Jiang Rou's Assessment of the Others

At this time, speculation and profiteering were still punished severely. At the very least, offenders would be sent down to a farm for reform.

And for those sent to a farm for reform, it was only natural to say it could "cost them their lives."

If Bai Yao had been in Jiang Rou's position, he wouldn't have let those men off.

Even if he didn't kill them, he would have eliminated any possibility of retaliation, just as he had done to Li Dongxu's family before coming to the countryside.

And the way Jiang Rou handled the matter would also tell Bai Yao what sort of situation she was in.

At the educated youth settlement, Jiang Rou and Kong Wu were now the only two whose backgrounds he didn't know.

He had no leads on Kong Wu, but he had a rough guess about Jiang Rou.

Like him, she probably came from the twenty-first century, though he didn't know what sort of twenty-first century.

After all, her strength was far too abnormal, just like Kong Wu's fighting prowess.

And what would Bai Yao do if his probing gave him the answer?

Bai Yao figured life would go on as usual. He simply wanted to satisfy his curiosity, nothing more.

Back to the matter at hand.

When Jiang Rou and her underlings saw the person and the letter, every one of them was startled.

The underlings' eyes were full of fear, but Jiang Rou's gaze was dangerous.

Once the shock passed, they realized there was no danger and breathed a sigh of relief. They also noticed the letter and hurried to put it in Jiang Rou's hands.

Jiang Rou took the letter and read it at a glance. Her face immediately darkened.

She could have guessed that Brother Dong would have designs on her side of things. After all, she had her own plans too.

She just hadn't expected him to be so quick to act on them.

That had been close. Just a little closer, and she would have capsized in a gutter.

With a dark face, Jiang Rou got up and walked over to the person wriggling across the ground like a maggot.

"Your Brother Dong sent someone to follow me and find my hideout. Is he that eager to swallow up my territory and my goods?"

Without waiting for an answer, Jiang Rou stomped down. With a crack, the man's leg bone broke.

"That was just punishment for following me. Think carefully before you answer what comes next. I hope you've got enough bones, and that they're hard enough."

Ruthless!

That was what Bai Yao thought, though he wasn't the least bit afraid. He could already make a rough guess at Jiang Rou's background, but he would have to watch a little longer to be more certain of the details.

Jiang Rou's vicious stomp left the man with no desire to hide anything. He promptly spilled everything, and what he said made Jiang Rou's underlings furious.

Jiang Rou was no longer angry. Instead, she read the letter in her hand over and over. She simply couldn't think who might have sent it to her; neither the handwriting nor the tone between the lines gave her any clues.

In the end, Jiang Rou put the letter away. Since she couldn't find the sender, she would stop looking. She would remember the favor.

The letter also said Brother Dong and his men had been drugged unconscious. That was what mattered most now.

Since he had wanted to swallow up everything she had, wasn't it only reasonable for her to swallow up everything he had instead?

"Come with me. This time, a disaster has turned into a blessing for us. Their people have all been taken down. We can go straight over and take everything over."

With that, Jiang Rou stepped forward and kicked the man wailing on the ground unconscious, then hurried off with her group to take everything over.

As for Bai Yao, he naturally followed them in secret to watch the show.

This time, he was even more careful, lest Jiang Rou, now on her guard, actually discover him.

"With that kind of fighting power, was she one of those common female soldier kings or mercenaries from period novels, or did she transmigrate from the apocalypse?"

As he speculated, Bai Yao grew even more eager to see what happened next.

By the time he arrived, he found that Jiang Rou had already dealt with Brother Dong and his men.

Well, she had tied them up with their own clothes. If any of them shouted, Jiang Rou simply knocked them unconscious by physical means.

The way she handled them made it hard for Bai Yao to associate her with a soldier king or a mercenary.

Someone in either profession would surely be proficient at fighting, and should also have mastered joint locks.

Jiang Rou clearly hadn't.

So that left only his last guess.

As for whether he was right, Bai Yao was no longer interested.

"Ah~ That's done. Time to find somewhere else to have fun." Bai Yao prepared to leave.

At the same time, one of Jiang Rou's underlings came out of a room in the courtyard and said:

"Boss, it's done. There's no one else, but there's nothing else either."

Jiang Rou said, "What do you mean?"

"There are no supplies, money, or ration coupons in the courtyard. They must all have been looted by the group that sent the letter."

He couldn't think of any other possibility besides a group working together.

Jiang Rou did think of a few people who could have looted the place alone, but then dismissed the idea.

Of the educated youths in Unity Village she was on fairly good terms with, one was injured (Hu Yang), one ran up the mountain every day (Gu Yang), one was delicate (Bai Yao), and one was a simp (Kong Wu). It couldn't possibly have been any of them.

"Forget it. If there's nothing, there's nothing. Now that we've dealt with these people, are we still afraid we won't make money?" Jiang Rou first painted a big pie in the sky for her underlings, one they had a good chance of actually eating.

The underlings naturally grew excited, each becoming even more devoted to Jiang Rou, the boss who had conquered them with her strength and money.

And so, one by one, they began offering Jiang Rou suggestions. They couldn't wait to deal with these people.

Some of the plans were so vicious that even Jiang Rou felt they would damage their virtue too much.

After some discussion, however, they reached a decision.

Meanwhile, Bai Yao, who was looking for new entertainment, had thought he would have to search for a long time, but unexpectedly found some before long.

He saw people carrying baskets on their backs and secretly selling meat.

The important part was that he knew the two people selling the meat, and they were educated youths!

None of the new educated youths were short of money, so these two were naturally among the older educated youths at the settlement.

And among the older educated youths, the ones who had left a deeper impression on Bai Yao were the twin brothers.

In this era, giving birth to twins could make a family the envy of everyone for miles around.

Even in the city, giving birth to twins would make other families look at you differently, especially if both were boys.

Under those circumstances, how could their family bear to send both twins to the countryside?

Bai Yao didn't understand, but he wasn't all that curious.

Compared with the brothers' backstory, he was more curious whether twins really were identical everywhere.

Watching the two, who had disguised themselves but incompletely because they didn't have all the necessary gear, Bai Yao quietly went over.

"What kind of meat are you selling?"

Bai Yao's sudden voice gave the brothers quite a fright, but when they heard he wanted to buy meat, they didn't flee in fear.

It was only when they turned to look at the person asking that they felt they might have been better off running just now.

"What kind of meat?" Bai Yao asked again.

"Venison," one of the brothers replied, lowering his voice.

Bai Yao's eyes lit up the moment he heard that.

Venison was good. His body needed some nourishment.

"Give me twenty jin." As Bai Yao spoke, he was already thinking about how to prepare it.

The twins' mouths twitched. "There are only ten jin left. The one we caught was a small one."

Bai Yao said, "All right, I'll take it all. Remember to deliver it to my house."

"We don't offer delivery."

"We're all from the same village..."

Before Bai Yao could finish, the two of them cut him off in perfect unison. "We don't know you."

Bai Yao: ...

"Fine, you don't know me, you don't know me. How much? Include your carrying basket too."