Chapter 31

Chapter 31

Afterwards, Fat Beard led Xie Licheng not only to their hidden money and grain, but also to the people they had captured.

The captives were not all kept together—the men were held in one place, while the women and gē'ér were kept in another.

Because there were so many of them, and the places where they were held were cramped and narrow.

Many people ate, drank, and relieved themselves right where they were kept, and having gone so long without seeing much daylight, quite a few had developed sores on their bodies.

When Xie Licheng found them, there was already a young gē'ér in the cage holding the women and gē'ér who had died of illness.

Xie Licheng let out an involuntary sigh. He went forward to release the people while saying to Fat Beard, "Since you told me so many useful things, I won't kill you with my own hands. Whether you live or die is up to them now."

Fat Beard, whose hands and feet were bound, glared with eyes wide enough to burst. He looked at Xie Licheng with a mixture of terror and hatred.

"You—you beast! You might as well have killed me yourself!"

Xie Licheng killed swiftly and decisively—if he could end a life with one blow, he would never waste a single bit of extra effort.

With his way of killing, those he executed generally didn't suffer much.

Take the ones from before, for example—they were dead before they even woke from sleep.

So who exactly were these people Xie Licheng had freed?

There were gē'ér and women that the bandits had captured on the road.

The bandits had killed their families in order to take them.

There were common folk from outside Lingzhou city—the bandits needed to build houses, so they had abducted some young able-bodied men.

And if they took these young men, of course they wouldn't spare their families either.

There were also villagers from the mountains in the area—the bandits had stormed in, seized their homes and farmland, killed their loved ones, and assaulted the gē'ér and women of the village.

No matter where these captives came from, they all seethed with hatred for the bandits.

And since Fat Beard was the bandits' leader, their hatred for him was even deeper.

Now that Xie Licheng had freed them all, even if they were so hungry they saw stars, weak in their hands and feet, and some even sick, the moment they thought of avenging their families and neighbors, they could still tear him apart with their bare hands.

Xie Licheng paid no more attention to Fat Beard. Fat Beard was badly wounded, and alone, facing so many captives—he stood no chance of surviving.

Xie Licheng went to the cave where the bandits had hidden their goods, and there were plenty of valuable treasures stored inside.

There were two large chests of gold and silver treasures—gold ingots, silver ingots, pearl necklaces, night pearls, gold hairpins, jade bracelets—everything imaginable.

There were also bolts of fine silk and satin, furs, leather boots, fine blades, fine swords...

And then, to Xie Licheng's surprise, the formula Gu Zhangyuan had asked him to find was also in there.

Xie Licheng only gave it a single glance before stowing it along with everything else into his personal world.

He didn't take all the grain—he left some for the captives.

In the coming turbulent times, even if he left them gold and silver, they wouldn't be able to protect it. In fact, having money could easily make them targets for other mountain bandits and the like.

Compared to giving them gold and silver, it was better to give them grain. Because when chaos truly descended, gold and silver would no longer be as valuable as food.

An era of upheaval in ancient days was no different from the apocalypse in Xie Licheng's own world.

In the apocalypse, having money or gold didn't guarantee you could buy food.

In times of upheaval, only with grain in hand could one feel secure.

When Xie Licheng went to see the captives, he found that Fat Beard was already dead.

These common people were truly kind-hearted. For all the evil he had done, they simply beat him to death—they didn't capture him and torture him. Compared to the bandits who delighted in capturing and tormenting people, they were truly kind and simple.

Afterwards, Xie Licheng led them to divide up the grain, and then he intended to have nothing more to do with them.

He felt that as an outsider, he had treated them quite well.

Knowing chaos was coming, he had saved them and given them grain—he was practically a bodhisattva reborn.

But when it was time to divide the grain, quite a few of the women and gē'ér began to weep.

There was also a girl about ten years old whose entire family had been killed by the bandits.

