fox Qiao Shengwen in charge, Cheng Shaodu breathed a sigh of relief. He was very good at marching and fighting, but when it came to causing trouble outside of fighting, he was not as good as Qiao Shengwen, an old fox who had been in officialdom for a long time.
In fact, God did not give Qiao Shengwen much room to play. Perhaps God just wanted to confirm his preference for his own daughter. Only half a month later, Cheng Shao and Qiao Shengwen received news from Qiao Ruichen.
But this news made the two of them look at each other for a long time, and they didn't know how to tell Miao Wan.
Especially the father-in-law Qiao Shengwen, how should he say to his daughter-in-law who spends money and people at all costs and even tries hard to be strong and take care of the family... Your husband was saved by a beautiful woman and is now a father?
The author has something to say:
Happy New Year to everyone! Happy New Year to all my little cuties! Year of the Rabbit! May you become richer every day without gaining weight!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
