“Good heavens, I wasn’t even planning on going in, but you smelled me out?”

Hu Ma hadn't expected the little devil to find him after only wandering around for a bit.

He chuckled, took out a piece of blood offering from his sleeve, and handed it to the tumor-legged little devil, saying, "Tell him."

“Prepare early, the grain robbers are coming soon!”

After instructing the tumor-legged little devil, Hu Ma strode away, soothing Little Hong Tang, who was rolling her eyes on his shoulder, and headed off again over the mountains.

Yang Gong, the tumor-legged little devil, stared blankly at the piece of blood offering in his hands, completely dumbfounded. He stuffed it into his mouth in one bite, then trembled with happiness, returning to the village in delight.

A sense of satisfaction arose, and when he passed by Yang Gong, he didn't even bother to greet him, but Yang Gong reached out and grabbed him, raising his hand to teach the guy a lesson.

But his nose twitched, and he was immediately surprised: "Blood offering?"

“Where did you steal this from? I haven't smelled the scent of blood offering in ages."

The tumor-legged little devil, held in the air, was still beaming, saying, "Greetings, Master Hu, may Master Hu be blessed with wealth!"

"Uncle?"

Yang Gong was immediately taken aback: "My brother Hu Ma is here?"

Looking around and not seeing anyone, he felt even stranger: "Then why not come into the village and find me for a drink?"

The tumor-legged little devil thought for a moment, then reacted, calling out, "Master Hu said, the grain robbers are coming! The grain robbers are coming!"

"My brother is here to deliver a message to me?"

Hearing this, Yang Gong understood. He came from a poor background and knew the weight of those three words, "grain robbers," so he immediately looked serious and, carrying the little devil, went to Old Man Tai Shan to discuss important matters.

·

"Found out the origin of that banner."

Inside the Ming Prefecture city government, people were also sitting together to discuss matters, but the hall did not seem solemn and dignified, but rather like a restaurant. The table was full of wine and meat, and everyone was feasting, even if they choked, they still crammed it into their mouths.

Even the one who came to report the news first glanced at the meat on the table, swallowed his saliva, and seemed to forget the rest of what he wanted to say.

The Heavenly Mandate General, who sat in the middle, picked up a pig's leg from the table and threw it to him. The messenger hurriedly caught it, bit down hard, then stuffed it into his arms before saying, "It's our Seventh Altar Envoy."

"This person was preaching and fortune-telling in the area of ​​the West River Ditch Village. In just half a day, he and the seven followers under his command were all killed. The methods were brutal, and he didn't even have time to report back."

"Someone else picked up the banner in their hands, pretending to be the True Meaning Sect, to attack the Red Lantern Society's forces, which caused a commotion."

Hearing this, everyone present stopped eating and drinking, and they all raised their heads, looking surprised. Someone said, "That Seventh Altar Envoy is quite capable, how could he be easily killed? Could it be the Red Lantern Society making a move, crying 'stop thief' while being the thief themselves?"

If it had been before, some people would have doubted whether the Red Lantern Society had the guts, but now, no one present answered. The Heavenly Mandate General sneered, "I saw it long ago, this Red Lantern Mother has a deep foundation."

"Saying she's just a small altar spirit, newly built temple, but looking at the foundation of her incense, it's probably no worse than a prefecture…"

"She's pretending to be a ghost, showing weakness, we can't underestimate her!"

""

Hearing this, everyone next to him was shocked and stood up one after another, saying, "Then what should we do? Please give us your instructions, General."

The Heavenly Mandate General was silent for a long time, but suddenly waved his hand, saying, "You wait here and listen to me go in and get an idea, then we'll talk."

Saying that, he got up and went straight to the inner residence, leaving everyone in the hall looking at each other with strange expressions. After a pause, they continued to feast, ignoring it.

The Heavenly Mandate General went directly to the inner residence, to the door of the upper room vacated by the family members of the prefectural government officials. He tidied his clothes, and then respectfully kowtowed, saying, "Madam."

Before he could finish speaking, a soft voice sounded from inside the inner hall through the door: "Since I have promised myself to you, we are husband and wife, why bother with this formality?"

"Yes."

The Heavenly Mandate General answered respectfully, got up, and was about to push the door, but the person inside said again, "Just speak outside, I don't like the smell on you. When the blood on your body is gone, come and see me!"

The Heavenly Mandate General said, "Yes."

He then took a step back and said, "I just want to ask, how long do we have to wait since we came to Ming Prefecture?"

The person in the inner hall said, "As I said before, we came here to see someone. Now that the person we are waiting for has not yet appeared, we can only wait."

"Yes."

The Heavenly Mandate General responded, but then whispered, "But my twenty thousand soldiers can't hold on any longer. They are waiting for us to transport the food back. Now that we are here, we can eat big fish and big meat, but there, I'm afraid there aren't enough people to eat."

