Traveling through time and space to become a lady of a noble family, but she only wants to escape

Chapter 237 The Torch

The children were quickly pulled apart by the adults and forced to kneel and beg forgiveness at the feet of the statue, asking the sun god to forgive their disrespect before the god.

Using rush wicks to make firecrackers?

Bai Zhi looked up and her gaze fell on the face of the statue.

The people here are even more sincere in their belief in the sun god than Bai Zhi thought.

If this statue is destroyed, will the Southern Barbarians descend into chaos?

Bai Zhi slowly sat up straight, pondered for a while, and the more she thought about it, the more feasible it seemed.

So late at night, after putting Ge Zhen to bed, she went to the main square alone. The square was brightly lit, but the statue was so tall that even in such bright light, her upper body was not clearly visible, and her face seemed to melt into the night sky.

The two guards at the foot of the statue saw Bai Zhi approaching and gave her a standard, barbaric greeting: "Divine messenger."

Bai Zhi nodded and pointed to the torch held by the statue: "Ahem, think of a way to light the torch so that the people can also admire the divine countenance at night."

The two guards looked at each other, and one of them said, "Divine messenger, the night is often unclean, it is disrespectful to worship the gods."

“…Uh, the Sun God is here, what is there to fear about filth?” Bai Zhi said seriously. “If even the God cannot control filth, then wouldn’t it be a great disrespect to put the God’s face in filth?”

The two guards immediately knelt down and shouted that they dared not.

Bai Zhi pressed her advantage: "This is divine revelation. God says He wants to open His eyes to see His people and will grant the warriors of the Sun God the power to defeat the Great Yan. Only by lighting torches that burn day and night and then sincerely kneeling in worship can God know the sincerity of His people and be willing to open His eyes."

Upon hearing the word "divine revelation," the two guards nearly jumped up, extremely excited: "Divine messenger, is this true!"

Just as Bai Zhi thought, these two were easy to fool. She nodded emphatically, "Absolutely true." After thinking for a moment, she instructed the two guards, "Don't spread the news of the divine revelation. Don't let the people have any ulterior motives when they kneel and worship. Don't even mention it to the leader and Madam Ge. If they ask, just say that we are devoutly worshipping the gods."

The two men respectfully agreed.

The next morning, while Bai Zhi was helping Ge Zhen wash his face, she brought up the matter of lighting the torch, saying that many people in the square were talking about it, so she thought it was worth a try and it could also appease the people. Ge Zhen was not respectful of gods to begin with, and now his attention was entirely focused on making the poison. He glanced at her and cursed a few times for how troublesome the people were, then let Bai Zhi go and do it, no longer needing to serve him.

Bai Zhi was in a great mood after leaving the house, and even the people on the road seemed much more pleasing to the eye.

Upon arriving at the main square, the two guards, following Bai Zhi's instructions, carried several bags of lampwick from the warehouse to the giant mountain next to the statue and lowered a rope down.

Looking down carefully, Bai Zhi noticed a gap more than three feet wide between the statue's shoulder and the mountain wall, wide enough to fit a lot of lamp wicks.

A guard tied one end of a rope to his body, climbed down the rope, landed on the statue's shoulder, and then walked along the bridge-wide arm to the torch.

Bai Zhi called out, "Can we put in some rushes?"

The guard shouted, "Yes!"

Then the lamp wick was dropped, the guards placed it on the torch, lit it, and did so in one swift motion. The moment the fire ignited, the two guards knelt down on the spot, and the dozen or so people on the ground shouted in unison.

At the same time, a horse-drawn carriage hurried past the square, heading towards Ningzhou.

The wild grass that grows in the wild is very durable and the torch is big enough. The amount placed is enough to burn for four hours. After descending the mountain, Bai Zhi told the two that she would deliver the grass by herself from now on.

Then she went straight to Salam's library. It was called a library, but it didn't actually hold many books, only about a hundred or so in total. It was unattended. Bai Zhi tried to find a book she remembered; it was full of instructions on simple carpentry, metalwork, farming, and mending, and also included some simple homemade firecrackers.

Everyone in Salam speaks the language of Da Yan, so perhaps this widely circulated Da Yan book exists there.

She glanced at it casually for a moment, and sure enough, she found it. The book was right there in plain sight. Bai Zhi picked it up and started flipping through it. Next to each line of text were densely written barbarian words, which seemed to be annotations for the book. The pages about farming were particularly worn and creased, and there were some notes written in barbarian words tucked in between.

However, Salam has not much land, and the land here may not be suitable for growing crops using the methods of the Great Swallow.

Bai Zhi found the pages about making firecrackers. The instructions were similar to what the children in the square were saying, except that extra kerosene needed to be added. She carefully memorized the instructions, then put the book back and went out with her money bag.

Outside Ningzhou City.

The out-of-control carriage sped along for over an hour before finally coming to a stop just two or three miles outside Ningzhou City. The horse, exhausted, let out a mournful whimper and collapsed.

Qiaoqiao was almost exhausted. She held tightly to the reins the whole way to avoid being thrown off. The skin around the wound on her palm was torn open, a bloody mess that stung her constantly. Tears streamed down her face from the pain. She sobbed silently for a while before wiping them away with her sleeve, shaking her hand, and turning around to shield the carriage curtain with the back of her hand: "Brother Cheng, we... Brother Cheng!"

Cheng Mao's face was pale, and his chest and the corners of his mouth were covered in black blood.

Qiaoqiao hurriedly scrambled over, her fingers touching Cheng Mao's neck. She felt relieved to find his neck still beating. She lifted the carriage curtain to look, but Lin Chuqi was nowhere to be seen.

That's true, how can a human leg catch up with a horse's leg?

The carriage had gone too far, and Cheng Mao needed to find a doctor immediately, so Qiaoqiao had to ignore Lin Chuqi for the time being. She ran over and patted the horse on the ground; the horse was barely breathing.

Qiaoqiao went back to the carriage, took out a few coins from her bundle and put them in her pocket, then went to the middle of the road and waved to stop passing carriages.

Fortunately, the city was not far away. The second carriage that Qiaoqiao flagged down stopped. Inside were a mother and daughter. After hearing Qiaoqiao's tearful story, they immediately helped carry Cheng Mao onto the carriage. The four of them squeezed together and entered the city together.

The carriage stopped next to the nearest clinic. A strong medical worker carried Cheng Mao inside. Qiaoqiao thanked the mother and daughter profusely and offered them silver, but the mother and daughter refused to accept it. They cracked their whips and left.

The large influx of people from Wuxian County hadn't arrived yet, and the city was currently in good order, with few patients at the clinic. Cheng Mao was placed on a bed in the inner room, where an elderly doctor with a white beard took his pulse.

Qiaoqiao asked anxiously, "Doctor, how is my older brother?"

The old doctor stroked his beard: "Judging from the pulse, there's nothing seriously wrong. He just needs to rest."

"It's nothing serious? But he vomited blood."

"Spitting blood is a serious concern. The bloodstains on his lips and chest are black, which indicates blocked blood vessels in his heart. It's good that he vomited it. What kind of poison did he get before?"

Qiaoqiao explained the whole story in detail. The old doctor sighed and wrote a prescription: "You've been nourishing yourself with red mother herbs, why are you still coming to the clinic? I'll prescribe some tonics for you. Decoction them and take them morning and night. Once your qi and blood are replenished, you'll naturally wake up."

"Thank you, doctor!" Qiaoqiao smiled brightly. Cheng Mao was finally alright; it seemed that the bumpy journey had actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise.