Chapter 153: The Little One Has Something to Say

"Save me" and "spare my life"—the words shouted in a moment of desperation reveal why this man was able to be the ringleader.

"He's a sharp one," Wen Gu said.

"Ah! You have a keen eye, Officer! My big brother used to say the same, that I have a good head on my shoulders and should have gone to school if not for the lack of money at home!" the man said.

He saw that Wen Gu's expression was easygoing, and compared to the fierce-looking men beside him, he seemed much easier to talk to; plus, he looked like the leader here!

So he responded with great enthusiasm.

Yu He didn't care whether the man was sharp or not; if Deputy Envoy Wen hadn't said to spare their lives beforehand, they would have been shot dead long ago, and it would have been impossible for them to run to the front of the small courtyard!

Wen Gu asked again if they were locals, why they were here, and why they had targeted the delivery.

The man who had slid to his knees also answered honestly, appearing very cooperative.

He told Wen Gu that none of them were from around here; they had gradually fled here as refugees and only gathered together this year.

They were simply too hungry, which was why they had targeted the goods being transported by those servants.

There was no help for it; they had fled all the way here and found a hidden place to hole up. The only normal people they saw were the patrolling Mishou Army, the City Defense Army, and the members of the Patrol Guard Division who had run past a step ahead.

They didn't dare provoke anyone wearing Iron Armor, so they stayed far away.

When they looked at those servants delivering goods, they felt they were much easier to deal with.

Servants were not part of the official establishment, so they had no Iron Armor uniforms. But in fact, they were issued Leather Armor.

It was just that the weather was hot now, and since someone had already cleared the Plague Ghosts on this route, the danger wasn't considered great, so the servants couldn't be bothered to wrap themselves up tightly.

The lead servant only wore a leather helmet.

As a result, they were treated as soft persimmons.

In the corner, the lead servant had been listening quietly, but at this moment, he couldn't help but glare.

Damn it! He was being looked down upon!

It's no exaggeration to say that even without wearing armor or holding a blade or spear, he could take down all these refugees with just a wooden stick!

How unreasonable!!

At this moment, the blades thrown out by the refugees were retrieved by the men from the Patrol Guard Division.

Yu He took one and looked at it.

"The blades have been used frequently; the edges are clearly rolled. I don't think they are law-abiding citizens."

He suggested to Wen Gu: "Shall we execute them?"

The refugee who had slid to his knees was spurred by his survival instinct and hurriedly shouted: "No, no, no—they aren't ours! These blades were all found! Found!"

With their lives threatened, the other refugees also reacted and shouted in panic: "Spare our lives, Officer!"

"The blades really were found!"

The man who had slid to his knees quickly defended himself: "We have always been law-abiding citizens; we were truly forced into this with no other choice! If we had the guts to rob, we wouldn't have endured until now! This is truly the first time we've done this!"

The border regions had a rugged folk culture, but that was only in general terms.

Was it not allowed for someone to be a coward?

The other refugees were taken to the side and interrogated separately. With food as bait, they spilled everything.

The blades were indeed found by them; they had been chased by Plague Ghosts and fled to this Jinchan area, where they happened to find a few blades.

Before, they had only held tree sticks, broken hoes, and rusted sickles. After finding these blades, they felt they were more powerful, so they swapped them on the spot.

These blades were in the style of the south; the original owners must have come from the south but met with an accident.

The point was this: the group that came from the south had been buried.

A few refugees had accidentally dug up the blades and corpses while digging for food; they were terrified, but they wanted the blades, so they kept digging.

In the end, they only took the blades and buried the rest back.

Worried that the Officer wouldn't believe them, the refugees finally became sharp at this moment.

"We can take you to see; it's just behind the mountain over there!"

Ming Tiao pointed to one refugee to lead the way and took four subordinates, preparing to go and investigate.

This clue might be related to the matter they were investigating!

Having saved his life, the man who had slid to his knees let out a long sigh of relief, and seeing Wen Gu looking at him, he smiled ingratiatingly again.

Wen Gu said: "How should I address you?"

