Chapter 76: The Bloody Case (III)

The three of them traveled on together.

Thanks to their horses, they passed two more groups of local soldiers who had earlier checked their identities.

As they rode by, Le Wuya openly glanced at them several times.

The soldiers, resting by the roadside to escape the heat, didn't mind Le Wuya looking at them.

— The three of them were neatly dressed, clearly from respectable families, and didn't look like mountain bandits at all.

Le Wuya rode ahead for a stretch, then gave a tug on the reins and trotted back:

"Hey, fellas!"

The soldiers, gathered together eating their dry rations, were startled, staring at this refined, scholarly young man.

The leader, a bit simple and slow on the uptake, was quite friendly: "What, you lost? Where you headed?"

Le Wuya shook his head and answered with a bright grin: "I wanna see your swords!"

The soldiers exchanged bewildered looks, feeling like girls getting catcalled by some random creep.

They couldn't read Le Wuya, and after a moment's hesitation, finally told him to get lost: "What swords? Get outta here, scram!"

Le Wuya: "Come on, fellas, just let me see. I'd love to have a badass sword like that."

He laid it on thick enough, and the head soldier sized him up for a moment, then signaled the soldier beside him to draw his blade, showed him two inches of the blade's back, then sheathed it.

The clang of the blade hitting the scabbard was a sweet sound.

From that quick draw and sheathe, Le Wuya could already tell it was good steel.

He beamed: "Thanks, fellas!"

After that friendly little chat, he returned to the other two.

Xiang Zhijie: "So? What'd you find out?"

Since they'd changed in such a rush, one of Le Wuya's hair ties was longer than the other.

He twisted the longer ribbon around his finger and pouted: "I want swords that nice for my guys too."

Xiang Zhijie immediately went for his coin purse: "How much would that set us back?"

Le Wuya: "Ugh, ugh, ugh."

Sure, a prince's allowance was generous, but his expenses were huge—every social thing cost a fortune.

The roads in Nanting were paid for out of Master Chen's family fortune.

Le Wuya had set aside the six thousand taels in silver notes Xiang Zhijie brought, for now, planning to save them for him, just taking them out now and then to admire them.

To everyone's surprise, Wen Renyue was the first to reach over and press down on Xiang Zhijie's pouch.

He had a different idea than Le Wuya.

He said softly: "We can make the money ourselves."

Hearing that, Le Wuya was about to happily praise his ambition, but then something hit him—his brow furrowed, his lashes lowered, and he hid his deep purple eyes behind them.

Both Xiang Zhijie and Wen Renyue knew that look—it meant he was mulling over something important.

So they both shut up and let him think, and kept heading toward Yin Family Village, following the directions the barber had let slip.

The three kept going, asking for directions along the way, slowly piecing together a rough picture of Yin Family Village from what folks told them:

Yin Family Village was already on the edge of Xingtai.

Past the village, heading southwest, were a thousand li of endless, lawless mountains.

The rich had been gobbling up land at the foot of the mountains, and folks who didn't want to become tenant farmers moved up into the mountains, growing their own food just to get by, gradually forming the small settlement of Yin Family Village.

Sure, there were bandits in the mountains, but the villagers were so dirt poor that aside from a few shabby thatched huts, there was nothing worth stealing.

Still, over the past few decades, a few bands of bandits, with nobody else to rob, had hit Yin Family Village three times, making off with six sacks of mixed grain and three sacks of coarse flour, and, just for kicks, burning down a dozen or so huts and sheds.

Luckily, over all those years, nobody in the village ever got hurt.

The mountain woods sheltered the bandits, but they sheltered the villagers too.

Whenever unusual commotion arose outside, they would carry the young and lead the old into the woods, and after the bandits had done their damage, they would emerge from the forest wiping their tears, picking usable things from the ashes, washing them clean, and the next day, they would cut timber and gather grass to build a simple new home.

They had never even thought of reporting to the authorities.

They were at the edge of Xingtai—why would the county magistrate deign to set foot in such a lowly place, risking being robbed or killed by mountain bandits, to see a group of refugees who had nearly become mountain spirits?

Thank heaven, they were blessed with Magistrate Shao Hongzhen.

From his very first day in office, Shao Hongzhen, like Le Wuya, had personally visited every corner of Xingtai, including Yin Family Village.

The day he first arrived at the village with a few attendants, the villagers thought they were bandits and, with practiced skill, shouldered their grain, grabbed their wives, and slipped into the woods.

Only when the attendants shouted out their identities did they cautiously emerge from the trees, trembling with fear as they faced the neatly robed, refined Shao Hongzhen, not knowing what to say.

Before the villagers could speak, Shao Hongzhen burst into tears.

From that day on, Yin Family Village received special attention.

After a thorough assessment of the village's growing conditions, Shao Hongzhen took the lead in planting precious medicinal herbs in the mountain hollows of Yin Family Village.

