Bearded Old Six looked suspicious: "Haven't you started investigating yet? You weren't a spy? How could you not know anything? What were you doing before?"
Qi Qi said sincerely, "I am training in professional skills so that I can infiltrate the Fourth Prince's ranks and become his concubine."
"What skill?"
Qi Qi pondered for a moment: "Maintain your beauty, and then train yourself in skills such as washing clothes, cooking, singing, telling stories, serving tea and water."
The crowd's interest was piqued, and they began to discuss it.
"A spy has to do this? Wash clothes, cook, sing..."
"You're so ignorant. Of course, a concubine needs to know these things, otherwise how can she please people?"
"But he's a man."
"Men have to do it too. Do you know Nanfeng Pavilion? The male prostitutes there are proficient in everything from music, chess, calligraphy, painting, poetry, and songs."
"So many kinds, it sounds like it's much more tiring than practicing kung fu."
"..."
Qi Qi thought to himself that these river bandits didn't look like legitimate river bandits.
He gave a bitter smile: "More than that, you have to be presentable in public and capable in the kitchen. Alas, if my family hadn't been so poor back then that we couldn't afford to eat and then suffered a flood, and I had been sold into slavery, I wouldn't be in this situation now... Waaah, what a miserable life..."
These words softened the expressions on everyone's faces.
This pretty boy looks like he's been raised well, but who knew he was raised like this? It seems you can't judge a book by its cover.
Who would have thought that someone who seemed like a rich young master would have such a tragic fate?
...
After rowing for an hour, Qi Qi had become acquainted with everyone on the boat, calling them "brother" one after another. Although the others still had some doubts, seeing Qi Qi's likable face, which seemed to smile even when he wasn't actually smiling, their doubts gradually diminished.
Qi Qi needs to solidify his pitiful persona and patiently wait for the right opportunity to escape. He should do as much as he is capable of. With Qi Qi's limited skills, if he were to resist, he might be able to kill a couple of wounded soldiers, but the next second, the big man would chop off his head.
That's a really big knife.
In fact, people in ancient times were not easily fooled. They were also very intelligent, and their thinking abilities were no less than those of modern people. The reason why people in ancient times were said to be stupid was because most of them did not have enough to eat. When people did not have enough to eat, they had no strength, and their brains worked slowly and became numb, which made them seem stupid.
People who have enough to eat are unlikely to be stupid.
These people didn't mince words, and Qi Qi roughly understood that their mission this time was to deal with the Fourth Prince, so this group of wounded people left first.
Once ashore, there were already people there to help. They couldn't carry him, so the wounded rode in oxcarts or handcarts. Qi Qi, with his hands tied, walked quietly in the middle of the group, his mindset relatively calm.
The incident happened in the middle of the night. Now it's dawn early, and as the sky begins to lighten, Qi Qi looks up and observes carefully. The group of people are dressed in coarse linen clothes, and their bodies are covered in pudding. Their physiques are not the typical skinny, bony build of ordinary people in this era. In particular, the leader, Bearded Old Six, has a dark, muscular build.
To survive after losing so much blood is a remarkable achievement in this era.
Whose private army is this? A group of assassins? Or a powerful bandit gang? They show signs of training and are fairly disciplined. Such a group couldn't be unknown, nor could it be raised by ordinary vagrants or bandits.
These days, even the bandits are skin and bones from hunger.
They walked and stopped frequently, and just as Qi Qi's legs went numb, they arrived at a small, dilapidated village.
The manor looked dilapidated and ordinary outside, but once inside, Qi Qi saw many more people, mostly the injured. Yet, with people coming and going, even if Qi Qi was blind, he could tell something was wrong.
This group of people must be a rebel army.
Qi Qi's appearance here still attracted attention. As the saying goes, in this era, someone who can still look so fair and delicate is obviously not an ordinary person. Moreover, seeing that his hands were restrained, the crowd's eyes were not only wary, but also subtly hostile.
Qi Qi, feeling the gazes he was being given, wondered if he would be killed by these people at any moment. He could only smile cautiously and take a few steps closer to Hu Zi without making a sound.
The man with the beard was called Wang Liu. Because he was the sixth child in his family, everyone around him called him Sixth Brother. Qi Qi also called him that, but Wang Liu took him to the main hall of the manor without changing his expression.
This should be a place specifically for the wounded, and naturally there are wounded people inside. Brother Hu Zi Liu pushed Qi Qi to a man who was busy and sweating profusely and looked like a doctor: "Mr. Chen, this person was brought down from the ship. Take a look and see if he can be used."
After bandaging the wound, the middle-aged man straightened up and stared at Qi Qi with his sharp, eagle-like eyes, making Qi Qi feel uneasy and his heart pound.
Qi Qi: What? What should we use?!
After about a minute, the man coldly asked, "What's your name?"
Qi Qi said, "Call me Qi Qi."
"Qi Qi? Change your clothes before you come back to work."
Old Six nodded, and everyone around him looked at Qi Qi as if he had passed the scan and become a qualified product.
Then Qi Qi received a patched coarse linen coat and a pair of straw sandals, and then he inexplicably began his life as a laborer. From then on, he was busy every day. For the first half of the month, he bandaged wounds and changed dressings and prepared medicine for the wounded. In the second half of the month, Mr. Chen discovered that he could do math, so he became Mr. Chen's accountant and record-keeping.
Oh, Mr. Chen is that middle-aged man with a fierce look in his eyes when he first arrived. After knowing him for several days, Qi Qi realized that this man was a real talent. He served as the strategist and accountant for this branch of the rebel army, and he could also read faces. He was incredibly capable.
He also told Qi Qi, the person involved, that he didn't kill him at first but kept him here to work because Qi Qi looked too stupid and looked like he couldn't do anything bad. Especially his face, which was hard to understand, so he kept him to study.
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