Chapter 38: “strange” And “human Hearts”
With Wu Fei’s army corps returning with five hundred and twenty captives, this “Barbarian Tribe rebellion” could be considered “covered up.” Oh, “covered up” is from the perspective of the Southern Ridge bureaucrats. In their official reports, as long as Yongji Pass is not breached, no matter how many people the Barbarian Tribe gathers, it’s just a “small disturbance.”
Now “small disturbance” is used in reports to the Imperial Court because the Under Heaven is currently in a time of multiple crises. The gentlemen of the Imperial Court at this moment cannot tolerate any trouble from other border areas, which would affect their deployment of troops to the north.
If the matter at Yongji Pass were really reported on a large scale, the most the Imperial Court could do is sternly reprimand the Border Army to quickly resolve it, then fiercely kick the local subordinate officials and strictly investigate the messy affairs in their localities.
In fact, the prefects of the three prefectures in Lingnan are quite concerned about this firefight in front of Yongji Pass. After the great war slightly eased, when the garrison needed food and grass supplies, they dispatched family servants, taking the route of merchants selling military supplies, to come and scout the battle situation.
If the checkpoint is on the verge of collapse, they would shift the blame, with the righteous and stern blame being: “The Imperial Court previously drew away southern soldiers, leaving Lingnan vulnerable, giving the Barbarian Tribe an opportunity to exploit.” The flattering blame is “The Yongji Pass general, swallowing profits and stirring constant strife, leading to this great disaster.”
Of course, the above “unfavorable battle situation” did not occur. What is now being written in the government office memorials is: “Barbarian Tribe harassing the border, garrison officers and soldiers fighting bravely, displaying the might of Da Yao’s Heavenly Harmony!” Openly and covertly proclaiming to the Imperial Court that Lingnan officers and soldiers are good at fighting, reminding the Imperial Court to value and cherish the northward-bound army.
After this incident, the aspiring men of Lingnan suddenly realized “only in chaotic times do we regret having too few soldiers.”
In Da Yao’s current northward-bound army that drew away Wu Hanluan’s branch, three thousand are thousand-day soldiers raised by the Wu Family Army, while the remaining over ten thousand laborers are all able-bodied men conscripted from Lingnan! They are certainly precious.
…Home-leaving dividing line…
At this time, Wu Hanluan on the northward journey is also encountering troubles. These troubles are of course not caused by Wu Fei.
The chicken feather letter from Yongji Pass about being besieged by the Barbarian Tribe was opened and pressed aside by a treasured sword. This letter has been on the desk for two days, serving as good news to adjust his mood and let him sleep well.
Regarding the rebellion on the Ling River side, Wu Hanluan is not worried at all. — He said to the anxious Wu Hengyu: “Five years ago, I already exterminated Snake People once in the Southern Border. Now there is no large tribe on the Ling River that can suppress the various monsters. Those gathered in front of Yongji Pass, no matter how many in number, are just a scattered mob. With his cultivation, he can handle it with ease.”
Wu Hanluan now once again “matter-of-factly” acknowledges that Wu Fei’s fundamentals are solid! If it were someone else guarding the pass, there would be no chance to gain this stable experience.
Thus, Wu Hanluan “matter-of-factly” replied to the family with a letter, clearly stating: Now that he is far away, he cannot attend to family matters. All family affairs, great and small, can be handled by Yuan Chang (Wu Fei).
Compared to the previous chicken feather letter sent, Wu Hanluan openly stamped it with the central army’s large seal, sending it back together with personal soldiers and camp soldiers. The personal soldier understood and went along to handle it.
Narration: The letter sent when Yongji Pass was previously attacked was a secret letter, known only to a few like Wu Hanluan and Wu Hengyu, with no one else informed. Because if the situation of family troubles spread, morale would be unstable. But now with Wu Fei beautifully resolving the Yongji Pass matter, Wu Hengyu allows the personal soldiers to spread the news in casual chats, ensuring this outward-bound army has no worries at the rear.
Of course, Wu Hanluan doing this means he has formally confirmed the seventeen-year-old Wu Fei as the next generation Wu Family military master. Regarding Wu Fei’s ability, Wu Hanluan knows it is sufficient. The only shortcoming is that he is too young, and staying behind as the main young leader raises doubts about the state. Now Wu Fei has proven himself capable of handling things. This battle has earned him the Wu Family “military master” position.
Returning to the present, the Wu Family Army being out has been nothing but unfavorable. On Wu Hanluan’s desk, the silk book map has been heavily marked with red ink at Jijia Well!
“Jijia Well” is a town. Three days ago, Wu Hengyu led the vanguard army to camp here, and then something went wrong. It seems someone forcibly seized the local civilian houses and granaries. Then, during the night when the cavalry camped, drew well water, and ate, sores appeared on their bodies. A day later, these sores turned into eerie smiling human faces one by one.
Clearly, this belongs to the method of “nightmare town.”
The first to notice this was Wu Hengyu, who had once cultivated in the Daoist Sect. The hot-blooded youth grabbed an elder from that village and forced him to explain what exactly it was.