The person in the inner hall fell silent, and after a long while said, "If you can't even wait these few days, how can you accomplish great things?"

The Heavenly Mandate General didn't say anything, but he didn't leave either.

The person in the inner hall was silent for a while before sighing softly, saying, "Alright, blood offerings cannot be rushed, but you can first prepare to transport grain back to alleviate the famine there."

"But remember, you can only alleviate the famine there, and never bring the practices of Guan Prefecture to Ming Prefecture. This place has Old Yin Mountain, and the Town Mountain Prefecture Lord is a benevolent god, and he is very powerful and cannot tolerate your practices."

1

"

The Heavenly Mandate General breathed a sigh of relief and whispered, "Understood, thank you very much."

After speaking, he immediately turned around and came out, as if staying there for another moment would make him unable to control himself. Before entering the main hall, several confidants hurriedly wiped their mouths and came out to greet him.

They all whispered, "General, what did the lady inside say?"

"Heh, she still said to wait."

The Heavenly Mandate General sneered, "She said it so nicely at the beginning, but all she does is say 'wait'. That batch of blood offerings, they had promised me a long time ago, it's in the warehouse, but they have to wait for the Red Lantern Society to hand it over."

"That ground full of food, within reach, but they just make us watch here…"

n

The Dharma Protector beside him heard this and showed a worried look on his face, saying, "General, we can wait here, eat and drink well, a hundred years wouldn't be enough, but back home…"

"Yes, I know."

The Heavenly Mandate General sighed softly and said, "It's not that I don't understand, they want to use my hand to force out a person of unknown origin, but we have tens of thousands of mouths waiting for food, how can we have time to play these little tricks with them?"

"Fortunately, she has nodded now, so let's prepare to collect grain first!"

"We can finally collect grain?"

Hearing his words, the two Dharma Protectors beside him were overjoyed and rubbed their hands together, as if they were about to leave immediately.

"Oh."

But at this moment, there was a panicked exclamation next to them. The three people turned their heads at the same time and saw a person wearing a small hat on his head and looking arrogant falling out from behind a cluster of flowers. It was the small tax official in the Ming Prefecture government who had been serving them.

It turned out that he had been eavesdropping just now, but he was frightened by their words.

The Heavenly Mandate General looked at him with a sneer, saying, "I knew you were hiding there just now. Since you heard it, then this general doesn't need to repeat it, right?"

The tax official was so frightened that his face turned pale, and he hurriedly said, "General, please forgive me, everything else is easy to say, but in this Ming Prefecture, taxes haven't been collected strictly for twenty years. If we suddenly go to collect grain, I'm afraid…"

"That's your business."

The Heavenly Mandate General sneered and said sternly, "I want this hundred thousand dan of grain, not a single grain can be missing, hand it over to me in full."

"And don't complain, I already know exactly how much rice, livestock, cattle, and sheep are in your fields, warehouses, and homes. I'm only asking you to collect a hundred thousand dan, what's the big deal?"

"If you think you have too few people and it's not easy to collect, that's okay, I have enough people with me. From tomorrow, they will go to the countryside with you…"

""

These words made the small tax official tremble with fear, and he hurriedly ran back to report. All the officials in the government were shocked and almost fell over when they heard this, "We have been serving them carefully all this time, just to prevent this kind of thing from happening…"

"In the end, they couldn't help it?"

"Now, in our Ming Prefecture, taxes haven't been strictly collected for twenty years, and with good weather, we have achieved such stability. Now, to collect this hundred thousand dan of grain, wouldn't that mean collecting all the debts owed for the past twenty years?"

".

·

"Miss, the True Meaning Sect people have too big of an appetite. You told him to only take a portion for emergency, but I'm afraid his appetite can't be filled."

In the inner hall vacated by the government, someone was whispering after the Heavenly Mandate General retreated, "If we're not careful and do things too excessively, I'm afraid…"

I know they are people who are crazed with hunger, heh, what good things can those who can eat up the people of a city be?"

The lady's voice sounded faintly: "The Meng family said he was a Heavenly Mandate General, but in my eyes, he's more like a Human Demon General."

"However, since the Meng family and the adults at home think his fate is good, that he can enter the eyes of a noble person, and that there are tens of thousands of troops ready-made, then what does it matter if those who achieve great things don't care about small details and tolerate him a bit?"

"This time, he will definitely use this excuse to collect grain madly, but it doesn't matter. I have been listening to the adults and chanting the Soul 引魂 (Yǐn Hún) Incantation every day, but my cousin still hasn't shown his face, and hasn't even sent anyone to say hello."

"Since this cousin of mine has such a big ego, then what if I give him some pressure?"

"If even this step can't force him to show up, then if the True Meaning Sect's tens of thousands of hungry ghosts really come knocking on Ming Prefecture's gates, I'll see how much backbone he has left."