Exile? A mad, wicked woman empties the national treasury to escape famine.

After packing her things, she returned to the little house, which was exactly the same as before, with no changes.

The air conditioning was on, and as soon as she entered the lobby, she felt much cooler.

If Xie Moyao weren't still in the carriage with her, she would really like to go into her spatial dimension to take a bath.

She hadn't showered for several days, and she could smell the foul odor emanating from her. If even she felt this way, one can only imagine how others felt.

These days of exile are truly unbearable for a human being.

They were already considered lucky. Compared to them, the others were in a much worse situation. At least she had a space that could feed everyone in the palace, while the others struggled to even get enough to eat.

The team hurried along and finally arrived in Dongyang County before dark.

On the road, they occasionally encountered groups of two or three disaster victims. Having learned from the previous experience of being robbed by disaster victims, everyone became more vigilant this time and rarely used their carriages. The officials also patrolled the area with knives in hand and looking on guard.

Whenever a disaster victim approaches, they will use their knives to scare them away. If the victim doesn't listen, they will simply chop them down, often resulting in missing limbs.

Once the officials took drastic measures, the other disaster victims dared not approach.

Seeing the city gate in front of them, everyone finally breathed a sigh of relief. Once they were inside the city, they should be safe, able to take good care of themselves, get a good night's sleep, and stop worrying.

The crowd waited anxiously inside the carriage, while the disaster victims outside watched with predatory eyes.

They thought they would enter the city smoothly like last time, but to their surprise, this time the officials went up and talked to the soldiers guarding the city gate for a long time. The two sides almost started arguing, and the procession did not move forward. The city gate did not show any sign of opening.

Ji Yunshu woke up groggily. Hearing the noise outside the carriage, she frowned. As soon as she opened her eyes, she saw Xie Moyao, who had also woken up. She nodded to Xie Moyao, then got up and lifted the carriage curtain.

Just then, Ji Yunshu saw the officials and the soldiers guarding the city gate arguing. She glanced over and saw that, apart from them, all the other carriages were tightly closed, and no one was sticking their head out to look.

Perhaps they were frightened by the previous incidents of looting by disaster victims.

Once bitten, twice shy.

Ji Yunshu was not a coward. Seeing that the officials and the soldiers guarding the city were still arguing, she lifted the carriage curtain, jumped off the carriage, and walked towards the city gate.

Before they even got close, they heard Ling Yun's voice, tinged with anger.

"Just go in and announce our arrival. We are indeed escorting exiled prisoners under imperial orders. They can't possibly prevent us from entering the city; we have an imperial decree!"

"As I just said, we haven't received any news from the prefect, so we don't dare let you into the city without permission. You should leave as soon as possible, or you can spend the night outside the city and we'll talk about it tomorrow morning."

"We won't let you in without orders from above. Otherwise, we might as well quit our jobs. Don't make things difficult for us."

Ling Yun's face turned ashen. He was holding an imperial edict and acting on orders, so how did it become a problem?

"What do you mean by making things difficult? I'm just following orders. We're all working for the court. What's wrong with making an exception for me? It's not like I don't have an imperial edict. I told you I had one, and I asked you to let me know before you went in. Whether you can go in or not is up to your prefect. You didn't even go to inform me. Are you trying to disobey the imperial edict?!"

Escorting exiled prisoners is an inherently difficult task.

I've been doing this for so many years, and everything has gone smoothly. How come problems have arisen today?

Why won't they let them into the city? What kind of logic is that?

This job is really inhuman.

Ling Yun's tone was somewhat unpleasant, and the guards at the gate were also getting impatient. "Why are you yelling at me? You have an imperial edict, but I have an imperial edict too. There are too many disaster victims, so we can't just let people into the city. There are so many people in the city. If we let you in, other disaster victims will also want to go in. If a riot breaks out, who will be responsible?"

I can't take that responsibility!

"If you want to enter the city, go to the next city and see if they'll let you in. In short, not here!"

After the officer finished speaking, his hand instinctively fell on his sidearm, his expression wary and slightly threatening. It was clear that if Ling Yun continued to entangle with him, he would draw his sword.

He didn't know if Ling Yun's imperial edict was real or fake, but he figured no one would dare to fake such a thing. However, orders had been issued from above that no one could be allowed to enter the city casually, not even a fly.

The order came from the imperial court; both were imperial edicts. He didn't know whose order to follow, so he could only do his job and ignore everything else.

Anyway, the prisoners being escorted were exiled criminals. If they died, they died. The prefect couldn't possibly accuse him of disobeying an imperial decree and dismiss him from his post over such a small matter!

Ling Yun was so angry that his chest hurt. He said that this job was not for humans. He didn't know if the exiled prisoners he was escorting were particularly difficult or if the disaster was really that serious!

We can't even get through the city gates!

"Lingyun, what's going on?" Ji Yunshu stepped forward from behind.

Ling Yun opened his mouth, then sighed, "The guards at the gate said there were too many refugees and they were worried that letting us in would cause a riot, so they told us to rest outside the city and not to go in."

As he spoke, his tone became increasingly angry, but the soldiers guarding the city gate wouldn't let them in, and they couldn't force their way in, since it was their territory after all.

Ji Yunshu paused for a moment, then turned to look at the city gate. Sure enough, she saw the soldiers standing like wooden statues blocking the entrance, showing no intention of letting them in. She had also heard what Ling Yun had just said to the soldiers.

Her intuition told her that this matter must be related to their royal residence. After all, this was not the first time that Ling Yun and his men had been on the job of escorting exiled prisoners, but today was the first time they had encountered a situation where they were not allowed to enter the city gate.

It must be someone in higher up deliberately making things difficult; as for who it is, it's easy to guess.

It's disgusting that someone with so much power would make things difficult for prisoners like them who have had their homes ransacked and been exiled.

Since some people don't want them to enter the county town, she has no choice but to go.

She approached the soldiers, who, assuming she was going to plead for them, were about to shoo her away when Ji Yunshu quickly whispered a few words to one of the officers.

The officer was taken aback at first, then a look of confusion and surprise flashed in his eyes, as if he had heard something unbelievable.

"You, you, you, are you telling the truth?!"

Ji Yunshu smiled faintly and nodded seriously, "Of course it's true. Just go and tell your prefect. If he agrees, I will present it to you with both hands."