The court lackeys of the eight-hour workday

Chapter 298 Xue Bangzhu

Three poles in the sun.

Zheng Yi opened her eyes, slowly exhaled a breath of stale air, reached out and tapped her slightly numb thigh, then rolled out of bed. She walked to the table, poured herself a glass of water, drank it all in one gulp, and then sighed deeply again.

It has been exactly three days since I sent Yin Suqin and Cao Hanyan to inquire about the news.

Over these three days, Zheng Yi witnessed Li Miao's "true nature".

He doesn't get up until noon, and he doesn't open his eyes when talking to people. All he does all day is eat and sleep, or he disguises himself and wanders around with his hands behind his back, and when he sits down, he slides down like a lump of mud. He's completely different from the fierce and menacing person he was in Songshan.

It was clearly Li Miao who forced her to come and find someone, but now it's Zheng Yi who's worried all the time.

After thinking for a while, Zheng Yi gritted her teeth.

"I don't know what he's thinking... Four Celestials died in Yingzhou, so he definitely won't let this go. Although the sea route is long and can't be traveled by lightness skill like the land route, the next wave of people will arrive in three months at most."

"If we can't find out Yingzhou's strength within three months, it's the same as fighting empty-handed. The enemy is in the open, and we are in the dark. If Li Miao dies, it will be difficult to find such a powerful ally again... Relying on myself, I'm afraid I will never be able to pose any threat to Yingzhou in this lifetime."

"No way, he's a violent madman. He might be hoping someone will come to our door, and I can't just sit here and wait!"

Once she made up her mind, she grabbed the long sword from the table and strode out of the room.

"Where to go?"

As soon as I stepped out of the room, I heard Li Miao's lazy voice.

Li Miao's crazy behavior that day had left a considerable psychological scar on Zheng Yi. When she suddenly heard Li Miao's voice, she couldn't help but shiver and almost instinctively drew her sword. She managed to suppress her movement and looked in the direction of the voice.

A huge rug had been laid out in the courtyard, with a low table and cushions on it. Li Miao was half-reclining on it, his eyes half-closed, with a book covering his face. Two maids, who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, were blushing as they massaged his shoulders and legs.

Zheng Yi pursed her lips and couldn't help but say.

"Lord Li, this... Yingzhou..."

Li Miao waved his hand, signaling the two maids to stop, removed the book from their faces, and looked at Zheng Yi with a smile.

"Xiao Yizi, it's obvious you've gone stupid from practicing martial arts."

He reached out and took a pot of wine from the side, then took a sip.

"There are four seasons in a year, and each season has its most important activities. Spring is for outings, winter is for enjoying the snow, and September is a time of clear skies and crisp air. Although the weather is getting a bit cool, it is just right for martial arts practitioners."

"Instead of having a drink and soaking up the sun at a time like this, why are you running out with a sword looking for someone?"

"Your martial arts training is so boring."

Zheng Yi took a deep breath.

"Lord Li, it's been three days since those two left... How can you still sit still? Do you really think those two first-rate lads can find the traces of the people of Penglai?"

Li Miao scoffed at this.

"Just trying to find something to mess with them a bit."

Zheng Yi said urgently.

"Then what's the point of you just waiting here?"

Li Miao, however, smiled and asked in return.

"Then what's the point of you running out with your sword?"

"Let's not even talk about whether the people of Penglai would think Yingzhou has come looking for us if our faces appeared before them. Even if you disguise yourself, wouldn't the people of Penglai run away if a celestial being strolled around town, gathering information?"

"Even if you find traces of the people of Penglai, are you confident you can keep them here without me present?"

Zheng Yi's eyes widened as she said, "We're both from Penglai, I can just explain it to him. My internal strength can also prove my identity—"

Li Miao laughed and said, "So what?"

Zheng Yi was taken aback.

Li Miao smiled and pointed at Zheng Yi.

"It has been nearly fifty years since the Penglai clan was wiped out. In this world, it is rare for human relationships to last more than three years. Even close parents would become estranged after ten years of not seeing each other, let alone fifty years?"

"It was you who brought me here to find them, also seeking revenge. Did you really expect them to burst into tears and open their hearts to you after seeing you?"

A maidservant peeled a slice of pear, skewered it with a bamboo stick, and fed it to Li Miao. Li Miao chewed and mumbled incoherently.

"Don't be naive, talking about feelings won't work. Right now, you and I are trying to cause trouble for Yingzhou, forcibly dragging these people who have lived peaceful lives for fifty years into this mess. You're lucky if we don't beat you up."

"Even if you find it without me there, it won't do you any good, and you might even lose your life."

Zheng Yi pursed her lips.

She was powerless to refute Li Miao's words, and had to admit that Li Miao was right.

