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Chapter 377 Captivity
Lu Zhang was taken aback by Yan Shu's strong reaction. He hesitated whether he should speak up to dissuade her, but when he saw that Zhu Yu had already pulled Yan Shu back, preventing her from taking any further extreme actions, he breathed a sigh of relief and did not move. He just glanced at her a few more times with concern.

Fortunately, Lu Yan, the only one among these people who was kept in the dark, had a temper that couldn't be controlled, so he didn't think there was anything wrong with Yan Shu's actions. In any case, if it weren't for Lu Qing being there and him having to suppress his temper, he would have liked to give that old geezer a good beating.

He was severely punished for impulsively killing all the captured "Jie Kingdom bandits" in a fit of rage, and even had to bear the blame for deliberately silencing them and covering up the truth for his accomplices.

In the end, it turned out that all these things were done by this group of bandits, which made him furious.

However, Lu Qing had spoken frankly with him before, and he had realized how easily his impulsive and fiery temper could put him in danger. So, he managed to suppress the anger that was about to surge up.

When Lu Yan saw Yan Shu swing his whip without saying a word, he almost couldn't help but give a thumbs up to this brother who was just as quick to take revenge as he was.

The old steward trembled all over from the whip, wincing in pain. But out of fear, he had to stifle his groans, afraid that he might accidentally anger the other party and that the people around him wouldn't be able to stop him. He didn't know how many more lashes his old arms and legs could withstand.

"Why pretend to be a Jie bandit?" Zhu Yu asked again while the old steward was still in shock.

The old steward shook his head tremblingly: "Gentlemen, I really don't know! It's not my place to ask the fortress lord about what he's doing. He just told the brothers to go out and do it, and we did as he said."

Anyway, they were originally bandits. They just changed their clothes and did similar things. They didn't have to rely on robbing for food. The lord of the fortress would give them silver, so they were happy to do it.

I only manage the affairs within the fort; I have no say in matters outside.

Gentlemen, if I intended to conceal these things, I wouldn't have said them. Do you think that makes sense?

The reason I'm telling you all this is because I'm begging you gentlemen to spare my life.

"What about the others in the fort? And where did they come from?"

Lu Qing's question seemed easy, but it caught the old steward off guard. His expression was conflicted, as if he was still shaken by Yan Shu's whip. His eyes kept glancing at her.

Zhu Yu snorted and said directly to the old steward, "Whether you speak or not is up to you. As long as you speak frankly and without reservation, I can still stop this brother of ours. But if you hesitate and stammer, and I lose focus for a moment... his whip is very fast..."

"No, no, no... I'll talk! I'll talk!" The old steward seemed to have really been hit hard, and he quickly spoke up upon hearing this, afraid that if he hesitated any longer, he would get hit again. "It's not that I don't want to talk, it's just that I don't know how to explain this matter clearly..."

The villagers in the fortress now are not the same people who lived there when we first arrived.

Back when we were recruited by the castle lord to work for him, there were quite a few people in this Immortal Castle, men, women, young and old, all sorts of people, but... but they are no longer the same group of people living here now...

"In the meantime... I don't even know how many groups of people were replaced..." "Why were people replaced?"

"Because...because...they died..." The old steward's voice was tinged with fear. It wasn't that he felt guilty or regretful about how many lives he had taken, but rather that he was afraid of being beaten to death by the men in front of him in a fit of rage.

The old steward dared not hide anything, nor did he dare to tell the whole truth, fearing that either way he would anger the other party. He spoke haltingly and stammeringly, but fortunately, after some questioning, he finally managed to tell everything that needed to be said.

Back when he and the other bandits transformed into guards of Fairy Fortress, the villagers living there seemed to be individual families who were originally from the fortress, but they had clearly been controlled by the fortress lord.

Even the servants in the fortress were chosen by the fortress lord, captured and fed a certain medicine that only the fortress lord had. Before long, they became dull and obedient, doing whatever they were told, and they could not perceive anything else except doing what their master ordered them to do.

So when the old stewards and the others first took over, it was relatively easy. The lord of the fort gave them sachets to wear on their bodies so they wouldn't be affected by the intoxicating smoke in the fort. Their tasks were also very simple: deliver hot soup in the morning, deliver incense in the evening, and settle merchants in the courtyard when they came.

The villagers would rest after delivering incense at night, and the next morning each person would be given a bowl of hot soup, which would be poured into their mouths. Soon they would feel refreshed and full of energy to go out and do their work.

And those people don't eat anything except hot soup. They are energetic during the day, as if they never have any worries. They work with great enthusiasm and will sing a folk song while working.

Initially, this eerie scene gave the old steward and the guards a jolt.

However, they later discovered that as long as they didn't inquire about the lord of the fortress, there was no risk of getting into trouble. Those strange villagers looked no different from normal people, but in reality, they were not mentally sound and had no aggressiveness. Only then did they gradually feel at ease.

However, since those farmers only smelled the fragrance at night and simmered the hot soup during the day, repeating this cycle over and over again, they were, after all, living, breathing people of flesh and blood, and naturally could not withstand it in the long run.

A few months later, some of the older people there collapsed. They would suddenly fall down while working, or after offering incense at night, they would be impossible to wake up the next morning.

Such people would be taken away by the castle lord, locked in the cellar and bled, and tended to a box of very precious and illicit flowers of unknown origin.

Once all the blood has been drained from these people, and no more blood can be drained, the corpses will be disposed of.

Without people to plant flowers and make dyes during the day, it's impossible to do so.

So the brothers who were pretending to be Jie soldiers outside had a new task - every now and then, they would kidnap a few people from the surrounding area to fill the empty spaces in the fortress.

By now, there are no longer any villagers who originally lived in the fort.