Refugees

Lu Jiangxian had spent several months familiarizing himself with and completely absorbing the jade's power. He had long since become capable of using the minor illusion technique recorded in the Great Yin Breathing Nurturing Wheel Scripture to communicate with the Li Clan.

Yet he felt the time was not ripe, so he had never revealed his awareness, instead lying silently in the Ancestral Hall like some dead object.

After all, the Li Clan were no fools. This mirror might possess an incredibly lofty rank, but Lu Jiangxian himself was, in truth, a complete novice at cultivation.

Speaking up now would not only require him to fabricate a backstory, but also answer all the doubts filling the Li Clan's minds, needlessly leaving himself riddled with openings.

Fortunately, his divine sense now more than covered the entire Li Clan estate. Most days, he slept; when he woke, he treated it like watching a television serial. It was quite pleasant.

Only the occasional Aura flying overhead along Gu Li Road would startle Lu Jiangxian awake, making his heart tighten. As he sensed those Auras—some vast and majestic, others light and ethereal—he silently curled his divine sense into a ball.

Though the Li Clan had imagined Lu Jiangxian to be some immortal artifact Law Mirror, he had a clear grasp of his own combat power—Fetal Breathing Stage 2 with the Bearing Light Wheel as his foundation, and Fetal Breathing Stage 4 with the Azure Origin Wheel at most.

Compared with those Auras so immense that even while hiding inside the mirror, Lu Jiangxian felt as though thorns pressed against his back, he still felt he ought to be more cautious. He could lie low for another hundred years or so before worrying about anything else.

"Still, why would refugees be coming from Gu Li Road..." he muttered to himself in confusion.

Li Changhu led a group of villagers holding torches, pitchforks, hoes, and other tools as they faced off against a crowd of ragged refugees at the village entrance.

They had only just finished arranging Xiang Ping and Tian Yun's marriage. Li Changhu had finally found some time to cultivate when a Li Clan tenant came rushing in to report that a group of refugees had arrived at the village entrance.

"Refugees?"

The last time Li Changhu had seen refugees was over three years ago—a group from the Chen Family that had crossed over Meichi Mountain. The weather had been good these past few years, and Meichi River was generous in nurturing its people. There should not have been any families unable to survive anywhere along its upper or lower reaches.

"They say they came from Gu Li Road." Seeing Li Changhu was like finding his pillar of support, and the tenant answered respectfully.

"How could that be..."

Li Changhu pondered for a few breaths, then waved his hand and stepped outside.

"Father has already gone to sleep. No need to trouble him. Call Uncle Tian and Uncle Ren. Let's go take a look."

By the time Li Changhu reached the village entrance, Liu Linfeng, the steward of the Liu Family—the other major household in Li Jing Village—was already waiting there with a pipe of dry tobacco between his teeth. Seeing Li Changhu, he said with a smile, "Changhu is here."

"Maternal Uncle."

Li Changhu nodded as well. Liu Linfeng was the elder brother of his mother, Liu Linyun. Back when Li Mutian had killed the Yuan Family, a major household, and divided up their fields, Liu Linfeng's father had immediately taken a liking to the young man. Overruling all objections, he had married Liu Linyun to him, binding the Liu Family and Li Clan together through marriage.

Li Changhu and Liu Linfeng called out to the refugees three times before the refugees finally pushed forth a middle-aged man. Though his face was blackened with grime and his clothes were tattered, there was a certain bearing in every gesture he made.

The middle-aged man cupped his hands and looked at the two with a bitter smile. "I was originally the manager of a merchant caravan on Xia Li Road. The Wu Kingdom to the south captured Jing Xia City, and blades and war have erupted across all of Xia Li Road, leaving neither chicken nor dog in peace. We were robbed on the road and escaped here mixed in among the refugees. I am unworthy, but everyone recommended me to speak for them. I only hope you two can take us in."

"This stretch of Gu Li Road has been neglected for years, with wild beasts running rampant. You simply made it through like that?"

Liu Linfeng asked suspiciously.

