淫欲的代价

They all spent two weeks on the road before they got to the first farming settlement. The head of the settlement had come to meet them at the entrance.

"Welcome, eldest miss Cao, second miss Cao and deputy general Shen." The gray haired man greeted fawningly.

The deputy general Shen nodded at the old man. He Yuan had noticed that this deputy general of the Western army was a man of few words. The reason for the deputy general leading the reinforcement instead of the Western general was due to the fact that there had been skirmishes with a group of outlaws at the Western border which began when word of general Shang going missing had spread.

The Eastern and Southern borders were not settled either and that was why they had been unable to send in reinforcements.

He Yuan stretched a little as he got down from the carriage. He sent a small smile to the village head in response to his greeting and the man\'s smile grew wider.

Cao Luomei alighted the carriage and gave the man a curt smile and a brief nod before looking around the people the man had selected to greet them. She was more interested in taking a good nap. The last two weeks weren\'t easy.

"Come, come. I\'ll lead you to your courtyard whilst the workers begin unloading the grains from the stores."

The main force settled themselves outside the farming settlement whilst He Yuan, Cao Luomei, the deputy general and a few soldiers followed after the old man as he led them to an old but clean courtyard.

Immediately He Yuan entered his room, he hopped on the bed and sighed in relief.

He\'d spent the last two weeks sitting and sleeping in the carriage. The only time he got to leave the carriage was to relieve himself and during meal times. Even then, he didn\'t stay out too long as it was inappropriate to mingle with the soldiers, who were men.

His mind had drifted to Cao Xiwang one too many times. He kept wondering how the kid was doing. He had left Wu Bai behind and had chosen to go with just Wu Hong on this trip. Hopefully the bubbly woman would pay attention to the mischievous little boy.

After a few hours of sleep, He Yuan woke up and Wu Hong assisted him as he freshened up. Unlike Wu Bai, Wu Hong barely spoke and He Yuan was infinitely grateful for that.

As soon as he was done, he met up with the others for dinner. The food was quite simple, it mostly consisted of a few vegetable dishes, rice and a single meat dish. The deputy general was a soldier so he was used to simplicity.

Cao Luomei had been a a slave and courtesan in her past life so simple dishes such as these did not bother her too much. He Yuan wasn\'t a picky eater so no one complained and they all focused on stuffing their faces with the hot food.

The village head was quite surprised by the behaviour of the Cao family ladies though. He had expected them to be picky, as most noble ladies would, but they were not. It was admirable.

The deputy general had been with them for some weeks and had gotten used to their tenacity but the village head still sent them a few looks in wonder.

Once they were done, Cao Luomei presented the Cao family seal and the village head proceeded to tell them the details about the grains that had been stored.

"This settlement has a total of 1,500 acres of land dedicated to farming grains. Unlike most places, we were lucky and managed to produce about 1,350kg of grains per acre..." The village head began his report.

They all nodded with utmost focus and He Yuan did the calculation in his head. The number of soldiers remaining at the Northern border was a little over 7,000, if he added the 10,000 men reinforcement, the fighting force could be rounded up to a total of 17,000 soldiers.

According to the letters received by Cao Long from the second farming settlement, they also managed to produce 1,350kg of grains per acre and just like this one, they had 1,500 acres of land dedicated to farming grains.

The total amount of grains would be about 4,050,000kg. They planned to stretch out this amount to last 17,000 men for three months in order to buy time, so each soldier would be allocated approximately 2.6kg of grain per day.

The feeding capacity of the average soldier was about 3 to 7kg per day. He Yuan sighed. There were dried meat rations to aid the relief but it wasn\'t enough. These men were fighting a war.

They needed to be in top shape. A hungry soldier is nothing but living casualty in a war zone. Originally, they\'d planned to use the Cao family grains to aid the soldiers for three months and then use the relief gotten from other sources to assist them for another three months.

It seemed that was impossible now. They would have to increase the rations in order to give the soldiers a boost and raise their fighting spirit, something that had taken a severe hit when the general went missing.

