“Lei, you… did you kidnap someone?” Fang Liu blurted out when he saw Xiao Ren on Ye Lei’s back.
“Get lost!” Ye Lei’s face was dark. He had already expected that Fang Liu would be surprised when he saw Xiao Ren. However, what was that about kidnaping? He, Ye Lei, is an upright person who will not kidnap anyone!
“But this…”
Ye Lei turned around to let Xiao Ren sat on the ox cart. Xiao Ren was silent because he couldn’t speak, but his eyes were watching the people’s interaction around him. He was highly unfamiliar with them.
“I didn’t kidnap him.”
“But.”
Kick!
“Ow, ow, ow, you heartless man!”
Ye Ning giggled when she saw the interaction of her brother and Fang Liu. The two of them were brothers since they were kid and Fang Liu would not miss any chance to berate Ye Lei whenever it was possible.
Old Fang smiled bitterly when he saw the two of them. “Lei, tell me the truth. Who is this?”
“I don’t know,” Ye Lei replied. “I fished him when I was in the river.”
“You fished him?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s truly a big fish. Did your net break because of him?” Fang Liu asked curiously.
Ye Lei rolled his eyes. He wouldn’t have used his precious net just in order to pull Xiao Ren. At that time, he just used rope and bind it with the log where Xiao Ren was and pulled him back to the shore.
“Just get on the cart.”
“Fine, fine.”
They all get on the cart while Old Fang began to drive it. There were some ladies who wanted to go to the town, but since Old Fang’s cart was already booked, they could only ask other elderly. After all, there were several people who had ox cart and willingly used it to drive to the city occasionally.
“So, what’s your name?” Fang Liu changed the conversation and turned to look at Xiao Ren.
“He can’t speak,” Ye Ning said from the side.
“Eh, he can’t? Did he drink too much water?”
“Probably.”
Fang Liu furrowed his brows and looked at Xiao Ren with pity. However, Xiao Ren merely rolled his eyes. He knew that his throat was wounded due to battle, but he didn’t lose hope yet. Even if he lost his voice, he would still find a way to return back to the border and find out the plan that the king had set in motion.
In any case, he wouldn’t want to let his brothers died just because of him.
‘Hopefully, they’re all busy to pacify the nobles in the capital city.’
The sudden change in the king would undoubtedly increase suspiciousness towards the next in line. Thinking about the complex political power in Luoyang, Xiao Ren already felt headache. He wasn’t even sure what he should feel about this change because there were several princes.
Normally, the princes wouldn’t create trouble because they were already assigned in other areas. But some of them just wanted to be the king and ruler of all areas.
That was when conflict started.
“Wait, if he’s wounded, why do you bring him along with you to the city?” Fang Liu finally felt that there was something strange.
“We’re going to visit doctor in the city to check on his condition.”
Hearing that, Fang Liu’s eyes widened. He looked at his brothers with a frown. “Are you sure that you want to go to the city? Doctors there are very expensive. Did you manage to find a fortune?”
Ye Lei shook his head. He thought about it for a moment then pointed to Xiao Ren. “He had one bronze knife, so we’re going to exchange it with treatment from doctor.”
Bronze knife?
Fang Liu might not be that knowledgeable, but he knew that it was the currency used in cities. Those in village didn’t even bother because it was too expensive and a single bronze knife was already more than enough to exchange with a lot of resources. Many were not that rich.
He had worked in the city occasionally and usually got one bronze knife after he had worked tirelessly for a week. Afterwards, he would exchange it with foods from the city because the quality was much better than what the people in the village at times.
“Damn! You’re really brave to exchange it with doctor treatment. Don’t you know that you can buy a lot of food with a bronze knife?”
“It’s not my money.”
“Still!”
Fang Liu continued to kick up a fuss as he berated Ye Lei. However, he also understood that the money belonged to Xiao Ren, which meant that it didn’t really belong to Ye Lei. Besides, it was just one bronze knife and those people in the city wouldn’t even pass a glance at them.
It was too low for them.
Ye Ning smiled lightly as she looked in Fang Liu’s direction. If he knew that Xiao Ren actually had a bag of it, what would his reaction be? She was truly curious.
“So, what should we call you?” Fang Liu finally turned his eyes to look at Xiao Ren. He was no longer in the mood to berate his sworn brother.
Xiao Ren arched his eyebrows.
“Lei, what do you call him as?”
“I don’t know too,” Ye Lei replied. He turned to look at Xiao Ren. “Can you mouth out your name so that we can guess?”
‘Xiao Ren.’
Xiao Ren tried a few times as the two men tried to guess her name. However, it seemed that they were very bad at lips reading because their guess was always so far off.
“Tian?”
“There’s no way he can use that surname,” Ye Ning added from the back. She had heard that some surname could only be used by nobles because of the words, though, she could only remember the word ‘wang’ since there’s king symbol in the word.
“Zhou? Xia? Zai?”
Xiao Ren felt helpless when he heard the two men guessed incorrectly over and over. From the front, Old Fang felt that his son truly didn’t have any manners.
In the end, they still failed to guess Xiao Ren’s name even after guessing for a long time to the point that their mouth foamed.
