A Summons and a Thousand-Year-Old Warning

The Meng family's front courtyard was divided in two by a flagstone path, with flowers on the left and trees on the right.

When the weather was fine, Meng Lianfa loved nothing more than putting a lamp on the stone table beneath the osmanthus tree and eating dinner there.

His thick hair was streaked with white, and his large eyes were bright. Unlike his son, he was no glutton and looked rather lean. He wore a traditional jacket with the cuffs rolled up, and his dinners were simple, usually two or three small dishes.

Today, his son and grandson had both gone out to eat, and his daughter-in-law had filled up on a bowl of sweet congee, so Meng Lianfa couldn't be bothered to make much.

There was just a plate of erkuai stir-fried with pickled greens and cured pork, and a pot of fragrant tea.

His son had passed through on his way back a little earlier and drunk half a bowl of his tea, only to complain that it wasn't the fine pu'er from the study.

Hah, what was so special about that pu'er? Among the teas produced locally in Yi Province, this Wuding Golden Thread fragrant tea was truly peerless. Once brewed, every leaf looked as though it had been made of gold.

The pu'er was for entertaining those old fellows who cared about appearances but had no palate. Only with those truly close to him would Meng Lianfa share the Golden Thread fragrant tea he bought each year.

Meng Lianfa was holding his hot tea and savoring it when he saw the two men guarding the watchtower in the rear courtyard hurrying along the outer wall. They jumped into the courtyard, their expressions somewhat unusual.

"Master, Shopkeeper Ma is looking for you at the back gate."

Meng Lianfa rose in surprise. "Master Ma, why did you come through the back gate?"

Even as he spoke, he strode across the main hall.

Only after crossing the central courtyard and passing through the large building at the rear by a side corridor did he reach the rear courtyard.

Quite a few of the men guarding the house were already standing there. When they saw him, they called him master and spread out a little.

Shopkeeper Ma and Chu Tianshu had already come inside. A battered straw mat lay on the ground, with a black-clad corpse on it. The wound on its neck was charred black, and it reeked of blood.

One look was enough for Meng Lianfa to understand why Shopkeeper Ma had come through the back gate, and why the guards looked so strange.

"Brother Ma, Doctor Chu."

Meng Lianfa had met Chu Tianshu twice before. He cupped his hands and got straight to the point. "What happened here?"

Shopkeeper Ma said bluntly, "This was a bandit scout, an evil sorcerer from Jiaozhi. His appearance in town means a band of Jiaozhi bandits is already lurking outside, watching us."

"I've told the militia to be on guard. I'd also like to borrow your influence to invite the other prominent households in town here for a gathering."

Meng Lianfa's expression changed slightly. He said to several guards, "Go and invite the town head and the masters of the Zhu and Tan families here. Tell them I have a matter of the utmost urgency and earnestly beg them to honor my residence with a visit."

The guards exchanged glances and turned to leave, each choosing a different direction.

Chu Tianshu saw that they were all quite nimble. He didn't know whether they had opened their orifices or how far along they were, but their ability to vault walls and race about was no worse than that of some parkour experts he had seen in videos.

Compared with them, the men in the militia seemed less physically capable.

That made sense. The militia members were merely able-bodied local men who had received a little training after being selected.

The guards hired by these prominent families, on the other hand, were mostly men from the escort trade who had trained hard since childhood and licked blood from the edge of a blade. They had been hired at great expense.

"Those men will surely come through the front courtyard. Take the corpse there and let them have a look at it too."

Meng Lianfa gestured for his guests to proceed and led the way beside them. "Master Ma, you were never willing to show your true abilities in public, and you even kept them from Doctor Chu, a fellow practitioner staying at your inn. It seems the two of you have come to an understanding now?"

Shopkeeper Ma said, "I merely wanted to avoid trouble, not hide from the world. Given the situation, there's no harm in revealing myself."

Chu Tianshu asked curiously, "Factory Director Meng places such trust in you, Shopkeeper Ma. The two of you must be more than ordinarily close?"

"It isn't friendship, but a debt of gratitude."

Meng Lianfa's expression turned solemn. "Back then, I misjudged a woman and married her as a co-wife. She had a vicious heart and nearly brought disaster upon my entire family. Fortunately, Master Ma intervened. I still cannot repay such a great kindness."

Shopkeeper Ma shook his head. "If you had been deceived because you coveted her beauty, that would have been none of my concern. But she had mastered magic, and wherever she went, that skill would have given her a means of making a living. Yet she insisted on using spells to harm people and gain ill-gotten wealth."

"Since I could do something about such a matter, how could I stand by with folded arms?"

Shopkeeper Ma was usually genial, a smile on his round face.

But when he spoke of practitioners of magic harming others without cause, his grizzled brows rose, every hair seeming to stand on end, their thick tips like swallowtails.

Only his eyebrows had changed, but the impression his whole face gave was immediately very different.

Even a round face could show such a resolute bearing. He clearly hated those who used evil magic to harm others.

By the time they finished speaking, they had reached the front hall.

The old steward brought several cups of fragrant tea, and Meng Lianfa invited the two men to sit and enjoy it.

Chu Tianshu swallowed a mouthful of hot tea, but before he could say anything about its flavor, his stomach gave a rumble, and his face grew a little warm.

He had eaten the clay-pot snake meat, but it was still less than his usual dinner.

His fight with the man in black had been brief but extremely taxing. Heat had steamed off his body, and afterward he hadn't had a chance to return to the inn and finish his dinner.

"Doctor Chu killed that bandit and exhausted himself in the process."

Without a change of expression, Shopkeeper Ma said, "Old Meng, if your kitchen has fish, meat, or anything else, bring some out."

Meng Lianfa said, "We do, we do. I'll have someone fetch it at once."

