However, that was only a rumor. The servant couldn't have known the exact details.
This only piqued the interest of the Land of Fields' Feudal Lord, who usually had nothing to do, so he sent people to look for information about Bai Sui.
In the end, they found a traveling merchant who had once visited the village and learned some things about Bai Sui.
"Feudal Lord, everything I said is true. His abilities are practically divine. I saw it with my own eyes: a man's arm was cut open this long, but it was completely healed in less than three days..." The traveling merchant prostrated at the feet of the Land of Fields' Feudal Lord and trembled as he described Bai Sui's miraculous abilities. What he'd seen hadn't quite been like that, but desperate to get out of this situation, he could only exaggerate as much as possible.
After all, that was the only way to catch the man's attention. Then, as someone who had visited the village, he would be useful. When the guards from the Daimyo Mansion found him, they had also caught him engaging in illegal trade.
After all, if they weren't selling something profitable, there'd be no point in traveling far and wide as merchants. Selling salt and iron to refugees in the mountains was a serious crime. The Feudal Lord naturally didn't want the number of commoners under his rule to dwindle, since that would greatly reduce the taxes he could collect.
Especially in recent years, the war had cut his tax revenues by thirty percent. If the Feudal Lords of the Five Great Nations hadn't joined together to demand it, he would have considered keeping the Land of Fields out of the war.
"Those damn lowlifes!" The Land of Fields' Feudal Lord immediately picked out the information he wanted from the merchant's words.
The Land of Fields' Feudal Lord pointed at the prostrate merchant and said to the guards beside him, "Send men with him to find those lowlifes hiding in the mountains. Take them all as slaves. If that doctor really is as capable as he claims, we can give him a chance to serve me. Go, and be quick about it."
With a wave of his sleeve, the Land of Fields' Feudal Lord headed for his bedchamber, supported by his attendants. Only a few guards and the merchant remained behind. Sweat had soaked the merchant's clothes.
"Hmph! Get up already! You dared to sell goods to those lowlifes without permission. You should be grateful the Feudal Lord is merciful. Otherwise, your whole family would already be slaves!" One of the guards, annoyed that he had to trek through the mountains, kicked the merchant.
The kick landed on the merchant's forearm. Though he was in pain, he didn't dare show it. "Y-yes, samurai. I'll get up right away. Right away."
Forcing himself to his feet, the merchant hurriedly bowed to the guards present. "Sirs, the village is about a day's journey from the capital. Should we set out today, or..."
Before he could finish, the guard rudely cut him off. "Go to hell! You think you can drag your feet after the Feudal Lord gave his orders? You really are a damn lowlife. Start leading us, now! We haven't complained about the trouble, so don't you dare complain!" He gave the merchant another kick.
And so, four guards shoved the merchant along as they set off. The miserable merchant wanted to send word to his family, but when a guard beside him glared, he didn't dare even bring it up.
A squad of foot soldiers followed behind the five of them. Their main task wasn't to fight; they didn't think a tiny mountain village would dare defy the Feudal Lord's will. Their job was to keep anyone from fleeing in the confusion.
After all, everyone knew what would happen if someone became an outlaw and was later caught by the Feudal Lord.
Such a cruel fate meant few people dared to abandon their jurisdiction and become outlaws. But it also made those who had already done so even more alert, since everyone knew what would happen if they were caught.
As for why the villagers let the merchant leave under these circumstances, they had no choice. Even a small village needed many things it couldn't obtain on its own, such as salt and iron, and they had to rely on traveling merchants for them.
And because merchants brought rare goods to the Feudal Lords and paid substantial taxes, the lords generally didn't pay them much attention as long as they didn't go too far, even if they knew the merchants weren't entirely honest.
This disaster had happened entirely because the merchant hadn't kept his mouth shut. After all, "If a ruler is not secretive, he will lose his ministers; if a minister is not secretive, he will lose his life; if important matters are not kept secret, they will bring harm."
He'd dared to turn something that happened while he was obviously conducting illegal business into a conversation piece. Even if he hadn't been caught this time, sooner or later something else would have drawn the attention of the Feudal Lord and the other nobles.
Meanwhile, in the peaceful little village, no one knew what was about to happen.
"Hahahaha! Shoya, you're doing a good job with your training. You've got the makings of me in my younger days. Not bad!" Kubota Noriyuki lavishly praised one of the young men training under him.
Over the years, as the village's population had gradually grown, Kubota Noriyuki had begun teaching the young people the samurai training methods. Two of them had even managed to make decent progress.
To keep them from getting hurt while sparring, Kubota Noriyuki simply had them train outside Bai Sui's yard.
Over time, this had become a form of entertainment for the village. Whenever they had some free time, the villagers would come watch.
With an audience, the two young men were both spurred to give it their all so they wouldn't embarrass themselves in front of everyone.
Although they sparred right outside his yard, Bai Sui didn't pay them much attention. No matter how interesting something was, you couldn't watch it all the time; it would get tiresome. Besides, unlike the villagers, Bai Sui had other forms of entertainment.
Bai Sui hadn't made paper in the village over the past few years. Although he remembered how from his previous life, the process was far too complicated. And since he didn't need much, nor did he need toilet paper, he'd used another method.
He used Qi Sword to slice bamboo strips or wooden boards into thin, translucent sheets as delicate as a cicada's wing.
He stacked several sheets together and used them as paper. They weren't especially good in every respect, but they did the job, and Bai Sui wasn't picky.
As Bai Sui was writing inside the house, his sleeve knocked over the pen holder.
Looking at the bamboo pen holder that had rolled across the floor, Bai Sui was momentarily stunned. "This..."
He'd just been thinking about how careless he was to make such a simple mistake when his heart suddenly gave a sharp squeeze, and a sense of foreboding welled up inside him.
Knowing something was wrong, Bai Sui ignored the pens scattered across the floor and the half-finished sheet on the desk.
He quickly sat cross-legged on the cushion and sank his entire consciousness into his dantian.
As Bai Sui's consciousness withdrew inward, images gradually emerged in his Inner Landscape.
Although he couldn't make out the people's faces, he still gleaned quite a bit of information from the images.