The next day, twenty li down the official road outside Wuyao City.
The Southern Border's Golden Scale Owl Guards, numbering over a hundred experts, were escorting five prison carts northeast.
Ren Ye, Ai Fei, Xu Bangzi, Li Yan, Fenglin, and the others were confined in the prison carts, all wearing gray prison uniforms and shackles, looking thoroughly bedraggled.
Emperor Wanwu had issued his decree. The compound's entire leadership had been wiped out, and now they were to be exiled to the Nether River Realm.
The sooner they served their sentences, the sooner they would be free, and they also needed to avoid "traffic jams." So, barely after dawn, Prince Huai and the others had been taken out of prison by the Golden Scale Owl Guards and set on the road.
Even so, they still drew countless onlookers along the way. After all, the imperial edict had to be announced to the world and posted on the city gate tower.
The men of the Capital, young and old, had all turned out, and they were very courteous and polite in seeing Prince Huai off. Cabbage stalks, rotten eggs, spoiled leaves, and the like rained into the prison carts as though they cost nothing.
Even the least generous only left after filling more than half a cart.
In the leading prison cart, Ai Fei was neither aloof nor dignified now. She merely hid in a corner like a kitten, her little feet turned inward with her toes touching, her legs pressed tightly together as she curled up as much as she could.
She held the wooden restraints on her hands high above her head, protecting her glossy black hair and hiding her face. This was her last act of defiance... but even so, two bright green vegetable leaves still hung from her