Chapter 47 - 47 Mother Has Returned
47 Mother Has Returned
“Ms. Heroine, please save me. I beg you.”
Su Ying helped her up. “Cry your heart out first. We can talk after you’ve cried enough.”
The woman choked back her tears.
Su Ying saw that she wasn’t reacting emotionally anymore and felt that she had already calmed down. “Tell me. What happened?”
The woman suddenly stopped crying. She sobbed a little and said, “I came into the city with my parents yesterday, but I accidentally got separated from them. When I was searching for my parents, I was kidnapped and when I woke up, I found myself here.”
Su Ying recalled that when those people wanted to kidnap her, the first thing they did was drug her. Not surprisingly, she held her breath immediately so that the drug didn’t work on her. She pretended to be unconscious because she wanted to know what those two people were up to. After all, they had been following her ever since she left the inn.
In that case, that fellow Master Qian was probably in the business of buying and selling women.
“Have you seen any other woman who suffered the same fate as you?”
The woman nodded. “Yes, yes. They… they are locked in the room at the back.”
Su Ying turned around and walked to the back of the house. She kicked the door lock off and walked in, only to realize that there were at least a dozen women in the room.
“All of you were kidnapped?”
“Yes, yes. You… can you save us?”
One of the women looked at Su Ying expectantly.
Su Ying frowned. It wasn’t difficult to bring one or two people out, but it was tough to bring so many people out without being discovered.
Moreover, even if she saved these women tonight, Master Qian that festering evil was still around. If this root of the evil was not eliminated entirely, there would be other innocent women who would be captured in the future.
“I will save you, but before that, you have to stay here quietly and act as if nothing has happened, understand?”
When the women heard that they could be saved, they hurriedly nodded their heads.
Su Ying left the room and said to the woman she had rescued earlier, “I’ll bring you out of the residence first. After that, you do as I say. I can guarantee that you and everyone in the house will be rescued.”
The woman answered as she nodded, “Thank you, Ms. Heroine. I’ll do anything you want.”
“Let’s leave this place first.”
Su Ying led the woman and evaded the guards as they crept their way out of the Qian residence. After they left, Su Ying did not stop moving and straightaway brought the woman to the entrance of Prince Ma’s Palace.
“Prince Ma’s Palace is located opposite. When the sun rises, you’ll go to Prince Ma’s Palace and cry… saying…”
The woman was a little afraid when she heard Su Ying’s words, but Su Ying said with a determined expression, “If you don’t go, there’s a possibility that you’ll be captured again by those scoundrels in the future. Think about it yourself.”
In the end, the woman gritted her teeth and ran to Prince Ma’s Palace when the sun was about to rise.
“Your Highness, please save us! I beg Your Highness to save us!”
The guards of Prince Ma’s Palace saw someone rushing to the entrance of the palace and quickly stepped forward to stop her.
“Who’s there? Leave this place at once.”
The woman was afraid, but she gritted her teeth and said, “It’s Su Ying. It’s a woman called Su Ying who asked me to come to Prince Ma’s Palace to ask for help. Please, I beg His Highness to save us.”
When the guard heard the words “Su Ying,” they stopped in their tracks. Su Ying had saved the Princess Consort’s life, and this was no longer a secret in Prince Ma’s Palace. Now that the Prince’s benefactor had come knocking on their door, they naturally had to report this to Prince Ma.
“Wait here first.”
Prince Ma and Sima Chen were discussing matters in the study when they suddenly heard the guard requesting to report an urgent matter, so they let him in.
“What’s the matter?”
“Your Highness, just now, a woman came to the door to ask for help. She said that she had been captured by people who intended to sell her off. There were more than a dozen people who had been captured along with her, and one of them was a woman named Su Ying. Su Ying had asked her to come to Prince Ma’s Palace to ask for help.”
“What did you just say? Su Ying? Su Ying was captured too?” Sima Chen immediately jumped up from his chair.
“Yes. When I found out about this, I immediately came to report to you, Your Highness.”
“Father, allow me to go. I will go and save them,” Sima Chen said anxiously.
Prince Ma frowned. Sima Chen’s body could not withstand too much agitation. “Don’t be anxious. I will send people to save her.”
“Thank you, Father.”
Su Ying sat cross-legged in a secluded alley opposite Prince Ma’s Palace. When she saw the soldiers from Prince Ma’s Palace heading for the Qian residence with that woman in tow, she got up and dusted off her clothes.
She planned to exchange more silver to buy more stuff before leaving the city.
When Su Ying had almost finished cleaning out all the food items from the shops on the entire street, she mounted her horse in satisfaction and left the city.
After leaving Prince Ma City, Su Ying spread out the map she had taken from Prince Ma’s Palace.
Xiao Jin had said that the nearest city to Prince Ma City was more than 30 miles away, and there was no place to replenish their supplies along the way. Although the number of people in the group had been reduced by more than half, their rations could only last for half a month at most. Therefore, they had to reach the next city within half a month, which was Yan City.
The terrain from Prince Ma City to Yan city was mostly flat, so taking the official road was almost the same as taking a shortcut. If Su Ying rode a horse and tried to make up for lost time day and night, she should be able to catch up with the group in two days.
When she thought of this, Su Ying didn’t waste any more time. She whipped her horse and it galloped away.
In the Qian residence, Master Qian had just woken up when he heard a servant report in a panic that people from Prince Ma’s Palace had arrived. Before he could figure out what was going on, he was arrested by the guards of Prince Ma’s Palace who had rushed into the house.
The women who were locked up in the Qian residence were also rescued.
However, the palace guards could not find any sign of Su Ying no matter how hard they searched. They could only bring the woman who had gone to seek help back to Prince Ma and Sima Chen.
“Your Highness, Your Highness, please spare me. I didn’t speak the truth before.”
Prince Ma’s face turned ominous. “Speak. What were you hiding?”
The woman’s voice trembled as she said, “It… it was a lady heroine named Su Ying who rescued me. After she brought me out of the Qian residence, she told me to go to Prince Ma’s Palace to ask for help. She also said that if the Prince knew that Su Ying was also captured, he would definitely help. I… I simply did as she instructed…”
Prince Ma knitted his brows in displeasure. So Su Ying was trying to make use of him!
When Sima Chen heard this, he let out a sigh of relief. It was good that Su Ying was not in danger, but another thought immediately occurred to him. Even when she wanted to ask for help, she was not willing to show herself. Could it be that she was so unwilling to see him?
Sima Chen felt his heart suffocating unbearably.
However, no matter how awful he felt, Su Ying would never know.
Su Ying rode the horse and hurried onward madly. She didn’t even stop to rest at night. After almost two days and two nights, she finally caught a glimpse of the group not far away.
At noon, when the sun was at its hottest, Li Da got his men to locate a shady place to rest.
He had just taken a sip of water when he heard the sound of galloping horse hooves.
Everyone’s attention was attracted by the commotion and they raised their heads to look. They saw Su Ying approaching them on a horse.
Her long hair was neatly tied into a ponytail, and as the horse galloped, she looked like a general who had returned triumphantly. She did not look like an exile at all.
The two little ones in Xiao Jin’s arms sprang up excitedly when they saw Su Ying.
“Mother! It’s Mother. Mother has returned!”