Ren Yaohua didn't dare to act rashly. She was afraid that if she failed to get help, she would anger the outsiders and bring disaster upon herself. Even if she wanted to save herself, she would have to wait for the right time.
After an unknown amount of time, Ren Yaohua felt that the carriage finally slowed down and stopped somewhere.
The man driving the cart outside said, "Go to the village ahead and buy some dry food from the villagers. We need to travel a lot for the next two days, so it's not convenient to stay in a hotel or make a fire."
The man driving the carriage seemed to be the one giving the orders. Ren Yaohua heard someone respond and then rode away.
Another man dismounted and came over, laughing, "Hey, brother. Do you know who our employer is? Why did they go to such great lengths to capture so many people? They're quite generous with the silver, though. Each of us gets fifty taels, and the money from the women and girls my brothers took to Jizhou also belongs to us."
The man driving the carriage outside seemed unwilling to answer, and even lifted the curtain to peek inside. It seemed he wanted to see if Ren Yaohua was awake. After the carriage stopped, Ren Yaohua closed her eyes, slowed her breathing, and pretended not to wake up, hoping to pick up some clues from the conversation outside.
The man driving the coach took a look inside and then lowered the curtain again.
"Hey, I didn't look closely before. This girl is quite pretty. No wonder we bought all the others but kept this one. If we sell it, it will definitely fetch a good price. But then again, this girl is so pretty that she couldn't have been raised in an ordinary family, right? Although we brothers are not native to Yanzhou and don't know her background, we are all in the same business. You can't help the employer to deceive us! If this girl has a background, the risk will be greater, and we will naturally have to collect more money." The man who spoke before said suspiciously after secretly taking a look into the carriage.
The man driving the cart said impatiently, "She's just a merchant's daughter! Why are you still following her if you're afraid? Why don't you just go to Jizhou with your brothers?"
"Hey, you can't say that. I only collected half of the money before. Now that the person has been caught, you want to go to the employer to claim the credit. What if I don't follow suit and suffer the loss? I also have a group of brothers who need to eat. It's not easy."
The man driving the car snorted coldly: "Whatever you want!"
Upon hearing this, Ren Yaohua realized that there was more than one group of people who had kidnapped her. The two people talking outside were not from the same group. The group of men driving the cart were directly in contact with the employer, while the other man who was talking was from the same group as the people who took Xiangqin and the others away. They seemed to be helpers who were recruited along the way. They were not from Yanzhou and did not know the identities of their employer or her.
Ren Yaohua heard the sound of cattle mooing and the shouts of the herders not far away, which meant there must be someone nearby. Ren Yaohua thought about it and was about to hit the car wall with all his strength to attract attention, but suddenly he heard someone outside the car groan and then fell heavily to the ground.
Ren Yaohua was startled, but then she heard the man driving the carriage say, "Why did you take so long? We just wanted you to pretend so that we could find a chance to kill him. These gangsters don't have good brains, but they're very skilled. They've followed us for such a long distance and there's no chance they can shake him off. Feel his pulse to see if he's dead."
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