The man said: "You can just call me Xiaotian—"

Before he could finish his sentence, the atmosphere in the room plummeted.

Yu He was already shielding Wen Gu.

Ming Tiao, who was about to walk out, turned around instantly, his gaze scraping across the man's face like a blade.

He sealed the opponent's retreat.

The three Commanders formed a containment formation.

The man:???

"No, no—it's not! Call me whatever you like! You can call me anything!!"

He had no idea why things had suddenly turned this way and could only cover his head with both hands, terrified that his head would be lost, curling his entire body up.

The name "Xiaotian" indeed touched a sensitive nerve for the three Commanders. It was a precise step on a landmine.

They already knew that back then, the personal guard Xiaotian beside the Young Master had betrayed him, with his blade only half a palm's distance from the Young Master!

It was almost—

Ming Tiao was no longer in a hurry to take people to the back mountain to investigate.

He couldn't rest easy!

Seeing that the blades seemed about to fall at any moment, the temporary lackeys behind that man scrambled away another ten feet, drawing a clear line!

Wen Gu raised his hand, signaling the Commanders not to be overly tense.

Wen Gu looked at the refugee surnamed Tian, his tone gentle: "Get up, look up. There might be a slight misunderstanding, don't panic; a while ago, there was a bandit also named Xiaotian."

The man immediately stood up and looked up, turning his face over.

"Official, you must identify me carefully!"

You must not mistake me for someone else!

This was truly his first time leading people to do such a thing; he never expected to rob an official, and he hadn't even been a bandit a while ago!

Then, he discovered—

The eye-daggers being cast his way were even sharper.

Yu He said, "If there were a bit more flesh on his face, he would look a bit like him."

The man almost cried out: "Actually, many people around here look about the same! It really isn't me!"

Yu He thought to himself: Nonsense, of course I know it isn't you; that Xiaotian has already been stabbed by Deputy Envoy Wen.

They wanted to see if this person had any connection to Xiaotian at all.

Wen Gu asked, "Do you have any brothers in your family?"

The man realized the crisis; he had wanted to say no, but for some reason, he said honestly, "I have an older brother."

"What is his name?" Wen Gu asked again.

"His name is Tian Tu."

Just as the man finished speaking, the sound of a blade leaving its scabbard reached his ears.

The three Commanders closed in even tighter.

The man:

"..."

It was hard to hold back; tears were about to burst out!

He still shouldn't have told the truth!

He was done for!

Wen Gu stared at the other party, his gaze shifting. He raised a hand to signal the three Commanders to hold steady for now.

He did not immediately press for details about "Tian Tu," but instead turned to ask about the man's life in the village in the past.

The person, who had curled up in fright, recalled the village of the past under Wen Gu's gentle questioning; his tense nerves relaxed slightly, and he tremblingly spoke of things from before.

Their village was remote, the land was barren, and the roads were hard to travel. But, precisely because it was remote and the roads were hard to travel, the wars at the border were difficult to reach them.

Therefore, some villagers lived there for generations, and some even never left the village their entire lives.

The village was slow to react to the chaotic times; the outside had been in turmoil for a long time before their village had any reaction.

At that time, he saw a family in the village suddenly turn into a Ghost after returning from the outside.

But fortunately, the temperature dropped suddenly at that time and winter had set in, so that Ghost moved very slowly, and the villagers worked together to eliminate it.

Later, the villagers discovered that those Ghosts would follow the scent of humans, so they had no choice but to flee.

They were truly being hunted, fleeing for their lives all the way out!

"Where is your village located? Or the nearest Town or County Town?" Wen Gu continued to ask.

The man stated a place name.

Wen Gu unfolded the map of Xinzhou.

That place was near the south.

"Why flee toward the north?" Wen Gu asked.

"This—"

The man had wanted to make up a reason, but after struggling, he still said, "My brother is a soldier at the northern border, so I thought I'd come over to try my luck."

Everyone runs toward wherever they have acquaintances; even if they can't find them, it still holds more hope than other directions.

Wen Gu gave a look.

Yu He received it.

