Chapter 191: Unease in the Heart

The air was thick with the pungent stench of blood everywhere.

The captured commoners finally dared to burst into loud weeping.

Some clutched the corpses of their relatives, glaring hatefully at the Yulin County garrison soldiers and local militia.

"Why did you... not surrender? If you had surrendered, we wouldn't have died so..."

Slap!

One backhand silenced the man's voice, sending it back into his belly, and knocked out several teeth in the process.

The one who struck was naturally not Li Lin, but an ordinary soldier.

"We came to save you, and many of our brothers already died." The soldier was a youth, about sixteen or seventeen years old; he scowled as he yanked the man up: "You want us to surrender? Do you want to get us all killed?"

The man dared not speak.

"If you speak out of turn again, I will kill you all. Even if the Supervisor punishes me, I will still kill you all."

The young soldier viciously threw the man to the ground, then swept his gaze over the crowd, his eyes filled with rage and hatred.

He had a very good brother who died not long ago.

He died saving these ungrateful scum.

He too had come to hate these people, his gaze stern and cold.

Those captured commoners did not dare meet his eyes.

Li Lin saw this from a distance, pulled Tao De aside, and asked, "What is that little soldier's name?"

"Yue Shan!"

"He looks quite promising; nurture him well."

"Yes."

At this moment, Su Bei led a group dragging a small, red altar out of the enemy's camp tent.

Compared to the large blood altar seen before, this thing was as small as a dining table.

Li Lin walked around the blood altar once, then tapped its surface and said, "Come out."

A small Taowu Zhenjun, about one meter tall, with an owl's head and a cat's tail, floated out from inside.

It was very afraid; it merely glanced at Li Lin before lowering its head again.

"Siamese cat... hmm." Li Lin examined the creature with some surprise: "You actually have no evil qi on you, nor the scent of blood."

The Siamese Taowu Zhenjun looked up at Li Lin again, quickly lowered its head, and then cautiously said, "I only eat grilled fish..."

Oh, no wonder there was no evil qi, but it also wasn't powerful.

It turned out to be malnourished.

"Then are you willing to follow us back and become our Qi people's Taowu Zhenjun?"

"What if I'm not willing!"

Li Lin squinted and smiled: "What do you think?"

"I'm willing, I'm willing... Don't smile like that, I'm very scared!"

The little cat clutched its head, trembling violently.

Was I that terrifying?

Li Lin felt somewhat puzzled.

At this moment, Tao De walked over and asked, "Supervisor... over a hundred Southern Barbarian soldiers have been captured. How should they be handled?"

"Kill all those who look like Southern Barbarians. Those who look like our Qi people, take them back and throw them into the local militia to work as laborers."

Tao De laughed: "Good."

Such a decisive superior officer truly made those below feel very comfortable.

Li Lin ordered the soldiers to count the number of Qi commoners; after a night passed, the count was completed.

A little over nineteen thousand people.

Mainly because on the battlefield last night, the Southern Barbarians killed captives, and over a thousand commoners died.

Li Lin sighed, feeling regret for those dead commoners, but he had no regrets; under those circumstances, it was absolutely impossible for him not to continue the attack, let alone surrender.

After finishing the count, Li Lin led these people back to Yulin County.

Fortunately, Yulin County city was large enough and had sufficient stored grain; otherwise, adding twenty thousand people would have made solving their survival problem truly difficult.

However, he was only responsible for bringing the people back; how to arrange them was the County Assistant's business.

Li Lin sat in the military office and began writing the battlefield report documents.

These things would eventually be submitted to the Secretariat-Chancellery.

He had just finished writing a general account of the events on the battlefield last night when Jiang Jili came to find him.

"County Vice-Magistrate Li, some disaster refugees are accusing you, saying you disregarded their lives and deaths last night and wanted to get them killed."

Li Lin smiled: "I guessed there would be people like that."

Those people were scared by Yue Shan last night, but in another place, they would naturally still dare to speak.

"You're still smiling? If this matter reaches the Secretariat-Chancellery, it will become a stain on your future advancement; those with ulterior motives will use this matter to make trouble."

Li Lin waved his hand: "It doesn't matter."

Jiang Jili looked at him deeply and said, "Since you don't care, I won't persuade you anymore. I will find a way to help you eliminate this influence, so the documents won't reach the Secretariat-Chancellery."

"Why help me so much?" Li Lin felt somewhat puzzled.

Their relationship was actually not very good; it was more of a peaceful alliance formed only after mutual wariness of each other's strength.

"We are friends."

After saying this, Jiang Jili left.

Li Lin felt somewhat baffled.

At this moment, a government office Runner approached and said, "County Commandant, the person you asked about has awakened."

Li Lin nodded, then proceeded to the prison.

Behind the black iron bars stood Qin Donglai, his face flushed deep red.

He gasped for breath, looking as though he were in great pain.

"It seems your health is poor," Li Lin said, looking at Qin Donglai.

"I am dying..." Qin Donglai looked at Li Lin. "You should not have saved me; it is all a waste anyway."

Li Lin shook his head. "That is not entirely true. I wish to ask you some things."

"I will say nothing."

Li Lin smiled. "I knew you would be like this... so I have an idea. If you refuse to speak, I will have your ancestral hall cut down and fed to dogs, then place you with those prisoners who favor men. What do you think?"

"You vicious villain!" Qin Donglai's hair stood on end in rage.

Li Lin smiled. "A butcher who betrayed his clan, consorted with barbarians, and slaughtered his own kin dares to call me a vicious villain... do you have the right?"

Qin Donglai's face turned even redder, filled with humiliation. After a long while, he said helplessly, "Ask away... my body is already failing. The medicine that witch doctor gave me was not for healing wounds, but to exhaust my body's potential."

"Your Qin clan allied with the Southern Barbarians; do you know of the White Elephant Divine Flesh?"

Qin Donglai looked at Li Lin strangely. "I thought you would ask about our Qin Wang. The White Elephant Divine Flesh... I not only know of it, I have eaten it."

"The White Elephant Divine Flesh was in the hands of the Tang Family Army, wasn't it? How did you obtain it?"

"Hehe... naturally, I obtained it through a transaction with the Tang Family Army."

Li Lin paused, a sudden sense of crisis arising in his heart.

After all, Qin Donglai's smile was too... triumphant and unrestrained.

Li Lin asked again, "Why did you ally with the Southern Barbarians?"

"Our clan leader wished to become Emperor, and coincidentally the Southern Barbarians also wished to invade the Central Plains; thus, we were of one mind."

Although the other spoke very reasonably, Li Lin felt the matter was not so simple.

Two incense sticks later, Li Lin emerged from the prison.

Not much more secret information could be extracted from Qin Donglai.

After all, he was merely a distant relative of the Qin family, separated by several generations, and not part of the political core.

After Li Lin came out, he said to the government office Runner at the prison gate, "Go buy Qin Donglai a jar of good wine and a whole boiled chicken, let him eat and drink. When he eventually dies, bury him properly and erect a tombstone for him."

Li Lin felt Qin Donglai must have contracted tetanus; time was running out.

Let him eat something good in the end.

After all, the other had revealed intelligence quite important to Li Lin.

The County Magistrate has the County Magistrate's duties; Li Lin also has his own duties.

Inform his father-in-law Huang Yan of the interrogation results via carrier pigeon, and... distribute compensation.

(End of this chapter)