If they indeed increased the rations, the total amount of relief would last them a little over four months. Hopefully, that time should be enough to stabilize the war and find the missing general. Everything would get easier from there.

He Yuan made such deductions because Cao Luomei had gotten to the general within two months of her arrival at the border. Now that she didn\'t know any martial arts, she would be useless there so he was counting on the soldiers to find their general within three to five months.

After their meeting with the village head, Cao Luomei signed the account books and they all retired to their chambers.

The next day, He Yuan practiced the [Strongest Martial Arts]. He hadn\'t had the time to do it during the journey and he had been feeling restless from suddenly having to slack on what had become a habit.

After that, he took a stroll around the settlement. The place was filled with workers who lived together with their families. When he finally reached the farmland, He Yuan was in awe. The amount of land stretched as far as his eyes could see.

It was filled with workers weeding the ground. After harvesting the last batch over a month ago, they\'d gone on to start cultivating the land in preparations for a new batch of seedlings.

Once his eyes were full from the sightseeing, he returned to the courtyard. It took the soldiers an entire day to load up the grains and then they continued on their way after breakfast the next day.

The closer they got to the next farming settlement, the tenser He Yuan became. It was almost a month now and they would soon reach the Western border, yet there had been no sign of the genius doctor.

What was this?

It was currently late at night and He Yuan lying with his eyes closed across from Cao Luomei in the carriage when she suddenly stood up and glanced outside the carriage windows.

He Yuan sensed her movement and opened one of his eyes. When Cao Luomei suddenly stood up and tried to leave the carriage, he quickly held her arm.

"Where are you going?"

Cao Luomei dragged her arm from He Yuan\'s hand and glared at him. "How is it any of your business?"

"What do you mean by that? It\'s very late and you\'re leaving the carriage. What if something happens to you, how am i supposed to explain to father? Did you forget he said we should look out for each other?"

Cao Luomei ignored him and tried to leave again but he placed his hand in front of the door. When she noticed his unrelenting stare, she sighed. "I need to relieve myself, do you want me to pee in your mouth?"

He Yuan bit his lips. He was very sure Cao Luomei did not need to pee. She seemed uneasy, like she knew something was about to happen and that thing did not involve taking a piss.

He took his hand away from the door. He couldn\'t stop her, that would be absurd. When she got down from the carriage, her personal servant accompanied her and even some soldiers were on the look out.

Cao Luomei rushed into the bushes and when her personal servant wasn\'t looking, she took off. She had suddenly woken up with a weird feeling in her chest. Like there was something she was forgetting, somewhere she needed to be but she had no idea what that was.

After looking into the dark forest, she felt like something was calling to her and she had to answer at all costs.

He Yuan waited for a while before also going into the forest. "Where\'s Cao Luomei?" He asked the attendant that had accompanied the girl and the woman pointed to a cluster of trees.

"I need to pee," He threw out before walking over there. He was pretty sure Cao Luomei wasn\'t peeing. When he got there, there was no Cao Luomei. Shit.

He looked back once before taking off into the dark forest. She didn\'t even know any martial arts and yet she was rushing to save someone. He could just make the decision of letting her die but that would be impossible.

Cao Luomei still had some of her realm defying luck left and would get out of this alive and if she did, she would do it with the genius doctor coming out as her harem member.

He couldn\'t let that happen.

When he got deep enough, he heard some voices so he reduced his speed and tread lightly. He made sure to be cautious so as not to alert the people speaking by stepping on a twig.

He soon spotted Cao Luomei up ahead. She was moving from behind one tree to another like a rabbit and even managed to step on a few twigs yet these people, who definitely had martial arts, did not hear a thing. What great luck she had.

Cao Luomei watched as ten or so bandits surrounded a man. When the clouds shifted and the moon cast its light on them, she gasped and her heart shook.

The man was very handsome! And he looked like a scholar, would he be able to take on those men by himself? She was beyond worried.

She watched as three of the men brandished their swords and moved, slowly, towards the scholar. No. They were going to kill him!

"St-" She didn\'t get to finish her cry when a hand came over her face and she lost consciousness..