Chapter 270: If You're Not Convinced, Go Find Zhang Liuzhen

Pan Yun knew Shuangyang Village had been massacred, but she hadn't known it had been wiped out so thoroughly.

Apart from the eleven people who weren't in the village that day for various reasons—buying medicine, visiting relatives, and the like—the rest were pulled out from the piles of corpses.

Four children had been hidden in straw stacks, two in the cattle pen…

And the old man survived because he had "died" at the time.

Watching his children and grandchildren being killed with his own eyes, the old man couldn't catch his breath and fainted dead away on the spot.

But perhaps because he worried too much, after the Japanese pirates left, he caught his breath again, and in the end dug out a great-grandson who was still breathing from the pile of corpses, and dragged him out of the sea of fire.

Oh, that child of about three who kept shouting that he was the Lin Mengzhu of the Wu Lin Alliance—he was the old man's great-grandson. He'd only just been given a name: Chen Shakou.

Because too many people in the village had died, a few young men couldn't bear it and left.

Those who stayed were the ones who couldn't leave.

The old man said, "Only Licentiate Chen could leave but chose not to. The rest were either too young, too old, or still had ties holding them here."

"Don't think there aren't many of us, but every morning the moment we open our eyes we need to eat. The village was stripped clean. These past days we've gotten by entirely on the support of the neighboring villagers, so we have one bowl of porridge a day. But we can't keep leaning on the neighbors forever." The old man said, "We're all a burden on Licentiate Chen. If Miss can send grain, the whole village is grateful to you."

Pan Yun: "Doesn't the government office do anything?"

The old man smiled and said, "The government office not doing anything is the best thing they could do. If they stepped in, the houses and fields of this whole village wouldn't be preserved, and we… wouldn't be preserved either."

Pan Yun pressed her lips together, displeased.

Tao Ji drove the cart over, guided by the children. He stopped the carriage, walked into the courtyard, swept a glance around, and his eyes landed on Licentiate Chen. "This man is about to die of illness."

Licentiate Chen: …

Pan Yun gave a small cough and tried to smooth things over: "It's not that serious, is it?"

Tao Ji: "Are you the Physician, or am I the Physician?"

Pan Yun immediately said, "You are."

Pan Yun introduced Tao Ji to Licentiate Chen. "This is my senior brother. He cultivates the Dao of alchemy and knows a little of the art of healing. Licentiate Chen, let my senior brother take a look at you in a moment."

"Let's look now. The things have all been delivered. Is there anything else I need to do?"

Pan Yun tilted her head, thought for a moment, then said, "Fair point. Third Senior Brother, while you're at it, take a look at the old gentleman and the others too."

The three carts of goods weren't all for Shuangyang Village—part of them were for Huaihua Village.

Huaihua Village wasn't far from Shuangyang Village; you could see it from Shuangyang. On foot it took about two quarter-hours, cutting across Tian Ye, and if you ran, you could get there in one quarter-hour.

So Licentiate Chen sent two older children running to Huaihua Village to call people.

He said, "There aren't many people left in Huaihua Village either, about the same as ours."

Seeing the goods on the cart, and with Tao Ji and Master Xuanmiao producing Daoist Priest ordination certificates, Licentiate Chen believed they were truly Daoist Priests who had come to do good works.

Perhaps because the news of martial artists and Daoist Priests joining forces with the soldiers to wipe out the bandits a few days earlier had spread widely, the villagers looked at them through rose-tinted glasses.

After learning they really were Daoist Priests, the three children who had old grudges with them also set aside their differences and crowded over. "You're really Daoist Priests?

Pan Yun nodded. "Really. We just didn't wear our Daoist robes today."

"Then do you know Daoist Priest Sanzhu?"

Pan Yun nodded. "This humble Daoist is he."

"So Daoist titles can be the same? Then can I also be called Sanzhu?"

"Then I'll be called Sishui."

"I'll be called Wuhuo."

"I'm different. I want to be the second-most powerful Master Xuanmiao."

More and more children crowded around, and even the adults nearby couldn't help pricking up their ears to listen.

Pan Yun quickly called a halt. "Why is Master Xuanmiao the second-most powerful?"

"Because the first-most powerful is Daoist Priest Sanzhu."

Pan Yun gave an awkward "ha ha" laugh. In truth, whether she or Master Xuanmiao was stronger right now, no one knew.

In terms of cultivation, she should be above Master Xuanmiao, but when it came to actual fighting…

Pan Yun always had a feeling she couldn't beat Master Xuanmiao.

She really wanted to know—who exactly was spreading this version of the story?

Pan Yun asked outright, "Who told you all this?"

"Everyone outside says so. Daoist Priest Sanzhu flew into a towering rage, set off fireworks, and then shot all the Japanese pirates dead."

"And also, and also, Daoist Priest Sanzhu drew his sword with a swish and a whole row of Japanese pirates dropped."

"If only Daoist Priest Sanzhu had been here when our village was attacked."

"Daoist Priest Sanzhu avenged us. They all say those knights-errant and Daoist Priests went to take revenge for us."

"It was to avenge Pan Ershu and Daoist Priest Lu and the others, right?"

From their chatter, Pan Yun learned that this village had a Pan Ershu who had left home as a child to learn martial arts; he was a man of the jianghu. He happened to be home at the time, and his friends were passing by and had stopped to drink with him that day—one was a knight-errant of the jianghu, two were Daoist Priests. The four of them had barely drunk two jars of wine when the Japanese pirates entered the village.

