He knew in his heart that he was not worth a fart in the little lady’s eyes. How could a young lady that could smack him down from his horse with a slap be an ordinary individual?
Although he was unwilling in his heart, in the end, he knew that discretion was the better part of valor.
Second Manager Qi hastily mounted his horse and frantically ran away in a gallop, even abandoning his subordinates that were standing on the main path.
Everyone broke out into guffaws behind him, but Second Manager Qi could only pretend not to have heard them. He urged his horse to run out of Five Moon City with all his might. Along the way, he thought resentfully: I definitely have to report this incident to State Uncle Zheng upon returning.
After the Zheng Estate’s Second Manager Qi left, Wu Mantian strode towards Qiao Mu with a smile and cupped his hands in greeting. “Little divine doctor, we meet again.”
Qiao Mu had long noticed Wu Mantian and his family. She only nodded her head faintly at him in response. “If it’s convenient, could you lend me a horse and carriage?”
After an hour, Qiao Mu and company departed from Five Moon City.
It’s not that she had to follow Wu Mantian and the others on their journey, but migrating the entire city led to heavy traffic. She practically only saw Five Moon City citizens upon gazing into the distance.
Those at the front were people who possessed horses and carriages.
While those near the back were impoverished elderly, infirm, women, and children. Wu Mantian had positioned himself and his family at the rear of the procession to take care of these women and children.
Wu Mantian especially arranged a rather spacious carriage that was more than sufficient to accommodate around a dozen people.
The person driving the carriage was a merman over fifty years old. Apparently, he was often active on land and was quite skillful at driving carriages.
The most senior mermaid was a woman whose name was Long Xinghua. Apparently, Long[1] was the surname of their royal family, as well as being an ubiquitous surname among their merfolk clan. However, according to Long Xinghua herself, she could only be considered to be from a branch of the royal family, and her bloodline was worlds apart from the sovereign royal family.
The group of merfolk only realized upon conversing that Miss Qiao was a taciturn person. She would basically rarely say one sentence in response to eight to ten of their sentences.
Nevertheless, they liked their savior very much, especially the little girl Long Xianxian, who was also Long Xinghua’s granddaughter.
She stuck close to Qiao Mu the whole time, holding onto her arm and incessantly using her small nose to sniff Qiao Mu’s scent.
A mermaid next to them smiled. “Xianxian, why do you keep clinging onto our savior?”
“The scent on Sister’s body smells really nice.” Long Xianxian replied while holding Qiao Mu’s hand.
“Little Miss, we’re really so grateful that you rescued us.”
Qiao Mu had also noticed by this time that merfolk were mostly chatterboxes.
Especially that Granny Long Xinghua, who had already thanked her eighteen times.
Qiao Mu suddenly turned to Granny Long. “Why do those people want to capture you merfolk? What do they want to do by imprisoning you all?”
Second Manager Qi had captured the females and children of the merfolk clan, both old and young. There were also two to three adolescent male children, but their strength was naturally weaker than that of adults.
“Sigh.” Long Xinghua involuntarily sighed upon starting this topic. “These few years, there’s been a rumor, and we don’t know who started spreading it, but it says that as long as you consume the naga pearls inside the bodies of us merfolk, you will gain immortality and perpetual youth.”
Long Xinghua let out a bitter smile and said, “But in reality, there isn’t even a 100-millionth chance for our bodies to nurture a naga pearl. An absolute majority of merfolk cannot nurture naga pearls.”
Qiao Mu nodded.
“They don’t know this?”
“No, they do know.” Long Xinghua sneered. “But they aren’t resigned and feel that they must dissect us in order to find out whether or not we actually have naga pearls.”
[1] Long means dragon.