When It Rains, It Pours

Zhou Fuyu wiped the sweat from his brow and said, "Your Honor, please listen to me..."

Cheng Xiao roared:

"What are you talking about? I'm going to go and see what went wrong right now!"

Find them for me. If they've been here, there must be footprints here.

I refuse to believe they can fly or disappear into the earth. I want to see which bandit is so audacious.

He kicked the door open and saw the county government office was completely empty.

It was completely empty; even the buildings were gone. All that remained of the county government office was this row of walls and this one door.

He stared wide-eyed in disbelief and said, "What's going on? Am I... am I seeing things? Am I dreaming?"

Jiang Wu was completely dumbfounded; no one had ever encountered such a situation before!

The key question is, how did the county government office, which had seven or eight rooms, suddenly disappear?

Cheng Xiao burst into tears. After all, he was only in his early twenties, a young man!

He choked up as he said:

Why do all these unlucky things happen to me? Waaaaah...

What did I do to deserve this? Why are they targeting me?

Jiang Wu, you said you'd pay back over a million taels of silver.

But now, the entire county government office is gone! How much money would it cost me to rebuild it?

Jiang Wu also wanted to cry. Cheng Xiao's county office was gone; was his position as county magistrate also over?

Even if he doesn't finish his term, shouldn't he at least find a way to build this county government office?

Building a county government office requires money, right? Where does that money come from? Doesn't it all have to come from him?

He was on the verge of tears when he said:

"Investigate! We must find out! It would take at least several thousand people to do this."

I refuse to believe that such a commotion wouldn't have been noticed by anyone."

But... after asking around, nobody really knew.

Only one man came to the county government office and said that he saw a talking tree at night and even spoke a few words to it.

Cheng Xiao gritted her teeth and said, "This lunatic actually dared to say he saw a talking tree and wanted a reward! Drag him out and give him ten lashes!"

The constable next to him coughed and said, "Sir, we can't possibly administer ten strokes of the cane! We don't even know where our canes have gone."

"Now, everything in our county government office has been taken away except for the latrine."

Enraged, Cheng Xiao cursed, "You scoundrel, you wait and see! I will find you!"

Just as I was about to take a break, I heard the voices of the two eunuchs at the door.

"Lord Cheng, something terrible has happened!"

Cheng Xiao's heart skipped a beat, and he quickly waved his hand, saying, "Please don't tell me any bad news, I can't take it today."

The eunuch was dumbfounded when he saw the county government office. "How did it become like this? It was quite large when I came here a few days ago!"

Another eunuch nodded and said:

"You didn't sell the county government office because you were short of money, did you?"

"Lord Cheng, that won't do! What if the higher-ups ask about it?"

Cheng Xiao waved her hand and said:

"The county government office was robbed yesterday. Alright, alright, let's not talk about that. Just tell me what brings you here."

Is there something that Eunuch Hai needs me to do?

The young eunuch said with tears in his eyes, "Our ship has been hijacked."

Cheng Xiao's face turned extremely ugly:

"When it rains, it pours. Didn't you bring a lot of people with you? How did they get kidnapped?"

What was stolen? There was food and iron on the ship; could it all have been taken?

That's impossible! The security here is pretty good!

The little eunuch said, looking aggrieved:

"Both ships are gone, and now we have no way to explain it to the Eunuch Hai."

"Lord Cheng, what should we do now? Your county is really not doing well."

"Bang..." Cheng Xiao fainted immediately.

Zhou Wanwan had no time for anything else right now. She prepared several jars of wine and planned to go with Lingbao to see his Grandpa Purple Lingzhi that evening.

Lingbao smelled the aroma of the wine and said:

"If Grandpa Purple Lingzhi saw these wines, he would be overjoyed."

Last time it said, "Let me take you there."

But at that time I was also afraid that bringing you there would cause unnecessary trouble.

Zhou Wanwan sighed and said, "Are you afraid I'll kidnap your Grandpa Purple Lingzhi?"

"Hehehe... Our friendship wasn't very deep back then! Of course I was scared, but things are different now."

We're all in this together now.

Zhou Wanwan rolled her eyes at it and said:

"You know how to talk, but I don't want to be in your shoes."

This time I made sorghum liquor, sweet rice wine, grape wine, and a medicinal wine. Your Grandpa Purple Lingzhi will definitely like them. Let's go!

Zhou Wanwan sat directly on the Old Scholar Tree. The Old Scholar Tree clicked its tongue and said, "You said your grandfather is already a thousand years old. It's quite remarkable to have a thousand-year-old Purple Lingzhi. We are all old guys now."

The Old Scholar Tree were quite fast; they quickly disappeared into the deep mountains and forests.

This deep mountain forest is eerie and terrifying; it's actually a primeval forest, and in some places, it's impossible to even put your foot down.

Old Scholar Tree, flying over the top of these trees.

The locust plague had just ended, and the leaves on the lower trees in the forest had been completely eaten away, with many small trees even having their twigs bitten bare.

The woods were eerily quiet, with only the occasional bird call from above adding to the desolation.

As soon as they rounded a clump of bushes, they spotted a dozen hungry wolves, each one so thin that their ribs bulged out. Their eyes were fixed on Zhou Wanwan in the Old Scholar Tree, and drool was dripping from their mouths. They formed a circle around her.

Lingbao translated, "These wolves are starving, and the wolf king says he's going to eat you."

Zhou Wanwan snorted coldly and said, "With them?"

Before Lingbao could even nod, the Old Scholar Tree kicked out fiercely, sending both wolves flying.

The remaining wolves howled incessantly.

Lingbao laughed heartily:

"These wolves are really interesting; the wolf king was completely dumbfounded."

It kept asking its subordinates, "Did that tree just move? Did that tree just move?"

Hahaha... These guys are so much fun!

Soon, the wolf pack scattered, and Old Scholar Tree led the two of them straight into the innermost part of the pack. There was a small path leading to the very back.

Upon reaching the end of the road, the scene before me was chilling.

Dozens of snake corpses lay scattered haphazardly in the snow, some black, some spotted, and some blue.

Some were curled up in a ball, while others stretched out stiffly, frozen solid, their bodies densely covering half the snow-covered ground.

Lingbao roared at the top of his lungs:

"Blue Treasure, Little Black, Little Flower, Little Green, and Little Verdant!"

How did they all die here? Waaaaah...

Lingbao looked at Zhou Wanwan and said:

"Wanwan, please help them! Try using your energy and see if you can help them?"

These are all my friends who grew up with me, sob sob...

And there's also Grandpa Purple Lingzhi, Grandpa He Shou Wu, Sister Huang Jing, Brother Lingzhi, sob sob sob...

Where did they all go?