New and dark light years

Chapter 483 Giving You a Helping Hand

In Li Lin's view, the fall of Xiangjun was only a matter of time.

After all, the public security situation in the south is already quite dire.

With Yue County and the Tang family army setting an example, ambitious people will emerge one after another.

He himself... could be considered an ambitious man, if not a perfect one.

Upon hearing the news, Li Lin was initially quite happy.

If Xiangjun is occupied by Zhang Zouzhi, then the court will pay even less attention to him.

After all, Xiangjun was practically half of the Central Plains.

Since ancient times, the Great Qi has always valued the stability of the Central Plains.

It can be said that... if we can occupy the southern barbarian regions and the northern border regions, that would be best; if we really can't occupy them, then the Central Plains will be the place to hold.

Waiting for the right time.

Li Lin was happy for a short while, but then he sighed again.

With the fall of Xiangjun, the local people are in for a lot of suffering.

I don't know what kind of person Zhang Zouzhi is.

After thinking for a while, Li Lin realized that his abilities were limited at the moment and he couldn't help them, so he stopped thinking about that and focused on the more important issues at hand.

That is to stop the spread of Gu people.

He turned around and went back to the county government office, where he had his personal guards buy paper and ink, and then he went into seclusion for three days.

Three days later, he came out with a booklet and said to Xiao Chunzhu, "Take this and ask someone to help print a hundred copies. I need them within two days."

"Yes."

Xiao Chunzhu took the booklet and saw four large characters written on it: "Insect-repelling talisman".

He asked with some curiosity, "Sir, are you going to distribute this unique skill?"

Li Lin nodded.

"Isn't this too wasteful? It's too good for others."

Xiao Chunzhu was aware of his family's military governor's abilities, and he figured that what was recorded here must be some truly unique skills.

"You can keep a copy if you want to learn it," Li Lin said with a smile. "There are more and more insects now, so hopefully this will leave the world with some means of preventing insect infestation."

He couldn't possibly run around removing the curse by himself; such a task requires the strength of a group.

In fact, about half a year ago, Li Lin handed over some talismans targeting insects to the Zhongshu Sect, but unexpectedly, these talismans have not been received in the past six months.

Li Lin's secret techniques were likely hidden away by some important figures as a family heirloom, and were never disseminated or passed on.

Therefore, Li Lin now looks down on those high-ranking officials and aristocratic families in the capital even more.

Since the bigwigs in the capital didn't care about this matter, Li Lin decided to take matters into his own hands.

Xiao Chunzhu smiled and said, "Then I'll print a few more copies, keep one for myself, and give the rest away."

"Go ahead, it's up to you," Li Lin said with a smile.

Xiao Chunzhu then left happily.

Two hours later, Li Lin waited for 'An Tusen' and the others to return.

They brought Zheng Hu back.

In the backyard, Zheng Hu, his face bruised and swollen, was thrown to the ground. He looked up at Li Lin, his eyes filled with resentment.

Where did you catch him?

“This fellow is about to escape to Yue County.” A man clasped his hands and said, “He is quite cunning and troublesome, but fortunately he lacks experience in the martial world, which is why we were able to catch up with him.”

Li Lin nodded: "Thank you all for your help. Please stay here and keep an eye on him so he doesn't harm me."

"No trouble, no trouble."

Several people shook their heads.

Just kidding, Paper Prince... what kind of status and strength does he have that he needs their protection?

The other party is giving them face; this is simply a matter of social etiquette.

They felt deeply honored.

Li Lin looked at Zheng Hu on the ground and asked with a smile, "Inspector Zheng, you are an official, why did you give up your promising future to become a Gu cultist?"

Zheng Hu looked up at Li Lin, his eyes filled with fear, but his face was filled with disdain: "What's so good about being an official... Longevity and being superior to others are the real benefits. Aren't you, Young Master Paper, the same?"

Li Lin shook his head: "I'm an official now, a high-ranking official, a military governor."

These words sounded somewhat frivolous, but Zheng Hu knew perfectly well that Li Lin was mocking him.

He snorted: "Paper Prince, ask me whatever you want to get out of me. Whether I answer or not depends on my mood."

"Where are your family members?" Li Lin asked. "If you don't answer, something will happen to them."

"Whatever." Zheng Hu laughed heartily, "Do whatever you want. By the way, my wife is quite good-looking, why don't you take her in, Paper Prince?"

Upon hearing this, everyone's expression turned somewhat strange.

Li Lin sighed. It seemed that his previously infallible plan to "exterminate nine generations of a family" was no longer effective.

He thought for a moment and said, "I want to know, since you're no longer human, why did you kill those fellow Gu people?"