The village elder said: “Twenty li outside this ‘Jijia Well’ is Yangle Mountain. Ancient legends say this is the tomb left by the seventh son of Da Yao’s founding emperor. Due to his debauchery in life, he died at twenty-four, and even after death he was unwilling, often driving a dark wind at night to abduct women and young boys, doing evil in the area. Finally, a master came to perform a ritual and suppressed it, but every spring and autumn, cattle and sheep must still be offered in great sacrifice.”
Then he said: “Originally this year was also time for sacrifice, but military masters you came. So~”
Wu Hengyu of course did not believe this nonsense. Da Yao’s founding emperor had only three legitimate sons, where did a seventh son come from? Wu Hengyu believed the townsfolk secretly poisoned the well water with gu to scare passing outsiders and swindle disaster relief money.
Wu Hengyu: Good grief, you cheat small merchants and households fine, but you dare to cheat a great army.
Wu Hengyu immediately detained all the townsfolk and took them to the so-called Yangle Mountain. Letting them appease the evil thing from their mouths themselves.
And that very night, strange things happened. The soldiers who went with Wu Hengyu to that village spreading evil words returned with sores on their backs as well, and even worse, human-headed worms began
It was only because Wu Hengyu’s martial cultivation was extremely high, with vigorous and yang blood energy that had not been tainted by evil qi.
But rumors are spreading everywhere that the Wu Family Army is conducting blood sacrifices, because that Young General called Wu Hengyu has already captured and killed all the people in a village.
…Wu Hengyu was just like Wu Fei who had led the alcohol ban back then; both were focused on getting things done without overthinking…
Now, Wu Hanluan is famous. There are two reasons. First: This is clearly the army encountering strange affairs, yet Wu Hengyu handled the matter too lightly, daring to directly blackmail the army’s “strange”—is this an ordinary strange affair?! Second: In broad daylight, such yin yang techniques actually dared to hinder the army. It really is great chaos under heaven; monsters are starting to emerge from the mountains.
In Da Yao, phenomena of “strange affairs” are very common. There are minor “strange affairs,” such as pedestrians encountering ghost hitting walls at night, or elders who passed away in villages having their souls sucked by cats and dogs, beginning to speak human words.
More powerful “strange affairs” include ghost kings taking brides at yin hour and yin moment, underworld troops passing through, or simply a ghost city appearing at a graveyard mound.
Of course, all the strange things produced by “strange affairs” have limits. Just like a dirt wall or broken tile can force ordinary people to submit, but when encountering a bulldozer like a great army, it is directly crushed to pieces.
The appearance of “strange affairs” is due to the disharmony between heaven and earth and man, leading to great disasters and human calamities, causing remnants of human grudges to linger in the world like unrotting corpses.——The frequent occurrence of strange affairs also reflects problems with local government office governance, frequent wrongful convictions, and great clans bullying the countryside.
Ordinary people encountering “strange affairs” must avoid them. As for unavoidable strange affairs, there will be specialized officers in the Da Yao prefectural office to monitor them and grasp the development patterns of the strange affairs. These officers include some night watchmen and underworld supervisors.
Worth mentioning is that, in Da Yao, under the Legalists, there are some people working for the Underworld who use “strange affairs” to swindle money.
However, for an army of ten thousand men, there is no such thing as giving way to strange affairs! Now that Wu Hanluan’s army has encountered this matter, it must be the local forces stirring up trouble. And to resolve “strange affairs,” personnel matters must be addressed first.
Wu Hanluan called Wu Hengyu into the tent and scolded him, reprimanding him for being led by others without realizing it.
Wu Hengyu realized that he had fallen into the trap, and after learning that those who set the trap for him were actually the local great clans who spoke sarcastic words, anger appeared in his brows.
…Two days later…
On the streets, Wu Hengyu and a group of men wearing cloth clothes used silver money as directed by Wu Hanluan to clear the way, obtained help from local wandering swordsmen, and locked onto some braggarts who let slip information in restaurants and gambling houses.
At dusk, Wu Hengyu’s actions easily bound these small fries and quickly took them out of the city. They were dragged to Wu Hanluan’s military camp.
Wu Hanluan wore a mask as he looked at these small-time bandits released from the sack. After a round of intimidation, this group of nobodies spilled the whole story: the army had just occupied a water source area here, which happened to be the fields used for irrigation by the local prefect’s maternal relatives.
Wu Hengyu was immediately furious: “This is the military camp set by the Imperial Court for the army—how did the water source used become yours, Wu Family’s?”
However, Wu Hanluan stopped Wu Hengyu from acting rashly, and instead asked the key question, which was exactly how the Prefect’s maternal relatives here had performed “aphrodisiac”.
When these unlucky bastards explained how they gathered large quantities of “bone remains of women who died unjustly at the hour of Yin,” and deliberately used human blood to construct a large screen on cloth, burying it in the underground palace, Wu Hengyu was dumbfounded: these Imperial Court local great clans were even more harmful to Heavenly Harmony than the Evil Sect.
