The True Thousand Gold Possessions of the Myriad Realms Trading System

As Ruan Mianmian and her group frantically collected bamboo slips, books, and made rubbings of stone tablets, night fell.

Prefect Tao yawned repeatedly, but refused to go to sleep.

He wanted to verify whether the pill was truly poison and could control him.

If so, he can only temporarily avoid confrontation, or try to befriend them in exchange for such poison to control the powerful clans that are useful to him.

If it weren't for the poison, he planned to write a letter overnight and send it to a nearby city, asking the troops of the powerful clans or royal families to come and fight, capture those three damned men, and then cut them into a thousand pieces.

As the time drew near, he asked again and again what time it was.

When the maidservant came to report that it was already 7:45 PM, Prefect Tao's stomach showed no abnormalities.

He patted his stomach and sneered, "How dare they bully me! I'll write to the Prince's troops right now and have them capture those three thieves. Men—"

Before he could finish speaking, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his stomach.

Prefect Tao clutched his stomach, writhing in pain and unable to stand. He sat on the ground in agony, hugging his knees, cold sweat pouring down his forehead.

"Ah..." He tried to hold back, but finally lost his aristocratic upbringing and cried out in pain.

But he didn't want to be controlled, so he hurriedly called someone to bring him Wushi Powder, thinking that taking the powder might relieve the pain.

To his surprise, after taking the medicine, he not only did not get better, but seemed to be in even more pain.

He didn't know how much time had passed, but just as Prefect Tao felt that he was living a life worse than death and was about to end it all, the intense pain that had been raging in his stomach suddenly disappeared without a trace.

It was as if he had never had a stomachache.

But his sweat-soaked clothes and hair, and the sweat still streaming down his face, told him that he had indeed been tormented by stomach pain to the point of wishing he were dead.

Having experienced such pain, Prefect Tao no longer dared to have any thoughts of resistance. His first decision was to do everything he could to befriend Ruan Mianmian and the other two, hoping they would hint at the antidote, and then try to flatter them to see if there was any chance to exchange it for a dose of poison.

That medicine was personally concocted by Ruan Mianmian, and its purpose was to threaten people, so its effects were naturally outstanding.

So when she was collecting bamboo slips and books in the wild, she never even considered what would happen if the medicine didn't work and Magistrate Tao would turn against her.

The presence of even more soldiers and the obsequious Prefect Tao the next day further proved the medicine's effectiveness.

The world is vast, and Ruan Mianmian didn't have time to waste with Prefect Tao's idle chatter. She quickly found an excuse and went back to her work.

Fearing that the soldiers might not follow the rules, she released a puppet robot to keep an eye on them.

Beside the official road outside the city, Ruan Mianmian sensed some bamboo slips in a dried-up puddle in the river and went to pick them up.

Upon approaching, they saw a woman, barely clothed, with two large-headed dolls scooping water from a puddle to drink.

She was startled and cried out, "Don't drink—" while waving her hand to throw the water out of the three people's hands.

The three men looked alarmed when they saw Ruan Mianmian and quickly retreated to the side, not daring to say a word.

Ruan Mianmian stepped forward and asked urgently, "How much water from here did you drink just now?"

"I didn't know this water belonged to a noble person, please spare my life—" The woman, who was barely clothed, was so frightened that she immediately kowtowed.

The two big-headed girl dolls also kowtowed.

Seeing the pitiful state of the mother and her two daughters, Ruan Mianmian couldn't bear to see them kowtowing. She quickly waved her sleeve to stop them and said softly, "This puddle doesn't belong to me, and anyone can use it. However, there was a plague outbreak before, and this puddle also contains the plague poison. If people drink from it, they will also get the plague."

Upon hearing about the plague, the already pale faces of the mother and her two daughters turned even more ashen, and they trembled uncontrollably.

Ruan Mianmian took out three pills and handed them over: "These are pills to treat the epidemic. Take them." After thinking for a moment, she threw three bottles of mineral water to the three of them, "Use this water to swallow the pills."

Fearing the three of them wouldn't know how to use it, she took out a bottle of mineral water herself, unscrewed the cap, and drank from it.

The mother and her two daughters were overjoyed that Ruan Mianmian would so readily give them so much water, and they began to kowtow again, saying, "Thank you, fairy! Thank you, fairy!"

But they still couldn't kowtow; they just nodded slightly, thanking her as they did so, which didn't seem strange at all.

Ruan Mianmian told them to drink water and take their medicine first. After they had all taken their medicine, she asked, "Why are you lingering here?"

Due to the drought, most of the people here fled to escape the famine. Even those who did not flee mostly entered the city or lived near the city.

Such a wilderness should not be inhabited by anyone.

Upon hearing Ruan Mianmian's question, the woman burst into tears, and while crying, she told Ruan Mianmian the reason.

It turned out that she and her two daughters had fled the famine with their family, but during the escape, food and water gradually decreased. Her husband's family then planned to abandon the mother and her two daughters. However, since they had fled the famine together with the villagers, abandoning them without reason would surely cause dissatisfaction among the clan.

Unfortunately, the woman fell ill as soon as she arrived.

The husband's family was overjoyed. They pretended to leave a bag full of bean pods and mung beans, told their two daughters to take good care of their mother, cried again, and then left reluctantly.

On the road to escape famine, abandoning a patient who cannot be saved would not be criticized. The husband's family thought that they were very kind as they had "generously" given a large bag of food.

Ruan Mianmian generated the above version based on her own understanding. She was very angry when she heard it. She looked at the mother and her two daughters, thinking that they should unite against a common enemy. However, she found that when they were telling the story, there was no dissatisfaction or resentment on their faces. Instead, they had a sense of guilt for "implicating their family members". She was very surprised.

“You are their family, and they abandoned you. That’s absolutely wrong!” she couldn’t help but say.

The woman coughed a few times and hurriedly explained, "It's not my husband's fault. It's just that my health is so poor that I almost burdened them. Fortunately, they passed away first and were not affected by me. If I had truly passed on my illness, then it would have been my fault."

What is this nonsense?

Ruan Mianmian hadn't been this angry in a long time. With a burst of strength from her five fingers, she crushed a stone into powder.

Upon seeing this, the mother and her two daughters were so frightened that they immediately knelt down again.

Ruan Mianmian swiftly stopped the three from kneeling, suppressing her anger as she said, "Put yourself in their shoes. If your husband were sick, would you abandon him? You wouldn't, would you? Then your husband should do the same. You—"

"How can I compare to my husband?" The woman was terrified and hurriedly interrupted Ruan Mianmian.

Ruan Mianmian's words were stuck in her throat. She took a deep breath, took out three steamed buns, and handed them to the three of them.

While the three of them were eating steamed buns, she was still unwilling to give up, so she started telling them again that their family was wrong to abandon them, and she proved this conclusion from various aspects. She spoke eloquently and persuasively, but it was all in vain.

Ruan Mianmian: "..."

Let's continue to salvage the books and bamboo slips. Even accidentally finding gold and jade that fell from a wealthy family is a great gain.