"They're not from the same clan!"

Li Lin raised an eyebrow: "What do you mean by that?"

"Why should I tell you?" Zheng Hu said unhappily.

At that moment, a man from the martial arts world disliked Zheng Hu and was about to beat him up, but Li Lin stopped him.

"You guests can just watch the show," Li Lin smiled, then looked at Zheng Hu: "That way, you can die more quickly. Since I dare to oppose you Gu people, I have some experience in how to torture you."

In fact, Li Lin had no experience in this area, but that didn't stop him from bluffing people.

“Even a centipede with a hundred legs doesn’t fall down when it’s dead.” Li Lin continued, “You insects have a strong vitality, which is both your strength and your weakness. Your strong vitality means that you can endure more pain before you die.”

"It's alright, bring it on, whatever you've got." Zheng Hu chuckled, "I'm not afraid."

This person is impervious to both soft and hard approaches, and completely unyielding to reason.

Li Lin stood up and said helplessly, "Forget it then. I was originally going to mess with you a bit, but then I thought that I am a military governor, and it would be too beneath me to use such methods. I will just kill you and refine you into pills later."

Alchemy?

Using Gu poison?
Everyone looked at Li Lin with a hint of fear in their eyes.

"Using Gu people to refine pills?" Zheng Hu snorted: "So what? I'm not afraid. I'm going to die anyway."

Li Lin raised his hand, about to kill Zheng Hu.

But at this moment, a man suddenly stepped forward, clasped his hands in a fist and bowed, and said, "Sir, I have a way to make this thief willing to tell the truth."

Li Lin raised an eyebrow: "You have a way?"

"Yes, since you're going to kill him anyway, why not let me give it a try?"

"May I ask your honorable surname, sir?"

"My surname is Hai, Hai En! Some friends in the martial arts world like to call me 'Five-Armed Vajra'."

Judging from his nickname, this man seemed to be a master of external martial arts. Li Lin nodded: "Alright, just tell me what tools you need." "Nothing, just give me a house."

Li Lin immediately agreed: "Okay."

Then he made a 'please' gesture.

The man then dragged Zheng Hu to the side.

Zheng Hu shouted, "Show me what you've got! If I utter a sound of fear, then I'm a piece of trash. Come on!"

The door closed, but Zheng Hu's shouts could be faintly heard.

Li Lin didn't care about anything else. He asked the others to sit down and had his guards bring cups for them to drink tea.

The seven martial arts practitioners were all flattered and took small sips of tea, not daring to drink it all at once.

At that moment, Zheng Hu's screams could be faintly heard from inside the room.

But because of the door blocking the view, it wasn't very clear.

No one paid any attention to him, so Li Lin took the opportunity to ask them about what was happening in the martial arts world.

The people answered one by one, which gave Li Lin a good understanding of the current situation in the martial arts world.

For example... the man in black who snatched the annotated version of the paper-crafting technique from him has already been identified by people in the martial arts world.

It would normally be very difficult to find out who did this, but recently something happened at the Diancang Sect: several of their disciples have disappeared.

The sect leader of Diancang Sect is searching everywhere for people.

Then, someone with a keen eye compared the numbers and discovered that the number of the missing disciples of the Diancang Sect was exactly the same as the number of the masked men in black who stole the paper-making technique.

As a result, people in the martial arts world began to look suspiciously at these missing people.

All I can say is that once you have a suspect, as long as you investigate thoroughly, many things will become impossible to conceal.

Not long after, the senior disciple of the Diancang Sect was found in a village in Shaanxi Province.

What followed was a worldwide manhunt.

Meanwhile, the Diancang Sect was also targeted by many people, and various forces pressured them to hand over their paper-making skills.

Although these people all knew that the Diancang School did not have the art of paper-making.

But they still wanted to use this method to force the senior disciple of the Diancang Sect to come out.

In this situation, the Diancang Sect rose up in resistance, but was wiped out in less than a month.

"The whole family was wiped out?" Li Lin was somewhat surprised.

"Sir, your paper-making technique is already a martial arts masterpiece, far superior to Shaolin's Yi Jin Jing and Zhenwu Sect's Tai Chi Heart Method."

Li Lin waved his hand: "It's not that powerful."

"Even if you master the Yi Jin Jing and Tai Chi Mind Technique, you can only defeat a hundred men. But your paper-making technique... that's a skill that can defeat ten thousand men."

Fearless of death, endless, as long as there is paper and vital energy, countless paper figures can fight for you. Isn't this much better than this scripture or that method?

Just then, the door opened.

Hai En dragged Zheng Hu out of the house.