…The Way of Man takes from the insufficient to give to the abundant, but it cannot take too much…
Wu Hanluan immediately led the large army to the so-called Yangle Mountain and invited the local Prefect to the scene. The thousand-man military formation set up the Nine Bends Yellow River Formation! Flags from all four directions stood tall, fluttering in the wind.
Then they launched the Golden Bull to directly plow the mountain! As trenches one zhang wide were dug out one after another, cracks appeared on the mountain body, which collapsed with a crash. On the cross-section of the collapsed mountain body, a lot of blood and snake insects immediately surged out. This was the place where “aversion magic” was performed against the entire army.
This wave of killing intent made the spectating townsfolk kneel on the ground.
However, Wu Hanluan coldly snorted, “Mere parlor tricks!” The prefect beside him stiffened in expression.
Confucian, Legalist, Military Strategist, Mohist School are the top nine schools among the Hundred Schools of Thought in Da Yao. The Yin Yang school related to strange affairs is in the lower nine streams! This ranking has its reasons.
Military Strategist techniques either result in losing courage and defeat on the battlefield, or losing benevolence and being spat upon under heaven, or laws in chaos with no way to issue orders, but never retreating before demons and evils.
Ox-drawn iron cannons were aimed at the blood-oozing mountain top and fired. With bursts of firelight, the “evil soul” on the mountain top was directly blasted out, attempting to turn into a puff of yellow smoke and flee, but as it flew into the air, it was trapped by the Nine Curves Yellow River Formation,
As the nine hundred burly soldiers of the Nine Curves Yellow River Formation waved their flags, the flags pointed and changed into a vortex state. A manure bucket at the center of the formation opened. Immediately after, this evil smoke forced out by the cannon bombardment was directly sucked inside.
After removing the evil, Wu Hanluan set out wine and shared a cup with the prefect. Wu Hanluan: “The army arriving here has disturbed your place greatly. Today, being able to eliminate a scourge for the local people is our utmost honor.” After raising the golden goblet and drinking the wine, the prefect spat out formal words, saying he would definitely erect a stele here to record this fine tale.
A few days later, the soldiers in the military camp who were afflicted with sores recovered after taking medicine. The army broke camp and advanced to the next station designated by the prefect.
When the army set off, the prefect personally came to reward the troops, sending large quantities of food and grass, as well as over a hundred pigs and sheep. Wu Hengyu kept an eye out and carefully inspected the food and grass and the reward supplies.
Watching the army depart into the distance, the smile on the prefect’s face gradually faded, revealing a trace of ruthlessness and evil, but this prefect did not know that a tiny worm was wriggling in the white of his eye.
…Golden Goblet, Golden Dou…
In the military camp, Wu Hengyu asked his father commander unhappily in his heart: “Why do we still have to yield the camp.”
Wu Hanluan said: “Our army is guest troops here. Overt spears are easy to block, hidden arrows hard to defend. Avoid if we can. You can’t just draw your sword and kill him on the spot.”
Wu Hengyu’s face was stern as he squeezed words through his teeth: “If not for being in the army with important duties, I would definitely take my sword and charge into the mansion to cut off his head.”
Wu Hanluan patted the Winged Tiger beneath him, which also showed approval, and said to Wu Hengyu: “His head is too foul-smelling; don’t dirty your hands.”
Wu Hengyu turned to his father; he could hear what his father was hiding in his words.
Wu Hanluan changed the subject: “You say, if Yuan Chang were here, maybe there wouldn’t be this kind of thing.”
Wu Hengyu paused slightly: “Him? He has some small cleverness. But for today’s matter, even if he came, he couldn’t do anything.”
Wu Hanluan shook his head: “If it were him, he would make these great families understand what banditry everywhere is like, and have to beg us. Not like now, feeling secure and driving us away. The officials in Lingnan are now currying favor with him, going to great lengths to expand connections, even routing letters through me first.”
Wu Hengyu thought about it and had to nod in agreement. Wu Fei, in such a situation with guest troops arriving, apart from being adept at scraping the land bare, also made the local forces only dare to curse in secret and not oppose openly.
Thus, Wu Hengyu couldn’t help falling into memories. It seemed very long ago that he also had a helper by his side, but he didn’t realize it until that person left, missing the one who helped manage the hegemony.
Just as Wu Hengyu fell into reminiscence, he suddenly felt a burst of malicious qi ahead, then a messenger soldier came to report that a sudden gale had swept through ahead, causing chaos, but no casualties.
Wu Hengyu to Wu Hanluan: “I’ll go scout it.”
After getting Wu Hanluan’s agreement, he spurred the divine steed under him. The pony instantly transformed into a three-zhang-long divine beast, treading wind and thunder, galloping over the military formation toward the front.
Wu Hanluan watched his son head forward, slowly nodded, then stopped and asked behind him: “Daoist Priest, is ahead auspicious or inauspicious?”
At the rear of the column, hundreds of meters away, hearing a voice suddenly rise from the carriage, Xian Daoren pinched his fingers to calculate and replied: “Our army can turn misfortune into blessing!”
