Chapter 56: Hunting The Pig
Feng An and Liang Kun chose a temporary dwelling place that was quite particular.
This place was not only far from the main road but also not close to the forests teeming with wild beasts. There were a few mountains that were not high and a few forests that were not deep. Spring water gushed out from a mountain hollow, making it a good place for a short stay.
Yun Ce returned, and everyone was very happy, especially Liang Kun, who was on night watch duty. If Yun Ce hadn’t returned, he would have held a spear and wouldn’t have dared to blink an eye. During their escape, as the strongest fighter in the group, he couldn’t relax for a moment.
Now that Yun Ce, the true powerhouse, had returned, he immediately relaxed.
“Did you get the Duke Yu’s feet? That child is still waiting.”
Yun Ce untied a cloth bag from his waist and handed it to Liang Kun.
“I got them, but they’re just two pieces of rotten meat.”
Liang Kun took out two feet from the bag, looked at them by the fire, and said to Feng An, “They’re no different from mine. What white jade, what dragon tattoos, I’m truly disappointed.”
Feng An also leaned over to take a look, only to shake his head, with a hint of melancholy. He followed Liang Kun to a spot not far away to bury the female child’s corpse from the cloth bag, along with Duke Yu’s feet.
Yun Ce did not follow. After all, he was not familiar with the female child. He sat quietly by the campfire, poking the fire with a twig, his thoughts drifting far away.
E Ji had a big windfall today, but she had no interest in counting money. From the moment she saw Yun Ce, she had been following him closely like a puppy, seeming very uneasy.
Yun Ce reached out and tapped her nose, saying, “What are you thinking about?”
“You smell of a woman.”
“Oh, I was tired from fighting, so I found a woman’s thigh to use as a pillow and slept for a while.”
“Did you sleep?”
“No.”
E Ji insisted on moving Yun Ce to lie down and placed his head on her lap, whispering, “Now you can sleep.”
Yun Ce let out a comfortable sigh and closed his eyes.
The events in Sheyang City made Yun Ce understand one thing: the people here simply didn’t have firearms that could threaten their lives, but they weren’t stupid.
The first time Zhang Min’s name appeared in his life, she was just a beauty, a woman who was said to be the most beautiful in Pingyuan City. He paid her no mind.
The second time he saw her at the Sheyang City checkpoint, he thought she was a brainless, vixenish woman. A few words exposed her as a malicious woman, and he even thought he had ruined her. He thought Peng Jing would take her property and then treat her as property as well. At that time, he truly disregarded this woman.
The third time he saw her, this damned woman actually controlled a ballista to shoot at him. Although it didn’t kill him, it really hurt.
Now, this damned woman insisted he was the recipient of the Dragon Spirit and claimed that the battle between the pig and the bear on the plateau was related to the Dragon Spirit. The question was, what exactly was the Dragon Spirit?
There were wild boars, a Pig King, and they even had names. It seemed this Pig King, named Zhu Nu, could even communicate with people?
He had thought that the pig-headed monster he had killed was the peak of evolution for wild beasts in this world, but he hadn’t expected there to be something more advanced?
Yun Ce felt that he should meet this Pig King, as it would be of great reference value for his investigation into the evolutionary state of species in this world.
Lost in thought, Yun Ce’s head grew heavy. He turned over and pressed his face against E Ji’s stomach. It was soft and didn’t obstruct his breathing. In a moment, he fell asleep.
E Ji hugged Yun Ce’s shoulders and looked down at his ears. The insides of his ears were a bit dirty, with dust, ash, sweat, and bloodstains. There was also a fine scar on his earlobe.
His face had been washed with water, but not properly. It seemed he was in a hurry.
She moistened her finger with saliva and began to clean Yun Ce’s ear canal bit by bit. He showed no reaction as he slept, deeply asleep.
After finally cleaning one ear canal, she wanted to clean the other as well. Unfortunately, he really liked sleeping with his face pressed against her stomach and showed no intention of turning his head.
An Ji crawled over from the other side of the campfire and handed E Ji a handkerchief. E Ji glanced at An Ji, wiped her soiled fingers on her body, and continued meticulously cleaning Yun Ce’s ear canal.
When Yun Ce woke up, it was already daylight. Feng An, who had been scouting from the mound, returned and told Yun Ce, who was eating breakfast, “The main road is impassable. I saw many convoys from Sheyang City turning back.”
Yun Ce took a sip of the thick bean porridge, put down his bowl, opened the map, and pointed with his finger, “Are there passes on the Sheyang River?”
Feng An nodded, “This area is under the jurisdiction of the Sheyang River Water Division Captain. Traveling south along the Sheyang River for three days by water will take us out of Chuyun Prefecture and to Gui Prefecture. If we want to go to Chang’an, we can detour from Gui Prefecture, but we don’t have a travel permit.”
“Can’t the travel permit from Sheyang City work?”
“No. Chuyun Prefecture is a newly developed prefecture, also called a Protectorate Prefecture. Without a hundred years of assimilation and influence, the Great Han will not recognize Chuyun Prefecture as part of the Great Han Homeland. The neighboring Gui Prefecture, having been under the rule of the Great Han for 120 years, only left the Protectorate Prefecture status three years ago to obtain the title of Gui Prefecture.”
