Chapter 147 Live Victims
Everyone was shocked to hear this. The middle-aged man in the lead rushed to Xie Wanniang's side, asking, "Are you alright? Besides Atai, are any of you injured?"
Xie Wanniang shook her head, "It's Atai who's injured. Could you please boil some water for me? I need to clean and bandage Atai again later."
Atai's wound was a hole, which was already difficult to treat, not to mention that they were in the middle of nowhere, so she didn't have the necessary conditions to treat it carefully.
Before the middle-aged man in the lead could answer, Xiaomei volunteered to do the cooking, saying, "I'll do it."
“Fine.” Xie Wanniang said indifferently, “Then you should take advantage of the fact that the enemy hasn’t reacted yet and help me send those three alive to Changping.”
The middle-aged man at the head of the group looked worried. "Then you..."
Xie Wanniang waved her hand, "I can protect myself, you don't need to worry about me."
Her martial arts skills weren't honed for nothing; anyone who wanted to kill her would have to come up with something real. Not to mention, she was also an expert in pharmacology, possessing plenty of effective methods to subtly poison people.
In addition, Atai and Haitang were also by her side, so she had helpers.
The middle-aged man was persuaded by her, "Then I'll go and make the arrangements right now."
Changping has already returned to Zijing Pass. They need to send people over, and aside from anything else, they need to prepare some dry rations.
Xie Wanniang nodded, "Use our carriage, not the one we found."
The middle-aged man nodded, "I'll hide what I found first."
Once they see Changping, Changping will send someone over to properly handle all traces.
Thinking of something, he stopped and asked Xie Wanniang, "Miss, do we need to report this to the county government?"
Xie Wanniang shook her head, "There have been people on the road all along; they should have already reported it to the county government."
Those dozen or so men in black were clearly not from any legitimate background, so it's understandable that passersby were afraid to approach them. But since such a terrifying organization had appeared in Yi County, even if people were only thinking about their own safety, they would secretly help report it to the authorities.
She said to the middle-aged man, "You should pack your things and leave, otherwise when the county government comes, I'm afraid they will ask us to take the person to the county government."
It wasn't that she didn't trust the identities and character of the officials and runners in the county government; most of the people who could earn a living in a border town were of good character and had no issues.
What she didn't trust was the fighting skills of those officials and constables. She didn't want the mastermind behind it all to end up losing several lives instead of helping her expose them.
Perhaps no one would dare to kill a county magistrate or assistant magistrate casually, but Xie Wanniang believed that the person behind the scenes could kill three or five low-level personnel like yamen runners and prison guards to silence them.
She didn't want the constables to be killed while escorting the prisoners. Although this might escalate the situation and draw the attention of the court and the military, it would also destroy several innocent families and harm more people, which was not what Xie Wanniang wanted to see.
After seeing off the six people who had hastily left with the three survivors and some hastily picked up some steamed buns and pickled vegetables, Xie Wanniang, under the protection of Haitang and four other retired soldiers, re-treated Atai's wounds.
She ignored the horse's wound. The horse's injury wasn't serious; the wound was long but shallow, and Xie Wanniang had already treated it properly on the way.
It's worth mentioning that she originally planned to send those ten people to Zijing Pass together, but the middle-aged man in the lead refused. Xie Wanniang had just survived an assassination attempt, and he was really worried about letting her take them all away now.
Xie Wanniang couldn't persuade him otherwise, and didn't want to waste time arguing about this issue and give the person behind the scenes an opportunity to make a move, so she agreed to let four of them stay here.
She instructed the middle-aged man in the lead, "Your safety is the top priority. If anyone tries to kill these three to silence them, you should just use them to buy time."
A fox will always show its tail eventually. She didn't think that the person behind the scenes would hide away obediently after failing to strike once.
Since the other side is bound to reappear, she doesn't want to risk the lives of several of her own people for the sake of just three survivors.
After seeing off the six deeply moved people, Xie Wanniang thought to herself, "I didn't do this entirely for you; I did it more to maintain a good relationship with the border troops."
She couldn't afford to let most of the first batch of men they sent die or be wounded; she still wanted to cooperate more deeply with the border troops in the future.
As Xie Wanniang had predicted, in the afternoon, the head constable of Yi County and the criminal advisor of the county magistrate, following the traces left on the road, found Xie Wanniang and her companions with several yamen runners.
The criminal investigator was a seasoned case-handler. After arriving in the village, he first explained his purpose, and then called Xie Wanniang and the other three into the small courtyard they had temporarily requisitioned for questioning.
Considering that three of the four people were young girls, the advisor did not let them come inside to answer their questions. Instead, he asked them about the incident directly at the stone table in the courtyard.
Long before their arrival, Xie Wanniang had already instructed Atai and the other two to say whatever they wanted without exaggerating or hiding anything.
All three were very obedient, and they answered all the questions that Master Wang asked them truthfully.
When Master Wang inquired about the whereabouts of the survivors, they frankly told him that the three survivors had been sent to Zijing Pass by Xie Wanniang's men.
Haitang was the most heartbroken, because she was also outspoken and told Master Wang about Xie Wanniang's good intentions in sending people to Zijing Pass instead of Yi County Government.
Wang Shiye was the magistrate's trusted subordinate, and Chang Ping had given the magistrate prior notice, so he already knew Xie Wanniang's identity. Although he wasn't surprised that Xie Wanniang was sending prisoners to the military camp alive, he was still quite troubled.
It wasn't that he subjectively wanted to take on this case, which looked very troublesome and dangerous. Rather, it was because the matter was happening in Yi County, and as the administrators of Yi County, even if they knew that the waters here were very deep and that there was a high possibility that they themselves would also be in danger, they still had to bite the bullet and take on the task because of their duty.
He consulted with Xie Wanniang, "Miss Xie, could you please write a letter to Zijing Pass, asking them to transfer the criminal to the yamen as soon as possible?"
Xie Wanniang understood that it was his duty, so she readily told him the truth: "To tell you the truth, the reason I sent people to the military camp is because I suspect they are related to foreign tribes from beyond the Great Wall."
She lowered her voice, "I'm new here, and I've never encountered anything like this before, let alone such a deep-seated hatred. I've never even had a minor argument with someone."
To put it simply, she didn't have any enemies in Yi County with such deep grudges.
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