Chapter 825: The Southeast Gate of the Town, Accumulated Grudges

The people from the Yemei Town Government Office left with the carriage belonging to Jier's team.

They first passed through the camp where Jier's team had spent the night, arriving beneath the town's stone wall. Unlike other areas outside the wall, there was a ring of gravel road beneath the stone wall, paved with the crushed stone left over from when the wall was originally built.

Vehicles loaded with full carts of firewood could move better here, provided one ignored the accumulated filth of years stuck against the wall. These filthy things were the excrement left behind by the guards on the wall while they were on duty.

After all, having to run up and down the wall stairs every time one needed to use the toilet was a very troublesome affair.

The wheels rolled onto the gravel-paved surface, and then the convoy moved around the town wall toward the east side. There was no main gate on the south side of the wall. Unlike other towns built with gates at the cardinal directions, the gates of Yemei Town were slightly offset at an angle; the entrances were located at the northwest, northeast, southeast, and southwest directions of the town.

It was not that the Sasi Family had taken the wrong construction blueprints when building the wall; it was simply that the town's main trade route was in the northwest direction, making that gate necessary, and for the sake of symmetry, the other town gates were naturally changed to their current directions.

At this moment, dozens of armed guards were gathered at the town's southeast gate, isolating the farmers outside the gate—which remained wide open even at night—and preventing these farmers from approaching or entering the town.

Whenever a farmer from outside the town wanted to enter, they would be immediately forced back by the nervously standing guards wielding long spears, preventing anyone from getting close.

In normal times, or even during the day, the guards would let people in after receiving a small bribe, but that was not possible now, especially at night.

During the day, they could still perform simple checks on the bodies and mouths of those entering the town, using the methods arranged by their superiors to strangely inspect for 'Bandits' lurking outside the town. At night, this was not possible, as they were terrified of 'Bandits' sneaking into the town. Therefore, the town would close its gates every night; opening the southeast gate wide tonight was also a matter of necessity.

In reality, the guards crowded at this town gate were not entirely ignorant of one another. Many had experienced the previous 'Bandit' attack incident. Not to mention the news they gathered from each other when off-duty, some had even seen with their own eyes or fought against those monsters wearing human skin during the last attack.

Therefore, opening this gate wide tonight made the guards responsible for the watch far more nervous than the farmers gathered outside the wall.

"What on earth is going on? It's already dark, why haven't they closed the gate yet?" someone muttered, eyes warily watching the starving, thin farmers outside the range of the dim torches, terrified that a man-eating monster might be hidden among them.

"Who knows? But I'm sure it has to do with those outsiders who arrived over there. I just saw that the lords from the Government Office went over and haven't returned yet. If the gate isn't closed, they must be waiting for them, right?" someone nearby speculated. However, not long after he finished speaking, firelight and a convoy could be seen approaching along the wall not far away.

Unlike the dim torches at the town's southeast gate, the torches lighting the front and back of the approaching convoy were hot and bright, naturally illuminating the Government Office official leading the way.

The ordinary guards in the town, of course, did not know the lords from the Government Office who were responsible for most of the town's affairs; they recognized the visitors by the clothing they wore.

Before the convoy even drew near, the leading Government Office official said something to his assistant beside him, and then the assistant, also dressed in Government Office attire, trotted ahead to reach the guards first.

Unlike the timid farmers lingering outside the town, the guards did not dare point their long spears at this assistant. Even though he was an assistant, his authority was much greater than that of the Captain of these guards.

This assistant to a certain Government Office official waved the book in his hand aggressively, batting away the long spears beside him, and pushed past the blocking guards without a care, shouting directly at a Captain in the center of the guards: "A bunch of idiots, what are you still blocking the gate for? Didn't you see the lord returning with the convoy? Hurry up and move, clear the gate!"

After saying this, the assistant looked with disgust at the farmers who had curiously gathered around, waving his hands vigorously to command: "And these ground rats, drive them all away, drive them all away! There's no telling if there are 'Bandit' spies among these people."

The assistant spoke vaguely, but the Captain commanding this guard unit naturally knew what he meant. The guard Captain first bowed and smiled obsequiously at the Government Office assistant, not caring whether the other party could see his posturing in the insufficient light outside the gate, then immediately changed his fawning expression, aggressively scolding his subordinates in the same manner: "Spread the team out and stand guard! Deputy, take ten men and drive away all the farmers around here. Also, a few more of you, come with me to protect the convoy."