Chu Tianshu relaxed and cupped his hands in thanks.

There were screens on both sides of the hall, with a square table behind the one on the left.

Chu Tianshu went behind the screen and began to eat. First came two plates of pastries. He couldn't tell what they were filled with, but they were sweet and refreshing, with a lingering fragrance, and weren't too hard to swallow.

Next came sliced beef and mutton in sauce, arranged on plates. Chu Tianshu was eating when he heard horses and carriages outside the door, followed immediately by the startled cries of several old men.

"What's going on? Why is there a dead man here?"

"Brother Meng, what do you mean by showing us this?"

Chu Tianshu glanced back through the screen and dimly saw three old men entering, each accompanied by attendants.

Meng Lianfa invited them to sit and told them where the corpse had come from and that bandits were lurking outside town.

Meng Lianfa spoke gravely, but Chu Tianshu heard someone breathe a sigh of relief.

"That's all?"

One of the old men said, "Brother Meng, you've seen your share of the world. Mountain bandits and the like cause trouble a few times every year, but they can only rob small villages."

"If they dared come to our town, they wouldn't manage to rob more than a few households before the militia arrived. A volley of gunfire would scare them off."

Meng Lianfa said, "Town Head..."

Another old man interrupted him. "Brother Meng, don't tell me this is why you called it a matter of the utmost urgency and had us hurry over in the middle of the night?"

"And you put a dead man at the door for us to see. It's terribly unlucky, and in very poor taste."

The town head, however, looked somewhat suspicious. "Brother Meng, be honest. Are you looking for another pretext to make us pay for the militia?"

According to the newspapers, the militias established within the territory of the Great Han Military Government were originally reserves for the regular army. Their pay was supposed to come from the authorities and be slightly lower than that of regular soldiers.

But never mind that the governor had now changed-even when the previous grand governor was in office, there had not been enough military funding to provide fully for all the militias.

Thus, if a town wanted its militia to have any real strength, the rewards for regular training and the cost of equipment were generally covered by an agreement among the town's prominent households, who supplied them jointly.

Among the prominent Meng, Lu, Zhu, and Tan families in this town, the Lu family supplied the town head, but the Meng family was the most ready to contribute money.

A few years ago, a Master Zhong had come from elsewhere and shown off his excellent fighting skills in the street.

Meng Lianfa had met him several times and then hired him to help train the militia.

Master Zhong had said that the new-style muskets were no use without plenty of practice.

The Meng family had again taken the lead, getting the prominent households to buy a batch of ammunition together for the militia's training.

Although it had not been long after the ammunition reached the militia before the families took some of it back,

the militia knew who had treated them well and naturally favored the Meng family.

"If it's money you want, that's not out of the question."

The town head picked up his teacup, took a sip, and said unhurriedly, "But as the saying goes, one must have a just cause before setting out. I am, after all, the one who bears the title of town head."

"If we're putting up money for the militia this time, then when the time comes to get on the platform and make a speech, it would only be proper to say that my Lu family took the lead."

Shopkeeper Ma spoke up. "Gentlemen, you need to understand: these aren't local villagers who took to banditry with axes and pitchforks. They're roving bandits from Jiaozhi."

"The militia has only thirty-odd men in all, and fewer than ten new-style muskets. They're far more useful for frightening people than actually killing them, but can they frighten roving bandits who have traveled all the way across the border?"

"Besides, Old Zhong went back to his hometown to sweep his ancestors' graves a few days ago. Without him to lead them, the militia's ability to coordinate will be even worse."

"If those men really fight their way into town, do you think they'll be satisfied with robbing a few ordinary households and leave your families alone?"

The town head set his teacup down with a clatter. "Old Ma, that's rather unpleasant to hear. You may have taken over an inn, but you're still just an outsider-"

Meng Lianfa slapped the table. "Old Lu, show some respect. Master Ma was the one who resolved that trouble in my family back then."

The parlor fell abruptly quiet, and an awkward silence lingered for a moment.

The town head coughed lightly. "So Shopkeeper Ma is a mage. Well, a single leaf blocked my view, and I failed to see Mount Tai."

One of the old men stepped in to smooth things over. "Shopkeeper Ma is a true hermit hidden in the world! An expert, a true expert. You must be very knowledgeable and experienced, so why don't you tell us your plan?"

Shopkeeper Ma said, "I want each of your families to assign half its guards to coordinate with the militia and patrol the town for the time being."

"If something happens, everyone can look out for one another and rush to help at once. Only then will we have a chance of protecting our town."

The town head pondered. "Well said, Shopkeeper Ma. But if this gang of bandits really is that fierce, why not ask Brother Meng to send someone to the city for help?"

Shopkeeper Ma couldn't suppress a cold laugh.

"We can send someone, but help might not arrive in time."

Shopkeeper Ma said, "Besides, once the person we send gets into the city, how much money will he need to bring before he can see the officer in charge quickly?"

"And then he'll have to get them to put aside what they're doing and come to our aid. Who can say how many complications there will be or how long it will take?"

If seeking help from a large city were really so easy, why bother having militias, much less spend so much money hiring guards?

The men from the prominent families either took up their tea or murmured in acknowledgment, but none of them spoke for the moment.

Chu Tianshu had grown sick of listening to their nonsense. He swallowed the beef in his mouth and spoke up.

"You gentlemen think that even if those bandits are fiercer than others, they'll first be worn down by the militia and then do some robbing in town."

"By the time they come to your doors, you can rely on high walls, thick roofs, and your guards holding firm to make them retreat in the face of difficulty. At worst, you can even point them elsewhere and tell them which household has weaker defenses."

"Heh, that's safer than assigning your guards, isn't it?"

The warning that the teeth grow cold when the lips are gone had endured because even after a thousand years of hearing it, hordes of people still set foot on the wrong path!