His already somewhat sinister gaze grew even more ferocious: "Tian Tu never said he had a brother back home!

Are you impersonating him? Don't even think about lying to me!"

Ming Tiao added, "Full of lies, better to just behead him!"

The man had been immersed in his memories, but at this moment he immediately shouted, "I'm not!"

At this point, he could only tell the truth.

"To hide from the war and the corvée labor, the village didn't even have a name!"

Yu He understood: "Oh, unregistered households!"

Tian Tu must have gotten himself a fake household registration when he went out.

In the border regions, fake household registrations for those at the bottom are very easy to obtain.

Here in Xinzhou, if one voluntarily enlists in the army, many things are turned a blind eye to. It is very hard to investigate after a long time.

Besides that, Tian Tu not mentioning he had a brother might also be out of concern that his brother would be seized to fight in the war; continuing to hide was the only way to be safe.

Seeing the man panic again, Wen Gu asked at this moment, "Why is your brother named Tian Tu?"

The man didn't even think about it and said, "The people in the village value the land!"

Yu He said, "Your brother is named Tian Tu, so are you named Tian Di?"

The man looked up, a sense of helplessness in wanting to retort but not daring to; he endured it and said, "The little one is named Tian Kou.

The people in the village value the land, and they also value the population."

Perhaps discovering that Wen Gu had been easy to talk to all along, Tian Kou cried out his grievances again: "Official, spare my life! My older brother and I haven't seen each other for years; he hasn't been in contact since he enlisted!"

My brother, whom I haven't seen for years, what kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into!

Tian Kou felt a complex mix of emotions in his heart, yet he could not distinguish exactly what he was feeling distressed about.

Wen Gu asked him, "When was the last time you saw your older brother?"

"That must have been seven or eight years ago," Tian Kou said.

Back then, they hadn't reached adulthood yet; they were both reckless youths.

Just as Tian Kou was beginning to sink into his thoughts, Wen Gu asked again, "Has he ever contacted you since he made it big?"

Tian Kou's attention was instantly pulled back.

Wait a minute?!

"He made it big?"

My own brother, and he didn't bring me along after making it big?

"He used to say that whenever he made something of himself, he would let me live a good life!"

Tian Kou was timid and unwilling to travel far, so his brother had said that once he made it big, he would buy a few more acres of good land and let him stay home to farm. If he didn't want to farm it himself, he could rent it out and collect rent every year.

To them, that truly was a life as good as an immortal's.

For the first few years after his brother joined the army, he had waited at home, dreaming beautiful dreams every day.

Later, he didn't know when it started, but he stopped having such beautiful dreams, as if he had already realized that beautiful dreams were not realistic.

There were wars at the border from time to time; it wasn't certain that Tian Tu could even return alive.

After that, Tian Kou continued to farm in the barren mountains.

Wen Gu asked again, "Did he already know any influential people at that time?"

Tian Kou:?!

That's too much! He even knew influential people!

"He definitely didn't know any back then; I don't know about after he left the Village," he said.

Wen Gu looked at him and suddenly asked again, "Does your brother have any distinctive features, such as moles, birthmarks, scars, or the like? Or perhaps an extra finger or a missing one?"

Tian Kou was a bit bewildered: "There's nothing special."

What scars, what moles—how could he possibly remember those?

Besides, youths change every year, and these years were exactly when they were growing; from youth to young adulthood, the changes were significant, so how could he remember everything clearly?

At this moment, Tian Kou caught a glimpse of the fierce-looking faces of those few people nearby; they seemed to be about to say something.

His brain continued to spin rapidly.

"Oh, oh! I remember now, there is one! He has a scar on his arm, from a firewood burn."

In his urgency, he couldn't distinguish left from right for a moment, so he simply used himself to demonstrate.

"Right here!"

He raised his right arm to point at the inner side of his upper arm, then held up his thumb: "It was about as thick as this wooden stick, poked into him while playing around."

When they were young and fighting or playing, he thought the sparks flying when firewood collided were quite fun, and he accidentally got poked on the arm.