The villagers were not pleased by this.

They feared bandits would come to dig up their herbs, and even more, they feared that if the land was planted with herbs, there would be no grain to eat the following year.

Unexpectedly, Shao Hongzhen was truly generous—he directly transferred grain and personally delivered it up the mountain every month to relieve the villagers' immediate needs.

After a year, the herbs yielded a bountiful harvest, and the government transported them down the mountain to sell.

The villagers held a small hope of earning some money to keep by their side.

Many even planned that once they had a bit of spare cash, they would immediately move down the mountain and never stay in this sweltering, damp place again.

But the compensation they received was so generous it far exceeded everyone's expectations—so generous that every villager abandoned the thought of leaving, staying for good, never wanting to think about leaving again.

With more ready cash on hand, many villagers soon found themselves unable to sleep at night.

They worried that bandits might come to plunder.

But Shao Hongzhen had already thought of that.

He went to great lengths to raise a local militia, patrolling day and night, and managed to turn all of Xingtai County into a fortress that couldn't be pierced by a needle or splashed with water.

After that, no more bandits came to harass the villagers.

The folks of Yinjia Village looked on Shao Hongzhen as a god and chipped in to build him a living shrine at the foot of the mountain.

But before Le Wuya and his crew could even go check out Shao Hongzhen's living shrine, his little yellow horse threw a fit.

It was built like a donkey, had been going for nearly a full day and night, ate a ton, had lousy stamina, and had slogged over rough mountain trails. When it finally found a spot to rest, it got stubborn right away, burying its face in the feed trough and refusing to budge, like it was threatening to drown itself in the hay if anybody tried to make it work again.

Le Wuya couldn't drag it along, and the road ahead was mostly rough mountain trails, no good for riding anymore. So they had no choice but to leave the three horses there for now, grab just their essentials, and head up the mountain on foot.

By the time it was just starting to get dark, they finally made it to Yinjia Village.

Yinjia Village was pretty small. Even after three years of sudden prosperity brought in more folks, it still only had about forty households, since it was so out of the way.

As soon as he entered the village, Le Wuya spotted two huge mansions, one at the east end and one at the west end, standing out like sore thumbs.

Hearing about it from somebody else didn't sound like much, but seeing these two estates with ten-foot-high walls rising out of the deep mountains was a real shock.

Yinjia Village sat in a desolate spot, all unclaimed land with no clear property lines.

As long as a family had the cash, they could build whatever they wanted.

But to be able to put up such big, multi-courtyard estates, the Yin and Hang families must have had sharp eyes, staking claim to more land than everybody else, raking in a fortune, and climbing up in the world.

The group headed first to the big house at the east end of the village.

A big brass lock hung on the gate, wrapped in heavy iron chains, and the official seal of Xingtai County was pasted on the door.

Everything was dead quiet, not a soul around, just a few flies buzzing in the air.

Weeds had already started poking up through the cracks in the stone steps, which hadn't been swept in days.

A weird smell hung in the air, like old piss, enough to turn your stomach.

This had to be the Yin family's place, the one wiped out by bandits.

Staring at the sprawling, grand buildings, Le Wuya crossed his arms and frowned, saying nothing.

Wen Ren furrowed his brow too: "...Plenty of space."

If a dozen or so guys posing as traveling merchants had shown up, saying they needed a place to crash, the Yin mansion alone would've been plenty to put them all up.

But looking across Yinjia Village, there were only these two rich farming families.

If the bandits wanted to swallow both fat pieces in one go, splitting into two groups to sneak in and rob each place separately would make sense.

But then, something else didn't add up.

Le Wuya, hands clasped behind his back, stared at the locked-up grand doors and came out with a bold statement: "Too few people died."

He asked Wen Ren, "How many people in the Yin family died?"

Wen Ren answered right away: "Four men, three women, plus one hired hand."

Zhi Jie: "Seven in the main family, that checks out. But..."

Wen Ren: "...But how could there be just one hired hand?"

In a place this big, were there no maids to clean? No errand boys? No gatekeepers or cooks?

Or was it just a coincidence that they'd all gone home that night and weren't in the Yin place?

But the night of the massacre wasn't a holiday or festival—so how come only the seven family members and one servant were there?

Even setting that aside, Yinjia Village had been plagued by bandit raids for years. As the saying goes, once bitten by a snake, you're scared of a rope for ten years. Even with Shao Hongzhen's local soldiers patrolling, they should've hired some tough guys to watch the gates, protect their stuff, and keep the bandits away.

How could they be so careless, with only eight people in the house, to let in six strangers of unknown origin late at night, pulling such a dumb stunt as inviting thieves right in?

Without bothering the other villagers, Le Wuya and his two companions quietly circled around to the west end of the village and knocked on the door of the rich farmer Hang Yichun's place.

