"Daohua and Wentao, why haven't they come back yet?"
Outside the woods on top of the carriage, Old Lady Yan stretched her neck peering into the woods from time to time, her face etched with clear worry.
Grandpa Sun was also appearing somewhat anxious, "Old Lady, shall I go and look for them?" The Escort Bureau's horses and carriages had already passed by the previous moment, and if they didn't chase after them now, they were afraid they wouldn't be able to catch up anymore.
Old Lady Yan waved her hand, "No, if you missed them, that would be bad."
Just then, Grandma Sun cried out in surprise.
"They're back, they're back!"
Old Lady Yan and Grandpa Sun both turned their heads joyfully toward the woods. When they saw Wentao carrying a young man on his back and Daohua supporting another, stumbling as they ran over, both of their faces changed dramatically.
"Quick, go and meet them," Old Lady Yan almost instinctively blurted out.
Without another word, Grandpa Sun ran toward the group of four.
With Grandpa Sun's assistance, soon Daohua and the others got on the carriage.
The moment they were on board, Grandpa Sun didn't need to be instructed; he whipped the horses and the carriage sped off.
In the carriage, Daohua didn't have time to explain to Old Lady Yan, rapidly taking out a small porcelain bottle from her bundle: "Third Brother, lift his shirt, I need to apply the medicine."
Yan Wentao immediately did as told, but when he touched the bloody traces on the abdomen of the wounded young man, his hands trembled slightly.
When the injured young man's shirt was lifted, a shocking bloodstain was immediately brought into everyone's sights.
Seeing Daohua clumsily lift the porcelain bottle to pour on the wound of the injured youth, another young man quickly reached out his hand, "His injuries are too serious, we need to find a doctor first, you can't just apply any medicine arbitrarily."
Daohua's eyes widened, "Where can we find a doctor now? By the time you find one, he'll have bled to death."
The young man also knew that finding a doctor at that moment was next to impossible, but he couldn't help feeling worried.
The injured young man got hurt trying to save him; it would be terrible if, instead of dying at the hands of traffickers, he died because of the wrong medicine.
"But... but you can't just apply medicine recklessly, can you?"
"What do you mean recklessly, this is good hemostatic medicine!" The injured young man had already turned somewhat pale due to excessive blood loss, Daohua was anxious and seeing the young man holding on to her not letting go, with an outstretched hand, she directly shoved him away.
Under normal circumstances, the young man surely wouldn't have been pushed away, but he had been starved for several days by the traffickers and had also fought with a woman earlier, he had long since been drained of strength.
Thrown aside, the young man hit his head and immediately passed out, slipping into darkness, he helplessly watched as Daohua scattered some unknown powder onto the injured young man.
The carriage fell silent as Daohua concentrated on applying the medicine.
During this time, Old Lady Yan hadn't said a word until Daohua had finished applying the medicine and the wounded young man had fallen into a coma, only then did she glare furiously at Daohua and Yan Wentao.
...
"Grandmother, don't be angry, Daohua dares not do it again in the future."
"Is there anything you wouldn't dare to do in this world? Look at you, how could you be so bold? Those were murderers and human traffickers; have you ever considered what the consequences would be if they caught you... if by any chance you were taken away by them?"
"And you, Yan Wentao, Daohua doesn't know better, but do you also lack sense? Following her in her reckless endeavors."
"Grandmother, I was wrong."
"You were wrong..."
Amidst his grogginess, Xiao Yeyang vaguely heard three people conversing in whispers. At first, he was somewhat baffled, but as soon as he remembered that he might have escaped from the traffickers, he instantly became alert and abruptly opened his eyes.
This old carriage clearly did not belong to any particularly wealthy or noble family.
At this moment, only he and the stabbed young man were inside the carriage.
Seeing that the stabbed young man's breathing was steady and his complexion was not as pale as he had imagined, Xiao Yeyang secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
"Oh, you're awake?"
Suddenly, the carriage curtain was lifted, and the child who had appeared out of nowhere, bringing down a human trafficker with a single stone, climbed into the carriage.
The child first glanced at him, then turned to look at the boy with the knife wound before producing a water gourd from inside the carriage and handing it to him.
Seeing the boy just staring at himself without taking the water gourd, Daohua rolled her eyes.
Little brat, quite wary, aren't you?
"Drink, it's not poisoned."
Xiao Yeyang hesitated for a moment, then took the water gourd. He wasn't worried about poison, but rather his upbringing had taught him it was best not to casually accept things from strangers.
But now, he was really too hungry.
Culture and etiquette could wait.
"Gulp gulp~"
Xiao Yeyang drank more than half of it in one go. If it weren't for the sight of the child across from him puffing up his cheeks, he might have finished it all.
Feeling a bit sheepish, he returned the water gourd and asked stiffly to relieve the awkwardness, "What kind of broth is this?" It's really tasty!
Even though he had lived in the most prestigious place in the world since he was a child and had seen all sorts of fine things, he had never encountered any food that could compare to the broth in the water gourd.
Moreover, after drinking the broth, his weak and powerless body seemed to suddenly regain strength.
It must be an illusion, right?
Even the best medicinal tonics shouldn't have such miraculous effects!
The water gourd wasn't large. Daohua took it back and shook it, realizing that there was hardly any broth left inside, making her face fall instantly.
There wasn't anything particularly special in the water gourd, just rice broth.
But the ingredients used for making the rice broth were extraordinary, as they were produced in her own Daohua Space.
Yes, a space.
After transporting to the ancient times, it seemed the heavens were worried she wouldn't survive, so they gave her a golden finger— a space, a little green Daohua which grew right in the palm of her right hand.
The space wasn't large. Forget about spiritual springs and chances for immortality. Inside, there were just three plots of land: one of yellow soil, one of red soil, and one of black soil, each only one mu in size.
This space was rather tricky; it needed to regularly absorb the essence of grass and trees from the outside world, with the energy from rice plants being the most optimal.
In short, she had to stay in touch with nature so that the Daohua in her palm would remain lush and glossy.
The lusher the Daohua, the more fertile the soil in the space, and the higher the nutritional value of the things it grew.
She discovered she had a space when she was just six months old.
Back then, she couldn't leave the house to soak up the essence of grass and trees, and the three fields in her space — well, let's not talk about it. They were no better than the cracked and dry land of the north.
After she learned to walk and run, she began the endeavor of enriching the soil of her space.
This enrichment took nine years.
Persistence pays off, and now the output from the soil of the space was definitely several times better than that of the outside world.
The rice broth in the water gourd had been specially prepared for Old Lady Yan.
Over the years, although she would occasionally feed the old lady with food grown in her space, and the old lady's health was much better than ordinary elderly women's, the fact remained that the old lady had aged, and after traveling for over half a month, she was feeling the strain.
Now, her rice broth had been drunk by someone else!
Daohua glared at Xiao Yeyang. Considering there was still someone unconscious in the carriage, she decided to feed the rest of the rice broth in the gourd to him.