When she heard Xie Licheng say they could go home, she—

It should have been good news, but the little girl opened her mouth and let out a silent wail.

She had no home now. She didn't know where to go.

Her hometown was a long, long way from Lingzhou, and even if she somehow made it back, her relatives wouldn't be willing to accept her.

Because back when her parents were still alive, some relatives had called her a worthless girl and kept urging her father to sell her in exchange for grain.

Now that her parents were dead and her little brother had been killed by the bandits as well—

If she went back, they would only sell her so they could seize her family's house and land.

In reality, the situations of the others weren't much different from hers.

The ones in the best position were the able-bodied young men—they were grown men, and even without family, as long as they were willing to work, they could probably support themselves.

It was the little girl, along with the other women and gē'ér, who were in the most trouble.

This world was cruel to women and gē'ér, and those who had been captured by bandits would face even more cruel treatment.

Even if they wanted to return to their hometowns, the people who knew they'd been taken by bandits would point and gossip about them.

Even though none of it was their fault—they were just innocent victims.

Once a woman or a gē'ér lost their chastity, they became open targets for anyone to criticize.

Even in the modern society of his previous life, the same logic applied—if you wanted to ruin a woman, you started by spreading rumors about her.

No matter what kind of person she truly was, once a dirty rumor was attached to her, men could harass her freely and women could insult her freely.

And this was ancient times—it would be even worse.

Xie Licheng glanced at the able-bodied young men, then at the women and gē'ér.

He saw that none of them seemed inclined to leave, and noticed one man being especially attentive to one of the gē'ér.

Xie Licheng then spoke up: "Banditry is rampant everywhere now—the north's in chaos, the south's in chaos, and Lingzhou won't stay peaceful for long either. You might as well team up and share your lives together, so things'll be a bit easier for you down the road."

What Xie Licheng meant was simple: if anyone caught someone's eye, they could pair up. After all, they'd all been through the wringer, so they probably didn't have all those stuck-up societal hang-ups.

Besides, with chaos looming ahead, two people could take more hits than one.

Hearing Xie Licheng's words, the man who'd been doting on that omega blushed, then made a beeline for him.

The omega he'd taken a shine to had been married before and had suffered so much already, leaving him feeling a bit inferior. When he suddenly saw the man approaching, he instinctively shrank back a little.

But he didn't get to back away for long, because the man came over and grabbed his hand.

He was scared, yet remembering how the man had been tortured by those bandits because of him earlier, he couldn't bring himself to push him away.

Holding the omega's hand, the man knelt before Xie Licheng and touched his head to the ground.

The man was a plain farmer, clearly not much of a talker.

He said clumsily, "Thank you, Benefactor, for saving our lives. We'll be heading down the mountain now, and I won't treat him bad."

Xie Licheng cast his eyes down at him. "You'd better not stick around Lingzhou. Take your provisions and try to make your way southwest."

He figured that since his face was covered, they couldn't tell who he was.

Moreover, the world falling apart was already a done deal—anyone who knew what was going on could see it. It wasn't like he was giving away some big secret. Saying it out loud wouldn't cause him any trouble.

"Also, don't trust the local officials in Lingzhou. You all look out for yourselves."

Hearing that the road ahead was rough, the omega started trembling a little. The man kneeling beside him, seeing this, gripped his wrist even harder.

The man said, "Don't worry. Even if I die, I'll protect you."

He was just a regular farmer, and he never figured he'd ever go all out for someone.

But he never expected that getting caught and brought to this mountain hideout, he'd meet someone like this.

Someone... he'd give his last drop of blood for.

Afterward, two more young couples got together, and the three couples were the first to head down the mountain.

Among those remaining were quite a few local villagers and some folks from down the mountain. Once you took those out of the picture, nine people were left.

Among those nine was the ten-year-old girl, and the rest were all omegas and women.

Xie Licheng hadn't left yet—not because he wanted to deal with this mess.

Rather, he was thinking about his quest log and planned to pick two people to bring into his pocket world.