After a long pause, she let out a sigh of relief and slowly said, "Then, Lord Li, how about you and I disguise ourselves and go out to search together?"

Li Miao lay down with her hands behind her head.

"I'm not going."

"The people Yingzhou has been searching for for fifty years and still can't find them, you think you can find them just based on the few words your mother left behind? Besides, it's not even certain whether these people are still alive."

"I only came out for a stroll because I had nothing else to do, and to look around. If I hear any news, I'll go check it out; if not, I'll just wait for the people from Yingzhou to come looking for their doom."

"I stopped doing such low-level work as gathering information twenty years ago."

Zheng Yi remained silent for a while, then sighed, nodded, and turned to go back to her room to practice her internal energy cultivation.

Just then, footsteps sounded outside the courtyard.

Zheng Yi turned around and saw Cao Hanyan and Yin Suqin walking in quickly. After looking around, she walked to Li Miao's side and stood there, but did not dare to speak for a moment.

Both women looked haggard, their eyes bloodshot, and their eye sockets faintly bluish-purple, clearly indicating they hadn't rested for the past three days. Cao Hanyan was slightly better off, but Yin Suqin's arm had been broken by Li Miao, her right hand wrapped in a strip of cloth and hanging in front of her chest; her face was pale, and she had lost all the energy she had just had a couple of days ago.

These three days felt like an eternity for Yin Suqin. A moment of carelessness had resulted in Li Miao crippling her dominant hand and dragging Cao Hanyan into the mess. Li Miao's finger was hanging over her head like a death warrant – her martial arts, her brothers, her life – all were in shambles.

In just three days, he was like a completely different person. His lips were tightly pursed, and he didn't say a word. He had lost all his "sharp-tongued young master" demeanor.

So it was Cao Hanyan who spoke first.

"Master Li."

Li Miao opened his eyes and said calmly.

"You found out?"

Cao Hanyan gritted her teeth, but shook her head.

"My lord, in the past three days, Brother Yin and I have searched all over Kaifeng Prefecture, but we have not been able to find anyone who looks like you." "We have found quite a few Jianghu people surnamed Zheng who came to Kaifeng fifty years ago, but most of them are already dead. Only two are still alive, and they are both very old. Their origins are clear, and they do not seem suspicious."

"As for those with extraordinary martial arts skills and unknown origins... we only found two, one of whom is only in his thirties and doesn't seem to be the person you're looking for."

Li Miao narrowed his eyes: "Tell me about the rest."

Cao Hanyan nodded in agreement, reached into her bosom and took out a portrait, unfolded it, revealing the face of a woman on it.

"This person is named Xue Bangzhu. He came to Kaifeng forty-five years ago, married and had children locally. Later, he suffered a misfortune and his family was wiped out. He then moved alone to the foot of Yishan Mountain outside the city."

"Thirteen years ago, she moved to the mortuary outside the city to do corpse collection work. But the mortuary has been abandoned. We inquired and it is said that no one has seen her for several years."

Cao Hanyan shook the portrait.

"This painting is based on the description of her former neighbor, which we found together. It depicts what she looked like when she first came to Kaifeng. Putting aside her appearance, her eyebrows and eyes do bear a faint resemblance to yours."

Li Miao listened, then twirled his fingers and asked.

"Besides her eyebrows and eyes, what criteria did you use to single her out?"

Cao Hanyan didn't answer, but instead elbowed Yin Suqin in the side and winked at him several times. He was the one who had offended Li Miao in the first place, and now that he was seeing Li Miao and not speaking, what if he angered Li Miao?
Moreover, Cao Hanyan had noticed that Yin Suqin's spirits had been declining day by day over the past three days. If she didn't force him to say something, Cao Hanyan was afraid that he would turn around and try to kill himself.

Yin Suqin pursed her lips, knowing that her friend was worried about her, so she forced herself to cheer up and continued the conversation.

"Actually, this person can't be called a martial arts practitioner, and no one has ever seen her use her skills. Brother Cao and I only found out about her by chance when someone mentioned her."

"It's because there are too many suspicious things about this person."

"Firstly, her origins are unclear. According to insiders, she came to Kaifeng alone and bought a courtyard house to live in as soon as she arrived. Until she moved outside the city, she never mentioned her relatives or friends—it was as if she was deliberately hiding it."

"The second is the misfortune that her family suffered back then."

Yin Suqin took out a piece of paper from her bosom and handed it to Li Miao.

"Back then, she married a wealthy family in the city, and her life was quite happy, except that she never had any children. Twenty years ago, she took some servants to a Guanyin temple outside the city to pray for a child. When she returned, she found that her entire family had been wiped out."