They knocked and knocked for a long time before somebody answered from behind the door: "Who's there?"

"A traveler," Le Wuya said without missing a beat. "I'm dying of thirst and was hoping to borrow some hot water to drink."

With a creak, the door swung open.

The gatekeeper had a sallow, haggard face, looking deeply worried, like he hadn't had a good night's sleep in days.

But when he heard Le Wuya begging for water in such a pitiful way, he didn't rush to say, "Who are you, and what are you doing here?"

Le Wuya, not batting an eye, said, "We're scholars on our way to Yizhou for the provincial exam. We got a little lost on the road, and when we saw people here, we figured we'd ask for some water. If we could stay the night too, we'd be much obliged!"

Clearly, the gatekeeper had no idea what the "provincial exam" was, but he got the "scholars" part.

He poked his head out, counted how many of them there were, then opened the door a little wider and held out his hand to Le Wuya.

Le Wuya got the hint and handed over a leather water pouch.

The gatekeeper left the door open and hurried off.

When he came back, the whole leather pouch was filled up, and he'd thrown in three cold, hard flatbreads as a bonus.

He waved his hand and said, "Get going. Our village... hasn't been peaceful lately. Don't stick around here. Move on."

With that, the heavy door shut again in their faces.

Staring at the flatbreads in his hand, Le Wuya stayed quiet for a long time.

By all rights, he should've praised the "simple, honest folks."

Wen Ren asked, "Should we go ask some of the other villagers?"

Le Wuya waved his hand, handed out the flatbreads, and took the lead.

But after they left, a head silently poked out from the shadows at the corner of the Hang family estate.

Then a second one, and a third.

In the moonlight, every one of those ghostly figures was holding a gleaming, sharpened cleaver.

...

Le Wuya walked on in silence, chewing the cold flatbread, his head spinning with bits and pieces of what he'd heard.

Qi Wuhu had said that the three counties next to Xingtai—Buda, Ansi, and Xixiang—had barren land and rough terrain, with no money for defense, which was why the magistrates of those three counties were always giving Magistrate Shao a hard time.

The barber said that Magistrate Shao lived in poverty, even his money pouch was patched.

Many villagers said that Magistrate Shao was a celestial literary star sent down to earth, bringing better days to the struggling people of Yinjia Village.

The strangeness lurking in all this boiled down to a single word.

Money.

Defense cost money.

Hiring good local militia cost money.

Forging standardized, high-quality blades cost money.

Growing herbs cost money, fertilizing cost money, and hauling them out of the deep mountains to sell cost money.

If Shao Wenfu had been born rich and was willing to blow his fortune on the people, that would've been one thing.

But he lived a life of extreme frugality—pure as water, clean as ice.

So where did a man like him get all that money to turn the chaotic Xingtai County into something resembling order in just three years?

Le Wuya finished off a whole flatbread, then chugged cold water in one go. Like a wary beast, he silently recharged his strength while leading the other two in a stop-and-go march—now glancing up at the moon, now bending down to sniff the dirt. They were putting more and more distance between themselves and Yinjia Village, pushing deeper into the wild mountains.

He seemed to be wandering without a plan, but neither Zhi Jie nor Wen Ren Yue asked a thing.

People leave traces wherever they go.

The villagers, plowing and hauling loads, had naturally worn a fairly flat path that snaked toward a mountain hollow.

Amid the chirping of summer bugs, Le Wuya and his two companions traveled under the stars and moon, tracking the trail.

Le Wuya was dead set on finding out what precious medicinal herb had made tiny Yinjia Village rich in just three years.

As the path twisted and turned, a dazzling, dreamlike scene suddenly appeared under the moonlight—

Brilliant red flowers, like raging flames, blazed across the whole mountain hollow.

Their bewitching colors blazed, swaying in the east wind, graceful and alluring, enough to make you drunk just looking at them.

But Le Wuya's heart sank: "Is this... opium poppy?"

The opium poppy used to make raw opium.

This stuff was a paradise of pleasure, but also a killing blade!

Suddenly, a cool breeze swept past Le Wuya's cheek.

With a dull thunk, an arrow slammed into the rock ledge beside him, its tip buried more than three inches deep!

That wasn't an arrow shot by a person.

It was a crossbow bolt from a rigged trap!

Le Wuya scanned the area and spotted seven or eight figures closing in on them!

Bandits?

Local troops?

...Or villagers?

No time to figure out who they were!!

His mind spinning, his first thought was for the two people beside him.

Xiaoliu had a dagger and a hidden bodyguard, and even if he didn't know where that guard was right now, at least someone had his back.

He yanked the arrow out and shoved it into Wen Ren Yue's hand, barking: "Dodge the arrows! Run! Split up!"

With that, he rolled headfirst into the dazzling poisonous flower field, trampling a trail of fallen red petals as he sprinted toward the most dangerous spot!