As Su Rong had expected, Han Yin relaxed his guard after he escaped and saw no troops sent by Su Rong chasing him.
It was not his fault for relaxing his guard. From Su Rong’s perspective, the Ye brothers were seriously injured and needed to recuperate, the captured troops needed to be reorganized and there were plenty of post-war matters to handle. Besides, she had her own troops to deal with the Nangong Family, so, as a defeated soldier, he was probably not considered a big threat by Su Rong.
He accurately assessed Su Rong’s mindset, but he didn’t know that Su Rong had Qin Ruo by her side, who reminded her where she had overlooked.
So, he didn’t march his forty thousand soldiers day and night. Although they were moving at a reasonable speed, they weren’t particularly fast.
Unknown to him, Su Rong had already set out with one hundred thousand soldiers, taking a shortcut to intercept him.
After a day’s journey, they had to traverse a narrow mountain trail, where only horseback could pass. The horses, led by soldiers, made the passable.
Yin Yue placed Ye Guixue on a horseback and abandoned the carriage he had been riding in.
Lan Zhi had good medicine. The numerous wounds on Ye Guixue’s body had started to scab over two days later. Lan Zhi quietly said to Su Rong: "Mistress, I didn’t expect the Second Young Master Ye to have such a strong physique. Although we fed him good medicine, he is indeed resilient."
Apart from having a fever on the night of his rescue, which subsided after Lan Zhi fed him a bowl of medicine, he didn’t have any more bouts of fever.
Su Rong nodded, "He has been practicing martial arts since childhood and has a high level of martial arts skill, so naturally he is in excellent physical condition. If it weren’t for his intention of distracting the guards to take his older brother away and sending away his own guards, he wouldn’t have been injured so severely."
Lan Zhi nodded, "But, Second Young Master Ye lost too much blood, his face is still very pale. It’s a difficult road and it’s such cold weather. I don’t have much good medicine left. No matter how good Second Young Master Ye’s physique is, if there’s no good medicine to feed him, I am afraid he’ll fall sick before we reach our destination. Common medicines are not as effective as ours. If we continue like this without healing the wounds, and he develops a lingering illness..."
Su Rong felt Lan Zhi’s concern was reasonable and thoughtfully ordered, "Let Fen Ling send someone out to find a way to procure some good medicinal materials. I’ll make some medicine for him during our night camp. We can’t let him develop a chronic illness."
Lan Zhi nodded, "I will go find Fen Ling."
In the depths of winter, it’s extremely difficult to find medicinal materials. Even though Nanchu is rich in luscious mountains and forests, ideally suited for medicinal plants, they are typically only harvested in spring, summer and autumn. In winter, everywhere is covered with heavy snow and it’s hard to find medicinal plants. They can only be bought at a high price from pharmacies in cities, towns, and counties.
However, as soon as Su Rong stepped into Nanchu, she was already in contact with the people she had back in Jiangning County. Money was not the problem.
A day later, the people sent by Fen Ling returned. They only had a small bag and apologized to Su Rong, "Mistress, the good medicinal materials required by your ancient formula are really hard to find, even though we were willing to pay a high price, the pharmacies were not interested in selling. We investigated and found out that the medicinal materials market in Nanchu has been monopolized. We couldn’t disclose our identity because we fear our exact location and news might leak out, which could alert Han Yin and let him know that we are on our way to intercept him. We could only secretly make a great effort, and only managed to acquire so little."
Su Rong frowned.
While the team was resting, Ye Guixue was sitting not far away from Su Rong, chatting with Qin Ruo, both seemed to get along very well. They were talking about everything from geography to history, and seemed to appreciate each other’s intellect.
Su Rong thought that this was probably the mutual admiration among talented individuals.
Seeing the fuss over here, Ye Guixue got up and walked over, asking Su Rong, "What happened? Is there a problem?"
Su Rong didn’t hide any information and asked him, "Do you have a way to get some good medicinal materials?"
"What kind of medicinal materials?" Ye Guixue asked.
"High-quality and special medicinal materials." Su Rong indicated to the guard, "Show the list of medicinal materials to Second Young Master Ye."
The guard immediately handed over the list that Su Rong had compiled to Ye Guixue.
After looking over it, Ye Guixue said, "These medicinal ingredients can’t be found in ordinary medicinal shops, and big medicinal shops indeed don’t easily let them circulate."
In the whole Nanchu Country, which was controlled by aristocratic families, medicinal materials were a major weapon for them. Ordinary medicinal materials could circulate and be used for border trade, but high-quality, special, precious and hard-to-find medicinal materials were monopolized and controlled by several large medicinal material merchants, among which the Nangong Family and Ye Family were the foremost.
A significant portion of the revenue of Nanchu Country came from medicinal materials.
Ye Guixue called over Yin Yue, handed him the list and said, "You go personally, contact the Ye Family’s secret agents, and bring me the medicinal materials from this list..."
He paused, turned to Su Rong and asked, "How much do you want?"
"The more, the better?" Su Rong looked at him, feeling that she might have been out of her depth. If she had known earlier, she wouldn’t have wasted her secret agents’ efforts and she should have asked him earlier. It was much easier for his people to do these things without running the risk of exposure.
Ye Guixue nodded, turned to Yin Yue and finished his sentence, "Find as many pharmacies as possible that can provide these medicinal materials and bring back as much as you can."
Yin Yue acknowledged the command.
Watching Yin Yue leave, Su Rong asked Ye Guixue, "After this ordeal, has the Ye Family’s power suffered great losses? Are they still fighting against Liu’an Prince’s party outside?"
"Hmm." Ye Guixue nodded, "The loss is not small, but Liu’an Prince’s party has also been significantly hurt. Now that my father and I, along with my older brother, have become free, we have mobilized the Ye Family’s covert power throughout Nanchu. We’re trying to find the whereabouts of Your Majesty and Lord Thursday, hoping that they can turn peril into safety while the Nangong Family’s power is at its peak."
Su Rong nodded, "Doesn’t my biological father have any of his own power, other than those fifty thousand private soldiers?"
Ye Guixue shook his head, "I’m not sure, Your Majesty hasn’t left the royal capital for sixteen years. For the first ten years, he was indeed lost in a fog, unwilling to take care of official business. In the past five years, apart from his own secret guards, many matters were delegated to my father and my brother and me, unless...."
"Unless what?" Su Rong asked.
Ye Guixue stated, "Unless there is something inherited from the late King or the troops that Your Majesty cultivated when he was the Crown Prince. Who knows." 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂
Su Rong nodded, "Never mind, worrying is of no use."
At the moment, she had only managed to contact the people who had followed Fang Yue and Wanniang from Jiangning County, but she hadn’t been able to contact Fang Yue and Wanniang themselves or Uncle Xie. All she could do now was to hurry on while resting and making medicine. Her next priority was to reach Yunbi Mountain as quickly as possible to intercept Han Yin, deal with him and his forty thousand Dawei soldiers, and then think about other things later.
Ye Guixue asked, "Why does the Princess want these high-quality special medicinal materials?"
Su Rong looked at him, "Do you remember the ancient medical book that I borrowed from the Buddha Temple? I need to make some medicine as a precaution."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
