Chapter 34

Chapter 34

At the sight of this, a timid young man quickly asked in a shaky voice, "Benefactor, benefactor, I... I want to come with you too. I've got no parents, no home, and I don't know where to go. Could you take me in, benefactor?"

"Me too, me too! I can wash clothes, cook, embroider, and make clothes. Take me with you, benefactor. I'll be very obedient and I promise I won't cause you any trouble."

It wasn't just them—even the farmers and the other men wanted to follow Xie Licheng.

So when they saw Xie Licheng about to take the little girl away, they all stood there staring at him with hopeful eyes.

At that, Xie Licheng looked at them and said, "My identity is a bit unusual, and the place I'm taking her to is out of the ordinary too. It's just a small mountain village. Although it can keep us safe from the wars outside, life there will be pretty boring."

A small mountain village nestled against a big mountain—yeah, it was a tiny place.

Moreover, it involved his secret, so once he brought them in, he wouldn't be able to easily take them back out.

If the pocket world was only that big, and they stayed there day in, day out, year after year, they would surely feel miserable and stifled.

When they heard it could protect them from the wars—these people who'd been grabbed by bandits, hauled in by officials, and seen Lingzhou City fall into chaos—they all stared at him with burning hope.

One of the farmers spoke up, "Benefactor, we won't find it boring. Many of us are country folk. Just give us a piece of land, and we can get by."

Another young man added, "That's right, I may not know how to farm, but I know how to grow flowers and tea. Just give me a piece of land, and I can support myself too. I won't be a burden, benefactor."

They thought the small mountain village Xie Licheng mentioned was just some random village in the middle of nowhere.

But when Xie Licheng actually took them there, they were all stunned.

Because after Xie Licheng told them there was no going back, he pulled them all into his pocket world.

One second they were in a narrow alley, the next they were in a small village.

Calling it a small village wasn't really accurate—this starter village was actually quite large.

The village sat at the foot of a big mountain, which was full of wild veggies, fruits, herbs, and critters like chickens, ducks, and rabbits.

To the south of the village ran a big river, full of little fish and shrimp.

The village had many empty houses—some with courtyards, some without, some large, some small, and everything in between.

Livestock like cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks, geese, and rabbits also wandered freely around the village.

The only weird thing was that the village was so beautiful and the houses so new, yet there wasn't a soul in sight.

After bringing them in, Xie Licheng told them to find a place to settle in on their own.

He didn't have time to explain much to them. Right now, he needed to focus on checking his quest bar.

This time, he had brought in twenty-two people, and his quest was already done.

Xie Licheng wanted to see whether completing this quest would unlock a new map or what.

If it unlocked a new map, he could keep saving people and bringing them in.

If it didn't, he couldn't keep bringing in so many people like this.

Xie Licheng clicked on the quest bar, and there was an option to claim the reward underneath it.

He clicked to claim the reward, and a world map popped up in front of him.

When he saw the map, Xie Licheng smiled.

This was the full map of his pocket world.

So far, only two areas were unlocked on the map.

One was the starter village, and the other was Xie Licheng's own farm.

These two areas took up only a tiny part of the map, which meant his pocket world was pretty huge.

Once this quest was done, he could unlock a new area.

The unlocked areas were green, the areas he could unlock were gold, and the locked areas were gray.

The new area was right below the village. After Xie Licheng clicked to unlock it, the area lit up.

What caught him off guard was that the newly unlocked region wasn't green but a bright red on the map.

The new place was called Taohua Town, and the village they were in right now was called Taohua Village.

Taohua Town needed to be taken over, which was why it showed up red.

It would probably turn green once they captured it.

He'd always thought that his pocket world was empty except for himself and the people he brought in.

Turns out there were people after all.

Except these people weren't real humans—they were NPCs in this world.

Since they hadn't taken it over yet, the road from Taohua Village to Taohua Town was blocked.

Xie Licheng, as the player, would have to launch an attack, and only after they captured the town could the villagers go there.

Xie Licheng didn't rush to attack the town. With how few of them there were, the village was more than enough to hold everyone.

Besides, Lingzhou was in chaos right now, and he had a lot on his plate.

And since he didn't know how difficult attacking the town would be, he put it on the back burner for the time being.

Aside from the map function, bringing people in also unlocked a population management system.

This system came with a ton of features.

With this system, he could pull up each person's profile.

The profiles listed things like age, gender, personality, height, skills, and so on.

He could even rename them, but only he could see the new names.