In the starter village of his pocket world, he'd been raising cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks, and some rabbits out in the open.

Those chickens, ducks, and rabbits were left to their own devices, and some were dumb enough to wander up the mountain, where the NPC critters devoured them.

Some newborn rabbits, too dumb to know better, would jump into rivers and drown themselves, or get trampled by the cattle and sheep.

That was all meat, all rations, and it stung a little to see that.

Since he wanted to see what that quest log was about anyway, he figured he might as well bring someone in as a test.

He had the ability to take them all in, but the Great Zhou hadn't fully collapsed yet.

Under such circumstances, not everyone was willing to abandon the world outside and spend their lives shut away in a small village.

Xie Licheng still didn't know whether gathering twenty people would unlock a new map.

If it didn't, and he'd brought in a bunch of omegas and women—

keeping them from marrying and from leaving—they'd likely feel miserable and stifled too.

So in the end, he decided to pick someone obedient and easy to manage, like that ten-year-old girl.

She was young and had no way back.

She couldn't survive the chaos on her own, so she could enter his pocket world and tend his livestock.

As for when she grew up and wanted to marry or whatever—

that would be over a decade away, and maybe peace would have returned by then.

If she wanted to leave, Xie Licheng could wipe her memory, and she'd be able to marry normally.

That was his plan, but he didn't take the child right away.

Quite a few bandits had escaped earlier, and the bandits had close ties with the authorities.

Xie Licheng worried that if he lingered, the bandits might lead the officials here.

Before things had fully fallen apart, he didn't want to confront the authorities head-on.

He was also concerned about the Gu family—the officials clearly coveted their wealth.

If they learned the bandits' stronghold was gone, he didn't know if it would affect the Gu family.

He wanted to head down the mountain alone to scope things out first, then decide what to do.

As for whether these rescued people would face trouble from the authorities afterward—

Xie Licheng figured the current officials still needed to maintain a veneer of respectability and wouldn't dare do anything to them.

Besides, even if the authorities truly flouted the law and harmed them, the root problem didn't lie with Xie Licheng.

The fundamental issue was a corrupt court and dark governance—that was why so many common folk had suffered.

Xie Licheng had merely saved them; just because he'd shown kindness didn't make their lives his responsibility.

But soon, Xie Licheng realized he'd overestimated those officials.

That this era would descend into chaos was, indeed, for good reason.

...

Because Xie Licheng had said the authorities couldn't be trusted, neither those who'd left earlier nor those still on the mountain had any intention of reporting to the officials.

In fact, they'd already felt the authorities were untrustworthy—someone had filed a report before, and the officials had done nothing.

That person, at his wit's end, had gone into the mountains himself to search for his child.

He never found the child, and he ended up captured by the bandits.

In addition, since Xie Licheng had saved them, they naturally trusted him more.

But even if they didn't report to the authorities, the government soon found out anyway, because the bandits who had escaped reported the villagers to the authorities.

Yes, you read that right—it was those fleeing bandits who went to the authorities.

What was disheartening was that when the villagers had reported crimes before, the authorities ignored them.

But now that the bandits were the ones reporting, the authorities actually did something this time.

They sent men into the mountains, claiming they wanted to arrest the bandits.

But in reality, when they interrogated the villagers in the mountains, they kept asking about what Xie Licheng looked like.

"I heard you were saved by a young man. How old is he, what does he look like, how tall is he, and is he fat or thin?"

An old man from the village broke into a cold sweat when he heard this.

He had only been rescued that morning and had just eaten a bit of food; he hadn't even had a chance to rest yet.

Now he was suddenly grabbed and questioned by the authorities, and they weren't asking about the bandits' looks but about the appearance of the benefactor who had just saved them.

The old man felt something was off, and he replied cautiously, "I'm old and didn't see clearly. I only know he's a man, and he didn't seem very tall."

The other villagers glanced at the old man, and each of them gave equally guarded answers.

