Chapter 466

"Fire! Save the people!"

"Hurry, hurry, hurry! The cloth shop is on fire! Quickly fetch water to save them!"

"How could it catch fire in broad daylight? Did a candle not go out, or did sparks fly out from the stove?"

"Who knows! Fortunately, everyone is fine and managed to escape. It's just a pity about all that fine fabric..."

While they were talking about the fire at Fude Cloth Shop, someone else exclaimed: "Seventh Miss! My Seventh Miss is missing!"

It turned out a maid had been too busy watching the commotion and had lost her little mistress.

"My Seventh Miss is very well-behaved; she never runs around when we go out! It must be a child-snatcher! A thousand-cut child-snatcher must have snatched my Seventh Miss away!"

The maid wailed and cried, her legs shaking as she did so.

She knew that if the Seventh Miss couldn't be found, her own life would be in jeopardy.

The crowd stirred again:

"Whose child is missing?"

"It seems to be the youngest daughter of Third Master Xie."

"From the Zhenguo Duke Mansion? Oh my! Who is so blind? Daring to touch the little miss of the Zhenguo Duke Mansion. If the Zhenguo Duke were still alive, he would surely tear them limb from limb."

"You said it yourself, if the old Zhenguo Duke were still alive... the current Duke Mansion, sigh..."

"What's wrong with the Duke Mansion? Didn't they produce a consort who is quite favored by the Emperor?"

"The once-illustrious Zhenguo Duke Mansion has now fallen to relying on a woman to curry favor to protect the family; it shows how far they have declined."

"Enough! No matter how fallen they are, they are still a noble family; even a little bit that slips through their fingers is better than the pittance you and I earn."

"That's not how you put it..."

Today, Changshun Street seemed especially noisy and bustling, and the topics on people's lips jumped around quite a bit, from the fire at the cloth shop to the kidnapping of the youngest legitimate miss of the Zhenguo Duke Mansion...

"Drip!"

"Drip!"

In the pitch-black cellar, seeping rainwater dripped onto the already damp mud floor.

Several children, ranging from three to six years old, huddled in the corner, sobbing.

"Mother! Mother, I'm scared! Mother! I want Mother!"

"Father! Father! I want to go home! I don't want to be in this ghost place!"

"Grandmother! Grandmother, I'm hungry! Wuu wuu..."

"What are you making noise for!"

A light shone from above as the cover at the cellar entrance was lifted, and a mean-looking woman scolded with a straight face:

"If you make noise again, I'll sell you to Beiguan to be slaves! I'll have you chained up and working for the rest of your lives!"

The crying stopped abruptly.

Whether the children understood or not, they were all too frightened by her fierce appearance to wail anymore.

The woman snorted coldly: "That's right! Behave and don't make a sound, and I'll send you to the prosperous Jiangnan and find you a wealthy family."

After she finished speaking, the cover was closed again.

The cellar returned to pitch darkness.

When Xie Yang woke up, she only felt that it was wet beneath her.

Her face was also damp.

A drop of water seeping down the wall landed right at the corner of her eye.

She wanted to lift her hand to wipe it, but why was it so difficult to lift her arm?

The back of her hand touched her face; oh, why did it feel so soft and tender?

After adapting to the darkness, she brought her hand before her eyes to take a closer look—

It was chubby, looking exactly like a lotus root picked from a pond in midsummer, segment by segment.

Xie Yang stiffened her body.

Could it be that she had transmigrated into an infant this time?

And the wet patch beneath her... it wouldn't be urine, would it?

【Host, do you need to receive the original body's memories now?】

Seeing that she hadn't reacted for a long time, the Main System urged:

【Host? Host, are you alright?】

Xie Yang waved her hand weakly; she didn't want to talk much, so she decided to receive the memories first.

However, a three-year-old child didn't have many useful memories.

Aside from eating and sleeping, it was just begging her mother or the maids and nannies serving her to take her out to play.

This time, the child-snatcher succeeded because she was greedy and had asked her maid to take her out of the mansion to buy candied haws and fried sugar cakes.

Unexpectedly, there was a fire at the cloth shop, the carriage couldn't pass, and the maid carried her and ran first; after running a distance, the maid was panting and couldn't carry her anymore, so she put her down to catch her breath.

Just then, the child-snatcher took advantage of the moment the maid looked up at the commotion, covered the original body's mouth and nose, and quickly carried her away.

Since then, she had been locked in this dark, sunless cellar.

If Xie Yang hadn't arrived, the original body would have died tonight from a persistent high fever.

【Host, the body you have transmigrated into this time is too young and not suitable for taking a Physical Fitness Potion. System has found you a Cub Nutrient Solution newly released by a Level Six Civilization; the effect is much better than the previous Child Nutrient Solution, it's just a little expensive, Host...】

Xie Yang: Buy it!

She didn't need to check her points account to know that she was wealthy now!

In the last plane, not only did she successfully retrieve the Sub-system and prevent the world from moving toward collapse and restart, but she also advanced its development toward the Interstellar Era, earning a point reward as high as one hundred thousand.

Pay-to-Win Palace Intrigue System (1)

The Main System's avatar beamed with joy and immediately redeemed a Cub Nutrient Solution for her.

Taking advantage of the pitch-black environment, Xie Yang drank it openly and tossed the potion bottle to the Main System for recycling.

Five minutes later—

"It stinks! Who's farting? Is it you?"

"It's not me."

"It's not me either! My grandma says my farts smell like flowers!"

Xie Yang: "..."

She hadn't expected this Cub Nutrient Solution to have a different detoxification method than the Physical Fitness Potion—it didn't go through the skin.

Fortunately, this body was only three years old and female, so the number of times she had been targeted by the back-courtyard schemes was limited; the toxins accumulated in her body were not yet significant, and they were cleared out after letting out a single puff of gas.

If she had lived a few more years, or if she had been a male child, I fear the already thin air in the cellar tonight would have been occupied by methane and hydrogen sulfide.

The main function of the Cub Nutrient Solution was actually not detoxification, but rather replenishing the nutrients missing from the body.

In other words, she was now not only healthier than any of the other cubs, but her hunger had also vanished.

Three-year-olds need a lot of sleep, especially after having had a fever, so now that she was full, she wanted to sleep.

Xie Yang did not force herself to stay awake; as her eyelids drooped, she simply closed her eyes and fell asleep.

The few children nearby, curled up in the corner and clutching their bellies while whimpering "hungry" and "thirsty," were unable to wake her.

Until the light of day shone bright.

"Screech," the cover on top of the cellar was lifted, and a few dry, coarse-grain steamed buns were tossed down.

"Behave! Whoever makes a fuss after eating their fill won't get the next meal."

The children, who had been hungry for a day and a night, no longer cared about being picky; they scrambled to pick up the buns on the ground and began to wolf them down.

Xie Yang had slept until this moment and was more or less well-rested; she secretly counted the children in the cellar, totaling nine cubs including herself: six boys and three girls.

The oldest looked to be six or seven, while the youngest were about her age.

Regardless of their family backgrounds, these children must have been quite favored at home, as none of them were thin or weak.

That made sense! If they were as thin as a reed, they wouldn't have been picked out by human traffickers.

Of course, among these children, the fattest and most auspicious-looking one was the original owner of the body she now inhabited.