After the Immortal Disappeared

Chapter 99: Chapter 100: Mistaking Vicious Bandits for the God of Wealth

Surrounded by mountains, the emerald lake was as still as a mirror.

The two-day drizzle had ceased, and Xianling Village was just beginning to stir from the morning mist.

Mrs. Zhu rose before dawn. The man beside her was still snoring like thunder.

All was quiet as she carried her wooden bucket to the lake to fetch water. Immortal Spirit Lake was placid today. Among the wild grasses on the bank, small, pinkish-white flowers of gaura bloomed shyly. White mist swirled between water and sky, lending the scene an ethereal, dreamlike quality.

Mrs. Zhu stared blankly for a moment, only snapping out of it when a string of bubbles rose to the surface of the nearby water. She snatched up her bucket and began to shuffle back.

If the other village women had been there, they would have likely laughed at her for being too weak, her bucket filled only four-fifths of the way.

As she passed the Immortal Spirit Temple, a casual glance inside brought her to a halt.

The Immortal Spirit Temple was the most exquisite building in all of Xianling Village. It had white walls and dark green tiles, with brickwork laid in perfect order. The tiles, specially imported from outside the village, gleamed brightly whenever the rain washed them clean.

The Immortal Spirit Temple always housed exactly two memorial tablets. But now, she saw one of them was broken.

It had snapped in two, the top half lying on the altar.

’Probably just a prank by one of the village kids.’ Mrs. Zhu didn’t go in for a closer look and continued on her way, bucket in hand.

Back home, she hurried to light the stove, boil water, and knead dough for flatbreads. Then she went to the pen behind the house to feed the chickens and pigs.

Then, her two children woke up.

The children were still small, one two and the other four. She had to handle everything—dressing them, putting on their shoes, and washing their faces.

The children’s crying woke her parents-in-law, who stumbled out rubbing their eyes and yelled for her to hurry up with breakfast.

She served salted fish, pickled vegetables, flatbread, and grain porridge, then carried a basin of warm water into the inner room to wake her husband. ”It’s morning,” she said. ”Father said we have to bring in the last of the wheat harvest today.”

The man grumbled, clearly displeased, and dawdled for more than a quarter of an hour before finally getting out of bed.

Only after her husband and father-in-law had left did Mrs. Zhu finally get a moment to breathe, slumping down against the doorframe.

Her mother-in-law came over and tossed two garments at her. ”Don’t just sit there slacking. Mend these.”

Her children played nearby. As she was mending the second garment, a sudden clamor erupted in the village.

Mrs. Zhu paid it no mind, but a few moments later, four or five people showed up at her door and, without a word of explanation, dragged her away.

Her mother-in-law was terrified. She chased after them and saw several villagers throw her daughter-in-law down in front of the Immortal Spirit Temple. The village chief’s face was livid as he pointed at the tablet inside. ”Did you do this?” he demanded.

”Do what?” Mrs. Zhu asked, bewildered. ”I didn’t do anything.”

”Did you break it? The tablet was perfectly fine last night.”

”It has nothing to do with me,” Mrs. Zhu protested. ”It was probably one of the village kids.”

”Old Qi.”

At the village chief’s call, a skinny man stepped forward. ”This morning, the only person I saw walk past the temple was Mrs. Zhu.”

Mrs. Zhu said coldly, ”You were here too. Maybe you’re the one who broke it.”

Old Qi slapped her across the face.

The village chief said, ”We’ll wait for your husband to return. Then we’ll have our justice.”

With that, two villagers locked her inside the temple.

Outside, her mother-in-law cursed her for being a troublemaker, then promptly left.

That evening, the farmers returned from the fields, surprisingly accompanied by a merchant caravan.

The caravan numbered thirty or forty people, driving ten large carts. The village children ran up to beg for sweets, but the travelers just shrugged, empty-handed.

The village chief went to greet them. The leader immediately offered up several ten-tael silver ingots. ”We’d like to lodge here for the night,” he said. ”We’ll be on our way at first light.”

