Under One Person: The Taoist Priest Descends the Mountain

Chapter 78 A Village of Talented Individuals (Seeking First Subscription)

Xia He, who was squatting to the side, suddenly stood up when she heard this and kicked the person, sending them rolling twice.

"Raising kidnapped children to adulthood, then teaching them to kidnap other children? Are you raising a venomous snake? Or is this called recycling? No, this is a scum-raising program, cultivating them from a young age, ensuring no waste, right?"

She grew angrier as she spoke, and added with her foot: "The best of the best in child abduction, the graduate students of villainy, you're all capable of teaching courses! The course title should be 'How to Train Victims into Perpetrators—Starting from Childhood!'"

Cheng Mo patted her shoulder: "Calm down."

Xia He snorted and barely managed to pull her foot back.

Wang Zhenqiu continued to ask the thin, strange man, "What do the others do?"

The man's eyes were starting to glaze over: "A-Gui and A-Shun are tomb raiders, and those guys over there—"

He pointed to the other three or four unconscious middle-aged men, "They sell counterfeit alcohol, two of them deal in counterfeit cigarettes, and the rest occasionally help us out."

Xia He was taken aback: "Don't tell me there isn't a single decent person in your entire village?"

The skinny, oddly-looking man twitched his lips, whether from a desire to laugh or a twitch was hard to tell: "Some old people don't know what young people are doing—we also send the children to school—"

Xia He:

Wang Zhenqiu couldn't help but applaud: "Wow, this is a great achievement! Diversified industries and a well-structured talent pool!"

Xia He took a deep breath, suppressing her surging emotions: "Where is your village? I'd really like to see it."

The thin, strange man honestly pointed in a direction and explained the road into the village in detail.

Xia He pulled a small notebook out of her bag and quickly jotted it down.

Wang Zhenqiu leaned closer: "Do you have any plans to collaborate with the Medicine Immortal?"

The thin, strange-looking man nodded: "Some of the kidnapped children are sent to the Medicine Immortal Society. They want children and offer a lot of money—"

Wang Zhenqiu's smile vanished: "Do you know where the Medicine Immortal Society's stronghold is?"

The thin, strange man shook his head: "I don't know—the transactions always happen at the market—"

Which market?

"The market days are not fixed; today it's in this town, tomorrow it's in that village."

"Then how do you contact each other?" Wang Zhenqiu pressed.

"They're the ones who contact me," the thin, strange man's voice trailed off. "We've never contacted them first—"

Wang Zhenqiu, suppressing his anger, said, "You haven't contacted them even once?"

The thin, strange-looking man muttered, "The people from the Medicine Immortal Society—they're too eerie—who would want to actively seek them out?"

Wang Zhenqiu didn't ask any more questions.

He slapped it down.

The man's body stiffened, blood slowly seeped from his seven orifices, his eyes were open, but he was already dead.

Xia He glanced at the corpse: "Does this person need to be reported?"

Wang Zhenqiu stood up, shaking the blood off his hands: "Just throw it down."

He carried the corpse to the edge of the cliff, threw it down, and the thin, strange man tumbled down the slope and disappeared into the woods.

Cheng Mo glanced at the others lying unconscious on the ground: "Leave these ordinary people to Uncle Hat."

Wang Zhenqiu remained silent.

His gaze fell on Ah Liang's face—the mole behind his ear, that young face.

He remembered the woman handing out flyers in front of the train station, and her cautious voice asking, "Miss, have you seen my DouDou?"

The auntie handing out flyers on the street had been looking for her child for over ten years; she had a small mole behind her left ear.

Cheng Mo walked over, patted him on the shoulder, and said again, "Leave ordinary people's affairs to Uncle Hat."

Wang Zhenqiu sighed, "Can this guy ever learn anything right?"

Xia He glanced at A Liang as well: "—Who knows?"

Wang Zhenqiu took out his phone, picked up a number, and dialed it.

"Hey, Lao Hao, I've found a few people connected to the Medicine Immortal Society. They're all ordinary people. Tell Uncle Hat to come and take them away."

