Chapter 74: Cause and Effect
Mu Yi didn"t like trouble. It was unavoidable at times while one was living. He knew he had to work because he had obtained certain resources from the Su Clan. There were always advantages and disadvantages as well as cause and effect.
Mu Yi was a bit annoyed. He had intended to save Su Jinlun and then to go back to the mountain. He wanted to meditate in seclusion. He didn"t plan to leave the mountain again before reaching the second difficulty.
However, Gu Yaosen asked him for a favor while he was visiting the yamen. He wanted his help with something. Gu Yaosen had been married to Peng Songlai for a few years already, but she hadn"t gotten pregnant. They had seen many doctors but none of the treatments worked.
There were three ways to be unfilial. Not giving birth to a son was the worst. If a woman couldn"t have children in the past, her husband"s family would give her up. Sometimes it would be worse than that.
Gu Yaosen loved his wife. He didn"t want to get rid of her. He didn"t even want to have concubines because of he loved her so much. He knew that he needed to find a solution, otherwise, his clan would start to cause trouble.
He thought Mu Yi couldn"t help at first. Mu Yi wasn"t a doctor and he couldn"t heal people. Gu Yaosen had heard of a sorcerer. This sorcerer could help a couple have children. People said that he was very good at it.
Gu Yaosen wasn"t worried and wanted to try. His wife kept refusing to see him. So when Mu Yi came, Gu Yaosen was happy. He just asked Mu Yi to go and a.s.sess whether the sorcerer was really able to help people or not?
Mu Yi was a person of unusual ability. Gu Yaosen expected him to understand those kinds of things. Mu Yi, when he was traveling with the old man, had seen all sorts of dishonest dealings.
Some people pretended that they could communicate with Guanyin, the Patroness of Fertility. Some even took advantage of the couple"s situation to have s.e.x with the women. Most of them couldn"t talk about what they did. They had to struggle while accepting insults and humiliation. Their reputations were always at stake.
Gu Yaosen and his wife asked Mu Yi to help. They promised him a favor in exchange. Mu Yi had hesitated, but finally accepted. He had asked Gu Yaosen to help him fix a weapon and he had accepted.
Mu Yi used the weapon as an excuse, but it wasn"t as if such people were easy to find. If Gu Yaosen could find someone to help him fix a weapon, Mu Yi wouldn"t mind helping him find the fertility sorcerer.
Mu Yi wanted to save Su Jinlun first though. Qi Da took Mu Yi to the base of Little Frost Mountain. Qi Da told him that Qiu Yuetong"s father had founded Little Frost"s fortified village. In the beginning, governmental authorities had surrounded the fortified village a few times. Once the old man died they had stopped.
The old brigand chief wasn"t wild and unreasonable. He hadn"t offended anyone while he was leading. After the war, many people had seized places and made themselves the leader. It was normal and n.o.body could do anything about it.
The two groups from the Forbidden City were terrified and ran away. The Qing Dynasty was on the verge of collapse at that time. The end of the dynasty caused a state of great confusion everywhere in the country even the old Taoist Priest was affected.
Li Hu was a kid under the old brigand chief. He had saved him, recruited him, and treated him as his own child. None of that meant that he intended to make him the leader of the fortified village.
He hadn"t thought that the most indifferent woman of the clan would defeat him and all the other men of the clan. She was a great martial artist. The old man started to see her value.
Half a year later, the old man pa.s.sed away. The circ.u.mstances of his death weren"t clear but before he died, he handed the commandment of the clan over to his daughter. He also made Li Hu the second chief.
n.o.body knew why he had done that. Qiu Yuetong quickly took up her role after her father"s death. Li Hu wasn"t happy about the situation. He didn"t want to be controlled by a woman.
Per Qi Da, the second chief Li Hu asked Qiu Yuetong to marry him. Many elders of the clan were happy. They also didn"t like having a female chief. Plus, Li Hu was the old man"s adopted son. The best thing that could happen for him and the clan was for him to marry Qiu Yuetong. They would both be able to support their comrades this way.
Qiu Yuetong had a request before she would accept. Li Hu would have to give her one million liang of silver, she"d accept the proposal and marry him. She would even let him lead the clan. Many years had pa.s.sed since the clan"s establishment. They didn"t lack food and clothes. They didn"t have any surplus, but at most they had a hundred thousand liang of silver.
Little Frost"s fortified village didn"t earn money by buying and selling things. They mostly earned money by making people pay a toll for using the roads around them. They all understood what it meant to drain the pond to get all the fish. It was impossible to rely on toll fees to obtain a million liang of silver.
n.o.body thought Li Hu could satisfy the request. Many people thought that Qiu Yuetong was making things difficult for Li Hu because she knew he wouldn"t be able to acquire such a sum.
Li Hu had been very discreet in the following days. Sometimes people had seen him with people who weren"t from the village. They a.s.sumed they were there to help him. Some people even said he was soon going to become the first brigand chief.
He couldn"t become the brigand chief by force. His only option was to obtain a million liang of silver. The news that seven wealthy families were robbed spread soon after and then everything came to light.
Gu Yaosen knew from the beginning who had done it. He kept pretending he didn"t because he wanted Xie Miao to take care of the case. What his goal was, even he wasn"t sure.
If the situation hadn"t gotten stranger after that, he wouldn"t have even needed Mu Yi"s help. In the end he had no choice, otherwise, they would have never understood the rest of the case. Things had happened differently than he expected. Many investigators from the yamen were killed.
Other people would have broken under the pressure. When Mu Yi found out about everything he didn"t mind at all, actually, and couldn"t help but admire him. He was curious about Little Frost"s fortified village and Chief Qiu anyway.
Some good news had spread in the city. The two chiefs of Little Frost"s fortified village weren"t close. Mu Yi had less pressure since they weren"t.
He had only managed to make one five thunders charm by the time morning came, even though he had made many charms. He had more evil spirit slaying charms though. They would be enough against ordinary people.
Little Frost"s fortified village wouldn"t care about what they would need to do to deal with him. Mu Yi also had the Ghost King Banner with Nian Nuer inside though. He just needed to wait until it got dark and then he would go up the mountain to save Su Jinlun.
Add to Library