"Yes, not tall, and probably not good-looking either, because he deliberately kept his face covered."

"He's a bit chubby and has a really bad temper."

"Yeah, yeah, he's an ugly guy with small eyes, really short, and stocky."

Before coming up the mountain, the authorities had gotten a portrait of Xie Licheng from the bandits.

The man in the portrait was completely different from what the villagers described, and the yamen runners couldn't help but get angry.

"How dare you! He's a bandit, an outlaw, and you have the nerve to lie to the authorities? Do you have any idea how serious a crime this is?!"

The old man stammered, "Sir, sir, I—I'm not lying to you, he really..."

Before he could finish, one of the yamen runners kicked him, sending the old man tumbling to the ground.

Another runner raised the portrait and said, "This man is the leader of the bandits. By covering up his true identity, are you trying to oppose the authorities and the whole court?"

A middle-aged woman looked confused and said, "That leader you're talking about is already dead, sir. There must be some misunderstanding—our benefactor isn't the bandit leader at all."

When she said they had killed the bandit chief, one of the runners snarled, "Bullshit! This man is the real bandit leader. The one you killed was an imperial official. Men, arrest these troublemakers and take them back to the yamen for questioning!"

"No, no, sir, my lord, we're just regular villagers. We killed the real bandit chief!"

"Yeah, yeah, they had us locked up before. We can tell who's good and who's bad!"

"I get it now—you're in cahoots with the bandits. No wonder, no wonder our benefactor said the authorities can't be trusted and that Lingzhou would fall into chaos. With corrupt officials like you, Lingzhou will never have a good day."

The runner holding the portrait sneered and walked over to the villager who had been shouting the loudest.

"It's not because of us that Lingzhou has no good days—it's because of troublemakers like you who won't behave that Lingzhou is in chaos!"

...

Meanwhile, after Xie Licheng came down the mountain, he found out the authorities were looking for him.

Luckily, the people looking for him still thought he was up in the mountains, so they were only searching there.

After that, Xie Licheng ran into people from the Gu family who were searching everywhere for him.

With their help, he hid under a carriage and snuck into Lingzhou City.

Once inside the city, Xie Licheng crawled out from under the carriage and got inside it.

There were two people in the carriage: one was a maidservant he didn't quite recognize, and the other was none other than Gu Zhangyuan's wet nurse.

Seeing the wet nurse come out of the city in person to pick him up, Xie Licheng sensed something was wrong.

Xie Licheng asked, "What's happened with the Gu family?"

The wet nurse didn't hide anything from him—this horse slave was capable, and Gu Zhangyuan thought highly of him. No matter how she felt about Xie Licheng personally, they had to work together when it came to Gu Zhangyuan's matters.

The wet nurse said, "Last night, the elder master came back and wants the young master to marry out of the Gu family soon. Before, the elder master wanted the young master to take over the household, so he never brought up marriage—he only planned to find him a live-in son-in-law. But now the master thinks the world outside is in chaos, and the Great Zhou dynasty is likely to be unstable, so he wants to secure a way out for the Gu family."

Xie Licheng's eyes darkened slightly. "He wants to use Gu Zhangyuan to get the Gu family a powerful backer?"

The wet nurse nodded. Thinking of how wronged the young master must feel, her heart ached like it was being cut with a knife.

She had raised the young master since he was a child, and she loved him more than her own two children.

So she absolutely didn't want the young master to suffer any injustice—her young master deserved to be cherished and held in the palm of someone's hand.

Xie Licheng asked, "What does the young master himself want?"

Does he want to get married, or not?

If he wants to, Xie Licheng won't stand in his way.

If he doesn't, Xie Licheng naturally has plenty of ways to stop it.

It all depends on what he wants.

The wet nurse said, "It's clear the young master doesn't want to get married, or else I wouldn't have come out to find you myself."

Hearing this, Xie Licheng understood, and the heaviness in his eyes disappeared.

