"Your nephew can’t recognize a character as big as a bushel... and still sends letters back..." soone nearby muttered mockingly.
Mrs. Li was sowhat annoyed by the teasing and swung the basket in her hand at the person. That person covered their head and quickly dodged, while Mrs. Li relentlessly chased after them. The two of them, one running and the other chasing, squeezed out of the crowd.
The commotion between the two made so people whisper, while others were amused, though they felt it inappropriate to laugh in such a situation. They could only hide in the crowd, lowering their heads, quietly snickering.
Zhu Yu, who had been squatting to examine the newly unearthed skeletons, listened to their chatter while comparing the bones. After a while, she stood up and asked the surrounding people, "I’m curious if any of you who lived around here before have heard any spooky or strange rumors, anything particularly frightening?"
The people around, who were already both curious and scared watching her handle the skeletons, were caught off guard by her question. Hastily, they looked at each other, quickly trying to recall if they had heard any such rumors.
Initially, they hadn’t paid much attention to this young scholar-looking guy, thinking that he seed too delicate to carry or lift anything heavy. Unexpectedly, he could handle skeletons without even blinking.
So strangely enough, after their initial dismissiveness faded, a sense of respect and awe erged.
However, after thinking for a mont, it seed nobody could recall any supernatural rumors.
Just then, a young boy suddenly tugged at the old man beside him, "Grandpa, Grandpa, don’t you rember? There were a few wandering sorcerers who said so weird things before!"
The old man’s eyes were already sowhat cloudy. Prompted by his grandson, he suddenly rembered, "Oh! Yes, that’s right! That really did happen!
If my little grandson hadn’t ntioned it, I would’ve forgotten!
So wandering sorcerers had co to our village before, dressed in strange outfits, speaking in dialects from north and south, so you couldn’t tell where they ca from.
When they arrived in our village, they went from house to house begging for food. After being given food and drink, they spoke of heavenly calamities and disasters among people, and said that by practicing with them or sothing, one could achieve immortality."
"Oh? Did anyone in your village follow them?" Zhu Yu quickly asked.
The old man waved his hand, smiling with his nearly toothless mouth: "No, if they had said they could plant money from the ground, soone might have actually followed them.
But they spoke of immortality...
The people in our village said that from dawn till dusk, working tirelessly, not to ntion surplus, they felt lucky just to have a full belly.
Living like this, they just wanted to live day by day. Who’d want to be half-starved but live forever, wouldn’t that be a punishnt?"
As soon as he finished speaking, the expressions of the people around beca sowhat subtle, their eyes sneaking glances at Zhu Feng and the Prince Shuo Mansion’s soldiers, unable to help but murmur in their hearts.
This grandfather and grandson are a bit clueless, one too young and the other senile!
Though they didn’t know exactly who this young master asking questions was, the ones beside him were undoubtedly the Prince Shuo’s soldiers!
The old man had the nerve to say that the people around Risun Ridge were neither starving nor full, making them uninterested in the "immortality" served on a platter. Wasn’t that implying that Prince Shuo’s governance was poor, that the people were going hungry?
Although the lack of water in Shuo Land was considered a natural disaster, beyond human control, the common people weren’t blaming Prince Shuo for it. Besides, wasn’t the Prince sending people to build canals?
But so words, though true, are better left unsaid. If the old man’s casual remark reached Prince Shuo’s ears, it would sound like the people were complaining about the Vassal King’s governance...
That would be too much of a burden to bear! They genuinely couldn’t handle it!
Luckily, the soldiers showed no special reaction, and even the handso young man of unknown rank didn’t say a word.
The people around finally let out a small sigh of relief.
"Old man, when did these sorcerers go to your village to persuade you to practice this so-called immortality technique?" Zhu Yu asked again.
"When was it..." The old man blinked his dry, cloudy eyes, glancing at his grandson, evidently unable to recall and relying on his grandson’s acute little brain.
Luckily, his grandson wasn’t completely forgetful. After thinking for a mont, he told Zhu Yu, "It was about a year ago, at most, two years ago!"
Zhu Yu nodded to the child, smiling as she thanked him, not probing further. However, her eyes seed to have derived so inference from the child’s answer.
After a little while, all the skeletons were finally excavated. At least in the area where they were digging the canal, no new bone piles were found, which allowed those present to breathe a sigh of relief.
Zhu Yu called Zhu Feng aside and whispered to him, "Please have so trustworthy people discreetly inquire around nearby, to see if there are similar stories to what that old man said, if anyone has been lured to practice so immortality technique with them.
Or if it’s not immortality, perhaps sothing like an alchemy secret technique.
Be sure to instruct them to inquire but not to alarm others."
Zhu Feng, though not entirely understanding her intentions, instinctively agreed and turned to instruct his trusted aides.
Zhu Yu pondered in her heart, thinking that the wandering sorcerers ntioned by that old man were likely the root of why many youths elsewhere beca enthralled and left ho at night.
From the timing, it seems they first arrived at Risun Ridge. Presumably, those people had their considerations. Although Risun Ridge isn’t close to Shuo Country’s iron mine, this area is notoriously barren, but it’s remote. If they were to lead so people away, it probably wouldn’t easily attract outside attention.
They just miscalculated one thing: Risun Ridge is indeed barren and remote, but because of this, the locals aren’t wealthy, and their lives are far from comfortable.
Hence, ideas of heavenly calamities or immortality don’t interest them.
This miscalculation led to an empty run, except for unknowable reasons that managed to take away a few blacksmiths, they persuaded no one else.
So later on, if these people went elsewhere and succeeded, luring away mostly young n, their excuse must’ve been sothing other than immortality.
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