「The next morning.」
After waking, Yang Jing practiced Mountain-Shattering Fist in his room for an hour before leaving the courtyard.
Instead of heading to Chengping Square, home of the Sun's Martial Arts Hall, he went south and left the city.
Yuhe County administered nine towns. Wazi Town was about thirty li southwest of the county seat.
As a martial artist, Yang Jing was physically fit and swift of foot. He was making much better time on his way back than he had on the ox-cart ride over.
He left the city gates and followed the main road southwest.
Wild grass on either side of the road grew past his ankles. A dusty wind gusted across the path, swirling up a few withered leaves and carrying with it the faint sound of distant wails.
Along the way, Yang Jing saw many refugees. Most were dressed in rags. Some carried bundles wrapped in torn cloth, while others balanced crude bamboo baskets on poles. Curled up inside the baskets were sallow, emaciated children. The refugees shuffled forward, inch by inch, their eyes as vacant as dust-choked wells.
'The number of refugees has grown.'
Yang Jing frowned.
'The world is growing more chaotic.'
Half a month ago, when he had traveled from Wazi Town to the city, there hadn't been nearly so many refugees on the road.
From their accents, Yang Jing guessed that most of them were refugees fleeing from Caozhou in the west.
'I wonder how Father and Uncle are doing.' Yang Jing's heart grew heavy.
To earn extra silver, his uncle, Yang Guang, and his father had signed up as local militiamen. They had left for Caozhou with a grain convoy, and no word had come back since.
Just as Yang Jing was lost in these troubled thoughts, a sudden commotion broke out up ahead.
Three masked men with short blades burst from the woods beside the road, blocking a group of refugees who were pushing a wheelbarrow.
The barrow held nothing more than half a sack of moldy, coarse rice, but the men's eyes glinted with malice. One of them kicked the wheelbarrow over, spilling the rice onto the ground. A refugee immediately lunged to gather the grains into his arms, only to be kicked aside by one of the masked men.
The owner of the wheelbarrow, a middle-aged man, saw red and prepared to fight. He had just raised his carrying pole when one of the bandits slashed his arm. Blood instantly soaked his tattered sleeve. He collapsed in pain, forced to watch helplessly as the three masked men made off with his last bit of food.
Yang Jing stopped some distance away. He watched the robbers grab the spoils and disappear back into the woods. The other refugees on the road either lowered their heads and scurried past or gave the scene a wide berth. No one dared to make a sound.
Never mind an Official, there wasn't even a single patrolman in sight.
Yang Jing didn't get involved. Though he was now a martial arts practitioner, he hadn't yet cultivated any true power. He wasn't much stronger than an ordinary person.
'If I were to rashly intervene and fight for them, I might just get myself killed. After all, those three masked men are all armed with knives.'
Yang Jing had a large family to protect. He certainly wasn't going to play the hero and champion justice when the odds were against him. That was a privilege reserved for great masters, a level he was still far from reaching.
Yang Jing lowered his head and continued on his way.
The wind carried the smell of dust, now mixed with the faint, almost imperceptible scent of blood.
Yang Jing quickened his pace, doing his best to avoid the clusters of refugees, as well as the corpses and signs of struggle by the roadside.
The road beneath his feet was pitted and uneven, whether from the passage of countless wheels or countless feet, he couldn't tell.
An hour after leaving the county seat, Yang Jing finally arrived back at Yang Family Village in Wazi Town.
Along the way, Yang Jing felt people sizing him up. But his long-term martial arts practice, especially his frenzied training over the past half-month, had made his physique far more robust than that of an ordinary person, let alone the sallow, emaciated refugees around him. Even dressed in a simple, coarse tunic, he couldn't hide the power welling within him. The contours of his shoulders and back were faintly visible beneath the fabric.
Even those with ill intentions quickly dismissed their ideas after one look at the powerfully built Yang Jing and the confident stride in his step.
"Yang Jing is back?"
"Jing."
"Jing, you really look like a martial artist. You're built much sturdier than us farmhands."
"I hear a lot of those martial artists just look strong, but it's all useless muscle. Jing, let your auntie here have a feel and see if that's true, eh?"