"The person who did this was a notorious bandit in the martial arts world back then, nicknamed 'No-Leave-Away.' He was a top-notch evil master who specialized in wiping out entire families and stealing their wealth. He was quite infamous back then."

Yin Suqin said in a deep voice.

"Upon returning home, she found the floor covered in blood. The servants who had come out of the city with her were all stunned. However, Xue Bangzhu remained inexplicably calm. While instructing the servants to report to the authorities, she ran into the house to examine the body."

"When the servants returned with the officers, she had vanished without a trace. They searched everywhere but found no one. The officers even suspected that she had conspired with outsiders to murder her husband and had already fled. This matter became the talk of the town that year."

"After several days, the servants, unable to wait for her return, sold the family's land, took a portion for themselves, and used the rest to hold a memorial service for the deceased family members."

"Xue Bangzhu has suddenly returned."

Yin Suqin took out another piece of paper and handed it to Li Miao.

"This is information we obtained from the servant from back then, and it should all be accurate."

"They said that when they took the money from selling the land, they all felt somewhat indebted, so they took turns keeping vigil for the family. On the third night, no one opened the door, and Xue Bangzhu suddenly walked in from outside the mourning hall."

"She was dressed exactly as she had when she left, as if she had just gone out for a walk—but one of her servants noticed that there were faint traces left where she had stepped."

"The bloodstains were almost dried."

"From that day on, the 'Bu Liuxing' who wiped out Xue Bangzhu's family never appeared in the martial arts world again."

"Xue Bangzhu didn't say anything. He finished the ritual as usual, moved out of the city, and never had any contact with anyone again."

Li Miao nodded and asked, "Is there anything else?"

Yin Suqin hesitated for a moment, then nodded and said.

"There is one more thing, but it's just something I heard secondhand, and it sounds a bit absurd. I don't know if I should tell you."

Li Miao waved his hand: "Tell me."

Yin Suqin then spoke.

"She moved out of the city twenty years ago, moved to a mortuary outside the city thirteen years ago, and then the mortuary was abandoned five years ago, and no one has seen her since."

"But when I asked Brother Cao about her recent situation, some merchants who frequently traveled there mentioned that the charitable estate where Xue Bangzhu lived had started to show some strange signs since she moved there."

Li Miao raised an eyebrow: "Oh? What's wrong?"

Yin Suqin said.

"It's said that it's haunted or haunted by monsters or something like that."

"Ever since she moved there, the bodies in that mortuary have been constantly going missing, and the number never matches up when the coroner goes to check."

"However, no one cared about the bodies that were brought into the mortuary, so no one investigated them - until five years ago, a passing merchant died in Kaifeng, and his body was taken to the mortuary and placed there. His companions sent a message home, asking their family members to come and collect the body."

"Unexpectedly, when the man's family arrived at the mortuary, they could not find the body."

After talking for a while, Yin Suqin finally regained some of her energy and spirit, and spoke with the same eloquent and talkative manner as she had a few days ago, spreading her hands and speaking vividly.

“When a family member dies far from home, these people travel thousands of miles to collect the body. They are already furious. How can they tolerate seeing the body missing? They immediately grabbed Xue Bangzhu and interrogated her about whether she had lost the body.”

"During the shoving, Xue Bangzhu fell. She was already in her sixties or seventies and was in her twilight years. Unfortunately, she hit the back of her head and immediately fainted."

"Seeing this, those people didn't dare to cause any trouble and fled Kaifeng overnight."

"Xue Bangzhu did not die; a few days later, someone saw her again. But a few days later, when someone went to the mortuary to take her body, they could no longer find her."

“Since then, problems have started to arise at this mortuary.”

"First, the situation of missing bodies became more and more serious. The person who took over the mortuary would wake up one morning to find that all the bodies in the mortuary had disappeared. Sometimes, a body would be delivered and then disappear as soon as the person turned around."

"The people who were looking after the mortuary were afraid, so they abandoned it and fled back to their hometowns, and the mortuary was abandoned from then on."

"But that's not the end of it. Since then, whenever merchants pass by and want to stop over for a rest, they always have nightmares or lose things at night."

"If that were all, it would be fine. But a year or two later, a group of out-of-town merchants, unaware of the situation, went in and stayed overnight—guess what happened?"

Yin Suqin said mysteriously.

"The entire team is gone."

"If it weren't for the merchants in the city who had arranged the transaction with them noticing something was wrong and reporting it to the authorities, and if passersby hadn't seen them enter the mortuary, this matter would probably have remained unknown!"

"Since then, no one has dared to go to the mortuary, and it has gradually been forgotten. If we hadn't found an old storyteller, we wouldn't have been able to find out about it!"

"You tell me, can Xue Bangzhu really be without problems?"

(End of this chapter)