The pork butcher is smoother than a pig butcher!

Chapter 73 Sleepless Night
At this point, it was already getting dark.

Zuo Wenkang and more than twenty others were taken to the headquarters of the prefectural army.

This is a two-section enclosed courtyard facing southeast.

The rammed earth and stone-platformed building has four levels of raised platforms from south to north.

The two-tiered platform each form a courtyard, with the central axis passageway slightly to the left, creating a spatial layout that is narrower on the left and wider on the right.

They were led into the council hall in the first courtyard.

The hall is now piled high with dried cattails, making it impossible to even step inside.

A centurion informed the crowd that nearly a hundred people would come to learn the craft of weaving straw sandals the next day.

Cattails harvested in the seventh month of the lunar calendar are at their most resilient.

The people of Daming Prefecture loved to weave items such as cattail mats, cattail shoes, and cattail bags from dried cattail reeds.

Nanhe Prefecture was no exception.

Their task tonight is to select the most uniform and resilient stem segments from the piles of dried cattails and soak them in water.

Soaking dried cattails in water helps restore their original resilience to the greatest extent, making weaving easier and less likely to hurt your hands.

Zuo Chixia, as Zuo Wenkang's chief disciple, was naturally brought along as well.

His emotions fluctuated between high and low, and he kept asking:

"Master, can I...can I become someone else's master?"

His uncles were also sweating with anxiety:
"Yeah, Brother Wenkang, we'll embarrass you if we don't teach well!"

Zuo Wenkang waved his hand:
"Can't you guys be a little more ambitious? Those people who know how to weave rush mats, rush shoes, and rush bags can learn it after just one look! Tomorrow you'll at most serve as a demonstration, and you can finish it in one morning."

Hearing his certainty, everyone managed to calm down.

Why am I a little excited?

Just as the Zuo clan members were carefully selecting dried cattails by the light of oil lamps.

The two leaders, along with the remaining prisoners, checked into the post station closest to the checkpoint.

Before leaving the checkpoint, the leader surnamed Huang went to vouch for the people of Stone Village.

They recounted their encounter with the people of Shitouzhai.

"Most of the displaced people in Lushan County are from the vicinity of the Ruhe River. The flood washed away their homes and buried their fertile fields with silt."

Initially, they wanted to go to the county town to buy grain.

As a result, all the grain stores and grocery stores in the county closed down, and even the granaries were empty.

The deputy centurion disagreed:

"This has nothing to do with our garrison; we're just following the rules! Without travel permits, they won't be able to pass through any checkpoint. They'll be treated like vagrants wherever they go!"
You guys just need to mind your own business!
"I heard that six of your group of convict women are willing to serve men? Then prepare rooms for them at the inn to receive guests! Consider it an early reward for the troops!"

The leader surnamed Huang looked embarrassed and could only agree.

He feels miserable!
The nightmare at the Yuzhoufu inn seems like it was just yesterday.

My body is badly injured, but the emotional wounds won't heal anytime soon.

He harbored a deep-seated apprehension about having those married women sell themselves again.
Outside the checkpoint.

The men in charge of Shitou Village are having a meeting.

The atmosphere at the meeting was somewhat somber.

Old Zhong, who had previously been very humble in front of the officials, was now sitting in the center position.

He kept a stern face, and the men who dared to lay a hand on the soldiers that afternoon were so frightened that they dared not utter a sound.

After a long pause, Old Man Zhong spoke up: "Tell me, how do we get this travel permit?"

The men racked their brains for a long time before finally speaking up: "Boss, all the identity documents for our Stone Village are fake. We can't get travel permits even if we go back to Lushan County!"

"Then we won't get any travel permits! I refuse to believe we can't get over that Vulture Mountain in three to five days!"

"No, no, the rocks on Vulture Mountain are covered in moss. If we don't climb at night, we might fall to our deaths! We shouldn't be too conspicuous when we go up the mountain during the day."

"How about we wait for those refugees? Isn't that leader addicted to being a boss? Let's send someone back to tell them about the commotion in Nanyang Prefecture! This checkpoint shouldn't have more than two hundred soldiers!"

"What can those refugees possibly amount to? They're more than satisfied with just Lushan County! Rather than waiting for them to come to Nanyang Prefecture, we'd better rely on ourselves!"

"Yes, boss, let's just force our way in! They're all cowards."

Old Man Zhong was so angry that he gave the young man who tried to force his way in a flick on the forehead:

"It's easy to deal with two hundred weaklings, but Nanhe Prefecture has at least tens of thousands of weakling soldiers!"
If it weren't for your father and the others' fiery tempers back then, which made it impossible to stop them, and they killed dozens of government officials, our Stone Village would have been wanted by the entire Youyun Prefecture, and we would have ended up having to relocate the whole village.
More than a decade has passed, and you kids have all grown up! Only this old man is left; I doubt many people would recognize me if I went back.”

The impatient young man stamped his feet: "Then what do you suggest we do? We can't force our way in, and we can't get around them! We can't count on those officials from Daming Prefecture at all!"

Old Zhong let out a strange laugh:

"Hehehe, have you forgotten why we've relied on this group of people? You actually dare to expect those officials to help you!"

Since Nanhe Prefecture doesn't welcome the refugees from Lushan County, let's send them here as soon as possible. Xiao Fei, why don't you make a trip to Lushan County?

Upon seeing the leader, say, "Yes, say that someone saw the magistrate of Lushan County hiding in the city of Nanhe Prefecture!"

"Xiao Fei obeys. I'll head back to Lushan County right away!"

The man, nicknamed Xiaofei, is actually over thirty years old.

He was quite skilled in agility and was known as "Little Flying Kick" in Stone Village.

It's over 200 miles, and you can make a round trip in one night.
I had previous experience at a roadside inn.

Gan Minglan and others are now extremely wary of places like post stations or inns.

Once inside, they closed all the doors and windows tightly, and even pushed all the movable tables, chairs, and cabinets behind the door.

Even so, Gan Minglan was still not at ease. She said:
"Let's take turns working the night shift. There are eight adults and six children living in this house now. We don't need to worry about the little ones. Each of us can stay for an hour and we can keep up until dawn!"

The She family and others thought this was a great idea.

With someone keeping watch at night, those who want to sleep can finally sleep soundly.

The only one who couldn't sleep soundly was Gan Minglan.

Although I know that the officialdom of Bei is rotten to the core.

What Gan Minglan saw and heard at the checkpoint today still shocked her.

The soldiers looked at her with even more blatant lewdness than a lecherous man.

Especially that deputy centurion.

This person's face doesn't look like that of a kind person!
Their methods of accumulating wealth are so brutal as to be outrageous.

They'll take any kind of money!
They claim to be protecting the safety of this area!
With their pathetic fighting ability, they couldn't even beat a few mountain folk!

Would such a state apparatus be able to withstand civil unrest?
What if you go to the battlefield?

And then there's their destination—the border town.

The soldiers of the nine strategic towns must be different from these farm-farming soldiers, right?
The baby in her belly has been moving more frequently lately, and it's not as eager to absorb her powers as before.

I've been camping outdoors for the past few days, which has given me more opportunities to enter the space.

She finally broke through to level five.

A level 5 wood-type ability can make a year-old seed go through germination, growth, maturity, and withering all at once.

With this qualitative breakthrough, we'll never go hungry again!
(End of this chapter)