On the other end of the phone, Hao Yi sounded tired and somewhat irritated: "Where is she?"

Wang Zhenqiu retorted confidently, "Can't you directly locate my phone?"

Hao Yi was silent for two seconds: "—Couldn't you just send him to the yamen (government office)?"

"Seven or eight of them? I can't possibly move them." Wang Zhenqiu glanced at the ground. "Hurry up."

Hao Yi was silent for a few seconds, then heard the sounds of flipping through documents and hushed conversation coming from the other end.

A moment later: "————Alright, you wait."

Wang Zhenqiu: "I'm not waiting for you. I'll tie everyone up here and get Uncle Hat here soon, so they don't starve to death."

.

"You—" Hao Yi had barely opened his mouth when Wang Zhenqiu hung up the phone.

Xia He took out her phone, held it up and spun it around twice, but the screen remained completely blank, with not a single bar of signal.

She stared at Wang Zhenqiu suspiciously: "How come you have a signal?"

Wang Zhenqiu waved his phone smugly: "This is a satellite phone provided by the company; it even has GPS functionality."

.

Cheng Mo exclaimed, "You dare to carry this thing? Aren't you afraid the company will be able to track you in real time?"

Wang Zhenqiu grumbled, "I was just doing something for the company, I didn't do anything wrong. Besides, I'll return the phone after this is over."

Xia He snatched his phone, examined it closely for a long time, squeezing and pressing it: "Aren't satellite phones supposed to be huge? Like a brick. Yours looks no different from my phone."

Wang Zhenqiu snatched it back: "High technology, do you understand? Compression technology, miniaturized antennas, these are all patents I haven't disclosed."

Xia He pouted: "Keep bragging."

Wang Zhenqiu ignored her, raised his chin towards the mountain road, and said, "Let's go, let's go check out their village."

The three of them went up the mountain path, following the direction the thin, strange man had pointed out before, crossed a ridge, and went down a stretch of road, where their view suddenly opened up.

The mountains in Raojiang are different from those in Guizhou; they are not as continuous and steep, but rather relatively independent.

The village is nestled between two mountains, with houses arranged in neat rows along the slope, their black tiles and white walls creating a charmingly haphazard layout. Sunlight streams down from the mountain ridge, giving it a secluded, idyllic feel.

But at this moment, things are clearly not peaceful in this paradise.

The villagers were coming and going in a hurry, and their faces were not very good.

People came and went at the village entrance, their footsteps hurried. Some were carrying things, some were arguing in hushed tones, and a group of children stood in the corner.

The whole village was like a hornet's nest that had been poked, buzzing and in complete chaos.

Cheng Mo slowed his pace: "Do they know the person has been arrested?"

Wang Zhenqiu frowned: "That doesn't make sense. There's no signal there, and no one escaped—" He suddenly stopped, "Could it be that the one who fell off the cliff didn't die and ran back to report?"

Xia He tugged at Cheng Mo's sleeve: "How about we retreat first? Most of the people here are ordinary people, we can't really do anything to them—"

Cheng Mo seemed lost in thought and did not reply.

Actually, the source of the village's chaos did not lie with them.

Two hours ago.

When a group of people broke into the village, the village chief was drying bamboo shoots in his courtyard.

A dozen or so men and women carrying bundles, along with more than thirty children, barged in. The leader stood in front of him and spoke very politely: "We'll stay in your village for a few days, it won't be a free stay."

Before the village chief could speak, the leader waved his hand, and the people behind him scattered and went into each house.

Someone tried to stop them, but was pushed aside.

Someone reached for their phone, and just as their hand slipped into their pocket, someone next to them leaned in, smiling, and grabbed their arm: "Hey buddy, let's make a deal. The signal's been bad these past few days. Call later."

The phone was taken away and stuffed into the other person's pocket.

The village's traveling tomb raiders, counterfeit liquor sellers, and fake cigarette dealers were all huddled in their houses, silent.

They knew very well that these were people they couldn't afford to mess with.