After he renamed them, an ID would pop up above their heads.

In other words, if Xie Licheng couldn't remember their names, he could use this function to keep track of who was who.

The population management system also allowed him to control who could come and go.

Right now, since Xie Licheng had only unlocked his farm and Taohua Village, they couldn't go anywhere else without his say-so.

This Peach Blossom Village included the big mountain next to it.

If anyone wanted to enter Xie Licheng's farm, they could only do so with his permission.

This feature was great for controlling population flow or keeping dangerous people out.

Xie Licheng didn't dwell on it and quickly left the pocket world.

Once he was out, he checked his personal panel.

After leveling up all these days, he was now level 104.

He had 15 attribute points to spend.

He also had a level-100 lottery draw he hadn't used yet.

He figured he might as well use it now.

Xie Licheng pulled up the level-100 lottery and hit draw.

This lottery gave out attribute points.

The lowest you could get was 5 points, and the highest was 100.

Xie Licheng figured that even with his crappy luck, he couldn't possibly roll a 5.

But to his surprise, his luck was actually pretty solid this time.

He rolled 50 points, and with the 15 he already had, that gave him 65 attribute points total.

Talk about a lucky break!

With all these attribute points suddenly in his pocket, Xie Licheng's mood picked up too.

He dumped 20 points into agility, bringing it up to 50.

Then he put 31 into defense, pushing it straight to 100.

That defense was seriously high now. Even if he took a fatal hit, his health would at most drop by half.

Basically, a normal guy takes a knife to the heart and drops dead, but Xie Licheng could take one to the chest and keep fighting.

100 points in defense wasn't the cap—if he had enough points, he could keep stacking it higher.

Xie Licheng figured that if he kept pumping it up, he'd eventually be untouchable by blades and spears.

For people who weren't great at fighting, boosting defense was a solid move—it seriously upped your odds of surviving.

As for the last 14 attribute points, Xie Licheng dumped them all into luck.

His luck had been at 30, so after adding 14, it hit 44.

After spending his attribute points, Xie Licheng decided to head over to the Gu family's place.

With Lingzhou in chaos now, the Gu family was probably a mess too, right?

Gu Zhangyuan was such a coward—was he scared shitless right now?

With that in mind, Xie Licheng headed toward the Gu estate.

He hadn't gotten far when he ran into the people he'd saved earlier.

After he'd saved them, they'd never found a chance to get out of the city.

With the roads in and out of the city blocked off and nowhere else to go, they'd just followed along and ended up near the Welcome Spring Pavilion.

Figuring he'd already saved those people, saving a few more wouldn't hurt, Xie Licheng took them in too.

This time, the ones he rescued were all old folks, the weak, women, and kids. If he didn't take them in, given how chaotic Lingzhou City was, they probably wouldn't make it out alive.

Xie Licheng's logic was simple: the pocket world could wipe people's memories anyway.

If they didn't want to stay inside later, he could just wipe their memories and let them go.

Plus, he needed people for quests right now, and he could save lives at the same time—killing two birds with one stone.

Once the quest for 20 people was gone, new quest bars showed up in Xie Licheng's pocket world.

These quest bars were probably all tied to unlocking maps. Unless he unlocked every single map, they'd never fully disappear.

This time, there were two quests on the bar: one was to attack and take over Peach Blossom Town, and the other was a population quest sitting at (50/22).

Xie Licheng brought all those people in, and (50/22) jumped to (50/55).

Xie Licheng didn't keep messing with that quest, and he didn't bother with the folks in Peach Blossom Village either.

The village had chickens, ducks, cows, and sheep, and the mountain was full of food—they definitely wouldn't starve.

Right now, he was worried about Gu Zhangyuan, so he had to hit up the Gu family first.

He realized the chaos in Lingzhou City wasn't just the protagonist's group causing trouble on purpose—it looked like another group was also using the chaos to fish in troubled waters.

While he was saving people earlier, he saw a group scrapping with the protagonist's crew over loot.

Thinking about the Gu family's situation, Xie Licheng hurried over to their place.

But when he got back to the Gu family's street, he saw the front gate hanging wide open.

That was seriously off—it was already dark out.

Inside the city or out, everything was chaos. The Gu family wouldn't leave their gate wide open at a time like this.

Besides, the Gu family wasn't weak.

The protagonist's group had very few people in the city, and Lingzhou City was huge, with tons of rich households.

