Chapter 10: The Ghostly Trap of Exterminating Nine Generations
Song Jin came from the apocalypse.
This means that she is different from ordinary babies; she was born knowing and could see and understand everything about the people around her.
She naturally knew some things that Niu Tielan avoided talking about.
But only some
Niu Tielan is an incredibly tight-lipped person, and also someone who absolutely adores children.
Even when facing a baby who was only a few months old and didn't understand anything, she wouldn't say anything nonsense. She would just call him "Jin Jin" all day long. She was almost ready to register Niu Jin Jin as a household name for Song Jin.
For this, Song Jin had to thank Mayor Lin. If he hadn't genuinely praised the name as auspicious, Niu Tielan would have really thought it was a good name.
Mayor Lin wasn't actually that old at the time, but he looked quite mature. He'd always looked much older than his age, his skin tanned dark from the autumn harvest, giving him an uncultured appearance. Yet, he genuinely praised Niu Jinjin's name...
Niu Tielan immediately decided to find someone to change her name, and while she was at it, her surname also had to be changed, although she was very satisfied with her new surname.
Cows, well, they're a protected, precious species; they have power and status.
Iron, hard and versatile
Lan, just like herself, hid behind Niu Tie.
However satisfied she was, Niu Tielan knew that her name wasn't considered pleasant in the conventional sense. She herself didn't mind, but when it came to her daughter...
Niu Tielan delayed registering her daughter's birth, and the next day brought three-year-old Song Jin to Wenyuan Academy, where they grabbed the person who looked the most cultured—and indeed, he was the most cultured, the former headmaster of Wenyuan Academy.
He was an old man with a rather bad temper. He smiled kindly at Niu Tielan, but behind her back, he liked to pinch Song Jin's cheeks and tap her forehead, a habit that lasted until he left.
Song Jin remembered it clearly: that old man pinched her thirty-nine times and knocked her fifty-seven times in total; he was no good.
Fortunately, the old man gave her a reasonably nice name. Later, when he learned that she and her mother had moved from another place and were destitute and alone in the area, he helped them out, allowing them to settle down in Linxi Town. So, his good deeds and bad deeds balanced out.
The days that followed were ordinary.
Niu Tielan's public identity is that of a widow, while Song Jin is a posthumous child.
Her husband was an ordinary wealthy man from Qiannan. He died while studying away from home, encountering bandits. She was the only woman in the family and couldn't defend herself against her clansmen. She was driven out with some of the family's wealth. Passing through Linxi Town, she found the land and water pleasant and decided to settle there.
She approached Mayor Lin, who had just become the town mayor, and used all her savings to buy 28 acres of fertile land, successfully settling down in Linxi Town. Later, she established herself with her incense-making skills and gradually expanded her family's wealth.
To outsiders, everything about Niu Tielan seemed perfectly reasonable; even her striking beauty was overshadowed by her frail physique. But to Song Jin, there were far too many illogical aspects.
First of all, there's her 'biological father'
When her mother offered incense to this person, she was less calm than when she sneezed, and each time it was a double offering, which suggested there was more to the story. However, according to Song Jin's knowledge, her mother and father were childhood sweethearts with a harmonious relationship and no extramarital affairs. Niu Tielan's behavior shouldn't be like this at all.
Moreover, rather than being driven out by the Song family, it was more accurate to say that she took the initiative, even eagerly, and calmly left the prefectural city with her pre-packed belongings, bringing Song Jin, who was not yet three years old, to Linxi Town, where she re-established herself as a woman in a household.
Given Niu Tielan's normal life trajectory and her frail health, she shouldn't have traveled far much, nor should she have enjoyed going out. Therefore, she shouldn't have been so adept at handling everything during the move, as if she had never been there before.
Her mother is hiding a big secret from her.
Coincidentally, Song Jin is a very curious person.
But having spent her whole life with cats and dogs, she learned from them to be curious about everything new while maintaining patience.
After waiting for so many years, some clues about her mother's actions have finally emerged. Song Jin has to reach out and pry, to pull the thread out a little more.
With this thought, Song Jin raised her phoenix eyes slightly and rushed towards Panlong Mountain.
Under the cover of night, she moved like a cheetah in the forest, darting among the grass and trees, her movements swift and elusive, like a shadow, making her difficult to spot.
In her previous life, Song Jin was a superhuman. Thanks to her powerful abilities, she was taken to a base for training at birth. Her life consisted of nothing but training. Even without her superpowers, her survival skills were unmatched. This remained true in this new timeline.
Not to mention, this era also has superpowers, but without the abundance of mutated energy crystals, the superpowers here are pitifully weak, possessed only by a very few people, and are known as internal energy cultivation.
Song Jin went into the mountains every day, partly to train her agility, and partly to find animals and plants with energy, hoping to enhance her supernatural abilities. The fact that she had previously chosen nearby bandit strongholds is the best proof of this.
It was because of this hill that she noticed the strangeness here.
Logically speaking, life in Si'an County was quite good, but not so rich that it attracted unwanted attention and robbery. Nor should the surrounding people be so desperate that they had no choice but to become bandits in the mountains.
