Chapter 211: Sudden Counterattack

Chapter 211: Turning Back

"They're afraid." Wei Kai answered honestly.

"Afraid?" Meng Wan rolled the words around on his tongue, quickly grasping the concerns of the Zhuang people.

The Zhuang people aren’t completely isolated; they’ve traded with outsiders before, and a few even learned the official language. Their seclusion likely began in recent years.

They don’t seem to reject outsiders—vendors are allowed into the village, and they trade cloth with the Tan family normally. It’s probably not due to actual harm.

Could it be deception? Or did something happen that shattered their peaceful lives, causing fear among the entire tribe?

Meng Wan expected it would be difficult to get the truth, but it turned out to be several times easier than he thought.

"You’re saying that if you leave the village, the mountain hag in the mountains will grab the children when adults aren’t home?"

Tan Na, flustered, held the snacks Meng Wan had given her children and hesitated before nodding.

Meng Wan found her reaction odd. "You don't really believe that yourself, do you? What about families without children?"

Tan Na: "For those without children, the mountain hag eats them on their way back from leaving the village."

"That doesn't make sense. How did Master Tan's family avoid it? Such legends lack solid basis; dig deeper and they're full of holes."

"He married an outsider, and his children weren’t born in the village."

Through Tan Na's labored, awkward explanations, Meng Wan roughly understood the Zhuang people's logic.

Not everyone who leaves has their children taken, nor does the entire tribe believe the legend. Some are skeptical but not fully convinced, but because children have truly gone missing and families have suffered, those who believe strongly dissuade others. Over time, the Zhuang people, who were never keen on leaving the village, have rarely left in recent years.

It's that simple—a secluded village gradually shutting out the thought of the outside world.

While Meng Wan was talking to Tan Na, Nongle ran over anxiously, speaking a rapid stream of Zhuang to Meng Wan. He seemed to want to ask something but then remembered Meng Wan didn’t understand, so he turned to Tan Na.

Tan Na looked surprised at what he said. "Nongle asked if you had seen his son Nong Na this morning. He hasn’t seen him for half a day, and the kids he usually plays with haven’t either."

Nong Na was missing. By evening, even Meng Wan and Xue Sheng helped search, but still no sign of him.

That night, Nongle didn’t help keep vigil at Dalun’s place; he frantically searched everywhere for his son.

With the village gates closed for Dalun’s funeral, if he wasn’t in the village, then he must be in the mountains. The Na Gan Village borders three mountains—low ones, but two are dense forests, often with wild animals roaming. Nongle going alone at night would be suicidal.

Fortunately, the villagers were united. All the men gathered to search the mountains, even those keeping vigil for Dalun. The living matter more than the dead.

The mountains were brightly lit by torches, making the village seem especially deserted.

At Dalun’s wake, only Dali Mei and her mother remained. The old shaman rested in the wooden house. That’s when Meng Wan and Song Tingzhou approached.

"Dali Mei?" Song Tingzhou called her in his clumsy Zhuang.

Dali Mei looked at them blankly. "Aren’t you both helping search for Nong Na? My mother and I can handle the wake."

After Song Tingzhou translated, Meng Wan smiled meaningfully. "There are plenty searching for Nong Na. We’re not needed. I came to ask you something."

"What is it?" Dali Mei, because of the silver, trusted Meng Wan.

Song Tingzhou had already discussed things with Meng Wan, so he asked directly, "How did your father die?"

Dali Mei and her mother, who was burning funeral paper money, froze. The weather was clear, but the moonlight in the mountains seemed veiled in a thin mist, casting an eerie glow over the wake.

After a long silence, Dali Mei’s mother stood up, approached Dalun’s coffin, lifted the linen cloth covering the coffin, and revealed the gruesome wound on his neck.

"Dalun was killed by the mountain hag."

Song Tingzhou frowned. "Mountain hag?"

Dali Mei placed her hands over Dalun’s wide-open eyes, but they wouldn’t close—as if he was too unwilling to close them, trying to tell something.

"The mountain hag is a monster in our ancient legends. It mimics human voices to lure people who are lost in the forest and eats them."

Song Tingzhou, schooled in classics, never believed in ghosts or monsters.

Meng Wan certainly didn’t. He recalled Tan Na’s words. "How are you sure the mountain hag killed Dalun?"

Dali Mei’s eyes were swollen and red, still weeping. "I saw it myself."

"I’ve been sickly since childhood. Eating the rice here gives me fever and rashes. I could only survive on mushrooms, wild greens, and oranges, so my father planted many orange trees."

"Once, a vendor told my father that in Heiye County, there was flour from far away, to make at home into mantou and pancakes."

"My father was tempted. He paid nearly twice the price of fine rice to buy a small bag of flour. My mother made buns as the vendor taught, and I didn’t get fever or rashes..."

Dali Mei was thin and weak from malnutrition. With the flour, she started growing taller and gaining weight, making her parents overjoyed.

But flour was expensive—they couldn’t afford it long-term. The money she and her mother earned from weaving cloth wasn’t enough.

One time, Dalun hunted a wild boar in the mountains and decided to go with the vendor out of the village to sell it in town. Dali Mei, clever with her hands, wove baskets and picked oranges from the tree by her doorstep, for Dalun to see if he could sell them.

