The man gave an awkward cough before pushing on shamelessly. “Honoured Lady, could you give us the leftover porridge?”

As the man was asking this, all eyes in the tent were fixed on him in anticipation.

Chu Lian frowned as if she hadn’t expected such a question from him. Her brows were furrowed in thought for about two seconds before she finally made a decision.

Under the man’s intent gaze, she nodded unhappily. “Okay, but you have to let me serve the porridge.”

The starving kidnappers would agree to anything as long as they could have the food.

The three men glanced at the thick-lipped woman, taking pleasure in her misfortune, but they turned away after getting glared at.

As expected, when they watched Chu Lian split the pot of porridge into four bowls, three of the bowls had about the same amount but the fourth bowl only had half as much. Chu Lian pointed out the smallest bowl of porridge with puffed cheeks, indicating that it was meant for the thick-lipped woman, before stomping off to one corner.

𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

The tall man patted the thick-lipped woman’s shoulder before taking away the biggest bowl.

The mutton porridge was just too fragrant. For people like them who hadn’t even eaten plain rice porridge for the longest time, it was an irresistible gourmet dish.

All of them took a deep breath and buried their heads in the porridge once they got their bowls.

While they were occupied with their food, they didn’t notice that Chu Lian hadn’t eaten any of her porridge. She was only eating the grilled meat she had put on top of the porridge.

That one bowl of porridge wasn’t enough to fill them up. The three men and one woman wanted to lick their empty bowls clean. In their eyes, Chu Lian had eaten from the same pot of porridge, so there wasn’t any chance of it being poisoned.

Chu Lian slowly chewed through the food in her bowl. After fifteen minutes, she sneaked a glance at the other people in the tent.

They were leaning against a corner of the tent, completely down for the count.

Excitement brewed in Chu Lian’s chest. She did it! She did it in the end!

She had first acted like a useless noble lady to lower their guard before using food to lure them into her trap. Chu Lian set down her bowl and patted her chest.

She didn’t dare to waste any second of her hard-earned time. First, she kept her dagger back where she had been hiding it and wrapped her fox fur cloak tightly around her. She then packed all the food she hadn’t used to take away with her.

Just as she walked up to the tent flap, she heard a weakened whisper from behind. Chu Lian froze and turned around, only to see the thick-lipped woman glaring at her fiercely. The woman used all of her strength to spit out, “You... You actually drugged us!”

Chu Lian hadn’t expected the woman to be awake. That was most likely because she had eaten less of the porridge than the others.

However, even though she had managed to keep her consciousness, her body was already paralysed and she didn’t even have the strength to stand up.

Chu Lian knew how strong the drug was supposed to be and she couldn’t leave the woman awake in the tent. She gritted her teeth and turned around. The young lady picked up the sword next to the woman and slammed the hilt of it on the back of her head forcefully.

With a grunt, the woman finally lost consciousness.

Once the woman had fainted, Chu Lian collapsed on the ground. She threw away the sword in her hands as sweat ran down her forehead.

She quickly forced herself to calm down and overcame the weakness in her legs. Grabbing her bag, she hurriedly left the tent.

Actually, if she had been able to, it would have been better to eliminate them while they were still unconscious so she wouldn’t be pursued. However, Chu Lian didn’t dare to kill another human being. The modern world she had been raised in had shaped her worldview. She wasn’t a cold and detached person as well.

She couldn’t commit murder, not because she was a saint, but because of her nature.

The environment she had come from determined that she would never be able to do something like that.

Once she left the tent, Chu Lian bumped right into another person- the barbarian woman she had seen outside the tent last night.

Chu Lian tried to get away from her in a panic, but the barbarian woman caught hold of her wrist.

She looked up at the woman with wide eyes in shock. A million thoughts flew through her mind as she bit her lip. However, since the barbarian woman hadn’t said anything yet, she forced herself to calm down yet again and remain silent.

If she made any sound and alerted the other people in this area, they would surely find out that she had drugged the four people in the tent. She wouldn’t be able to control what happened afterwards.

As Chu Lian stared at the barbarian woman in uncertainty and bewilderment, she finally spoke up with some difficulty. To Chu Lian’s surprise, it was poorly pronounced Chinese.

“I dake yew away.”

Chu Lian had expected the woman to shout and call the others, but never in her wildest dreams had she thought that the woman would say something like that.

She had also used the official language of the Great Wu Dynasty. Even though the pronunciation was a little off, Chu Lian had been able to understand it.

Despite how amazed she was, Chu Lian didn’t trust the barbarian woman immediately. There was no such thing as a free lunch in this world. She wasn’t as gullible as her young appearance might lead others to believe.

When the barbarian saw that Chu Lian was still frowning and that her eyes were filled with distrust, she got a little anxious. She quickly said another string of words.

“He Changdi!”

There were no more words to describe the extent of Chu Lian’s astonishment. She quickly asked, “Auntie, you know He Changdi?”