So when the bandit incident came to light, Xiao Shi approached Song Jin, offering her substantial bribes to investigate. Since Song Jin had nothing else to do, she took Huang Huang and strolled around the bandit's hideout. During this stroll, she discovered something amiss.
Most of those people were vicious bandits wanted by the imperial court. A small number, judging from their words and actions, were not just ordinary mountain bandits. Moreover, their intelligence network was too efficient; as soon as they arrived, the other side took action.
Song Jin could only kill the person.
After all, if they don't die, who knows how many more will die in the future?
This matter was clearly not simple; as a village girl, she couldn't get involved in all the intricacies. She left the rest to Magistrate Xiao, and she had no idea what they had uncovered during the interrogation.
But Song Jin had some suspicions. If there was anything on their side that someone might covet through scheming and plotting, it could only be...
What's in front of me
Song Jin ran and flew all the way, and it took her nearly two hours to reach her destination. Standing on the mountaintop, she took out her homemade, rudimentary telescope and looked down at the foot of the mountains behind the two peaks.
In the silent depths of the mountains, under the dim night sky, a faint light still flickers. A closer look reveals houses being repaired hidden among the branches and leaves. Surrounding them, one can see wild wolves and vicious dogs lying on the outskirts. Beyond these layers of defense, they conceal a cave.
As time passed, the tranquil cave began to stir. Amidst the clanging and banging sounds and curses, the vine-covered fence at the cave entrance was pushed open, and a tall man in gray clothes emerged first, followed by several gaunt men.
They were dressed in tattered clothes, carrying baskets on their shoulders, swaying and staggering behind them, the long carrying poles bent as if they would break at any moment.
The man in gray looked at the workers with disdain and snapped, "Be careful not to shake this stuff. If even a little bit of this is missing, your dog lives won't be enough to pay for it!"
The group walked hesitantly, their dry faces bearing a bitter expression. They moved even more carefully, and before they could even breathe a sigh of relief after putting their things down, the person in front was forcefully shoved aside and fell to the ground, groaning in pain.
But no one noticed.
A tall guard stood beside the basket, lifting the black cloth covering it. The firelight flickered, and the basket gleamed silver, occasionally punctuated by streaks of gold.
He chuckled, "Wow, the quality is so much better this time!"
The man in gray laughed, "Of course, the rest should all be this quality. After digging for so long, we've finally found something good. Master can finally be happy."
Guard: "Of course, it's all those good-for-nothings' fault. They messed up such a small matter, causing us to incur the master's wrath. Now that things have worked out, everyone's life is a little easier."
The man in gray said, "Alright, hurry up and take the stuff down, to avoid any accidents."
Guard: "What kind of accident could happen? This is deep in the mountains. Let alone outsiders, even we wouldn't have been able to get up here without someone leading us."
Not to mention with so many ferocious beasts around, even if someone came, they wouldn't be able to escape.
The man in gray: "That's true."
...
Song Jin sat among the tree trunks, watching them carefully hang the baskets on the mules' backs, and the group, armed and leading their vicious dogs, left the valley.
She put away her binoculars and squinted as she pondered.
Those people were very cautious, each with a vicious dog on either side; she would be spotted if she got too close, so she never took the risk. Besides, what would make people expend so much effort in these deep mountains is either gold or silver, or at the very least, copper or iron ore.
They're all government-controlled, those damned things that punish nine generations of a family.
Ordinary people wouldn't dare get involved in these things; these people are either royalty or powerful families. Song Jin, a small landowner from the countryside, couldn't afford to get involved, nor did she want to. So even though she had a good relationship with Magistrate Xiao and had discovered this place early on, she never told anyone.
County Magistrate Xiao is a decent man, but you can't judge a book by its cover. Who can guarantee he hasn't meddled? Serving the country and its people doesn't conflict with his desire to make some money.
Furthermore, even if he didn't get involved, could he afford to? One wrong move and not only would he get into trouble, but he could also implicate his family.
Song Jin had thought that way before, but now, thinking about the people she met yesterday...
Each of them seemed to be someone of considerable importance, and they specifically chose this time and place. If it weren't for this matter, she would have already changed her name back to Niu Jinjin.
Song Jin sat there in the tree, lost in thought. As the fire in the valley died down and darkness enveloped everything once more, she climbed down from the towering tree, dozens of meters high.
As soon as I landed, a round, chubby head popped out from behind the tree.
Huang Huang: "Meow~"
Song Jin pinched her tiger daughter's ear: "Night owl, didn't I tell you not to run around?"
This is already at the edge of Huanghuang's territory, bordering its cubs' territory. It usually doesn't come this way; it must have smelled Songjin's scent and come here.
Huang Huang couldn't understand what she was saying, she just kept wriggling and moaning, "Hooray~ Meow!"
What a clingy tiger!
Song Jin rubbed Huang Huang's belly, watching it roll around happily, her eyes sparkling, and the corners of her lips gradually curving into a smile.
Huang Huang paused, its two tiger ears trembling: "Meow?"
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