The Female General Dominates All After Transmigration-Chapter 47: Capture First, Ask Later; the Temple of the Goddess
Zhang Wanxiang carried a fishing net and followed them inside, unable to help but curse under his breath when he saw the scene: "The village has been talking about stolen chickens these past few days, speculating that it was the weasel who dragged them away. Who would have thought it was these bastards stealing them? The confused old grandma from the east end of the village had two egg-laying hens, and they were all plagued by these bastards. The old lady cried for days..."
Ling Chengyan gestured for the two to bypass the filthy stuff, not to make a sound, to lighten their steps, and to continue forward.
The trio cautiously passed through an unusually dense patch of bush and woods, and what they saw nearly made Zhang Wanxiang and Wu Qingyun exclaim.
In this chaotic thicket, several makeshift shelters had been erected, with wooden strips, some torn oilcloth and straw mats from who knows where; though low, the shelters were enough to provide cover from the wind and rain.
No wonder Ling Chengyan had encountered the group that night returning; they had camped here.
Zhang Wanxiang whispered, "Shall I go take a look?"
Ling Chengyan waved her hand, signaling them to crouch down. She heard voices coming from inside the tent.
"Old Liu, you said that girl isn’t dead, but we followed the river for a few miles and didn’t see anything floating up?"
"Could she have gone to the village?"
"She doesn’t know anyone there..."
"Ha, does she need to know anyone when a big girl shows up at the door? Would you refuse her?"
"Hehehe... true that..."
As they spoke, someone came out of the tent, holding up his pants, and went to the tree roots to relieve himself...
Zhang Wanxiang and Wu Qingyun were terribly embarrassed, keeping their heads down, not daring to look at Ling Chengyan’s expression.
But Ling Chengyan seemed unfazed, clutching a dirt clod in her hand, waiting patiently for the man to finish and turn around shaking his pants before flinging it precisely at the back of his head.
The man didn’t make a sound as he fell with a thud.
"Hey, what’s taking Old Liu so long for a pee? Did some goblin from the woods drag him away?!" someone chuckled, emerging from the shelter to take a look around.
Ling Chengyan and the other two had already circled behind the thicket, where Zhang Wanxiang and Wu Qingyun quietly tied up the man on the ground tightly, not daring to breathe loudly.
Ling Chengyan hid behind a clump of branches, silently observing the man who came out to search, finding nothing suitable in her hand but a large fishing net basket.
The man stood in front of the shelter, looking around, then turned towards the back of the shelters, calling out, "Old Liu, Old Liu, you having the runs?..."
As he shouted, he walked right past Ling Chengyan and her team under their noses.
In a flash, Zhang Wanxiang and Wu Qingyun couldn’t even catch Ling Chengyan’s movement before she had already jumped out from the bushes and knocked the man out.
Both of them felt a chill on their necks, instinctively shivered, and immediately jumped out to drag the man back into the thickets, tightly binding his hands and feet.
Before long, Ling Chengyan had brought the third man over, knocked out as well.
Watching Ling Chengyan single-handedly haul a big man effortlessly, Wu Qingyun and Zhang Wanxiang exchanged a glance but quickly looked away, pretending as if nothing happened.
Ling Chengyan remained calm, confidently instructing Zhang Wanxiang to return to the village and bring a cart over, particularly to load several bundles of wheat straw and hay.
Zhang Wanxiang took off to fulfill the mission, while Ling Chengyan followed to the edge of the woods and couldn’t help shaking her head as she watched Zhang Wanxiang sprinting all the way.
With that kind of demeanor, it’s just enough to deal with a few vagrants; facing two armies, he’d be seen through in an instant.
Wu Qingyun glanced at her shaking head, feeling a bit uncomfortable himself, bowing his head. He assured himself, if it were him, he wouldn’t do much better than Zhang Wanxiang.
Ling Chengyan advised Wu Qingyun to keep an eye on the three tied men, "Stay alert; if anyone comes, abandon these three rather than let them see you."
Ling Chengyan checked the shelters; scattered around them were small, broken bones, with two cracked bowls thrown at one shelter entrance, and inside the leftover torn bedding and straw mats, nothing of use.
She could basically conclude that the rest scattered to nearby villages, either to ask for food or to scavenge, staking places.
Her initial judgment: each shelter could barely fit three people, five shelters in total; judging by the looks, the group couldn’t be more than a dozen people. From the footprints and traces, there weren’t children... probably, nor were there elders.
Ling Chengyan said goodbye to Wu Qingyun and continued searching along the forest, searching up to the Wang Family’s patch where they grew elms in the neighboring village, but found no traces of vagrant activity anymore, efficiently pulling back.
Midway back, she met Wu Qingyun, who was carrying the fishing net. As it turned out, Zhang Wanxiang had brought over a cart of wheat straw and already loaded the three onto it and taken them away, Wu Qingyun coming over to assist.
Ling Chengyan waved her hand, "No more there, let’s go check the other side."
Wu Qingyun said, "I forgot to mention earlier; there are two old houses over there..."
Ling Chengyan turned to look at him, causing Wu Qingyun to feel embarrassed. He scratched his head and said, "Years ago, when people in the village got smallpox, they moved over there; the elder folks called it the Pox God Temple."
Ling Chengyan, hearing about smallpox, showed a hint of understanding: that disease spreads fiercely, children who catch it mostly don’t survive; even if they do, they’d be left with a face full of pockmarks.
Talking about this, Ling Chengyan became curious, "There aren’t many in the village with pockmarked faces?"
Wu Qingyun laughed, "Nowadays, kids get vaccinated, haven’t seen smallpox for years, so naturally, no pockmarks. Zhang Dakui, who used to sell pork on the street, had a face full of them, nicknamed Zhang Pockmarks."
Ling Chengyan learned about something new: vaccines, capable of preventing serious infectious diseases, quite amazing.
The woods in the west were denser with shrubs, and relying on Wu Qingyun’s memory, they finally found the half-collapsed Pox God Temple in the forest.
It had long been abandoned; most of the courtyard wall had collapsed, but the gatehouse remained, its eaves overgrown with wild grass, with no trace of the courtyard door.
Inside the decrepit temple, they saw a few ruined quilts, haphazardly piled on dry grass; inside the house, there were two broken clay pots, one filled halfway with water.
Ling Chengyan glanced around, concluding: "This place might be where some old folks and children stayed."
Wu Qingyun nodded, pointing at a small jacket, "This looks like it belongs to a child around five or six years old... outside, there are some small footprints, all for kids about five or six, seven or eight years old..."
Ling Chengyan called him over, "Look over there."
A hole concealed beneath a heap of dry grass contained a sack half-filled with various pieces of dry food. There was yellow cornmeal, black sweet potato meal, clearly collected from numerous households.
They’d been stashed here; who knows if they planned to eat them on the return journey or bring them home...
Wu Qingyun inexplicably sighed, tied up the sack, and covered it with dry grass. While doing so, he unconsciously tried to restore the sack back to its original state, afraid its owner would notice.