"Quite a few died, naturally. All the old people and children died," the middle-aged man replied bitterly.

While the representatives of the two major households probed into the other side's background, Old Man Xu stood among the crowd, a woven grass cricket in one hand and a hoe in the other, squinting as he examined the refugees.

He lived at the village entrance and had been awakened by the refugees early that morning. Hearing that Li Changhu would also be coming, Old Man Xu had happily fetched the grass cricket he had woven a few days ago, intending to bring it for Ren Shi's unborn child.

But now, one of the young men among the refugees caught his attention. The youth wore strips of ragged cloth, with a bundle of animal hide wound around his waist. His eyes burned as though lit by flames as he stared at Li Changhu and Liu Linfeng at the head of the gathering.

Those eyes look so familiar. Old Man Xu stroked his pale beard, but could not remember where he had seen them before.

"Everyone, listen to me!"

Liu Linfeng called for the refugees' attention, stepped forward, and shouted, "I am the Liu Family patriarch of this village. Li Jing Village still has a great deal of wasteland available for cultivation. If you are willing, my Liu Family can provide everyone with grain and tools for this year. The land you clear will count as land rented to you by my Liu Family, and we will take only thirty percent as rent."

As the junior, Li Changhu stood half a step behind Liu Linfeng and likewise promised, "The Li Clan will do the same."

Upon hearing this, the youth among the refugees abruptly turned his head and fixed his gaze upon Li Changhu's face. Those flame-lit eyes stared fiercely for several moments, then swiftly lowered again in satisfaction.

Old Man Xu exerted the strength of nine oxen and two tigers before finally squeezing his way to the front of the crowd. He carefully examined the refugees, yet could not find that youth anywhere.

When he turned his head, he saw that the youth had already squeezed into the foremost row of refugees, only a few bodies away from where Li Changhu and Liu Linfeng stood.

The middle-aged man, standing bent over beside the two, glanced at him and thought in surprise, What piercing eyes. There is someone like this among the refugees? We ate and lived together for a full three months, yet I had never seen this man.

"You may drink wine and eat meat in Li Jing Village, marry and have children, but you must never steal, never commit adultery..."

Liu Linfeng was in the midst of warning the crowd when the unease in Old Man Xu's heart grew ever stronger. He watched as the youth sprang forward, dropped to his knees before Liu Linfeng, and began sobbing.

"My entire family perished in the chaos of war. I alone escaped, and only after trekking a thousand miles did I encounter you two lords willing to take me in. I am endlessly grateful! How could I dare commit such shameless acts here!"

He wept with such genuine grief that the refugees behind him were reminded of their own sorrows and began wailing as well. For a moment, cries covered the ground, and even Liu Linfeng could not help but be moved.

Yet Old Man Xu stared at the youth's ankle, exposed as he knelt. His left foot, crisscrossed with scars, extended from the ragged trouser leg, and several black moles dotted the ankle joint.

A feeling of familiarity, on the verge of bursting forth, rose in his mind. His face flushed red as if drunk, and he watched the youth warily.

But Li Changhu behind him had already lost patience. He looked sympathetically at the kneeling youth, stepped forward half a pace, and bent down to help him up.

Old Man Xu's mind exploded with a roar, and everything before his eyes went blank. It was as though he had suddenly returned to an afternoon more than twenty years ago.

Back then, Old Xu had still been a tenant of the Yuan Family. Golden rice fields rolled in the autumn wind. A woman had come to the fields carrying a child, and he had bent his back, flattering her with auspicious words: "Look at those moles on the child's foot—he is surely destined to accomplish great things!"

"Wait!!"

Old Man Xu forcefully straightened the back he had kept bent for more than twenty years, threw back his head, widened his eyes, and roared.

"Wait!"

Yet a voice from not far away cried out at the same moment, shouting in unison with him.

It was the middle-aged man the refugees had put forward. He was staring at the youth's face in shock and suspicion as he spoke to stop him.

Before either man's words had faded, the youth suddenly raised his head. Caught off guard, Li Changhu met those eyes.

Those savage, piercing eyes, like those of a wild beast.