Even if they had their eyes on the Gu family's money, they wouldn't dump all their manpower and effort into just the Gu family.

If they wanted the Gu family's stuff, they'd wait until the city fell and then come loot it.

But the city hadn't fallen yet, the First Master of the Gu Family was still home, and the Gu family had plenty of house guards and retainers.

Even if they threw everything they had at the Gu family, they couldn't have gotten in that easily.

With that thought, Xie Licheng stepped inside, and the moment he did, he saw an injured Steward Xu frantically rushing toward the gate with a bunch of people.

Steward Xu froze when he saw Xie Licheng, then blurted out, "You... why are you back? You can't be here right now. Get out, get out now!"

"What's going on? Where's the Eldest Young Master?"

"Second Master of the Gu family's back, and he's brought people with him—not just government officials, but bandits too. They're forcing First Master of the Gu family to tell them where the secret chamber is. Eldest Young Master and the others got grabbed too. Anyway, I gotta run—I'm trying to save my own skin."

A secret chamber? I don't remember that being in the book.

So Second Master teamed up with the bandits to kill Gu Zhangyuan, and the bandits are tight with the government.

The three of them being in cahoots isn't all that surprising.

What's bugging Xie Licheng is that the protagonist's people have already stormed in.

Shouldn't the government be helping the garrison fight them off?

Why are they wasting time butting into the Gu family's business?

What the hell is in that secret chamber that's got the government ignoring Lingzhou?

Xie Licheng didn't bother stopping the people running away—he just headed straight for the inner courtyard.

He got to the inner courtyard fast. He knew the place well enough, so it was easy to find people.

The Gu estate was total chaos. A bunch of servants had already bolted from the outer courtyard.

And they grabbed a bunch of stuff on their way out.

Some stayed behind, running off to find help.

Others ran into the inner courtyard, like they were trying to save people themselves.

And some were hurt or already captured.

The inner courtyard was even more of a mess. He spotted bandits, yamen runners, and that Young Master Yue from the second branch.

Xie Licheng acted like he didn't see them, grabbed a servant, and asked, "Where is Eldest Young Master?"

The servant tried to get away but couldn't, and stammered out in fear, "He's in First Master's courtyard. They're all over there now, plus a ton of government officials."

Xie Licheng let him go and took off toward First Master's courtyard.

Meanwhile, over in First Master's courtyard, things were hopping.

First Master had one arm around Gu Yangxue and the other around Gu Tinghe, glaring at the people across from him.

And standing right across from him was none other than his own second brother—the one who was supposed to have run off.

On his own, with just the government officials backing him, his second brother never could've broken into the Gu estate so easily.

They got in so easy for two reasons: one, they had the bandits helping them, and two, there were traitors inside the Gu family.

The bandit hideout Xie Licheng wiped out wasn't all of them.

They'd been slipping into the city over the past four or five days, all to find that hidden chamber.

According to Second Master, that chamber was packed with gold the Gu ancestors had saved up for their descendants.

At first, Second Master just wanted the bandits to kill Gu Zhangyuan.

His thinking was simple: kill Gu Zhangyuan, and the first branch wouldn't have a decent heir, so the whole family would fall to the second branch.

But once he actually started working with the bandits, there was no getting out.

He found out the bandits got away with everything because they were in bed with the government.

The government looked the other way and took half the loot.

By then he couldn't jump ship, and scared the government and bandits would kill him and his son, he spilled every secret the Gu family had.

So yeah, this whole disaster for the Gu family came from his greed.

Seeing the disappointment in his elder brother's eyes, Second Master felt a mix of guilt and helplessness.

Second Master: "Brother, just tell them where the secret chamber is, or they'll do something crazy. You've got three kids here—sons and a daughter. You don't want anything to happen to them, do you?"

Hearing him bring up his kids, First Master's eyes went red with fury.

First Master angrily said, "A traitor in the house! I never thought the Gu family would be destroyed by a beast like you!"

Second Master hung his head, ashamed, but kept pleading, "Scolding me now won't do any good. Blame your own favoritism. If you hadn't insisted on handing the family business to a son, none of this would've happened."

Hearing him still refuse to own up and try to pin it all on Gu Zhangyuan, First Master wanted to get up and hit him.

But before he could take a step, a yamen runner kicked him to the ground.

Seeing her father knocked down, Gu Yangxue rushed over to help him up.

Gu Yangxue asked worriedly, "Father, father, are you okay? Are you hurt? These people are way out of line!"

