Chaotic Frontier: I Picked Up a Peerless Little Wife at the Start

Village chief Li Hairong, leaning on his cane, stood to the side of the group of border soldiers.

He looked at the gathered crowd.

He leaned closer and said, "Captain, the population of Sigou Village is dwindling. Most of them have gone to guard the border, some have gone to do forced labor, and the rest are mostly here."

Yang Yun glanced at the crowd, nodded, then cleared his throat and shouted, "Listen up, things are not peaceful lately, bandits are rampant."

"Last night, bandits from Cangying Ridge came down the mountain and massacred Anjia Wopeng."

Upon hearing this, the crowd immediately erupted into commotion, with everyone discussing the matter.

"Settle down in a shack?"

"settle down?"

"That's the biggest family in the area, they're incredibly wealthy."

"Yes, those damned bandits! It's one thing for them to be greedy, but they also want to wipe out an entire family. They're truly despicable."

"Who can argue with that? It's such a pity for the An family. Their vast fortune vanished overnight."

"However, An Jia deserved his fate, it's a pity for those ordinary people."

"That's not right. I've heard that the bandits of Eagle Ridge have always robbed the rich to help the poor. What's going on this time?"

"Who cares? As long as our Sigou Village is alright."

"Are you kidding me? What's the situation in our village? How many families can even get enough to eat? Even if bandits came, they'd starve to death."

While the villagers were still discussing it, Lin Hui's doubts grew.

Why?

He remembered very clearly last night that the old master of the An family led a group of people to the depths of the backyard.

An family members and some of the guards were among them.

When he led the Cangyingling people to break through the encirclement, everyone in the An family was fine, because from beginning to end, he only killed one member of the An family, An Shicai; the rest of the dead were mostly guards.

But at this moment, Yang Yun said that the entire An family had been killed by bandits.

How was the An family wiped out?

unless?

After much thought, Lin Hui could only come up with one possibility.

That was yet another instance of the border troops killing innocent people to claim credit, using the heads of these Anjia people to impersonate the heads of bandits, and falsely reporting military achievements to their superiors.

Previously, Lin Hui had killed border soldiers who had killed innocent people and claimed credit for their crimes. In Lin Hui's view at the time, it was probably the work of a few border soldiers who did it in private for the sake of merit.

But now it seems that the entire Ningyuan garrison, including General Cheng Wuyou, is engaged in this kind of despicable act of killing innocent people and claiming credit for their deeds.

Dozens of people were killed without warning; he was an executioner.

Although the An family did commit all sorts of evil deeds in the area, there should be a distinction between primary and secondary offenses. What wrong did those servants do?

If Cheng Wuyou could massacre the An family today, will he massacre the Sigou Village next time he needs credit?

This made Lin Hui wary.

Moreover, Lin Hui is currently killing border troops and cooperating with bandits. Once Cheng Wuyou, that devil, gets hold of something against him, he might not even have a chance to resist.

He's barely able to get enough to eat right now; how can he possibly contend with hundreds of fully armed border troops?

Lin Hui's mind raced. His immediate priority was to become stronger within the limited time available and acquire more means to save his life.

Lin Hui used to think that as long as he worked hard, he would have no problem having enough to eat and wear.

But now, he truly understands how terrible this world is.

If you're not strong enough, you'll eventually become someone else's prey.

Lin Hui's heart suddenly clenched. He thought of someone, the girl he had rescued from the An family. She had been hiding in the small courtyard on the west side.

What happened to her in the end?

Did she escape but get killed by the border troops?

Those damned border troops...

Seeing the crowd discussing amongst themselves, Yang Yun waved his hand, and one of the border soldiers took out several arrest warrants from his pocket, each with a portrait on it.

"Everyone can see clearly, these are the bandit leaders."

"Anyone who sees or discovers this should report it immediately. Anyone who dares to withhold information will have the entire village executed. Of course, if you provide valuable clues, you will be rewarded with fifty taels of silver."

Upon hearing the reward of fifty taels of silver, the crowd instantly erupted in excitement.

Fifty taels of silver! For people like them who couldn't even earn two taels of silver a year, it was an incredible temptation.

Fifty taels of silver is enough for them to live on for a lifetime.

The lure of silver was so great that the villagers crowded around to look at the portrait.

Of course, Lin Hui was feeling heavy-hearted at this moment.

However, considering that the border troops did not arrest him directly after entering the village, but instead gathered everyone together.

Therefore, it can be concluded that Bian Jun probably didn't see his face clearly.

Taking the risk of getting closer to take a look at the fishing permit in front of him, Lin Hui immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

Because the border guards had four portraits in total, one of which was of a woman.

The border troops were drawn based on the likenesses of Fan Wujiu, the monkey, the barbarian donkey, and Ling Ziyi. But Lin Hui was puzzled. Didn't Chu Yan give Cheng Wuyou a portrait when she betrayed him?

How come the people in this portrait look so different from Fan Wujin and his real appearance?

It can only be described as a mess. The other figures are passable, though they don't look like people, at least they look like human beings. The monkey was drawn so badly that it had nothing to do with humans, but it actually looked like a relative of a monkey.

As for the donkey, needless to say, the donkey in the portrait is a perfect replica of Li Kui.

Given their appearance, even if Fan Wujiu and the other three stood in front of the villagers, they would likely be ignored; they wouldn't look like them at all.

Of course, although the villagers were envious of the money, they dared not fabricate anything out of thin air, and after seeing it, they couldn't help but shake their heads.

"General, this portrait doesn't look human; we've never seen anything like it before."

"Yes, General, this is a monkey, but this one looks more like a door god."

Hearing what the villagers said, Yang Yun was almost furious.

Seeing that he couldn't get the information he wanted in Sigou Village, he figured the bandits probably hadn't fled there. He scared the villagers for a while, saying that anyone who didn't report something would be implicated in the whole village, and then sent everyone home.

Lin Hui had just turned around in the crowd when he heard Yang Yun's voice behind him: "Stop right there..."

Yang Yun rode his horse to block Lin Hui's path, looking down at him with a chuckle and asking, "What did you do yesterday?"

Lin Hui looked up, respectfully and calmly replied, "Reporting to the General, I went hunting in the mountains yesterday. After returning, I ate and went to sleep. I was too tired and only got up now. If the General doesn't believe me, you can come to my house and see for yourself. The pots and pans from last night's dinner haven't been washed yet."

"Hmm? Hunting? Sleeping? Didn't wash the pot?"

"What nonsense! Who can prove you went hunting?"

"What is the prey?"

"General, it was too cold on the mountain yesterday. I wandered around all day but didn't see a single pheasant. Did they see me hunting...?"

"Oh, I remember now, Sister Qiang saw it."

Li Hairong stepped forward and said with a smile, "General, I can testify that I saw Lin Hui go out early yesterday morning."

Li Hairong was right. In order to create a false impression, Lin Hui went out yesterday not only in front of Li Hairong, but also in front of several other villagers.

"Are you the only one who saw it?"

"General, I saw it too..."

"Yes, I saw it too..."

Everyone else stepped forward to testify for Lin Hui.

"General, Lin Hui used to be a bad boy, but ever since he found a wife, he has turned over a new leaf and now he works hard every day just to have enough to eat."

"He won't do anything bad."

Yang Yun stared at Lin Hui, wanting to kill him with a single blow, but he didn't dare to do it in front of so many people, lest it incite public anger and cause trouble.

After staring at Lin Hui for a long time and finding nothing unusual about him, he raised his whip.

"Get lost..."