When Yang Ge emerged from the Everlasting Peace granary, a fish-belly white had already begun to spread across the horizon.
He had been keeping track of the time, hoping to finish the job before dawn, then bring out the Embroidered Uniform Guard and those useless fools from the County Yamen to clean up without letting the situation spiral out of control.
But just as he approached the Abundant Prosperity Granary, he caught a strong smell of burning!
A bad feeling immediately rose in his heart. He hurriedly leaped onto the roof ridge of the tallest nearby pavilion and looked out.
Over at the Abundant Prosperity Granary, a raging fire blazed. Countless commoners in a motley assortment of clothes ran around the flames, carrying wooden basins and buckets in an unending stream as they rushed to fight the fire...
The instant he saw exactly where the fire was burning, a prickling numbness crawled over Yang Ge's scalp, and goosebumps rose all over his body.
"How could people, how could they..."
He clenched his fists tight, his back teeth grinding audibly as he forced the words out one by one. His eyes, reflecting the firelight, had begun to redden.
He could have figured it out with his toes: the people from the Abundant Prosperity Rice Shop must have set this fire themselves.
The commoners?
The commoners would only seize grain. They would never set fire to it!
As for why the people from the Abundant Prosperity Rice Shop had burned the grain, the reason was simple.
As Zhang Mazi, he had seized grain to fight for a way for the people of Road Pavilion to survive.
The Abundant Prosperity Rice Shop had burned grain to deny the people of Road Pavilion any way to survive.
As long as Road Pavilion had no