Gu Tinghe wanted to help too, but when he saw Gu Zhangyuan moving to do it, he shoved him hard.

He figured Second Uncle was right—all this mess was Gu Zhangyuan's fault.

If Gu Zhangyuan hadn't been so set on inheriting the family, they wouldn't be torn apart like this.

He hated Gu Zhangyuan now, and seeing him dare to help their father made him want to rip him apart.

Gu Tinghe cursed, "You piece of trash, get away! This is all your fault, all your fault! If it weren't for you, the Gu family wouldn't be in this mess!"

Gu Yangxue helped First Master up and heard Gu Tinghe still causing internal strife.

She was usually so mild-mannered she came off as timid, but now she couldn't hold back and snapped back angrily, "Enough, you idiot! At a time like this, why are you still going after him? Even if you killed him, the Gu family's troubles wouldn't stop. The root of this disaster isn't him—it's the second branch eyeing the first branch's inheritance. Even without Gu Zhangyuan, the second branch wouldn't let us go."

Gu Tinghe didn't buy a word of it, figuring she was just sticking up for Gu Zhangyuan.

Second Uncle had always been good to him, getting him whatever he wanted no matter how hard it was.

There was no way he'd believe Second Uncle didn't care about him.

Gu Tinghe: "I don't believe you. You've been glued to eldest brother since we were kids, like his little shadow. Even when he drove your mother out, you never once dared to hate him. Now he's brought ruin to the whole family, and you're still taking his side like a fool. You're an idiot!"

Gu Yangxue was about to argue more, but Second Master, who'd been watching the whole time, finally butted in.

Second Master: "Enough, cut it out. The prefect's probably getting impatient. Brother, you'd better talk soon. If you don't, I'll hand your three kids over to serve the prefect. I hear he treats his wife well, but if he doesn't want them, he might just toss them to those savage bandits. And then they'll be in for a world of pain."

Hearing that, First Master wasn't the only one furious—everyone else was too.

Gu Tinghe, who'd just been thinking how kind Second Uncle was, went pale with rage.

He anxiously said, "Second Uncle, this has nothing to do with me. I don't know anything about the secret chamber, and I never wanted the inheritance. It's all Gu Zhangyuan's fault. Take it out on him, but please, can you let me go?"

Second Master put on a troubled look and said, "Can't do that. Things aren't up to me anymore. Blame your own bad luck for being born where you were. Next life, make sure you're born into a regular family."

As he spoke, he motioned to the guards to take the men away.

He'd been going on here for ages, and his big brother still wouldn't budge an inch—looks like he needed to be shown what's what.

Seeing the guards coming to drag them off, Gu Changyuan fumed, "You wouldn't dare?! I'm tight with your magistrate's son. Treat me like this, and he'll make you pay."

A guard grinned at that and reached out to touch Gu Changyuan's chin, only to have his hand swatted away without hesitation.

He didn't even get mad, just said with a laugh, "Heh, pretty soon there ain't gonna be a Great Zhou at all. That young master's just a paper tiger. You're better off begging our lord later instead. Our lord's a kind man with a thing for pretty faces—he might tell 'em to go easy on you."

With that, he reached out to grab Gu Changyuan's hand.

That soft, pale hand—he'd been itching to touch it for ages.

Now that he finally had his shot, he wasn't gonna pass it up.

Gu Changyuan wasn't having any of it, backing off and yelping in alarm.

"Xie Licheng!"

The city's gone to hell now—once Xie Licheng catches wind, he'll definitely come for him.

He'd definitely have his back!

Xie Licheng had just reached the edge of the big master's courtyard when he heard Gu Changyuan's slightly panicked call.

He didn't give a damn about the bandits out front—just vaulted the wall in one go.

He moved fast and clean.

The bandits outside spotted him and hurriedly chased through the gate.

Inside the courtyard, the guard saw Gu Changyuan still wasn't backing down, still raising a fuss, and his patience finally ran out.

He said angrily, "You're asking for it!"

With that, he whipped out a lash and went to crack it at Gu Changyuan.

The big master hurriedly cut in, "Stop! I'll talk, I'll talk!"

The second master was about to say, "You should've spoken up sooner—no need for all this mess," but before he could get a word out, the whip-wielding guard, face twisted in a snarl, dropped dead on the spot.

As he fell, a few bandits shouted from behind.

"Someone's in here!"

"A man broke in!"

The second master whipped around and spotted a familiar figure.

He recognized him—it was... that horse slave.