Chapter 157 Countermeasures
Mu Xi heard Doctor Luo's footsteps approaching the bedside. The moment her eyelids were opened, she recognized the familiar face and blinked hard.
Doctor Luo immediately understood, slowly sitting down closer, pretending to take her pulse while blocking the view of the woman in black behind her, and continuing to curse: "Who exactly are you people, so bold as to dare to do this? Do you even know who's lying on the bed? In my opinion, you're just pretending to be deaf and dumb..."
He brought his ear close as he spoke.
Mu Xi opened her eyes a crack and took the opportunity to say in the softest voice, "Grab one of them."
"Ahem..." Doctor Luo cleared her throat and sat up straight to indicate that she understood.
The next second, Mu Xi felt her wrist being pinched, and when she opened her eyes again, a woman's figure had already fallen to the ground in front of her.
Mu Xi got up as quickly as possible.
Doctor Luo turned around and quickly raised her hand again.
Mu Xi already held a shard of the bowl she had secretly hidden the night before in her hand, and pressed it against the neck of the unconscious woman lying on the ground: "Don't move... don't move... if you move... this person will die immediately."
The other women in black, whether restrained by Doctor Luo's silver needles or successfully threatened by Mu Xi, did not step forward.
Those who rushed over upon hearing the commotion dared not approach, resulting in a stalemate.
Mu Xi pressed the broken shard of the bowl firmly against the black-clad woman's neck: "I want to see the person behind this."
There was a dark mass of people on the other side, and no one made a sound.
“These people inside won’t be able to move for the time being.” Doctor Luo turned around and took over Mu Xi’s care. “Hmph, they’re just pretending to be deaf and dumb, but this stalemate can’t go on.”
Mu Xi was able to free her hands and slowly stood up: "It won't be a stalemate. Someone should have gone to report the news."
The situation remains deadlocked...
During this period, the hot-tempered person volunteered to take action himself quite a few times, but Mu Xi thought it over and over and felt that it might not be reliable. She was worried that if the porcelain shards were thrown out of control, the person might actually cut their carotid artery and there would be no way to save them.
It's easy for one person to die, but what happens next is not so easy.
As long as they manage to lure Doctor Luo, the two of them working together will make things much easier.
The two of them can get at least one hostage.
Although the hostages were merely servants, these women in black were certainly not ordinary slaves.
Sure enough, soon... a middle-aged woman's voice came from outside: "Your Highness, you should let go, otherwise you will have to taste the effects of the sleeping potion again."
"Sleeping powder?" Mu Xi could only hear his voice, not see him. "I'm confident I can take care of two of you before you use the sleeping powder to knock me out. You probably won't take my life yet, so I'll risk it all to get one more. Let's see if you have more patience or more lives."
Sometimes it comes down to who's more ruthless.
The middle-aged woman was quite adept at negotiation: "It's impossible for the young master to leave, even if it costs them their lives. But if the young master has other requests... I can send your people to serve you. In exchange, how about the young master releases them?"
Mu Xi had already anticipated that a lowly woman in black and a broken piece of bowl wouldn't be of much use.
However, everything must begin with the first step: "Alright, then you must release the people around me now. Also, what about my two hundred followers?"
"They... aren't here, but Your Highness can rest assured, they are safe and sound." After saying this, the middle-aged woman readily ordered, "Let them move freely in this courtyard, but if anyone dares to force their way in or climb over the wall, don't be polite."
"Yes..." At least dozens of people around answered in unison, all of them women.
Mu Xi dared not relax until she saw Mu Xun, Tao'er, Cao Pan'er, Zhe Lan, and Bao Fan and the others appear in her sight, before she asked Doctor Luo to release the woman in black.
Through repeated probing, it turned out the other party's bottom line wasn't high.
Doctor Luo stepped forward, touched the back of the woman in black's head and removed the silver needles, then removed the needles from the other women as well.
Afterwards, all the women in black left, not only leaving the room but also the small courtyard.
Finally, the group reunited.
Mu Xi first went out of the house to check the environment of the courtyard.
The small, square courtyard has walls that seem much higher than those of ordinary courtyards, and all you can see inside is the sky.
Directly opposite the entrance was a row of three connected houses, which was where they would stay for the next three days.
Apart from that, the courtyard was completely empty; there were no artificial hills or trees, and not even a foothold to climb over the wall.
Once you leave the house, you're still trapped in the yard; it's not much different.
“This place is undoubtedly a mountain dwelling.” Doctor Luo stroked his beard. “The water delivered these past two days has a cool, refreshing quality that comes from a spring deep within the mountain.”
Mu Xi turned around and jumped up twice, but could only barely make out what appeared to be mountain peaks in the northern sky. It seemed they were undoubtedly in some deep mountain area.
Mu Xun also circled around and said, “Judging from the height and thickness of this wall, it is definitely not something an ordinary family would own. In addition, those women in black are well-trained in their movements and postures, and are definitely not ordinary mountain bandits. They seem to be… trained in the military, but they are all women, which doesn’t make sense.”
"The military?" Mu Xi suddenly realized something. "Then...were we kidnapped by...the Southern Border Garrison? Could they be Dai Rong's men?"
If so, then it's truly a case of finding something you've been searching for without any effort.
Even before arriving in the Southern Territory, Mu Xi had already secretly spread the word that the "Envoy to Pacify the South," Prince Mu Xi of Jinfang, was looking for the whereabouts of General Dai Rong, and that anyone who provided information or could bring him to him would be richly rewarded.
Mu Xun was far from optimistic, his brows furrowed: "We haven't even stepped into the core area where Dai Rong is stationed, and we've already been ambushed. The enemy is well-prepared, but they're using methods like sleeping powder, which aren't very harmful. Their intention is to capture us alive and cut off all communication. If it were Dai Rong, would he dare to do this? Wouldn't that be tantamount to rebellion?"
“This doesn’t seem like a rebellion, otherwise I wouldn’t have been unharmed these past two days, and you wouldn’t have even bothered to tie me up, which is quite polite of you.” Mu Xi’s mind raced, connecting the dots. “What’s the biggest upheaval in the Southern Territory right now? Zhu Mingjun’s abduction? General Dai’s disappearance? These two things must be related, and we’ve appeared in the Southern Territory rather abruptly… so it’s possible that someone doesn’t want us to accomplish these two things…”
"Has Dai Rong already colluded with the pirates?" Mu Xun speculated.
Mu Xi felt that it didn't seem right: "If that were the case, I'm afraid we wouldn't be so polite, would we?"
Mu Xun then remembered something else: "I heard that Dai Rong's wife, Bai, also comes from a military family. With so many female soldiers here, could it be that Bai was instructed by Dai Rong to do this?"
"A daughter of a military family? And she even has her own female soldiers?" Mu Xi suddenly became interested, and felt it was highly likely. "The middle-aged woman who spoke just now was very likely her. If that's the case, then some things are really hard to say..."
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