Seeing Yang Jing, the village neighbors all greeted him eagerly.
Only after Yang Jing was out of earshot did someone curl their lip in disdain. "What's the use of practicing martial arts? His family used to be one of the better-off ones in our village. But look at them now. To pay for his training, they sold their ox, sold their land... What's become of them?"
Some people agreed with this sentiment, while others did not.
Under the poplar tree at the village entrance, several farmwives sat on square stools, gossiping.
Yang Jing didn't know what others were saying about him. He followed the village path and soon arrived at his front gate.
"Hm?"
Yang Jing froze, taken aback by the scene before his home.
His grandmother from the Qin Family and his mother, Liu Cui Ling, were standing in front of the courtyard gate, scrubbing at something.
His mother stood on tiptoe, scrubbing furiously at the door panel with a rag. His grandmother was hunched over with a broom, sweeping filth from the steps. Both of them moved with a hurried air, fine beads of sweat dotting their temples.
"Mother, what are you doing?" Yang Jing asked, frowning. As he drew closer, he caught a pungent stench—a nauseating mix of human waste and damp earth.
"Jing'Er, you're back?"
At the gate, his grandmother and mother turned at the sound of his voice. Seeing Yang Jing, they quickly dropped the broom and wet rag and walked over to him.
Yang Jing walked past his mother and grandmother to the courtyard gate.
Dark stains were clearly visible on the gate, looking as if something had been deliberately thrown at it. His mother had likely been scrubbing for a while, but she had only managed to clean the surface grime, leaving ugly streaks behind.
"Mother, Grandma, what is this?"
Yang Jing's voice grew somber. His eyes swept over the defiled door, and his heart clenched.
His mother faltered, hastily hiding the rag behind her back and forcing a smile. "It's nothing. Just... some mindless stray dog rubbed some filth on the door. Your grandma and I will have it clean in a jiffy."
His grandmother nodded in agreement, coughing a couple of times. "That's right, that's right. Lots of strays in the countryside. It's nothing to worry about."
But the hand she used to sweep the filth from the ground was trembling slightly.
"A stray dog can splash shit this high?" Yang Jing stared at the shoulder-high stain on the door, his tone hard and unyielding. "Tell me who did this."
His mother opened her mouth, about to speak.
Yang Jing cut her off with a wave of his hand and turned to his grandmother from the Qin Family—an honest woman who couldn't tell a lie. "Grandma, you tell me."
His grandmother's lips trembled. She averted her gaze, not daring to meet his eyes. After a long moment, her own eyes reddened and her voice choked with tears. "Jing'Er, don't ask. We... we'll just bear it for now. Your grandfather has already gone to see your uncle-in-law. We'll just... sell those two mu of prime land north of the village to Master Ning."
"'Bear it?'" Yang Jing's eyes narrowed. His fists clenched at his sides, knuckles turning white. A blaze of fury erupted in his chest, so hot it made his temples throb.
"Jing'Er?" his mother, Liu Cui Ling, asked worriedly.
"Mother, I'm fine."
Yang Jing shook his head, his expression quickly turning calm. He then snatched the rag from his mother's hand, dipped it in water, and began scrubbing the door panel with force.
As the filth soaked into the cloth, the stench intensified, but the force of his scrubbing only grew stronger.
"Cui Ling, go tell your sister-in-law that Jing'Er is back," his grandmother whispered to his mother. "Have her send the dog over. We'll stew it tonight."
.....
「That night.」
In the main house of the Yang Family residence.
The family sat around a large square table, upon which sat two steaming basins of dog meat.
His grandfather, Elder Yang, naturally sat at the head of the table, flanked by his uncle-in-law, Shi Yunlin, and Yang Jing.
Yang Jing looked at the dog meat on the table, then glanced at his cousin, Yang An, whose eyes were red-rimmed. Beneath the table, his hand clenched into a fist.
The dog's name was Heizi. He had been a good guard dog, raised at his uncle's home for many years. The day before yesterday, Feng Lei had come to the village with his men and had kicked Heizi so hard against the courtyard wall that the dog died.
His aunt had waited for Yang Jing to return before stewing the meat, which was why they were having it for dinner tonight.