Back at Qingfeng Temple, Lin Hui quickly arranged how things would run while he was gone. If anything came up, Xue Meng would handle it for him. Then he packed all kinds of equipment and medicine.
He did not rush straight to the Inner City. First, he visited several elderly townspeople and asked how those who did not eat Wanfu Meat were faring.
But careful questioning revealed something startling: very few people in town truly abstained from Wanfu Meat altogether.
"Not eating Wanfu Meat? Easy to say, but very, very hard to do."
An old woman who lived on the edge of town spoke through a shriveled, toothless mouth, her words slurred.
Smoke had blackened every corner of her dim stone house. Pinned to the walls were papers her son had written when he served as the town clerk.
Those once-important papers now served only as reminders of her son, pasted to the inner walls to provide a little insulation and keep the damp at bay.
Lin Hui glanced at the thin, dark-skinned girl standing nearby. She was the poorest disciple in his temple, and one of the most diligent. When she heard he wanted to question someone elderly and that helping him would count as a low-grade task, she had volunteered to bring him home to meet her grandmother.
The standard Qingfeng Temple uniform she wore was plainly the finest and most expensive outfit in the house.
He had not realized any of his disciples lived in such hardship.
"Very few doesn't mean none at all, does it? Could you tell me what they're doing now?"
Lin Hui softened his voice.
"You honor me too much. Please don't address me so respectfully. This old woman doesn't deserve it," she said hurriedly.
"There were people who never ate it. I