When they arrived at the back hall, the banquet was already prepared. Mu Hanyan did not say anything polite and directly asked everyone to sit down and announced the start of the banquet.
Chu Yanghe and the others were completely convinced by Mu Hanyan and put aside their airs as the chief priests. The banquet was filled with joy and both the host and the guests enjoyed themselves.
"By the way, Lord Chu, you mentioned a strange thing before, saying that if it is not handled properly, it may shake the foundation of our Twelve Temples. What exactly is it?" Halfway through the wine, Mu Hanyan suddenly remembered that Chu Yanghe had not finished speaking before being interrupted by Liu Rande and others, so she asked curiously.
When Chu Yanghe heard Mu Hanyan mention this, his expression suddenly became serious and he put down his chopsticks. The chief priests from other halls also stopped and their expressions became extremely solemn.
"During the time when you went to the Blackwood Prison to participate in the trial, nearly ten villages under the jurisdiction of my Fengcheng Temple were massacred. No one in the village survived, not even a chicken or a dog was left." Chu Yanghe said in a heavy tone.
Although he did not love his people like his own children as much as Mu Hanyan, those people were his people after all. Recalling the tragic situation at that time, he could not help but be moved.
"What!" Mu Hanyan was shocked.
The living environment on the Divine Continent was too harsh, and bandit attacks were frequent. She had personally experienced this, but from what she knew, the bandits were generally after money and food. As long as the villagers didn't resist, they rarely killed innocent people. After all, the vast majority of bandits were ordinary people who took risks to survive, not inherently evil. Even the Blood Wind Bandits, led by Chen Xuefeng, were so vicious and atrocious because of Mo Shiqi.
She had never heard of such a bloody massacre in a village where no one was left alive. What was more important was that it was not just one village, but more than a dozen villages that were massacred.
"It's not just the Tianfeng Temple. My Xiafeng Temple is also like this. Seven villages were massacred. No man, woman, or child survived. Not even a chicken or a dog was left." Ma Jingtian also said.
"The same thing happened to my Qingning Temple. Eleven villages were brutally massacred."
"And I'm going to the Zheng'an Temple..."
"And my Changwu Temple..."
…
The other chief priests also spoke up, and Mu Hanyan then realized that during the Black Wood Prison hunting trial, nearly ten villages from each of the ten major temples present had been massacred. People from the Tianyang Temple and the Lingyu Temple did not come, but their guess was the same.
All in all, at least a hundred villages in the Twelve Temples were massacred. What a brutal method this was.
The only thing to be thankful for is that the Huayu Temple did not encounter such a thing. This is also because the scale of the Huayu Temple was too small in the past. There were only a few villages under its jurisdiction, and they were all around Huayu City. Once there was any disturbance, the Huayu Temple would immediately receive an alert, and the bandits generally did not dare to attack easily.
"Who did it?" Mu Hanyan asked, clenching her fists.
Having seen the hardships of the refugees wandering the wilderness, Mu Hanyan actually felt some sympathy for those forced to become bandits to make a living. However, even if they were forced to do so, they shouldn't have killed innocent people so recklessly. Mu Hanyan wasn't a bloodthirsty person, but she was definitely not a pushover either. If these people fell into her hands, she would show no mercy.
"I don't know." Chu Yanghe said with a bitter face.
The other officiating priests had the same expression, feeling somewhat ashamed and helpless.
"Don't know?" Mu Hanyan looked at them in surprise. Nearly a hundred villages were massacred, and they didn't even know who did it. How was that possible?
"After the first village was massacred, I immediately sent people to investigate, but I didn't find any clues. While I was investigating, the second village was also massacred, followed by the third, and the fourth. Until now, eight villages have been slaughtered without a single survivor. Every priest in my Fengcheng Temple participated in the investigation and almost visited every inch of the jurisdiction, but we didn't find any clues." Chu Yanghe said.
"There are only a dozen priests left in my Qingning Temple to guard the temple. All the others have been sent out, but we still can't find any clues." Fan Chengli, the chief priest of Qingning Temple, followed up.
"It's the same for us." Ma Jingtian and others also sighed.
"These bandits are so cunning?" Mu Hanyan was even more surprised.
If all ten temples took action at the same time, they should have found the person even if they dug three feet into the ground, but they didn't find any clues at all.
"Perhaps, it wasn't the bandits who did it." Chu Yanghe guessed.
"Oh?" Mu Hanyan looked at him curiously.
"We haven't served as the chief priests for these years in vain. Although we can't wipe out all the bandits in the country, we still know how many bandits there are and how strong they are. We will never allow large groups of bandits to exist. Once we find that a bandit force has grown, we will do our utmost to wipe it out at the first opportunity.
This time, even as we were fully engaged in the investigation, village after village was brutally massacred, even happening right under our noses. This is definitely not something ordinary bandits could do," Chu Yanghe said solemnly.
Hearing this, Mu Hanyan's expression became solemn.
As for the situation on the Continent of Gods, unless the laws of heaven and earth can be changed, the bandits will never disappear. In order to survive, there will always be people who take risks. So she also understands the actions of Chu Yanghe and others. Small groups of bandits cannot be killed anyway, so let them be, but they must not be allowed to grow stronger. Once there is a sign that may shake the rule of the temple, they must be strangled in the cradle immediately.
Under such circumstances, it was impossible for any bandits to massacre the villagers while they were conducting a strict investigation, and to carry out a bloodbath one after another.
Could it be Zhan Yuan again?
"Also, we communicated privately and found that the villagers who were massacred in each temple died in exactly the same way, but the time was completely staggered. In other words, it is very likely that only one group of people did it, but they did it silently under our noses and traveled between the major temples at an extremely fast speed. How could ordinary bandits do this?" Ma Jingtian added.
"Let alone the bandits, even we can't do it." Chu Yanghe said.
It wasn't just them, Mu Hanyan asked herself, even she would find it difficult to do it. After all, the ten temples were far apart, and the villages under their jurisdiction were scattered across the wasteland. Traveling between them would take a lot of time. If one had mastered the art of wind control, it would be fine. But without it, it would be impossible to travel between the various temples in such a short time, let alone avoid the eyes and ears of the temples.
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