Ning Dao Covered with Snow

Chapter 173 The Heart of Gossip
The two sides met each other.

Xiao Wang noticed that Yan Ciwan's cloak had been shortened. His expression remained unchanged, but his lips slightly pursed. But then he noticed that the scarf and gloves she was wearing were given by him, and the corners of his lips immediately rose again.

When Li Chengge saw him, he keenly noticed that he was in a good mood, so he asked curiously.

"What good thing happened to you today?"

Xiao Wang smiled: "Guess."

Li Chengge looked him up and down, and asked in a serious tone, "I see you look like a romantic, are you lucky in love?"

This was obviously a joke, but Xiao Wang did not deny it.

Not denying it is the same as acquiescing! Li Chengge's curiosity suddenly arose, and he hurriedly asked, "Which beautiful girl is this?"

Xiao Wang answered irrelevantly: "It's getting late, we should set off."

Uncle Jiu happened to bring his horse over at this time, and Xiao Wang immediately jumped on the horse. Li Chengge quickly rode after him and asked persistently: "Cousin, don't pretend you can't hear me. Tell me, who do you like?"

Yan Ciwan rode in a carriage with Chaolu, Liu and Luhua.

The journey was long and boring, so Chaolu and Liu took out medical books to read, while Luhua took out an unfinished handkerchief and began to do housework.

Yan Ciwan had no interest in medical books, nor did she like doing housework, so she simply closed her eyes, crossed her legs, practiced her internal energy, and began to learn the secret of longevity.

When her mother taught her the Changsheng Jue, it was not the original, but a copy that her mother had written down by hand, and there were three pages missing at the end. Her mother told her that the Ning family had been annihilated because of this Changsheng Jue, and the clan leader did not want the evildoers to succeed, so he tore off the last three pages of the Changsheng Jue. Later, the original Changsheng Jue was taken away, and her mother only had the handwritten copy left.

Later, Yan Ciwan slowly figured it out during the practice process, and relying on his own repeated attempts, he finally completed the three missing pages of content.

After Yan Ciwan mastered the secret of immortality, his mother burned it with her own hands. She said that only in this way could she prevent those with ulterior motives from coveting it.

This was how they spent almost every day until more than a month later, when they finally approached the border of Yizhou.

The terrain of Yizhou is quite special. It is a large basin surrounded by mountains with an endless plain in the middle. If you want to enter Yizhou, you must first cross mountains and ridges.

The mountain road was rugged and the carriage was difficult to move, so the journey was forced to slow down a lot.

They originally thought that there would be no inns in such a mountainous area, and everyone was mentally prepared to sleep in the wild, but they did not expect to see a house with lights on in the evening.

Cha Bingliang went forward and knocked on the door, and saw a middle-aged woman in a coarse cloth dress opening the door.

When the woman heard that they wanted to stay for one night, she was very enthusiastic.

She first asked her eldest son to help arrange the carriage and horses, and then asked her eldest daughter-in-law to boil water and cook.

"Dear guests, please take a seat. This country place is very shabby. Please don't despise it."

After Yan Ciwan and his group sat down on the mat, the eldest daughter-in-law came out carrying a heavy pottery jar.

The woman took the pottery jar and scooped tea out of it.

It is called tea, but it is actually a hot soup made with dogwood and shredded ginger.

Yan Ci Wan looked around. The small main room was simply decorated. There wasn't even a decent chair. The floor was covered with straw mats, and a rattan mat was placed on top. In the middle was a low square table, and this table was the only furniture in the room.

At this moment, everyone was sitting on rattan mats, and the woman was distributing tea to everyone.

When Yan Ci Wan took the coarse porcelain bowl, she noticed that the woman's hands were covered with calluses, especially the calluses around the base of her palms, which were particularly thick.

She thanked him first, then asked, "What's your name, madam?" The woman smiled brightly and said, "My maiden name is Wang, and I'm the third child in my family. You can just call me Wang Sanniang. It's freezing outside, and you must be freezing after a whole day's journey. Hurry up and drink some ginger soup to get rid of the cold. I'll go to the kitchen to see if dinner is ready."

After saying this, she lifted the door curtain on the left and left in a hurry.

Yan Ciwan saw Liu staring at the ginger soup in the bowl without moving, so he asked what was wrong?
Liu hesitated for a moment before saying, "This ginger soup smells a little strange. It seems like something else has been added to it."

Upon hearing this, everyone present was stunned.

Du Lingzhou, who had just finished drinking half a bowl of ginger soup, suddenly looked very excited. He stammered, "Don't scare me, what's wrong with this soup?"

Liu leaned close to the bowl and smelled it carefully. Although the smell of ginger and dogwood was very strong, she could still distinguish them.

"It should be Datura."

Du Lingzhou quickly asked: "What is Datura? Is it poisonous?"

"Datura datura is a medicinal herb introduced from the Western Regions. It has another name, called Datura flower, and it is poisonous."

Du Lingzhou was anxious: "What should I do? Will I be poisoned to death?"

Liu comforted him, "Datura is very rare. It's hard to buy it even if you have money. There's only a small amount of datura in this soup. It's not enough to kill you. At most, it will just make you sleep for a night."

Du Lingzhou felt relieved to learn that he would not die. However, the more he thought about it, the angrier he became. He picked up the remaining half bowl of ginger soup and was about to throw it on the ground.

Yan Ciwan suddenly shouted, "Who's outside?!"

Du Lingzhou was so frightened that he paused.

Everyone turned their heads and looked towards the door.

A figure flashed by behind the door curtain. Uncle Jiu rushed forward, lifted the door curtain and chased after him.

Yan Ciwan got up and walked to the door, lifted the curtain on the left. Behind the door was a kitchen. Firewood was burning in the stove and there was a steamer in the pot. As for Wang Sanniang and her eldest daughter-in-law, they had disappeared long ago.

They must have overheard the conversation between Yan Ciwan and his group just now, and when they realized their identities were exposed, they ran away early.

After a long while, Uncle Jiu came back. His face was as gloomy as water and his brows were furrowed. “That man ran very fast. I couldn’t catch up with him.”

Li Chengge asked: "Are these people bandits?"

Xiao Wang pondered, "How could an ordinary bandit have such a precious medicinal herb as Datura stramonium, which is unique to the Western Regions?"

Chaolu asked cautiously, "Are we still going to stay here tonight?"

After some discussion, everyone finally decided to spend the night here. Even though Wang Sanniang and her gang had bad intentions, they had already fled, so this place was safe for the time being. As long as they didn't touch the food left by Wang Sanniang, there shouldn't be any problem.

Uncle Jiu went to the backyard to check every house, and unexpectedly found a pair of grandparents and grandchildren tied up in the woodshed.

They were brought to Yan Ciwan and his group.

The old man looked to be in his fifties, with gray hair and a thin face full of wrinkles. The boy in his arms looked only seven or eight years old and was very skinny.

The grandfather and grandson looked at the group of strangers in front of them and knelt down with a thud.

The old man kowtowed and begged, "Please have mercy on us! We know nothing and we didn't intend to hurt anyone!"

(End of this chapter)