Chapter 178: Additional Post

The villagers of the Ghost-Talking Toad and the Yin-Qi Earthworm village were all suffering souls.

They could not resist this eeriness, nor dared they report it to the Evil-Purging Office.

They feared the Evil-Purging Office might fail to eliminate the evil spirits, only to invite retaliation from them.

They were merely timid and cautious, never having aided the wicked.

But the village of the weasels was similar to Huangya Village.

They cooperated with the weasels to swindle many passing merchants, not sparing even the nearby villages, and even extended their "business" as far as Champa!

It's just that the weasels wanted money but not lives.

They swindled many into ruin, while the whole den lay rolling on mountains of gold and silver in the cave beneath the temple, counting money day after day.

More than half of it was merely copper coins, so counting it once took three to five days.

Yet they never tired of it; once they finished counting, they immediately began the second round.

The villagers had long learned the lesson: whenever the village forbade "accounting" or "counting," one must not go to the village temple.

The Master Huang family was extremely ominous.

Dare to approach, and they would bite off your fingers without hesitation.

When the Master Huangs were happy counting, they would order the villagers to spend a single coin to buy huge flocks of chickens and ducks, and hold a feast.

This left the entire village temple covered in blood and reeking with stench.

Xu Yuan and Shi Bading led the team and spent four days thoroughly cleaning these village temples.

The Ghost-Talking Toad and the Yin-Qi Earthworm were slain, and the weasels were driven back into Little Yu Shan.

It was not that Xu Yuan and Shi Bading did not wish to eradicate evil completely, but these creatures possessed a strange technique called "Wind-Sand Listening."

It allowed them to hear sounds carried by the wind from dozens of li away.

When Xu Yuan was purging Huangya Village, they had heard it.

These creatures were exceptionally cowardly; that very night, the entire family of dozens began moving their treasures into Little Yu Shan.

Though they had many family members, their bodies were small; it took them four to five days to transport the treasure piled like mountains back into the mountain.

After Xu Yuan and Shi Bading swept through two village temples and turned their attention to them, the thieves had already fled and the building was empty.

So they could only let it be.

Although Shi Bading and a group of Captains from the Evil-Purging Office had their eyes bloodshot, cursing that they had arrived one step too late and failed to seize this batch of treasure.

Handling the villagers of these several villages was especially troublesome.

Sending them all to the orphanage was impossible, so they could only be screened.

But since they had indeed come into contact with evil spirits, although not as closely as Huangya Village, there was still a risk of supernatural transformation.

Di Youzhi offered a suggestion: "Set up a post in each village. Station someone there to watch these people; if any sign of supernatural transformation appears, deal with it immediately, either by execution or by reporting to the Champa Office."

Xu Yuan glanced at him: "Stationing anyone in such a place is equivalent to exile."

Di Youzhi chuckled: "My lord, do you think I am taking this opportunity to kick over those who do not get along with me in the office?"

"Is it not so?"

"My lord, you entered the Evil-Purging Office with ease; do you truly believe the threshold is low?" Di Youzhi said.

Xu Yuan realized: "You want these four positions?"

"Not only do I want them," Di Youzhi said. "Why not announce this news right now and see whether Mao Dabin and the others want them?"

The threshold of the Evil-Purging Office was not low; on the contrary, it was very high.

Many cultivators of mediocre skill in the countryside and the martial world sharpened their heads but could not squeeze in.

Even within Di Youzhi's own clan, there were many junior members who had entered the sect but were not yet of the proper rank, and there simply were not enough opportunities to arrange them all into the Evil-Purging Office.

Once inside, the salary was high; moreover, if one had the chance to establish merit, one could receive rewards, gaining the opportunity to enter the proper ranks or advance one's level.

Enduring a few years in such villages would allow one to be transferred back to Champa.

Xu Yuan looked down on it, but countless people would fight to the death for it.

"Very well, then arrange it so," Xu Yuan nodded; doing a favor for his subordinates was something Xu Yuan would not block.

"Thank you, my lord!" Di Youzhi rejoiced greatly.

Xu Yuan waved his hand: "Do not thank me yet; go back and report to Lord He, the Master of Laws. Only when he approves does it count."

Di Youzhi smiled: "How could Lord He refuse your face over such a trivial matter?"

The group from the Evil-Purging Office had been out for seven or eight days and finally returned to Huicheng in a grand procession.

When they left, Qu Jinpeng and Xu Yuan's original intention had been to avoid the first round of "dueling" between He Youxing and Xie Qingman.

But after saving Shi Bading halfway, they could no longer avoid it.

They could not truly stand by and do nothing; moreover, Jia Yi and Mao Dabin were with them.

On the way back, Xu Yuan had already decided: if Xie Qingman only fought He Youxing for power and did not provoke him, he would not get involved in their affairs.

But if she insisted on provoking him...

I have Ma Tianshou shielding me from above, several great merits in the middle, and a host of brothers supporting me from below; what do I have to fear from you?

If you provoke me, I will join He Youxing and beat you until you don't even recognize your own mother!

Seeing Fu Jingyu did not return to Champa but went directly to Luocheng.

While Xu Yuan and the others were still in Qingyu Township, the Southern Office of the Evil-Purging Office in Southern Jiaozhi had already taken action.

Within two days, they swept through the Pingtian Society branches in both Luocheng and Champa.

Just as Ma Tianshou was about to move against other branches, someone from above spoke up.

It was nothing more than talk like "the Champa branch acted on its own," or "a rotten apple in the barrel."

Ma Tianshou held firm against the pressure and still inspected all the Pingtian Society temples within the scope of the Southern Office.

Two more problematic ones were found.

These two branch headquarters were also smashed.

But that was the end of it.

After all, the Peace Heaven Society still had some connections in the Northern Capital to get their cannons added to the Divine Machine Camp's roster.

Seeing Fu Jingyu was indignant; upon returning from Luocheng, he happened to meet Xu Yuan leading people back into Huicheng.

"Indeed, there are some matters where even the Master is powerless," he sighed helplessly in his duty room, closing the door before Xu Yuan.

Song Lu, standing beside him, said, "This time I returned to Luocheng and heard some news: after the Peace Heaven Society's bronze smiths' cannons were added to the roster, their sales did indeed surge.

However, they were all bought by private ships sailing overseas for defense.

I also heard that several prominent families engaged in smithing business have abandoned bronze cannons and are now forging lighter, better iron cannons. Their business, I fear, will be hard to sustain in the future."

Xu Yuan asked curiously, "Private ships? Was it really for defense?"

Song Lu covered his mouth and laughed.

Those private ships ran to Japan and the Southern Seas; if they had cargo, they carried cargo, and if they encountered ships without "defense," they would go up and raid them.

The maritime ban of the Imperial Ming had not been lifted.

But for these two hundred years, it had already been a dead letter.

It was said that the one in the Grand Canal was pleased to see such a situation.

Private sea voyages by the common people in the southeast were rampant. It was secretly rumored that the one had great ambitions regarding the ocean.

Perhaps in another few decades, the maritime ban would be lifted.

As the three were chatting, Lang Xiao Ba's voice suddenly sounded at the door: "My Lord Xu, Lord Qu requests your presence."

Xu Yuan went to the adjacent duty room of Qu Jinpeng: "You summoned me?"

Qu Jinpeng rubbed his eyebrows; the beads on the abacus on the table before him had not yet been reset.

"The four fate-cultivators have been calculated," Qu Jinpeng said. "Yet for some reason, they are actually related to the Shanhe Agency in the city."

"I feared I had miscalculated, so I calculated twice more, and the result was the same."

(End of this chapter)