The Demonic World I designed-Chapter 44 - 42 Lyuzhou
44: Chapter 42: Lyuzhou….
44: Chapter 42: Lyuzhou….
The unique geographical location of Jiangnan’s Lyuzhou led the Imperial Court to establish it as the tenth directly governed provincial government office.
Sustainable by both land and water transportation, and encircled by mountains and rivers, Lyuzhou serves as a crucial hub linking Jiangnan to the Northern Territory, its commerce flourishing.
In addition to its beautiful scenery and excellent feng shui layout, it attracted many wealthy merchants to reside here, which also led to Lyuzhou being a lucrative area within the wealthy region of Jiangnan.
Anyone wishing for an official post here had to grease the wheels with connections above.
However, a bureaucratic upheaval left Jiangnan officials deeply wary of Lyuzhou!
There was no helping it, the incident with Mister Hua Pi was just too horrifying to comprehend, with skinning, bone painting, flesh digging, and marrow filling horrors perpetrated by a frightful demon capable of peeling off an official’s skin to replace it with another—such ghastly events left their mark on the land.
Even though the Imperial Court proclaimed the demon had been brought to justice, it couldn’t stop the widespread panic!
Although Duke of Qin’s suggestion had merit, it also came with negative consequences.
For starters, the complete purge of Lyuzhou officials, while partially effective in eradicating the demon’s remnants, caused further unrest among the already shaky public sentiment.
Take these past few days, for example, with Lyuzhou City lacking official management, the Jiangnan Provincial Governor had to urgently transfer officials to oversee things.
But now…
who would dare to accept a post in Lyuzhou?
Those who were appointed all made excuses to decline, and if they couldn’t escape, they resigned from their posts right away, which gave the Jiangnan Governor quite the headache.
He continuously petitioned the Imperial Court to dispatch new officials quickly, because Lyuzhou was, at this point…
practically in chaos!
Assignments for new Imperial Scholars were not going smoothly either, as not every scholar was as daringly broke enough to risk their lives like Chen Qing.
Some from better backgrounds would rather refuse an official post than serve in Lyuzhou.
In the end, only about two-thirds of the initially considered persons agreed to compromise and go, leading to a severe shortage of personnel.
Even those who received the official seal delayed their departure as much as possible, hoping others would forge ahead to test the waters while they waited and watched.
And in such circumstances, the simple-minded Chen Qing was the very first to arrive in Lyuzhou ahead of everyone, bustling with eagerness!
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“This is…
Lyuzhou?”
After traversing mountains and fording streams, arriving dust-covered from nearly ten days of travel, Chen Qing almost failed to recognize Lyuzhou City upon arrival, and even the coachman was taken aback.
The vastness of Lyuzhou City was so desolate that Chen Qing almost thought it had just been plundered!
Not a single official soldier stood guard at the city, and had it not been broad daylight, Chen Qing might have thought he had mistakenly entered the Path of Yin and Yang.
“What’s going on here?”
The coachman and Chen Qing stared at each other in dismay.
After a moment of silence, the coachman anxiously said, “Master, I…
I think it’s best if you pay me now.
I…
I have a bad feeling about this place, and I don’t want to stay the night here.
Master, if you settle the payment, I can leave right now.
Maybe I can reach Shangshu County before nightfall.”
Chen Qing: “…”
Had he known how eerie it would be, he would have brought along the Ghost Doll.
But fearing too many prying eyes, he had sent the doll to Azure Dragon Mountain beforehand.
Now, not a single ghostly shadow could be seen on the streets!
“Master…
look over there!” the coachman said with a tremor, pointing.
Chen Qing looked and was also startled.
It was a butcher’s shop.
How could there be someone selling meat on these desolate streets?
Even more unsettling was the butcher himself, whose skin was half-peeled off, revealing bones, flesh, and the wooden structure within.
Thump, thump…
The butcher, oblivious to his surroundings, kept chopping the bones mechanically, his eyes vacant, like a machine.
In the ghost town-like streets, this sight was indeed nothing short of horrifying.
The coachman stumbled backwards in fright, but Chen Qing furrowed his brow and took a step closer.
He could tell what the meat-chopping butcher was.
It was obviously one of Mister Hua Pi’s wooden puppets.
After Mister Hua Pi had died, these puppets, having lost their spirits, were like zombies, continuing repetitive actions based on some of their former instincts.
Chen Qing had seen this with the personal soldiers Weichi Peng brought back to the Capital City.
Those personal soldiers, turned into puppets by Lu Jiaming’s group, could still perform simple tasks in the Weichi Residence, despite lacking cognizance, but were able to follow simple commands.
Weichi Peng couldn’t bear to dispose of his former brothers-in-arms, so he kept them around to assist with target practice in the training grounds.
But the Weichi Clan was a family of significant heritage, fearless of these puppets.
Did the common folk dare to keep using them?
Weren’t they afraid?
“Eh?
Young man over there, did you just arrive in Lyuzhou City today?”
While he was thinking, a voice called out.
Naturally, it wasn’t from the mechanical butcher, but from a middle-aged woman guarding beside the meat shop.
The woman looked fair, and though she appeared to be an ordinary townswoman, she was clearly more attractive than a typical laboring farmer’s wife.
