Chapter 313 A Turnaround
She wouldn't be mistaken; she had seen this fish-shaped wooden plaque on the palace servants of the Yue Kingdom's royal palace before!
She clearly heard Xiahou Yin's voice. Could this still be the Yue Kingdom?!
Qi Yuxuan instinctively tried to shrink back to avoid Li Niangzi's hand.
Xiahou Yin returned at that moment. Seeing her fearful and uneasy appearance, he quickly stepped forward, approached her, and cautiously asked, "Princess? Princess?"
“I am Xiahou Yin, Princess, do not be afraid.”
As he spoke, Li Niangzi was already behind him, and the fish-shaped wooden plaque was forced to turn over, revealing a rough, uncarved piece of wood on the other side.
Qi Yuxuan's taut string loosened slightly.
The wooden plaques of the Yue Kingdom's palace servants were all carved on both sides; there would never be one with only one side. Could this just be a coincidence?
Xiahou Yin followed her gaze and saw Lady Li standing there, looking flustered. He could only say:
"Madam Li, you can go out now. I'm fine here."
It seems the princess had just woken up and was understandably a little flustered to suddenly see someone she didn't recognize.
Thinking of this, Xiahou Yin felt even more heartache, wondering what the princess had gone through during this time.
The senior doctor in the army said that the princess was severely depleted, as if she hadn't slept or eaten properly for several days.
Just now, Madam Li washed her and said that her whole body was covered with new injuries from the past few days, dozens of them, big and small, and even the soles of her feet, where she had lost a shoe, were covered in bloodstains.
Xiahou Yin stared intently at the gaunt girl before him and asked with concern:
"Princess, you have too many injuries. Just now, Madam Li applied medicine for you, and you also took the nourishing soup prescribed by the doctor. Do you still feel any severe pain anywhere?"
Hearing him say that, Qi Yuxuan carefully felt the changes in her body. Sure enough, when she sat up just now, she aggravated several wounds and was feeling a little uncomfortable.
But she shook her head, asking only uncertainly:
"Is this the State of Qi?"
Xiahou Yin was taken aback, his eyes stinging with tears. He quickly turned his head away, avoiding looking at the princess's anxious and expectant face, and hurriedly answered:
"Yes, this is the State of Qi, so Princess need not worry."
Qi Yuxuan's back slowly relaxed, suddenly releasing all the force, and her whole body collapsed.
"Is this the border region?"
Xiahou Yin had calmed down and said, "Yes, to be precise, it is Kuncheng in Qi State. The capital is a thousand miles to the southeast."
Qi Yuxuan: "How long have I been gone?"
At this, Xiahou Yin's heart leaped into his throat, and he answered clearly and accurately: "Seventy-one days."
After arriving in Kunming from the Qilin Guard, she learned that she had been kidnapped in Beiyuan. Seventy-one days had passed, nearly two and a half months. Summer had passed and autumn was beginning to arrive before she finally returned to her homeland.
Xiahou Yin: "Where has the princess been all this time? Who kidnapped her?"
Qi Yuxuan lowered her eyes: "You guessed it, didn't you? I've been in Yue Kingdom for a while now. More than two months ago, I was accidentally poisoned. At that time, my bodyguard Ren learned that Yue Kingdom had an antidote, so he rashly took me there..."
She paused for a moment before continuing:
"Then some things happened, and I was unconscious in Yue for a long time. When I woke up, I found myself in a foreign land, so I tried my best to come back."
She spoke briefly, only a few sentences, but even those few sentences made Xiahou Yin turn pale, and it took him a while to recover.
A woman was kidnapped to a foreign country without her knowledge. Although it was for the purpose of detoxification, and she has now returned safely, the hardships she endured cannot be summarized in just a few words.
Xiahou Yin had already mentally reenacted the entire process of a treacherous servant bullying his master, surviving in a foreign land, and enduring a difficult journey, and his eyes reddened.
"Princess, you've worked so hard..."
"Where is that wretched servant? Why didn't he return with the princess?!"
Xiahou Yin was somewhat agitated. In his view, all of this was because of that guard Ren. If he hadn't taken the princess to Yue without permission, none of this would have caused such a commotion!
Speaking of Ren Shun, Qi Yuxuan looked somewhat tired.
She walked in the mountains all night, and now a whole day has passed. Even if Ren Shun is lucky enough to survive, his chances of survival are slim.
Moreover, once his identity is exposed, the State of Qi will definitely not send anyone to rescue him. They would rather he die, so that Xuanyuan Ze can lose a right-hand man.
Xiahou Yin immediately noticed her fatigue and quickly explained:
"I just wanted to vent my anger for the princess. If it weren't for this prejudiced and arrogant guard, the princess wouldn't have suffered so much."
Qi Yuxuan shook her head, "No, he did it for me too. My poison came on very suddenly, and there was no antidote in Qi, so he took me to Yue. He just didn't want to tell Mother and the Crown Prince about it right away, making you all worry about me..."
Xiahou Yin: "Princess, please don't say that. The Eldest Princess and the Crown Prince will be very happy if they know that you have returned. However, the most important thing right now is for you to recover your health as soon as possible before you can set off to return to the capital."
She had already exhausted all her energy to walk to the city gate, and in her current state, she probably wouldn't even be able to stand up. So she could only stay in Kuncheng to recover from her injuries.
Thinking of returning to the capital, Qi Yuxuan felt anxious. Judging from Xuan Yuanze's attitude, he would not easily give up the Qi Kingdom, which was already within his grasp. However, a general in the field may not obey the emperor's orders. If she could assist the Qi Kingdom's army in fighting against the Yue Kingdom in Kuncheng, perhaps there would still be a chance to turn the tide in this battle.
On the way out of the capital of Yue, Ren Shun told her a lot about the situation in Yue. In the past, she only knew about the battles between Qi and Yue in her previous life, but now that Xuan Yuanze has been reborn, she now has the most useful information.
But for some reason, whenever she recalled or thought about those details, her head throbbed with pain. Knowing that rushing to recover was useless, she exhaled a deep breath and said:
"I'm a little tired and want to sleep a little longer."
Upon hearing this, Xiahou Yin nodded hurriedly and stood up:
“Then Princess, please rest. I will come to visit you again tomorrow.”
"The army's resources are limited right now, so we can only keep things simple. We'll have to trouble you for a while, Princess. Lady Li is a woman from a respectable family that we found in Kuncheng. If you have any orders, Princess, please feel free to use Lady Li if I'm not around."
Qi Yuxuan nodded gently.
Xiahou Yin had already left the tent. He looked up at the star-studded night sky, stood silently for a while, and then returned to his residence.
Actually, he had many more questions he wanted to ask, but remembering the doctor's advice that she shouldn't think too much or overexert herself, he could only keep them to himself and wait until she recovered before asking.
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