Nanshan Records

After lunch, Chu Mu finally walked out of the Wind and Moon Tower.

Standing once more before the Wind and Moon Tower's doors, Chu Mu seemed weighed down with thoughts.

It was not that he had failed to enjoy himself to the fullest, but that just now, inside this Wind and Moon Tower, he had once again heard talk of gods and ghosts.

This time, the main character was a singing girl from this Wind and Moon Tower... or rather, from the former pleasure house of Nanshan Town, Tinglang Brothel.

Put simply, it was the story of a woman of the dust and a penniless scholar.

The scholar was poor, so naturally he could not pay the money to redeem her freedom, and then came the same old agreement to elope.

In the end, news of their elopement was betrayed by the woman's close friend in her boudoir. On the day they were to flee, the scholar was beaten to death on the spot, and the woman was dragged back to the Wind and Moon Tower, humiliated and abused until she died.

Then, that very night, a sudden, vicious fire reduced the Wind and Moon Tower completely to ashes.

Passersby heard endless wailing from inside the building, and evil ghosts could be faintly seen within the flames.

Patrol inspectors and passersby tried to put out the fire, but when cold water was poured onto the flames, it was like adding oil to the fire, making it burn ever fiercer.

Some singing girls tried to escape, only to be dragged straight back into the fire by evil ghosts.

In a single night, everyone in the Wind and Moon Tower, from top to bottom, including the guests, seventy-eight lives in all, were turned into charcoal.

The current Wind and Moon Tower had appeared in this small town only after Tinglang Brothel had been reduced to ashes.

As for the former site of Tinglang Brothel, because the uproar had been so great, it lay abandoned for a long time. Only a few years ago was it requisitioned by the government, which built a storehouse there to store mining materials.

Chu Mu looked toward the end of the street. Every day, when he finished duty at the mine, he would naturally pass that stretch of storehouses, but he had never imagined there was such a reason behind them.

In just one short morning, he had heard one so-called tale of ghosts and gods after another. Even though Chu Mu did not really believe in ghosts or gods, at this moment, he could not help but feel an inexplicable chill run down his back.

"Damn strange. Didn't I come here to listen to music? How did I end up hearing another ghost story!"

Chu Mu silently grumbled to himself. He pulled his clothes tighter around him, did not linger, and hurried off with quick steps in the direction of home.

Perhaps it was a trick of the mind, but the home that usually made Chu Mu feel peaceful somehow felt a little eerie after he walked in.

"Wuwuwu..."

As he entered the room, Dog Cub whimpered and rubbed against Chu Mu's trouser leg. Chu Mu crouched down and rubbed Dog Cub, and only then did that inexplicable eeriness fade by quite a bit.

He lit the stove, changed into clean clothes, then picked up a book. Only then did Chu Mu slowly lean back against the side of the bed.

Once the book was opened, his originally somewhat restless mind slowly calmed as well, and naturally, it turned completely into focus on the pages.

The strength of the wine still lingered, and the flickering stove fire added a few more traces of warmth. His whole body felt warm and toasty, so comfortable it could hardly be better.

Time trickled by bit by bit. At some unknown point, he finally finished reading the book.

Chu Mu closed the book, shut his eyes slightly, and carefully recalled it in his mind before slowly putting it down.

Unlike the previous history book, this volume, though also a type of history, belonged to local strange records.

That was... the Qinghe County Records of the Qinghe County where he was currently located.

Great Chu had stood for seven hundred years, and Qinghe County had been established for nearly seven hundred years as well. Naturally, the county records could not possibly consist of only this thin volume.

Of course, this volume in his hands was naturally not the true county records.

After all, the county records were compiled by the county yamen and the government, and were also stored within the county yamen. At the very least, they were not something a tiny patrol inspector like him could come into contact with.

Strictly speaking, the volume in his hands could be called unofficial records, commonly known as unofficial history. It was the Nanshan Records compiled by scholars among the people.

The so-called Nanshan naturally referred to the Nanshan Town where he was currently located.

According to the Nanshan Records, the Nanshan Iron Mine had only officially begun mining roughly sixty-plus years ago, while Nanshan Town had slowly taken shape along with the exploitation of the Nanshan Iron Mine.

Before the iron mine was opened, this place had been nothing more than barren hills and wild ridges, the sort with not a trace of human habitation.

Within this volume of Nanshan Records, the major events that had occurred in Nanshan Town over the years were recorded in considerable detail.

What surprised Chu Mu was that the matter of gods and ghosts he had heard today in the Wind and Moon Tower was actually recorded in these Nanshan Records as well.

It was just that the person who recorded it had clearly given it artistic embellishment. Heavenly Dao's cycle, retribution never failing—one could completely read it as a ghost story, and the compiler's personal view was extremely obvious.

And within this book of Nanshan Records, what Chu Mu cared about most was undoubtedly its records concerning the Nanshan Iron Mine.

Which was the thing Chu Mu had always worried about... uprising and rebellion...

After all, the harshness of Qinghe County's corvée labor could no longer be described merely as heavy.

Decades of corvée labor, day after day, year after year—if no one had rebelled, Chu Mu would have found that unbelievable.

Though things seemed stable at present, who could say when it would become a one-eyed stone man from the mine stirring all Nanshan into rebellion! And the records in the Nanshan Records happened to prove Chu Mu's guess.

According to the records in the Nanshan Records, since the Nanshan Iron Mine began operating, over the course of more than sixty years, there had been three popular uprisings and rebellions in total!

During the most severe one, the uprising had even swept through the entirety of Nanshan Town. It was only suppressed after Prefecture City sent troops over.

Sixty years, three uprisings...

Chu Mu let out a long breath. Combining this with what he had seen and learned during the nearly one month since he joined the Patrol Inspectorate, the reasons behind many things were actually not hard to discern.

When all was said and done, it was nothing more than human greed at work.

As far as he knew, Prefecture City assigned a mining quota to the Nanshan Iron Mine every year.

In other words, every year, Qinghe County had to complete the mining quota assigned by Prefecture City.

If they completed it, all well and good. If they failed, then those who should lose their hats would lose their hats, and those who should lose their heads would lose their heads.

For the sake of their black gauze caps, the masters in the County would inevitably complete the mining quota handed down by Prefecture City at any cost.

But the reality was that, for the people of Qinghe County, what they had to complete was clearly far more than just the mining quota issued by Prefecture City...

After all, men were no saints. Who could stand guard over Treasure Mountain without getting even the slightest stink of copper on their hands? This was undoubtedly a dead loop through and through.

Prefecture City wanted mineral materials, and the masters in the County also needed mineral materials to rake in money. From top to bottom in Qinghe County, over a thousand people with official status were all reaching toward this Treasure Mountain.

Those who ate meat ate meat; those who drank soup drank soup.

With one link fastened to the next, it had all but formed the great net of interests Chu Mu had guessed at.

Even if someone wanted to improve the treatment of the Forced Laborers, wanted to lighten the burden on the people of Qinghe County, it would be very hard to make happen.

"The most recent popular uprising was six years ago..."

"Which was the year the Original Owner's father was transferred to Nanshan Town..."

Chu Mu was somewhat enlightened. No wonder the Original Owner's father had been doing perfectly well in the County, only to be suddenly transferred to Nanshan Town.

"What on earth had the Original Owner been doing all these years? How did he know nothing at all!"

Chu Mu tried hard to search his memories, but he still could not find the slightest trace of anything about a popular uprising in the Original Owner's memories. What appeared most often in those memories seemed to be him holing up in this courtyard and playing with Xu Yuan...