"No, we must stay together, we can't be separated!"
"Yes, we want to be together!"
The villagers immediately became anxious and rushed forward, surrounding the two minor officials.
The two minor officials were taken aback by the villagers' agitation, but then glared at them and began to reprimand them sternly.
"Back off! Back off! What are you trying to do? Are you trying to cause trouble?!"
The villagers clenched their fists, neither backing down nor speaking, their bloodshot eyes making the two minor officials increasingly uneasy.
Were they mistaken? Why does it seem like there's... murderous intent in these peasants' eyes?
At this moment, Li Lao Er coughed, helped the village chief forward, settled him into a chair, and then said:
"Have you two heard about what happened at the dock the other day? Some people from Jiangbei came to seek refuge, but they encountered barbarians outside the dock. The Dingbei Army guarding the dock refused to send troops to help them, and in the end, it was Marquis Xinting who led his troops to arrive and killed thirty barbarian cavalrymen."
The two minor officials didn't react for a moment, then nodded and replied, "We've heard about it, but what does it have to do with you?"
The village chief gave a cold laugh, tore off the thick coat he was wearing, revealing half of his bloodied, mangled arm.
The other villagers also took off their cotton-padded coats, revealing their battered bodies.
The clerk gasped in shock. What was there to misunderstand? These people were the peasants who killed the barbarians!
The town has been talking about this a lot these past two days. Everyone says that this group of people are fierce. When they encountered barbarians, none of them died, and they even killed more than a dozen barbarians.
I heard that when Marquis Xinting arrived with his troops, it was only to clean up the mess. In fact, it was this group of people who killed those thirty barbarian cavalrymen.
Even more famously, the Marquis of Xinting actually filed a complaint with the emperor on behalf of these people. The garrison commander who refused to come to their aid was dismissed, and the Marquis of Dingbei was also reprimanded!
Thinking back to their colleague who had come to find them, the two men felt a pang of regret.
Seeing the expressions on their faces, Li Lao Er understood what was going on and said something else.
“We know that you two officials have no grudge against us. It’s just that someone doesn’t like us. But we don’t want to suffer a loss. This matter will inevitably escalate to the Marquis’s place. Do you two officials think you can withstand the Marquis’s wrath? Or, do you think we can get our revenge without the Marquis’s intervention?”
Li Lao Er casually pulled out a string of wolf teeth from his sleeve and continued in a casual tone, "Gentlemen, take a look at this string of wolf teeth. How nice is it? We were spending the winter in the mountains when we encountered a pack of wolves. We killed them all. There was also a group of bandits who were very arrogant. They kidnapped our children, but when we came to their door, we cut off their heads. Speaking of which, we northerners are just barbaric. We don't like to suffer any injustice, and we don't wait until it's too late to take revenge!"
The two minor officials looked at the wolf's teeth, then at the crowd, and cold sweat broke out on their foreheads.
"Um, um... brothers, don't worry, this can be postponed, right?"
"Yes, yes, let's think of a way."
The two clerks quickly flipped through the book, searched and searched, and finally looked at each other and said.
“We’re not deliberately making things difficult for you. If you separate, those five villages are all quite nice, but if you want to stay together, there aren’t many good places left. Are you still planning to… stay together?”
Without hesitation, the villagers said in unison, "We won't separate; we want to stay together."
The village chief leaned back in his chair, his face pale, and nodded, "We must stay together."
Li Lao Er glanced at the clerk and said, "The Marquis has gone to kill the barbarians, but he will stay in our village for a while after he returns. If the place is not good, he may have to bring us here to be replaced. We will have to trouble you two officials then."
The two minor officials looked distressed and pushed the booklet directly to Li Lao Er.
"Even if you wanted to switch, it wouldn't work. There are nearly a hundred of you, and you need four hundred acres of land. Other places are too small, and only this one fits the bill."
Li Lao Er didn't stand on ceremony and quickly flipped through the booklet.
The two minor officials were indeed not lying; the rest of the land was stamped, except for a few places where it was not stamped, which indicated that there were only a few dozen acres of wasteland.
The place assigned to them was about seventy miles to the south, and the new capital, Weizhou Prefecture, was a hundred miles away.
It's about 30 li away, which is quite convenient.
He whispered a discussion with the village chief, and they decided on this place.
The two clerks breathed a sigh of relief, quickly completed the formalities, and finally saw the group off.
The two men stood in the shed, one of them wiping away a cold sweat as he said, "What do we do? We've bribed these evil spirits, but... how do we explain this to the other side?"
"What do you mean, how do we explain this?" another sneered. "They only said these people would have a hard time, but they didn't say how. Besides, the land allocated to these people is enough for us to explain ourselves."
Leaving aside the private discussions between the two minor officials, the villagers were all very happy to hear that they had been assigned to the same place, which was very close to the new capital.
After all, we were all unfamiliar with this place, and the fact that we could all gather together made us feel much more at ease.
The group gathered together to discuss whether they should hurry on their way, as this was not a place to stay for long.
With Young Master Ye absent, they might suffer if someone tries to cause trouble.
So the group quickly packed their things, hired seven or eight horse-drawn carriages at a high price, and set off with their families the next morning.
Mr. Wen and Mrs. Cui remained in the procession, sharing a carriage with the Li family.
Madam Cui held Jiayin in her arms, feeling sorry for her because her face had become thinner due to her injury.
Old Mrs. Li lay on the thick quilt, but her wound still throbbed with pain as the carriage jolted.
She tried her best to be patient and chatted with Madam Cui to distract herself.
“Madam, you should go home now and stop worrying about us. We have a new place to stay now, and things will definitely get better from now on.”
Madam Cui smiled and said, "Auntie, I won't be at ease until you arrive and settle in. Also, please call me Jinrou from now on. I am Jiaren's senior sister, and also your junior. My family has no one else besides my senior brother, so I plan to treat our family as my own family from now on. Please don't look down on me."
"No problem, no problem!" Old Mrs. Li said happily. "You come from a respectable family and are close to Fu Niu. To be honest, I was hoping that you could help us teach Fu Niu when she gets older. She's such a smart child, I'm always afraid she'll go astray."
Madam Cui patted Jiayin gently and readily agreed, "Alright, Auntie, you can't go back on your word. From now on, Fu Niu will be my little apprentice."
"No regrets, of course not." Grandma Li touched her granddaughter's chubby feet, feeling extremely sorry for her. "It's all my fault. I couldn't even protect this little girl when I was holding her in my arms."
"Auntie, don't say that. In such chaotic times, it's already a miracle that she survived. This girl is lucky to have survived such a disaster; she'll definitely have a better future."
"Alright, alright, I appreciate your kind words!"
The carriage clattered along, and Jiayin vaguely heard a few words, but she was quickly rocked back to sleep.
Her head is still swollen and won't heal completely so easily.
But Dr. Zhang would give her acupuncture every day and guarantee that she would recover in half a month, so she wasn't so afraid anymore.
Seventy li is not a long distance, but there were many elderly and children on the bus, as well as many wounded. They spent another night on the road and did not arrive at Xiaojin Village in Nanxi County, as stated on the land deed, until noon the next day.
Just then, some farmers were busy in the fields preparing for spring plowing. When they saw Li Lao Er asking for directions, they led them there.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com