A hundred li north of Fugu City, deep in the mountains.
Two villages bearing the surname Zhou lay nearby.
The one on higher ground was called Upper Zhou Village.
The one on lower ground was called Lower Zhou Village.
The two villages had originally been home to more than a hundred and thirty households.
A hundred zhang from the villages' original sites.
The path leading to the villages had long since been buried beneath rampant weeds. A burly, dark-skinned man in coarse ramie clothing hacked away with the sharp woodcutter's knife tucked at his waist. Under the blade's assault, the waist-high thicket of wild grass fell flat one clump after another, clearing a path.
The dark, burly man led the way, with the man in scholar's robes following behind.
Before long, this desolate village saw unfamiliar faces set foot in it once more, two or three years after the plague had struck.
Not a soul was in sight, and not a sound could be heard.
The commoners' former homes had been left without human presence for so long that insects and ants had claimed and gnawed them apart. Eroded by wind and rain, the houses had collapsed, only to be swallowed by wildly growing underbrush and draped in a mantle of green. The sight inexplicably sent a chill through the air.
The dark, burly man casually wiped away his sweat.
He slid the woodcutter's knife back into his belt.
"Sir, this is where Lower Zhou Village once stood."
When the plague broke out in the two villages, they were sealed off. Of the more than a hundred and thirty households, only a dozen or so survived, leaving just over twenty survivors. The former commandery governor feared the disease might still be lurking in the villages, so he forcibly relocated the