"How did you survive after being thrown off the cliff?"
Li Yueshu asked slowly, a hint of sourness rising in her heart.
Sensing the unusual tone in her voice, Qin Moyuan suddenly regretted letting her see his injuries.
He subconsciously withdrew his hand. "It's nothing. When I fell, I landed in a tree nestled in a crevice of the rocks, and I climbed back up the cliff."
"It was a blessing in disguise, letting me discover the secret room they had hidden on the cliff."
He spoke lightly, but Li Yueshu knew the danger involved was far from simple.
She opened her mouth, but seeing Qin Moyuan's feigned nonchalance, she ultimately said nothing.
"Come here, I'll tend to your wounds."
The indifferent tone revealed no particular emotion, yet Qin Moyuan inexplicably became obedient.
Turning away from everyone's sight, Li Yueshu directly produced hydrogen peroxide from her space to clean the wound.
Qin Moyuan was accustomed to her always producing all sorts of strange things out of nowhere. Seeing her deliberately keep her distance from others but not from him, he was secretly delighted.
Li Yueshu didn't notice someone's little thoughts. She quickly cleaned the wound on his hand and then began to bandage the scratches on his arm.
Just as she finished, hurried footsteps suddenly echoed.
Zhou Chen and the others thought Xie Qizhi had returned with reinforcements, so they quickly picked up their weapons and vigilantly watched the approaching torches.
As the figures drew nearer, everyone realized they were government soldiers.
The man riding at the forefront was someone they knew.
Li Yueshu nimbly tied the bandage, turned, and walked over quickly. "Young Master Wei, why are you here?"
Seeing her turn away without looking back, Qin Moyuan instinctively clenched his fist, only to realize his hands were completely bound and he couldn't make a fist.
He angrily lowered his hand, then quickly followed, standing by Li Yueshu's side.
Wei Zimiao dismounted, directly ignoring the wary gazes around him, and looked at Li Yueshu with a gentle smile. "I heard Madam Shen's children were kidnapped by bandits from Qingyong Mountain, so I rushed here with my men. Are you alright?"
Li Yueshu noticed his somewhat haggard appearance; it was clear he hadn't rested much on his journey.
She shook her head and looked behind him. "How many men did you bring?"
Wei Zimiao assessed her, ensuring she was unharmed, and then breathed a sigh of relief. "I brought two hundred men initially. The rest of the main force will arrive tomorrow morning."
"Two hundred men?" Li Yueshu was shocked. "Two hundred men can drive away hundreds of bandits from Qingyong Mountain?"
Qin Moyuan was also surprised.
Although he hadn't encountered the Qingyong Mountain bandits before, he knew the court had sent troops to suppress them multiple times without success. He never expected Wei Zimiao to have succeeded in taking their stronghold with just two hundred men.
Wei Zimiao smiled gently, neither proud nor impatient. "I divided the two hundred men into more than a dozen small teams and attacked Qingyong Mountain from different directions. Originally, I only planned to send one or two people to gather information and act when the main force arrived tomorrow morning."
"I didn't expect Qingyong Mountain to be in such chaos internally, so I ordered each team to feign an attack as if they had hundreds of men. The bandits were all scared away."
He spoke casually, but in such a sudden situation, making a quick judgment and employing such a bold strategy required great courage.
Qin Moyuan, who always valued talent, looked at Wei Zimiao with less hostility, but remained vigilant.
This man had ulterior motives towards Ah Shu, and had even deliberately instigated Ah Shu to divorce him before. This was unforgivable!
Wei Zimiao glanced at the person beside him, his smile unchanged. His eyes seemed to gleam with a different light in the firelight.
But in an instant, he averted his gaze.
Li Yueshu didn't notice their subtle exchange, her mind filled with shock at Wei Zimiao's intelligence.
But thinking about his character in the original novel, it seemed normal.
"In that case, we shouldn't linger here," Li Yueshu said. "If those bandits realize what's happening, we'll be in big trouble."
Wei Zimiao nodded and immediately arranged for people to escort Li Yueshu and the children down the mountain. He himself led his men on a brief tour of the mountain to see if anything had been overlooked.
However, he didn't expect to find a mountain of piled-up white bones at the bottom of the cliff behind the mountain stronghold.
Seeing this scene, Wei Zimiao and his men couldn't help but feel a chill run down their spines.
How many people had died to create such a mountain of bones!
Wei Zimiao noted the location and then led his men away, planning to return with the main force tomorrow morning to bury these people.
...
By the time Wei Zimiao arrived at the village where Li Yueshu and the others were resting with his men, dawn had broken.
Exhausted from the night's events, Li Yueshu was still asleep.
Shen Zhiyu had clearly been frightened and, even in his sleep, held Li Yueshu tightly.
It wasn't until almost noon that everyone gradually woke up.
Meanwhile, Wei Zimiao had already led his men up Qingyong Mountain for follow-up clean-up operations.
Hearing that Wei Zimiao hadn't slept at all last night and had gone up Qingyong Mountain after breakfast, Li Yueshu couldn't help but be surprised.
He had rushed here from Hongning City so quickly, he must not have rested on the way. And now, he had been busy since last night. Could his body withstand it?
Li Yueshu was a little worried.
After all, Wei Zimiao's body had been harmed by poison since childhood. Even after detoxification, his fundamental health had been compromised and would take years to recover.
Therefore, after Wei Zimiao returned, Li Yueshu specially checked him.
Wei Zimiao's complexion was indeed very poor. The bumpy journey had indeed taken a toll on his body. Li Yueshu prescribed a few doses of medicine and told him to rest.
As for the aftermath of Qingyong Mountain, Chai Yang would handle it.
Seeing her concern for Wei Zimiao, Qin Moyuan felt a pang of jealousy but didn't say much.
After all, Wei Zimiao had helped them this time.
Everyone remained in the village to recuperate. Li Yueshu, as the only doctor, was naturally the busiest.
While changing Qin Moyuan's dressing, she suddenly remembered something and asked, "You said yesterday there was a secret room under the cliff. What was inside?"
Qin Moyuan shook his head, but seeing that she was looking down and tending to his wound and hadn't noticed, he said, "I don't know."
Li Yueshu looked up in surprise. "Then what you said to Xie Qizhi yesterday..."
"I was trying to scare him," Qin Moyuan said with a slight smile. "When I climbed up from the cliff, I did find a secret room, but I guessed you wouldn't wait for news and would risk coming up the mountain, so I didn't go inside to check."
"Although the matter of the Qingyong Mountain bandits was not my responsibility, as the Regent of Chennan Kingdom, I naturally paid attention to it. I had investigated earlier that there were people behind Qingyong Mountain, but before I could deal with it, I took the four children to Tongmu County."
Who would have thought that the secret room contained the biggest secret of Qingyong Mountain?
Li Yueshu took out some gauze, pondered for a moment, and asked, "Do you know who the person behind Xie Qizhi is?"