At this moment, Hein looked very happy.

Zheng Hu appeared physically unharmed, but his expression was extremely ashen, as if he had suffered a great humiliation.

Regardless of what had happened inside, Li Lin looked at Zheng Hu and asked, "Can you tell me now?"

"Who are you..." Zheng Hu looked at Li Lin and shouted in grief and indignation, "You people are more disgusting than insects, disgusting."

Li Lin subconsciously raised his eyebrows.

Hein said somewhat embarrassedly, "It seems this guy still deserves a beating. I'm sorry, sir, I'll drag him in again."

"No, no, no! Don't let him touch me!" Zheng Hu cried out in alarm, struggling violently as if he were terrified.

Hein smiled and returned to his friends.

Li Lin nodded and said, "Zheng Hu, is there anything you want to say?"

"My lord, ask whatever you wish, and I will tell you everything. I only ask for death afterward."

Li Lin nodded: "How did you get in touch with the Gu Immortal?"

"Does Your Excellency know that her name is Gu Xian?"

“A few days ago, it spoke to me in the form of a young child, but didn’t say anything useful.”

Zheng Hu breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Gu Immortal, you can regard him as a cultivator among us Gu people."

"So she really is a 'fairy'. I thought she was just trying to make herself look good."

Zheng Hu continued, "About half a year ago, as an inspector, I led troops to receive a batch of grain that was transported from your Jin County."

Li Lin was taken aback for a moment, then said, "Six months ago, I was the Grand Commander, and Jin County did not allocate any grain or provisions to your Gui County."

“It really was transported from your Jin County. I have no reason to lie to you, sir, especially since I used your name.”

Li Lin stood up instinctively: "How is that possible?"

While he wouldn't say that Jin County was completely under his control, he certainly had a strong grip on it.

It's impossible for anyone to use his name and still transport grain to other counties.

“It really was transported from your Jin County, and the official seal looked genuine at the time.” Zheng Hu looked at Li Lin: “However, it seems now that the document was probably fake.”

Li Lin sat down and said, "You can continue."

“That batch of grain looked very… valuable because it contained dried meat.” Zheng Hu said slowly, “We secretly took some dried meat and roasted it for dinner that night. After all, we hadn’t eaten meat in a long time. But the meat was poisonous. After we ate it, most of us died. Only I and a few strong men survived. After that night, we all became Gu people.”

"How many of your people died, and how did you manage to cover it up?" Li Lin asked.

Zheng Hu chuckled sinisterly, “How can we hide it? There’s no need to hide it at all. Just say that we were attacked by strange creatures on the road and only a few of us survived, and everyone will believe it, including the county magistrate and the county assistant magistrate.”

Li Lin's expression was quite helpless.

The reason is a bit unbelievable, but it makes perfect sense.

Who in the world is not afraid of strange creatures?

Who can guarantee that they won't be targeted by strange creatures or get into trouble once they go outside?
But Zheng Hu and his men still managed to transport most of the grain back, which was a great achievement.

"After I became a Gu person, an insect flew in and hid in my heart. Then the Gu immortal could give me orders from thousands of miles away."

How many people did you kill?

“There are many, two or three thousand.” Zheng Hu laughed loudly: “With the supernatural in power, not many people in this world dare to go out. People in villages and military towns die and usually won’t be discovered for two or three months. It’s just a pity that you, Paper Prince, came too early. If you had waited two or three months to come, I, Zheng Hu, would no longer be afraid of you.”

"How arrogant!" someone nearby said indignantly.

Zheng Hu laughed and said, "You roughnecks, you call yourselves chivalrous heroes, but in reality you're just doing manual labor, no different from peasants. What 'vital energy'? It's just a dead end; once you reach the end, there's nowhere to go. There are only two paths in this world: the Human Immortal and the Gu Immortal. You don't touch either of them, so you're just useless people."

Several martial arts figures were so angry they were practically fuming.

Someone cursed, "If you were really that powerful, how could we have caught you?"

"That's because I only trained for less than half a year. Half a year ago, I was just an ordinary patrolman. After half a year, I could easily beat any one of you. If it weren't for your numbers and your sneak attack, I would have killed you all long ago. So, all your years of hard training have been wasted on dogs."

The group of martial arts practitioners looked embarrassed.

Zheng Hu turned to look at Li Lin and sneered, "Governor, the path to becoming a human immortal is fraught with difficulties and dangers. Why not join my Great Dao of the Gu Immortals? I can use the sacred insect in my heart to lend you a hand. You should also know that once you become a Gu Immortal, all humans will become our great medicine and a blessing for our cultivation."

(End of this chapter)