When Lu Qing said this, Lu Yan cald down quite a bit, furrowing his brow as he thought it over, seemingly finding so truth in it.
"So you’re saying... the person has been hard?" he asked, sowhat irritated.
Lu Qing shook his head calmly, not at all swayed by his emotions, and said unhurriedly, "What I an is, as you said, it’s possible that your people have indeed been hard.
But it’s also possible they’ve been imprisoned elsewhere.
After all, mixing them with other unknown people, if by chance they wake up from the drug’s effects, gather evidence, and look for a chance to escape, the risk would be too great.
As for whether those people are being held as future bargaining chips with the court, or with you, or for so other intention, we can’t just speculate.
If you’re unwilling to give up and want to look for them, I won’t stop you. I’ll only remind you to tread carefully."
Lu Yan released his grip in frustration, sighed heavily, hesitated briefly, and slapped his thigh: "I’ll go explore and co back quickly!"
With that, he went to Yan Daoxin for a pill of Awakening Pills, swallowed it down without water, leaped onto the wall, and quickly disappeared into the distance.
"You’re really not going to stop him?" Yan Daoxin asked as he replaced the lid on a gourd.
Lu Qing shook his head: "No, what’s the use of stopping him? Would he be content?"
"That’s true, his nature is such that stopping him would only make it harder to stop him." Yan Daoxin nodded in agreent.
While talking, Lu Qing quickly approached Zhu Yu and squatted down: "What’s wrong? What’s amiss here?"
"I think I’ve found the source of the seductive fragrance from a few nights ago." Zhu Yu pointed inside the small pond, gently moving a large leaf aside.
Following her gesture, Lu Qing saw a white flower bud hidden beneath the leaf, appearing particularly shy and reserved in the night.
A knowing expression appeared on his face: "So it’s this thing causing trouble. No wonder nothing feels amiss during the day, but at night, it’s unbearably drowsy.
How did you stop the flower from blooming?"
Zhu Yu explained her considerations and how she secretly cut the flower stems of those white flowers to Lu Qing.
"It’s a great thod! During the day, the old steward brought people over and didn’t notice a thing!" Yan Daoxin, listening on the side, gave Zhu Yu a thumbs up and called out to the steward not far off, "Co here, steward, do a favor!
This white flower is interesting. Help pick one that’s not too conspicuous, cut it off at the base for to study!"
When the steward heard Yan Daoxin call, he hurried over, imdiately took off his shoes and socks, and stepped into the pond.
The small pond’s water wasn’t deep. In the dayti, sunlight revealed the large stones below. The steward, being tall, could walk in with the water not reaching beyond his calves.
He slowly moved to one side of the pond, trying to find one to cut off at the base without it being too apparent.
Unexpectedly, after only a few steps, he stepped on a piece of aquatic moss, lost his balance, and fell into the pond, splashing water everywhere.
Fortunately, the leaf he fell on was sparse, so it didn’t crush any flower stems or leaves.
"Whoa, be careful! That was quite a noise!" Yan Daoxin jumped aside in a hurry, afraid the dirty water from the pond would splash onto him.
The steward sat silently in the small pond, frowning, not speaking or standing up.
"What’s wrong? Did you hit your head or sothing? Why are you just sitting there?" Yan Daoxin asked curiously when he noticed the steward wasn’t moving.
Instead of raising his hand from underwater, the steward knocked on the stone slab below with a clenched fist.
"He fell without hitting his head..." Yan Daoxin moved closer to Lu Qing, "Why is he acting like a child, slipping on moss and then ’beating up’ the moss?"
Lu Qing looked at him helplessly and asked the steward, "What did you find?"
"Sir, this stone slab isn’t right; it seems hollow underneath!" the steward replied to Lu Qing, instinctively lowering his voice so only a few could hear.
Despite his rugged and burly appearance, he was ticulous and never reckless in his work, which Lu Qing had witnessed over years of working closely with the brothers, the rune, and the talisman.
"Get out first, and with the rune, grab the wooden barrels stored in the woodshed and use them to drain the pond," Lu Qing instructed.
The steward imdiately got up, dragging his wet clothes ashore, and was about to head to fetch the wooden barrels, when Zhu Yu stopped him: "Change into dry clothes first. It won’t take long, and catching a cold would be troubleso."
The steward nodded at her and quickly ran off to change clothes.
The rune heard the instruction and started relocating the barrels alone.
They found the wooden barrels on their first day here, as the rune and the talisman explored the courtyard to ensure no one was hidden. So were small water basins; others were large bathing barrels, piled in an unused woodshed, covered in dust, unused for an unknown length of ti.
Originally overlooked, these items now surprisingly ca in handy.
By the ti the steward finished changing, the rune had already brought out a large bathing barrel and was busily carrying small wooden buckets for another round.
The brothers worked together swiftly, bringing over all the wooden buckets in no ti.
By now, it was pitch dark outside, with only the sounds of their bustling breaking the silence in the yard.
As Lu Yan sneaked back, the pond’s water had almost been drained, filling six large bathing barrels. Lu Zhang and Yan Shu held torches, while the rune and the talisman, with one sleeve tucked in their belts, were sweating profusely, scooping up the last bit of water from the pond.
Only then could everyone finally, by the weak torchlight, see the condition at the bottom of the pond clearly—it wasn’t what they initially imagined, covered in silt. Instead, the small pond’s bottom was neatly lined with several large stone troughs, where peculiar aquatic flowers grew in the black mud.
Apart from these embedded stone troughs, the rest of the area was just silt accumulated from prolonged water imrsion, beneath which seed to be smooth and tidy stone slabs.
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