Chapter 44
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Chapter 44: Is This Really the End?
On the fifty-second day of exile, the group finally reached Old Cave Village near the border between Xizhou and Daizhou. This was where Wei Huiqing had said prisoners could buy black sheepskin to keep warm.
Villages that worked with the guards would sell one piece of black sheepskin for the price of several whole sheep—exactly the sort of thing they’d do.
Du Yinsui and her companions had hunted many rabbits along the way, even bagging mid-sized deer and roe deer. They saw no reason to waste money on black sheepskin.
Though the guards hated letting prisoners handle sharp tools like scissors—making them beg every time while standing watch with hands on their swords—they did allow needlework at night, collecting it each morning. Except for the little one whose chubby hands couldn’t hold needles, everyone learned Du Yinsui’s rough-but-sturdy sewing. They now had warmth from cotton clothes and quilts traded for ginseng, plus enough hides from the road to make everyone an outfit, with leftovers for padding.
With basic warmth covered, the pricey black sheepskin held no appeal. Better to spend that money at the exile camp in Linzhou.
Jiang Wu’s anxiety grew with every step north. Escape chances often came without warning. Even though Du Yinsui promised to tell him beforehand, he feared she might vanish between blinks.
This constant tension left him jumpy.
Old Cave Village housed the exiles in broken-down houses at its edge. The stoves still worked though. Qin Chongli lit theirs before dinner, so it was perfectly warm when they finished eating.
Du Yinsui had eaten well on the journey. Though the lingering poison prevented her smell from fully recovering, her periods of sharpened senses lasted longer.
After eating, she could once again detect her surroundings. An ordinary village, just reeking of sheep everywhere.
As Du Yinsui started tuning out the smells, a familiar scent suddenly rushed from the left courtyard.
Lying warm on the heated bed—guards hadn’t even locked them in yet—she shot upright.
"You—" Jiang Wu’s heart lurched, but before he finished, she dashed out.
Gone…
Just like that?
He’d imagined this moment countless times—what to say, how to act dignified. Yet now his chest felt like a hollowed-out cave. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t even climb down to look. Frozen stiff.
Was this really the end?
Their final exchange… "Full?" "Full."
Maybe that counted as a plain, practical farewell.
A thousand thoughts tore through Jiang Wu’s mind, but none could bury the stabbing pain.
Uncontrollable tears splattered onto the bedding.
As he sat numb and lost, Du Yinsui bounced back through the doorway, hands behind her back.
Jiang Wu: "…"
"What a good day~~ A good day~~" Humming cheerfully—rare for her—she stopped dead at seeing his tears. "What’s wrong?"
She’d only been gone moments. How could this happen so fast?
Du Yinsui was utterly baffled.
Jiang Wu reacted swiftly this time, wiping his face before stating solemnly: "The stove smoke irritated my eyes."
Qin Chongli, blackened by soot while adding firewood to the corner stove, looked up speechlessly: "Irritated who?"
"…" Jiang Wu unusually pretended not to hear his teacher, turning to Du Yinsui. "Why did you dash outside earlier?"
"Caught an intriguing scent," Du Yinsui answered, retrieving a bamboo water tube from the luggage pile. Turning away to drink, she slipped a small pill into her mouth and swallowed it with water.
"Come to think of it, I never actually left," Du Yinsui added, glancing at Chu Xiulan and the two children already snoring on the heated bed. As she climbed onto the bed, she met the eyes of the still-awake Jiang Wu and Qin Chongli. "None of us went out, understood?"
Before they could question her, a startled shout echoed outside—an elderly man’s voice, seemingly from the neighboring courtyard. The prisoners were housed across three courtyards: Jiang Wu’s group shared with the Li family; the Wei and Liu families shared another; while the Kong family occupied one alone. Two guards stayed in each courtyard.
Qin Chongli couldn’t distinguish whether the shout came from Wei Yuting, Kong Fangqiu, or Liu Yaozu. Regardless, it seemed linked to Du Yinsui’s recent excursion.
After the shout came guards’ commotion, mixed with shouts about rescuing someone.
Qin Chongli decided to investigate. Regardless of Du Yinsui’s involvement, their group ignoring the disturbance would seem suspicious.
Zheng Yi and Ma Datou, guards stationed at their courtyard, also emerged. Qin Chongli trailed them to the neighboring yard.
He returned shortly, visibly relieved. "The Wei family girl’s husband collapsed in the yard. Frightened Wei Yuting and caused the uproar."
"Teacher forgot again," Jiang Wu earnestly corrected. "He’s not her husband, but a man she bought for a third sham marriage to avoid exile."