After shouting this, he ignored the ugly expression on his Deputy Captain's face and immediately led his trusted men to follow the Government Office assistant to provide protection, which was in reality to curry favor with the Government Office official.

The dozens of guards gathered at the city gate quickly dispersed, clearing the entrance to allow the approaching convoy to enter the town smoothly. Although the unit had dispersed, all the guards still held their long spears upright and pointed outward, wary of everything beyond the reach of the gate's firelight.

Whether it was the monsters wearing human skin or the nearby farmers looking on with cold indifference.

Some of the villagers did not have much food stored at home and had to carry their belongings to town every three to five days to sell for money. When entering the town during the day, they not only had to accept the guards' rough inspections but also had to bribe them to avoid excessive humiliation during the search. After selling their wooden furniture or other items in town and then buying grain at shops where prices were constantly rising, they had to endure the guards' extortion when leaving the town; if they didn't cough up a handful of grain each time, they wouldn't be let out of the town at all.

This caused a gradually accumulating conflict between the guards and the refugees outside the town.

For the guards, standing watch on the wall or at the city gate during the day was fine, but coming outside the town at night today made them extremely worried about something going wrong.

Especially for the Deputy Captain of these guards.

The Captain had told him to take men to drive away the surrounding farmers, and he really didn't want to do it, nor did he want to leave the protection of his subordinates. But when the convoy drew near, the guard Captain, who was currying favor with the Government Office official, saw that his Deputy Captain hadn't moved yet and immediately stepped forward to kick him: "What are you dazed for? Hurry up and drive away everyone who's come close! Drive them away!"

As the convoy approached the gate, the surrounding farmers also subconsciously gathered around. To everyone's disappointment, the convoy, which no one knew where it came from, was not carrying the grain everyone craved, but cart after cart of firewood.

However, fuel was scarce outside the town, and they were also in great need of this firewood. After all, the villagers had fled from the Cunzi to here, and the furniture they brought had to be taken to town to trade for money and grain; chopping it up to burn as firewood was truly too extravagant and wasteful.

But in recent days, within the area between the town wall and the trench, all burnable grass and wood had been taken by the villagers; let alone a bush, there wasn't even a blade of grass left. It was unlikely they could trade valuable possessions in town for fuel wood, so these days everyone had the strongest young people from each family cross the trench they had built themselves during the day, go to the abandoned farmland outside the trench, and use farm tools to gather lush wild grass and flowers, which they would dry out to use as fuel.

But this was no solution either. As the days of refuge grew longer, even the wild grass, flowers, and fast-growing shrubs in the farmland within a distance outside the trench had been cut down, and it wasn't enough. To get plant fuel that could burn, they had to run further away.

But doing so made them easily captured by bandits lying in ambush in the grass. Some people never returned after going out, and the families of the missing people all understood that those who didn't return before the sun set each day would likely never return at all.

Having said all that, the point was that the large amount of firewood on the convoy's carriages gradually caught the attention of the surrounding farmers. The nervous guards noticed the large number of farmers gradually approaching and immediately began shouting threats, telling those who came close to get lost.

"Get lost! Everything on those vehicles belongs to the town."

"It's not for you to gawk at! Go away! Get any closer and I'll give you a beating!"

But the fierce faces they usually wore, combined with the curses and threats from their mouths, didn't seem to be as effective today.

The guard Captain kicked the Deputy Captain out and pointed with a cold face at the farmers getting closer and closer: "Drive them all away for me! Before the entire convoy enters the town, I don't want any dirty hands touching the things on the vehicles. The lord just told me that those things are for the people in town to use first. You, me, and everyone's families—if you want to eat a hot meal, you have to protect every single piece of wood on those carts!"

The Deputy Captain gritted his teeth, drew the Long Sword at his waist, and like the guard Captain, pushed and kicked ten guards to select them. He walked out of the guard formation with them, waving his Long Sword and long spear threateningly one by one, forcing back the farmers who were crowding around.

Snap!

A Stone on the ground outside the town's southeast gate was picked up by a farmer and thrown at these guards. The guard's sewn soft Leather Clothing, worn over his guard tunic, blocked the Stone. The guard let out a muffled grunt, and the long spear he was waving threateningly moved even more urgently from side to side.

"Are you looking for death? Get back!"

