Chapter 224: An Old Acquaintance

"This is Cloud Mountain Temple's territory. State your business so there's no misunderstanding," a man who seemed to be the leader said in a brash, careless tone.

Zhao Jin was also taken aback. He thought to himself that a preacher from the Fragrance Sect could actually spread the faith on Cloud Mountain Temple's turf — it really did have a whiff of "all paths lead back to the one source."

"Cloud Mountain Temple's turf? Did I, Zhao Jin, ever agree to that?" Zhao Jin sneered and announced his own name.

The man first flew into a rage and was about to speak, but then he suddenly caught on. He forced a smile onto his face, bent at the waist, lowered his head, and said, "So… so it's Master Jin. This humble monk is meeting you for the first time. To what do we owe the honor?"

Hearing this, Zhao Jin finally understood why those dozen or so men had their heads wrapped — they were all bald-headed monks. The leader was fawning and smiling obsequiously, and the other dozen or so, now knowing that Zhao Jin had arrived, were all bowing and scraping, treading with utmost caution.

"These goods are worse than the salt dealers from the Qi Family Village. At least those fellows had some backbone," Ji Xiang muttered quietly from the side.

The man who was the leader handed his blade to the person behind him, rubbed his hands together as he stepped forward, and said, "Whatever orders Master Jin has, please just say the word. This humble one will certainly carry them out."

This was simply too spineless. Zhao Jin felt nothing but contempt in his heart and asked directly, "What are these stacks for? What did Cloud Mountain Temple buy this place for?"

"Master Jin, you don't know?" The man's eyes widened in surprised disbelief. He caught himself immediately and said with an awkward laugh, "What's stored here is all sorghum, all of it meant to be traded for liquor at your place, Master Jin."

Hearing this answer, Zhao Jin couldn't help but cough twice. The reply left him somewhat embarrassed — he hadn't expected this place to be connected to his own business, yet he'd been completely unaware. Liu Yong, standing beside him, rubbed his face and muttered, "Outside the city, we're completely in the dark. Still, this place can't have been in use for too long, or we'd have known about it sooner."

Cloud Mountain Temple and Fragrant Brew Workshop traded sorghum for liquor at a very lopsided ratio, requiring enormous quantities of grain. It wasn't convenient to transport all this grain directly from the production areas into the city, so they simply set up a stockpile yard in Maocun Market, a place with easy transport links, to store the sorghum first and then send it into the city.

The monk-soldiers and the like stationed here at Maocun Market were aware of Zhao Jin's deeds inside the city, but figures like Li Shun were too far removed from them. Their own stature was too small; they simply didn't register in Zhao Jin's eyes. They knew this gap well, so they opted to treat him with the utmost deference.

"Are Zheng Quan and his wife in this village?" Zhao Jin couldn't be bothered with more talk and got straight to the point.

"Zheng Quan?" The man, who had been in a state of fearful reverence, froze for a moment. He gave Zhao Jin an apologetic, careful smile, then turned his head and barked, "Anyone know who Zheng Quan is?"

The dozen or so men also looked at each other in bewilderment. One of them ventured a tentative reply, "Could it be that couple who burn incense?"

The man slapped his own forehead and said with an awkward laugh, "This humble one's brain is slow. I forgot there were such people in the village. What does Master Jin want with Zheng Quan?"

Zhao Jin also felt something was off. If the Fragrance Sect were spreading its teachings here in Maocun Market, Cloud Mountain Temple would never permit it, because once a preacher spread the faith and burned incense, the believers would become organized, making it inconvenient for Cloud Mountain Temple to control the area. Yet judging by the attitude before him, they seemed not to take it seriously at all.

"Call that couple over here." Since that was the case, Zhao Jin couldn't be bothered to enter the village. He decided to rest and regroup right there outside. Besides, those stacks piled up like little hills could easily hide men for an ambush and weren't suitable for deploying his squad. The open ground outside was safer.

The man acting as leader hastily agreed and turned his head to shout, "Hurry up and bring Zheng Quan and his wife here!"

Someone foolishly answered, "Senior brother, they're still working…"

"Cut the crap, hurry up!" The man immediately glared and roared. The other man, realizing he'd spoken out of turn, quickly ran off toward the village.

Hearing this, Zhao Jin and his companions exchanged glances. They all felt something was wrong — it probably wasn't what they had imagined beforehand. It wasn't strange for a preacher to do manual labor, but the attitude of these Cloud Mountain Temple monks clearly implied they were talking about hired hands or long-term laborers.

The household troops surrounded the five large carts. Some stood guard while others rested. This orderly, imposing display actually intimidated the dozen or so Cloud Mountain Temple monks, who thought to themselves that this young master Zhao truly lived up to his reputation.

They didn't have to wait long. The man who had gone to summon them returned, with two people following behind — presumably the Fragrance Sect preachers, Zheng Quan and his wife.

You could tell a lot from their clothing and appearance. Zheng Quan and his wife were shivering in the cold wind, their clothes so tattered they could only be described as rags. They looked no different from the poor households in Xuzhou City, not far from having to beg on the streets.

When they got close enough to see their faces clearly, Zhao Jin and the companions beside him were all stunned. They knew this couple, Zheng Quan and his wife.

Zheng Quan and his wife timidly approached and were about to kneel before they even spoke. When they saw it was Zhao Jin, they too were stunned.

"…Young Master Jin…" Zheng Quan's wife called out first, then immediately collapsed to her knees on the ground and began to wail. Zheng Quan beside her also knelt, tears streaming uncontrollably down his face.

The Cloud Mountain Temple monks had been staring blankly at the couple and were about to scold them, but seeing this scene, they didn't dare open their mouths.