It was precisely because those four were there that Shuangyang Village, surrounded on all sides by open fields, managed to save so many people.

Huaihua Village, on the other hand, owed its survival to the mountain behind it.

The mountain wasn't very large—just two connected hills—but the trees on it were dense. Many villagers had grabbed their children and run up the mountain, and that's how a group of them survived.

So in Huaihua Village, the surviving adults and children were roughly split down the middle.

In Shuangyang Village, by contrast, the whole village had pooled its strength to protect the children. The adults in the village were basically all dead; those who didn't die on the spot were gravely wounded, and later died of their injuries one after another.

Master Xuanmiao and Tao Ji had indeed heard of the massacres at Shuangyang Village and Huaihua Village and, enraged, hurried over to join the bandit-suppression force.

But…

Master Xuanmiao said, "The Japanese pirates wiped out this time and the ones who slaughtered your village aren't the same group."

Pan Yun nodded rapidly.

Master Xuanmiao said, "We investigated afterward. After those Japanese pirates left, they went straight aboard ship back to the倭 country. The ones we targeted were a band of pirates harassing the coastal border—it's just that they had Japanese pirate backing, and some of the people on the island were kept in the dark about it."

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Pan Yun nodded hard. "So Sanzhu didn't avenge you."

The villagers fell silent.

A village woman rasped, "But they were Japanese pirates, they were sea bandits, weren't they?"

Master Xuanmiao: "Yes."

"Then that's enough," she grabbed a little girl. "Nannan, remember—all Japanese pirates, all sea bandits are your enemies."

The little girl nodded solemnly. "Enemies. I have to avenge Father, Grandfather, Grandmother, and my older brothers and sisters!"

The village woman murmured, "Must avenge, must avenge…"

Muttering to herself, she headed toward the kitchen. "I'll boil eggs for you. You killed the sea bandits for us, we must repay the kindness…"

Another village woman wiped the tears from the corner of her eye and followed her into the kitchen, softly consoling her: "Don't always make the children avenge us. They're still so young, they have a long road ahead, let them live their own lives."

"Revenge isn't that easy. It's one thing for us to suffer, but we can't keep dragging them into this quagmire."

"I don't care. I want revenge, and they want revenge too!"

"Sigh, fine, fine, fine, I won't argue with you. To get revenge you still have to fill your belly first. I'll go get rice to make porridge."

Pan Yun overheard and said to the children: "What that aunty said is right. To get revenge you have to fill your belly first, and you have to learn real skills."

"I want to learn skills like Daoist Priest Sanzhu."

Pan Yun felt their little arms and legs and said: "Then you'll have to put in a lot of effort, you'll have to be very diligent. And just learning spells and Wu Gong isn't enough—you also have to learn literacy and knowledge."

"What's the use of learning that? Can it kill Japanese pirates?"

"Why can't it? Fighting Japanese pirates can also be called waging war. Waging war requires brains. There's a big difference between fighting with brains and fighting without."

"That's why I not only brought you food and clothes, I also brought you books. The purpose is to get you to read more, to learn good strategies to kill the pirates."

"Are there any Wu Gong manuals? We turned Pan Ershu's house upside down and didn't find any Wu Gong manuals. We went to the escort agency to learn martial arts, but they wouldn't take us."

Pan Yun looked at their little arms and legs and figured that if she were the chief escort of the escort agency, she wouldn't take them either.

Pan Yun rummaged through her spirit-realm space, and with great reluctance produced three hand-copied Wu Gong manuals and one hand-copied spell manual. She stroked them lingeringly: "I copied these down from the academy at Long Hushan. They were meant to be given to… sigh, now…"

She handed them over with a pang. "I'll give them to you first. I'll copy another set when I get back to the academy."

The children's eyes lit up. They immediately reached out to take them, but tugged twice without managing to pull them free.

The older child shoved the younger one. The younger one stared at Pan Yun with round, bright eyes and said sweetly: "Sister, you can't bear to part with them? Then we won't take them, okay?"

Pan Yun saw how cute he was. Even though she had noticed their little trick, her heart went soft. She shoved the books straight into the child's arms, patted his head, and said: "Take them, go ahead."

The children let out a cheer and, clustered around the little one, left together.

An adult immediately went after them. "Quick, give me the books. I'll have Licentiate Chen keep them later. Don't ruin them."

"We can keep them ourselves…"

Master Xuanmiao, seeing Pan Yun's pained look, asked, "Don't you often go to the Fanxi Court? There are so many books stored there. If you fancy any, just take them."

Pan Yun: "These three Wu Gong manuals were copied from the Fanxi Court. Just taking them like that isn't right, are they? Those are all the academy's books."

"Who told you those are the academy's books?"

Pan Yun's eyes went wide. "Aren't they?"

Master Xuanmiao said expressionlessly: "Everything in the Fanxi Court belongs to Zhang Liuzhen. The books in there were collected by us one by one. If you fancy any, just say a word to him and take them."

Pan Yun's mouth fell open. She said in a small voice: "But I heard that the academy also deposits some things in the Fanxi Court now…"

"That's the academy's problem. Since the academy was founded, Long Hushan has had a rule: the Fanxi Court is the study place belonging to the Celestial Master's Mansion heir. Everything inside belongs to the heir. Let alone depositing things—once something steps through that door, to be placed inside that door, it belongs to him!"

Master Xuanmiao looked at her and said: "If you're not convinced, tell them to go find Zhang Liuzhen."

There's still one chapter making up for yesterday's, it'll be posted a bit later. Everyone go to sleep first.

(End of chapter)