The wet nurse said, "The young master sent me to bring you back because he wants you to help think of a plan."

Xie Licheng said, "Actually, I don't need to come up with a plan. Lingzhou won't hold out until he gets married—by then, Lingzhou will definitely fall into chaos. The powerful backer the elder master found for the Gu family won't be able to protect them from far away."

The story had gone back to what was written in the book, where the elder master had also found a fiancé for Gu Zhangyuan.

That fiancé was none other than the Marquis of Jincheng, who would later rebel—one of the more well-known villains in the book.

In the original text, the elder master, realizing that the Great Zhou's situation was getting worse while he was away, verbally agreed to a marriage contract with the Marquis of Jincheng.

Then, before the elder master could even return, the entire Great Zhou was engulfed in the flames of war, and Lingzhou itself fell into total chaos.

The Gu family was a prestigious clan, a wealthy household in Lingzhou.

They had plenty of money and plenty of food.

They were soon targeted by the forces that had risen up near Lingzhou. Gu Changyuan, left with no choice, was forced to lead his family in an attempt to flee from Lingzhou.

And it was at that moment that he encountered the male lead, Song Qiyue.

Song Qiyue had his eyes on the Gu family's wealth and grain, as well as on Gu Changyuan's beauty.

So, under the guise of helping Gu Changyuan, he made off with both Gu Changyuan and the Gu family's riches.

The wet nurse had a lot of questions when she heard this, and she wanted to press Xie Licheng for more details, but he didn't answer her any further.

Xie Licheng figured it was better to talk things over directly with Gu Changyuan. Moreover, he didn't fully trust the wet nurse, so he held back from saying more to her.

Soon after, they swapped carriages and slipped back into the Gu estate through a side gate.

Without resting, Xie Licheng went straight to the inner quarters to see Gu Changyuan.

Since the authorities were after him, he couldn't stick around the Gu estate for long without bringing trouble to their door.

As soon as Xie Licheng saw Gu Changyuan, he said, "You can go ahead and agree to the marriage your father arranged, for now."

Gu Changyuan had been happy to see him, but at those words, his delicate brows knitted together in a frown.

Xie Licheng smiled at the sight and then explained, "The fiancé your father picked for you is probably the Marquis of Jincheng, who holds a powerful army. The Marquis is currently stationed at the northern border. Even if you agree to the marriage now, a letter would take at least ten days to two weeks to reach him. With the north in such chaos, he might not even get the letter right away. Even if he does get it, by the time he gets the betrothal gifts ready and the wedding procession makes it to Lingzhou, that's over a month. By then... if nothing unexpected happens, Lingzhou should already be in total chaos."

In the original story, the real chaos wasn't supposed to break out until two months later.

But now, circumstances were different. Xie Licheng had stirred things up, and he figured it wouldn't take that long.

Gu Changyuan glanced at him after listening and said, "How are you so sure Lingzhou will fall into chaos within a month? If it doesn't, I'll really have to marry him."

Hearing that, Xie Licheng walked over and crouched down in front of him.

Gu Changyuan was sitting, and Xie Licheng crouched down, resting both hands on the armrests of the chair.

He tilted his head up a bit to look at Gu Changyuan and said, "If you don't want to marry him, even if you end up married, I'll come snatch you back."

After he spoke, Xie Licheng's nose twitched.

He noticed that after a few days apart, the scent on Gu Changyuan seemed different.

Just as he leaned in to get a whiff, a finger pressed against his forehead.

Gu Changyuan pressed a finger to Xie Licheng's forehead and said with a disapproving look, "That's not right. If you don't like someone, you can't just agree to the marriage. Otherwise, wouldn't you be wasting all their effort?"

Xie Licheng's brow furrowed immediately. "Why do you feel bad for him? He's not a good guy. He wants to marry you for your looks and your family's money. He's got countless women and men hanging around him. What's there to feel sorry for with a guy like him?"