The three Commanders' expressions changed slightly at this, their eyes exchanging silent communication.

"Is the scar deep?" Wen Gu asked.

"It was still quite obvious even after a few years," Tian Kou said.

Wen Gu looked toward Ming Tiao.

After the incident in Shuo City, Ming Tiao had checked quite a few case files and imperial guard records with Pei Jun; he should be the one who knew best.

Ming Tiao's expression was solemn as he shook his head slightly.

When Zhao Shaozhu selected imperial guards, he would thoroughly check the other party's household registration files and re-enter them into the register after organizing them.

Where these guards had injuries, where they had obvious moles, scars, birthmarks, and the like, all had to be recorded. It was impossible to overlook such an obvious scar on an arm.

Those were imperial guards! The information recording was extraordinarily strict!

When they were selecting people at that time, the person responsible for recording was an absolute confidant by Lao Zhao's side; it was impossible to fake such important matters.

So the question arises—

Was it an oversight when recording the information?

Or, is this "Tian Tu" not that "Tian Tu"?

It is possible that it is just the same name.

But it is also possible—that the person was swapped.

It wasn't that they wanted to be conspiracy theorists, but this matter was too deeply entangled.

They had the refugees taken out first.

Inside the room, Wen Gu and the three Commanders discussed this matter.

Yu He suggested: "This person is cunning! Why not use torture to force a confession?"

Wen Gu said: "His mind is quick, but he is a coward; if he is scared out of his wits, he might not be able to remember some details."

After a pause, Wen Gu added: "Give him another half-portion of dry rations and let him recall more outside."

They still had to check the refugees' knives, though this time it wasn't Ming Tiao who went out, but Commander Lei who took some men to make a trip.

Merit +3.

They had successively shot and killed three Plague Ghosts.

Commander Lei returned and said: "These refugees don't know how to mask the scent on their bodies; no wonder they were constantly being chased."

Taking the refugees out for a run had attracted three Plague Ghosts.

"That place is indeed much as the refugees described. Those buried were a group of seven or more, men and women, of varying ages; judging by the remaining clothing and accessories, they should have come from the south, with decent family backgrounds, fleeing north during the winter. Their specific identities cannot be determined; it is highly likely they were just ordinary wealthy households. The incident happened about half a year ago."

"The perpetrators were veterans; there are no rivers or lakes nearby, so they could only bury them. But they handled it quite hastily; they probably didn't care for the chipped knives and buried them together, which is why they were dug up by the refugees."

"It looks like those people were the ones who struck."

Ming Tiao's gloomy eyes lit up: "In other words, they were active in this area half a year ago."

"They might have happened to be spotted by a group of refugees fleeing north, so they killed them to silence them."

He looked at Wen Gu: "There must be a cave or a secret chamber nearby!"

Radar and Yu He also became energized.

It meant they hadn't come to the wrong place!

"It's right here!"

"Search inch by inch; I don't believe we won't find it!"

In the courtyard outside.

On the left, a small group of people huddled together; on the right, one person squatted.

Knowing their leader had gotten into trouble, the other refugees dared not go near, afraid of being implicated.

Tian Kou didn't look at the others either; he squatted there by himself, holding a dry biscuit and clutching a Bamboo Tube filled with water.

Even though it was food he had been craving for a long time, he ate it absent-mindedly.

While he was wolfing it down, his mind was on other things.

After eating, he had more energy, and his brain turned faster. Now that his life was temporarily saved, he was a bit calmer.

Thinking over and over about the questions the official asked just now, he felt something was wrong.

It couldn't be, right?

Could it be that someone shifted the blame onto his big brother, and now it was implicating him?

Tian Kou squatted there, not knowing what he had thought of, his eyes shifting back and forth, the empty Bamboo Tube being gnawed on by him as if he were grinding his teeth.

After a good while, he stood up.

That official seemed quite easy to talk to and wouldn't wrong an innocent person; how about he try to plead his case once more?

He waved at a guard and raised his voice: "Um—Official? This little one has something to say!"

"Actually, I have—been here once before."