These eleven people moved out of the formation, and wherever they went, the gathered crowd retreated a dozen meters. After all, it was late at night, and the approaching crowd had nothing in their hands, so they could only pick up random stones and dirt clods from the ground to throw. And although the guards' equipment wasn't great, the weapons in their hands reflected the firelight from the gate, which looked frightening.

Even so, more stones and dirt clods were thrown. These projectiles, thrown without any accuracy, went "pitter-patter," with most hitting empty air and a few hitting the guards. Although they were only small stones and dirt clods, the ten guards still couldn't stand it and kept waving their weapons while retreating. The Deputy Captain leading the team, however, was wearing a piece of Ring Mail under his guard tunic that covered his torso, and with the Long Sword he was waving, he wasn't afraid of these things.

As his subordinates retreated, the Deputy Captain was instead pushed to the front, becoming a prominent Wooden Target, so soon all the stones and dirt clods were thrown at this guy.

Swish—snap, snap, snap-bang.

After a chaotic barrage, even though this guy used his empty left hand to cover his face, he was beaten into a very sorry state. The hard leather helmet on his head was fine, but his limbs, including his nose and chin, were all bruised and scraped.

The guard Deputy Captain, who was always bullying others, had never suffered like this before. He roared in anger, rushed forward a few steps, and slashed down with his Long Sword, cutting off the wrist of the man closest to him.

"Ah! My hand—my hand!"

The screams scared off a large circle of people around him and also made the retreating guards shout with excitement.

The Deputy Captain bared half his face, which was covered in blood, glared fiercely at the cowering crowd retreating before him, and then dragged the man with the severed hand who was wailing on the ground back with him. As he walked, he kicked the man who was clutching his wrist and wailing violently.

"Let you be wild! Let you be wild!"

"I saw it just now, you were the one who threw a stone at me, throwing at me, right! Stones, right! Does it feel good! Ah! Does it feel good?"

While questioning him, the Deputy Captain kicked the man he was dragging on the ground violently.

He had thought that by taking one person back to beat him, the surrounding farmers would all be scared away, but he didn't expect the man on the ground who was being beaten to suddenly grab his lower leg and then open his mouth, teeth ravaged by coarse grain, to bite down fiercely.

Pain struck in an instant, but before the pain from the vicious bite could reach his brain, the stories his guard colleagues had discussed during their breaks about the monsters wearing human skin rushed in.

The Deputy Captain, who had not been on the front lines fighting when the bandits attacked the town a few days ago, had not seen the real parasitic monsters with his own eyes. But it was also night, and it was also wearing the skin of a lowly farmer, and in his view, it was a crazy attack, and a bite that didn't seem like a normal person's.

It made him think that the desperate resistance of this man with the severed hand was the attack of the monsters.

And he was the first target of the monsters' attack tonight.

Fear instantly seized this Deputy Captain of the guards, who held a sharp sword; subconsciously, without a second thought, he roared and hacked his Long Sword down fiercely toward his feet.

Splat.

The man with the severed hand, who had been desperately biting at the guard's thick cloth trousers, now had a large chunk missing from his skull. His body instantly lost all strength and collapsed onto the ground.

But the terrified Deputy Captain dared not guarantee that he had finished off the kind of troublesome undead Monster his colleagues had spoken of with a single strike, so he swung his sword again and again until he had hacked the corpse's head into pieces before finally stopping.

Amidst heavy panting, the Deputy Captain looked at the bright red blood covering the ground and the white-and-red fragments of human brain; seemingly remembering something, he suddenly looked up, and as he expected, those damned Villagers from outside the town, who had previously been cowering and retreating, were once again closing in one by one.

Although these people still wore the cowering expressions he despised, the look on each of their faces had become exceptionally terrifying.

He kicked the dead man at his feet away with a violent shove and turned to run toward the guards.

As he fled, clods of dirt were thrown after him, accompanied by the angry shouts of those Villagers who were unwilling to light fires at night, hidden in the darkness beyond the reach of the firelight.

Knowing he had done something stupid, especially since the person he had hacked to death was truly not some so-called Monster in human skin, the Deputy Captain was terrified and wanted to scream; he wanted to turn back and apologize, yet he also wanted to berate those people; he wanted to drop the blood-stained Long Sword in his hand, yet he also wanted to turn around and charge back to hack a few more to death to vent the anger in his heart at his current wretched state.

His head was buzzing, and he knew he should control the situation, but the words that came out of his mouth turned into the same black-and-white-reversing "remarks" he usually made: "That man was a Monster! I killed a Monster! The Monster was hiding among those people!"