"How did you two end up here?" Zhao Jin asked, frowning. He did indeed recognize this couple, and was even very familiar with them, because these two were the couple who used to pick up and drop off Xiaolan at the freight yard and residence. Without that connection, they wouldn't have addressed him as "Young Master Jin."

When the master's family prospered, their close attendants and servants naturally didn't fare poorly either. Over those years, Zheng Quan and his wife had looked increasingly wealthy and well-off, carrying themselves much like stewards of a great household. However, after Mister Mu's sudden death, Zheng Quan and his wife had vanished without a trace. When Mu Shulan was at the Zhao household, she never mentioned it, and after Mu Shulan was taken away, Zhao Jin paid even less attention.

Although he had met them many times over those years and they had always greeted him respectfully, Zhao Jin truly had never known their names. So when he heard the Zheng couple hadn't come, he hadn't realized it was them.

The Zheng couple simply knelt there weeping. The prosperous, plump look they had cultivated over those years was completely gone. Both had grown much thinner, much darker, with scars on their faces and many chapped cracks. The padded jackets they wore were so tattered they provided no protection against the cold. Zheng Quan's shoes even had his toes sticking out, frozen a purplish black — probably frostbitten.

The beggars inside Xuzhou City looked just like this. In the year since he'd last seen them, who knew how much suffering they had endured.

"Didn't you go with Xiaolan when she left?" Zhao Jin asked. Hearing this, Zheng Quan's wife wiped her tears and said, "As soon as the master died, the two of us were locked up by people…"

When the Xuzhou chapter head of the Fragrance Sect died suddenly, Zheng Quan and his wife, as his close confidants, were immediately imprisoned on grounds of grave suspicion. Mister Mu's second brother brought men to settle accounts. After questioning them and getting the facts clear, he released Zheng Quan and his wife. Then came the killing and the investigation, and no one paid any more attention to the couple. After he left, Zheng Quan and his wife were even more neglected. They didn't know who the new chapter head was, but they never received a single good assignment — they were always sent to places controlled by local strongmen to serve as preachers.

The local strongmen wanted to keep tight control over their own people and naturally wouldn't tolerate the Fragrance Sect spreading its teachings. The couple suffered greatly. When they were sent to Maocun Market, it was even worse. The Cloud Mountain Temple monks had no regard whatsoever for any "preacher." Not only were they forbidden from preaching, they were directly seized and put to work, treated just like hard laborers. Zheng Quan and his wife tried to escape several times but were caught and dragged back each time. They could only resign themselves to their fate.

"…The new chapter head took away our children. We didn't dare disobey…" Zheng Quan sobbed out his story.

Zhao Jin shook his head and asked the monk beside him, "You dare treat a Fragrance Sect preacher like this?"

Cloud Mountain Temple was wealthy and powerful, but the Fragrance Sect was no weakling either. Even if Cloud Mountain Temple was wary of them, they wouldn't dare torment and harm people so brazenly.

The monk standing beside Zhao Jin had turned somewhat pale. He had never imagined that this Zheng couple actually knew Zhao Jin, and judging by appearances, they were on rather good terms. Hearing the question, he quickly answered with a pained expression, "This humble one has only been here a short while and doesn't know much about this matter. Perhaps this humble one should go fetch the managing uncle-master from this area?"

As for going to fetch him, Zhao Jin shook his head. He had someone take two sets of clothes from the cart and drape them over the Zheng couple first. After asking a few casual questions, he learned that the Zheng couple didn't know the chapter head was He Weiyuan, and knew even less about the things Zhao Jin had done recently. They had simply been working day and night without pause.

"Bingfeng, head back to the city first. Go to the prison and put in a word. Have the Zheng family's children placed in a cell by themselves and treated well. Tell them they'll be released once we return," Zhao Jin quickly said to Dong Bingfeng.

He had just run through his memory. No young children had been killed at He Family Manor, so the Zheng children should be locked up in the prison. But it wasn't entirely safe there either; it was best to put in a word as soon as possible to prevent any mishap. Dong Bingfeng immediately mounted his horse and rode off.

At that moment, the managing monk of Maocun Market also arrived — a fat man in his forties, his face glistening with oil, looking exactly like those clerical underlings in the Revenue Office. He knew what was what and was extremely deferential and courteous toward Zhao Jin.

As soon as the managing monk explained the reasons, it confirmed some of Zhao Jin's suspicions. The managing monk couldn't clearly explain the matter of the Zheng couple either, because he hadn't been here long himself. Keeping a tight watch on these two and roughing them up from time to time — that was the instruction handed down by his predecessor. He had raised doubts about it, but the reply from that side was that the Fragrance Sect itself wouldn't bother with them, so he had simply followed orders.

The managing monk was all apologies and even produced fifty taels of silver as compensation. Anyone could see the pained, heart-bleeding expression on his face, but if he didn't do this, he feared Zhao Jin's retribution even more.

This was likely He Weiyuan's method of suppressing the former chapter head's people. Because the Zheng couple had followed Mister Mu for too long and knew too many things, and also had a connection to Mu Shulan, they absolutely had to be isolated.

"…To think He Weiyuan is actually the chapter head. That man doesn't really believe at all. He just drapes this guise over himself to swagger around and amass benefits for himself. Several times the master wanted He Weiyuan to contribute money to aid the sect members, and every time he found an excuse to refuse. We, the couple, went to press him several times…" Once the Zheng couple's emotions had steadied, they could roughly piece together the whole sequence of events. With this layer of enmity, it was no wonder He Weiyuan had used every means to torment them.