"Exactly," Qin Chongli nodded. "The guards revived him. Seems fine now."
Du Yinsui rolled the small pill between her fingers. What trouble could arise? Hadn’t he just taken one? She’d even left him an extra. Combined, he had two months to secure medicine. She might decipher the formula first and send him more later.
She rubbed off the last flecks of wax coating the pill. Tsk—sealed in wax and hidden inside a stone button, no wonder her senses hadn’t detected it without her peak powers.
This little thing was what the original Du Yinsui consumed monthly to prolong her life.
Who could’ve guessed? Among these few dozen people, two Jin Kingdom spies hid—an unusually high concentration.
Timing suggested their neighbor had already taken one antidote en route. She’d likely missed it while her powers lay dormant.
Both spies, yet their neighbor carried at least five antidotes. She’d been sent off poisoned with none…
This Jin Kingdom spy ring shouldn’t play favorites.
Alas, the poison suppressed her powers. She could only catch the pill’s general scent, not parse every ingredient and quantity.
Would the pill she just swallowed counteract the poison? Even briefly—just long enough to restore her peak olfactory power for analyzing the formula.
Night deepened. Silence settled over the courtyards.
Unlike Qin Chongli who kept pondering the neighboring courtyard after returning, Jiang Wu didn’t care about next door at all. His attention was entirely focused on Du Yinsui, who had miraculously recovered.
He felt Du Yinsui had been acting strangely ever since she suddenly dashed out earlier. Had Du Yinsui heard Jiang Wu’s thoughts, she would have loudly corrected him—it wasn’t strange, it was…
Du Yinsui, who had been holding the pill with closed eyes, abruptly sat up. Jiang Wu’s heart had been racing nervously, and his body reacted faster than his mind, immediately sitting up as well.
"Cough… what’s wrong…" Jiang Wu whispered cautiously.
In the darkness, Jiang Wu couldn’t clearly see Du Yinsui’s expression, but he inexplicably sensed something odd about the silence filling the room.
"Du girl?" Unable to bear the silence from the person beside him, Jiang Wu steeled himself and called out again.
"Trouble’s coming," Du Yinsui declared, jumping off the kang. She rummaged through the luggage pile on the table, found some paper, tore off a small piece to wrap the pill, then tore a scrap of parchment to add another layer.
The antidote worked. With the poison suppressed, her abilities surged back to their peak. Just one breath allowed her to identify every component and quantity in the pill.
Though last time she hadn’t recognized all the ingredients… several components in this pill remained unknown to her. But it didn’t matter; it just meant visiting a few more pharmacies. If that failed, surely solutions would arise once they reached Jin Kingdom.
Originally, suppressing the poison and regaining her abilities—even temporarily—should have delighted Du Yinsui. But who could have guessed? The moment her powers returned, she detected the scents of sweat and dust, desolation and despair, blood and malice… over twenty people heading straight for Old Cave Village.
Bandits… or refugees?
Du Yinsui guessed they were likely refugees from Daizhou.
Since nearing the Xizhou-Daizhou border days ago, this was already the third refugee group their convoy encountered. The first two appeared during daytime travel, mere handfuls of people. Seeing the convoy with its carts, donkey carts, and guards, they kept their distance.
It was Tan Wang’s caution that spotted something off about those few. After pursuing them for answers, they learned about Daizhou’s pre-harvest drought.
The disaster struck over two months prior, yet Daizhou officials had kept it tightly concealed. Word never reached the capital, nor even neighboring Xizhou. Only this month, with starvation setting in, had people begun fleeing secretly.
Those encountered earlier were the first wave who’d managed to escape.
Perhaps fearing larger waves of refugees, Tan Wang intensified their travel pace—earlier departures, later stops.
The previous small groups posed little threat, but this band of over twenty was clearly targeting Old Cave Village. Worse, the convoy was staying in the village’s outermost dilapidated courtyard, directly in the refugees’ path…
Though Tan Wang’s armed men possessed some combat skills, any conflict might mean guards wouldn’t prioritize protecting prisoners.
Du Yinsui woke Qin Chongli and Chu Xiulan. She retrieved the hidden deer bone for picking locks, keeping it close.
In the lightless room, everyone tensed, clutching firewood and stones, praying the trouble wouldn’t reach their courtyard.
Amidst the tension, Du Yinsui turned her head, glancing at Jiang Wu beside her.
The room remained pitch-black. Even with her restored physique granting better night vision than most, she could only discern silhouettes.
Yet she couldn’t help looking once, then again.
The darkness hid her unconcealable shock and bewilderment.
The moment her abilities returned, Du Yinsui had detected two things: the twenty-some people rushing from afar, and the person beside her…