“If someone from a Protectorate Prefecture wants to go to the Great Han Homeland, without a document issued by the Record Officer and Staff Officer Office under the Chuyun Prefecture Great General’s office, any person from a Protectorate Prefecture who enters the Great Han Homeland without authorization will be considered a rebel, and local government officials can execute them on the spot.”
“Are the Great Han government officials not human? By the way, Feng An, you should be a pure-blooded Han person, so how did you end up in Chuyun Prefecture, a Protectorate Prefecture?”
“There was no choice. My grandfather’s father was serving as the County Magistrate in Chaozhou and embezzled some money. He was caught by the Censorate Inspector. He was beheaded, and our entire family was exiled to Chuyun Prefecture, with no amnesty.”
“Oh, it probably wasn’t just a little bit of money then.”
“Who cares? You should have a way to help me and Liang Kun get a travel permit from the Record Officer and Staff Officer Office, right?”
Yun Ce nodded, “I’ll try my best. Is this why you two insisted on following me and E Ji?”
Liang Kun, who had sidled closer, laughed, “You don’t think we like you and want to be your retainers, do you?”
Facing two utterly pragmatic and unprincipled scholars, Yun Ce could only sigh. No wonder E Ji never showed excessive enthusiasm towards them but was wholeheartedly devoted to the girls she had taken in.
Feng An and Liang Kun were both scholars with grand ambitions. Such people would not easily become retainers unless they encountered setbacks in the examinations in Chang’an or Luoyang, and only when they grew older after several failures would they consider the path of a hanger-on or retainer.
It was different for the girls they had taken in. They would become Yun Ce and E Ji’s property in the future. If the Yun Clan became a large family, they could arrange marriages for them with loyal subordinates, which would be quite good.
Zhang Min waited at the Sheyang River ferry for a day and a night without seeing the Pig Spirit. After much thought, she finally understood why she couldn’t find the wild boar spirit at the ferry.
From birth, Pig Spirits relied on their four legs to run. Although they later evolved to run on two legs, a pig’s habits wouldn’t change. Even though traveling by boat was the fastest way to escape Chuyun Prefecture, this Pig Spirit would still choose the land route. After all, walking was its innate skill.
“Envoy, the Pig Spirit is difficult to apprehend for now. Why don’t we capture its companions first?”
Zhang Min glanced sideways at this subordinate from Panxing Tower and said softly, “A Pig Spirit that has fled into the wilderness, how can you determine its location?”
The secret agent bowed and said, “Hoofprints, feces.”
Zhang Min shook her head, “If this Pig Spirit already possesses the advantages of both humans and wild boars, how can you determine its whereabouts? Will you still rely on hoofprints and feces?”
The secret agent bowed again, “My understanding is shallow. I should focus on its companions.”
As they spoke, a bird about the size of a chicken flew into the room. Zhang Min raised her arm, and the bird perched on her arm, cawing at Zhang Min.
Zhang Min took a fragrant bead from a hidden pocket at her waist and offered it to the large bird’s beak. The bird swallowed it in one gulp, then spread its wings, revealing a metal tube at the base of its wing.
Zhang Min took the metal tube, opened the cap, and after looking inside, said to the Panxing Tower secret agent, “We were wrong from the beginning. That Pig Spirit did not escape the city through an underground tunnel. All our prepared ambushes were in vain. It did not leave Duke Yu’s mansion; instead, it patiently waited for us to truly leave before coming out.”
It snatched a Thunder Smoke Beast and, as an afterthought, killed Peng Jing.
You see, it’s very cunning, more cunning than any spirit I’ve ever encountered.”
The secret agent cupped his hands and said, “If that’s the case, we are actually ahead of that Pig Spirit. I will arrange for personnel immediately and spread a large net, ensuring it has nowhere to hide.”
Zhang Min nodded, “Be careful. This Pig Spirit’s martial power is no less than that of the Pig King Zhu Nu, but it is much more cunning than Zhu Nu. The manpower should not be too finely distributed; too fine a net will be broken by it.”
“Also, try to capture the Pig Spirit’s companions alive. I really don’t want to face a rampaging, intelligent Pig Spirit.”
The secret agents each accepted their orders and left. Zhang Min also mounted a Thunder Smoke Beast, cast a glance back at the surging Sheyang River, and decided to withdraw all forces from here.
As she left the Sheyang River Water Division, Zhang Min specifically reinforced her confidence.
“A pig, why would it take a boat?”
Yun Ce thought his stratagem was good. He would clear out all enemies he encountered ahead, and as he cleared a section, E Ji and the others would advance. In the areas he had cleared on his Red Date Horse, not to mention Zhang Min, not even a single wild beast could be seen.
Things unfolded as Feng An had predicted. After the riot in Sheyang City, many people fled from the city. In the beginning, everyone fought individually and tried to save themselves. However, ever since they discovered that following E Ji’s Sheep Cart made their journey much safer,
Consequently, the convoy behind E Ji grew longer and longer, becoming increasingly conspicuous on the wasteland.
When this group swelled into a massive contingent of over three thousand people, E Ji and her companions mysteriously disappeared from the crowd.
