Underneath A Thousand Skies ✔️

68 Foster Son, Don't Be So Crazy (5)

Song Jia woke up at the crack of dawn.

Looking around her surroundings while rubbing her eyes, it seemed the she was the last one to wake up. Everybody else was already lining up and getting out of the door in an orderly manner. Leaning on the doorway was Nian Shou, his arms crossed as he silently watched them.

"Don't cut in line, and don't push those in front. Slowly wait for your turn!"

One of his chubby minions was acting like an enforcer, hitting those who didn't obey his words. Song Jia hurriedly stood up and walked towards the end of the line. When it was her turn to get out, Nian Shou flashed her a smile. Song Jia nodded at him and followed the rest of the slaves as they got segregated into different groups.

Children were to go to the storage shed to carry wooden planks, while males have to go and do heavy labor. Women were assigned to different stations, such as the kitchens, the laundry, or the dreaded 'flower' house. A foot soldier outside was handing out white bands with letters followed by numbers on it for temporary identification. Song Jia taped the white band that read 'FQ748' around her arm.

"Wait."

Just before Song Jia was about to step forward to receive her assignment, Nian Shou held her back. His eyes crinkled into a smile, and then wiped his hand the was full of dirt across her face. Song Jia blinked at him stupidly.

"That's better," he said, before he walked away.

"What..." Song Jia began, before the foot soldier's booming voice called for her to step forward. She shook her head, and decided not to mind him.

The foot soldier studied Song Jia for a minute longer than the rest of the slaves. Finally, in a voice that had a hint of disappointment, he said, "Needlework."

As Song Jia walked away, she realized that Nian Shou had actually helped her. This body was called 'Jia' for a reason. Even her matte brown eyeshadow couldn't hide her beautiful features. If not for the dirt that made her look revolting, she would certainly be assigned to the flower house. But why did Nian Shou help her?

Regardless of his reason, Song Jia didn't have any plans to obediently do her chores in the first place. While the guards that were keeping a watch on the sewing workshop were distracted, she took the chance to look for Xiang Feng.

Song Jia threw the sewing needle that she was holding into the ground. From Jin Jia's memories, she knew that iron was bad for this body. Steel, which most needles were made of, was an alloy of iron. She could not risk harming the original host again.

Song Jia used her anti-gravity boots to sneak to to the storage shed. There were many children there, carrying wooden planks that looked heavier than their own weight. There was a child that didn't look a day older than five lugging around a two feet long wooden plank. She bit her lip, and continued her search for Xiang Feng.

She looked at all the faces of the children there and had not found a single one with a burn scar on the left side of his face. Song Jia frowned, and drummed her fingers on the branch of the tree that she was leaning against. Where could that child be?

After two hours of waiting with no sign of Xiang Feng, Song Jia leaped out of her hiding place and went back to the wooden barrack where she had stayed last night. There she found Nian Shou, lazily sitting on his bed while reading a book.

Song Jia sneaked behind him.

Without giving him time to react, she spun around, and gave him a quick, light axe kick on the top of his head. He soundlessly face-planted on his mattress, knocked out cold.

Song Jia looked down at him with a smug expression. The past six months she had spent being a rice weevil [1] had not been in vain. Song Jia decided that if she had learned martial arts before her first transmigration, she would have managed to hold off those shadow guards and live long enough to become Zhao Cheng's Empress. So, deciding to correct this mistake, she decided to learn martial arts as well.

She had kicked Nian Shou in his bai hou, an acupuncture point that was located at the top of a person's head. Song Jia unwrapped the white band around her arm and tied it around his mouth, before using the most basic of jujitsu techniques to pin him down.

By the time Nian Shou woke up, he was trussed up like a chicken with Song Jia twisting his joints until he cried out in pain.

"Mmf!"

He tried to struggle, but the more he did, the more Song Jia pushed his arm into the wrong direction.

"Mmff!"

Seeing that he got the hint, Song Jia finally stopped.

"Do you know a child with a burn scar on the left side of his face?"

Nian Shou glared at her. He turned his head to the left, and then to the right.

Song Jia smiled. She flicked her wrist.

"Mmfff!"

"Now, do you know a child with a burn scar on the left side of his face?"

Nian Shou's glare became fiercer. But he reluctantly nodded his head.

"Good." Song Jia grabbed his dagger that had fallen out of his clothes and threw it far away.

"Lead me to him."

[1] means freeloader, sponger.