From a distance, she greeted enthusiastically, “Would you like to buy some meat to take back?
There are no inns or cooks to prepare meals for you here.
If you buy some, I can personally cook a couple of dishes to accompany your drink.”
When Chen Qing got a good look at her, he was surprised, and cautiously inquired, “Ma Erniang?”
“You are…” The woman paused mid-sales pitch as Chen Qing called her name and looked more closely.
“My, isn’t this Chen Qing?”
Upon recognizing a familiar face, the woman’s enthusiasm intensified, and she came closer to inspect him, “My, my, isn’t this our neighborhood’s Imperial Scholar?
Didn’t your mother say you were going to the North to take an official position?
How come you’re back?”
“Ah…
this…
that’s a long story.” Chen Qing laughed, changing the subject as he looked at the butcher slicing meat.
“Isn’t that Uncle Zhang?
What happened to him?”
“Oh, him…” The woman’s eyes dimmed as soon as her husband was mentioned.
“He became like this…
In the past, I complained that he was only lazy and avoided work, often going out to gamble and waste our money, but now…
he can only work!”
Chen Qing fell silent, unsure of what to say for a moment.
Having known Ma Erniang’s family for already three years, he felt quite familiar with the deceitful Uncle Zhang, the butcher.
Yet he hadn’t expected that he still didn’t know him well enough.
When had Master Huang replaced him?
Or maybe he had always been a wooden puppet?
Ma Erniang must have been terrified the day she learned the truth, right?
Yet she still chose to stay and accompany her husband…
Chen Qing reflected on this with a mix of emotions but did not dwell on sadness for long before he started inquiring about the situation in Lyuzhou.
“Erniang, what about the people in the city?”
The coachman, seeing a familiar face, cautiously approached to listen in.
He was also very curious.
How had the sprawling Lyuzhou City become like a ghost town with everyone gone?
“The people?” Ma Erniang looked at the desolate surroundings and sighed.
“They’re all gone…”
“Gone?” Chen Qing was taken aback.
“Haven’t you heard about the Ghost Doll incidents in Lyuzhou City?”
“I’ve…
heard something…
just didn’t think it was this serious…” Chen Qing carefully assessed the woman’s mental state, considering she was the butcher’s wife, and he might not be able to defeat her if she wielded a pig-killing knife.
“You have no idea how chaotic the city was at that time.
The soldiers who were suppressing the situation did their job, and containment orders were issued.
Eventually, they simply sealed off the city.
Many people were incredibly frightened.”
“If that’s the case, people should have been locked in Lyuzhou.” Chen Qing curiously scanned the surroundings, which clearly looked as if everyone had fled a famine.
“At first, yes, they wouldn’t let anyone leave…” Ma Erniang chuckled bitterly.
“Later on, some well-connected schoolmasters and merchants began to find secret ways to get out.
Once a bunch of them did, it got out.
There was a huge uproar.
I heard several of my neighbors rushed the city gates, and a few were even trampled to death…”
Chen Qing’s scalp tingled upon hearing her words, imagining the chaos of those times in just a few sentences.
“As deaths mounted and the situation seemed to grow uncontrollable, the authorities simply withdrew the soldiers.
Once they did, didn’t everyone just flee?”
Ma Erniang looked at her husband with a complex gaze.
Chen Qing understood why ordinary people would want to flee.
With these wooden puppets around, the soldiers wouldn’t move without orders, and with neighbors frightened as well, staying was surely impossible…
“Where did they all run off to?” the coachman asked curiously.
“The wealthy fled to the neighboring Provincial Government Office while those without means returned to their rural hometowns.
There is always somewhere to go…”
Chen Qing thought for a moment and then asked, “Erniang, what about your children?”
“They went back to their hometown.” Ma Erniang smiled.
“It’s just the right time as the piglets back home are due to be born.
It’s good for my sons and daughters-in-law to go back and help the elders.
As for this deadbeat, me staying with him is enough…”
“How many like you are left here?”
“Shouldn’t be many…” Ma Erniang said with a smile.
“Here on North Street, most are common households like us.
These past few days I’ve only found about a dozen people during my visits.
Those rich merchants and scholars on South Street, those with properties, they’ve all relocated long ago.”
Chen Qing: “…”
Without lingering on Ma Erniang’s plight, Chen Qing took to his heels and headed south!
He had been the first to rush over, hoping to snatch some benefits, but now, hardly a feather was left, a mess all around, with everyone gone.
How was he, the Magistrate, supposed to govern?
“Chen Qing, where are you going?” Ma Erniang called out urgently.
“To South Street!” Chen Qing called back without turning his head.
“Erniang, please weigh a pound of meat for me, I’ll dine at your place tonight!”
“Eh?
Okay!” Erniang immediately smiled happily, but then she added, “There’s not even a ghost’s shadow on South Street, what are you going there for?”
But as soon as she called out, Chen Qing was nowhere to be seen.
He was, of course, in a hurry to see how many households were left!
Joking aside, while most ordinary people from North Street took shelter in the countryside, and he could devise ways to bring them back, catching the wealthy families that had fled was not easy.
If they were gone, whom would he tax?