The man was tall and burly, with a loud, rough voice. Watching him through the latticed brickwork of the temple wall, Mrs. Zhu felt he looked completely out of place in his silk robes.

The village chief had his own suspicions, but the sight of the silver ingots put his mind at ease. ’They’re wealthy,’ he thought. ’What could they possibly want from us?’

And so, the caravan settled in, its members dispersing to lodge in various village homes.

With outsiders present, the village chief found it inconvenient to deal with the matter of the temple tablet. As the saying goes, one shouldn’t air their dirty laundry in public.

The caravan leader asked him, ”I thought the place where the High Ancestor began his rebellion would be more prosperous.”

”The ones who leave never come back,” the village chief sighed. ”A bunch of ungrateful wretches!”

”This is a good place. Peaceful. And so many people—more than I expected.” Other villages might have two hundred people at most, but Xianling Village had over three hundred, and covered a larger area. The leader smiled. ”On our way here, I saw the wheat fields were all harvested. You must have had a long day. Is everyone back now?”

”Yes, in a couple of days we can plant the rice.” The village chief was a beat slow to react. How did these outsiders know they had been working so hard today? ”How did you...”

The caravan leader suddenly blew a sharp whistle—one long blast, followed by two short ones.

In the quiet village, the sound was piercingly loud.

The village chief sensed something was wrong and shouted, ”Men, to—” but he only got the first word out before the caravan leader knocked him unconscious.

Immediately, screams and wails erupted throughout the village.

The able-bodied men of the village grabbed their tools to fight back, only to be surrounded by two hundred more men who suddenly emerged from the surrounding woods. When the intruders threatened the women, children, and elderly, the men lowered their farm tools.

Within a quarter of an hour, the commotion had ceased.

The entire village—men, women, and children—all empty-handed, were herded into the open space before the Immortal Spirit Temple. They were surrounded by two or three hundred men who stared them down like predators, weapons in hand, their eyes glinting with malice.

The people of Xianling Village finally understood. They had mistaken ruthless bandits for gods of wealth and welcomed them with open arms.

The caravan leader was about to speak when a red-tailed Falcon swooped down from the sky and landed on his shoulder. It spoke in a human voice: ”Government troops are approaching from the southwest. Three to four hundred of them, fifteen li away.”

The bandits were startled, but the villagers were overjoyed.

’The soldiers are here! We’re saved!’

One of the bandits cried, ”General, the pursuers are here!”

”If they were pursuing us, why would they come from the southwest?” the leader asked, frowning at the red-tailed Falcon. ”Are you certain they’re government troops?”

”They are, but their uniforms are different from the troops we fought at Woling Pass. They wear blue shoulder guards.” The Falcon added, ”And one more thing—there are women in their party!”

The leader’s expression relaxed, and he even chuckled. ”What kind of pursuers would bring women along?”

His subordinate was still worried. ”But they’re headed this way. What do we do?”

The leader sneered. ”They have men, we have hostages. What’s there to fear? We can’t let them ruin our plans. First, send someone to the town to deliver a message.”

A trusted subordinate leaned in and whispered a few words in his ear. The leader nodded. ”A good plan.”

Then he issued an order to the villagers:

”Those of you with no children under the age of eleven, step forward.”

The crowd hesitated, no one daring to move.

The leader laughed. ”The unlucky ones will be those who stay behind.”

A large portion of the villagers stepped forward.

The leader ordered them to the water’s edge. Then, with a single, swift motion, he drew his blade and lopped off the head of the person nearest to him.

”Kill every last one of them!”

The villagers shrieked. Some tried desperately to fight back.

But with women, children, and the elderly among them, how could they possibly be a match for bandits as savage as wolves?

It was a one-sided slaughter.

By the time the last cry for help was silenced, the lake had been dyed red with blood.

More than a hundred corpses lay strewn about in disarray.