In Heishan County, Tang Jinshuang, who was buying oranges, came across them. The advance payment of fifteen taels of silver could buy enough flour for Dali Mei for three years, not to mention the future income from the rest of the oranges.

Dalun returned excitedly with the news. His family was overjoyed. He tended the orange trees carefully, hoping every fruit would be big and sweet.

But one day, when Dali Mei went to bring water to the orange grove, she saw the most tragic scene.

"I saw the mountain hag gnawing my father’s neck!" Tears streamed over her swollen eyes, stinging and aching with sorrow. She still remembered the fury, fear, and madness of seeing a gray-white beast mauling her father.

"In my grief, I grabbed a stick and charged at it like crazy. The hag ran off as soon as it saw me."

Dali Mei and her mother embraced, reliving the grief of losing their loved one.

Meng Wan sighed. "I’ll still buy your oranges. After the New Year, I’ll send people to pick them. Just wait and collect the money."

"But I'd like to take a look at the cloth you sold to Master Tan. Is that possible?"

—

The torches in the Na Gan forest flickered ever more faintly. The howls of wolves seemed to come from right next to them, forcing the party to pull back.

They had to bodily drag Nongle, still unwilling to give up, out of the dense forest. To keep him from sneaking back, they assigned two men to watch him in shifts.

From his room upstairs, Meng Wan could hear Nongle's wails of remorse. He had only his son—losing Nong Na would take half his life.

Song Tingzhou had fallen asleep after a day of making the rounds visiting people. Meng Wan closed his eyes, reaching out to idly touch the stubble on Song Tingzhou's chin. After a while, the crying stopped, and Meng Wan sat up slightly.

Xue Sheng whispered outside their door, "Master, Nongle has left."

"Understood. Follow him. Be careful." Meng Wan lay back down, his eyes scheming in the darkness.

He didn’t sleep long. Soon it was time for Dalun’s burial before dawn. His family let out heart-wrenching wails, the cries echoing through Na Gan Village, guiding Dalun's soul to its burial place.

Song Tingzhou opened his drowsy eyes, his voice still thick with sleep. "Has it started?"

"Mm." Meng Wan yawned and burrowed back into his arms.

"Let's sleep a little longer."

Dalun's funeral was over. In the morning, they packed up and prepared to leave Nagam Village.

The headman of Nagam Village came to see Song Tingzhou off. After exchanging a few words, Song Tingzhou led Meng Wan onto the carriage, with Tao Shiyi driving ahead.

They had not gone far from the village when a shout came from behind. It turned out to be the shaman who had performed the funeral rites for Dalun. He was heading back to Nalao Village as well and wanted to hitch a ride with them.

Meng Wan readily agreed and even invited the shaman to sit inside the carriage.

"Are you leaving the Zhuang villages?" The shaman assumed Song Tingzhou had finished his official business and was about to depart directly.

Meng Wan sensed that the shaman seemed to have something to say to him. With a flicker in his eyes, he feigned a sigh and said, "Who knows when we'll be back again."

Hearing this, the shaman looked visibly nervous. "I heard you wanted to buy the oranges from Dalun's family before?"

Meng Wan watched his awkward performance, then patted the old man on the shoulder. "Shaman, just say it directly. Let's not beat around the bush."

The shaman was stunned by the pat, and even more shocked by the bluntness of his words. "You! I...!"

Meng Wan pulled a pack of dried fruit from Song Tingzhou's arms and ate it slowly. "Drop the 'you' and 'I'. I know you've been raising a group of children in Muzhin Village. What exactly do you know, and why are you hiding it from your own people?"

His words struck like thunder, startling the kind-faced shaman so much he almost jumped out of his seat. "You... How do you know?"

Meng Wan sighed softly. "Sigh, kids should grow up normally. Otherwise, they'll lose their humanity."

Hearing Meng Wan's words, the shaman felt ashamed and guilty. He slumped back in his seat dejectedly. "It's my fault. I'm too weak."

Song Tingzhou, seeing that even at his age he still took all the blame on himself, said sympathetically, "Did the Tribal Elder and the headmen of various clans know about this? If they knew the other party's intention was to trap the Zhuang people, why did they still aid and abet such evil?"

The shaman's tone was full of helplessness. "A few of us old-timers knew about it. But to maintain peace in the Zhuang villages, we had no choice but to let it be."

He said bitterly, "After all, Tan Wo did give back to the villages back then and brought us great benefits."

Meng Wan and Song Tingzhou exchanged a glance, both with complex emotions. This was the horror of being isolated from information.

Tan Wo treated these Zhuang people like sheep he raised. He waited until their wool grew long, then sheared it and sold it. Toss them a handful of fodder, and they'd be grateful.

"They buy a few pieces of cloth from you, and you just watch him fabricate lies to harm children?" Meng Wan knew they were naive, but he still couldn't understand this practice.

He said to Song Tingzhou with some helplessness, "Relying on them to wake up and turn things around—that could take generations. It's up to you to shake things up."

Song Tingzhou already had a plan in mind. "Tan Wo still has eyes in the Zhuang villages. It's just a matter of when he'll rush back."

Hearing their conversation, the shaman felt his heart race. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but thinking of those innocent children, he felt ashamed and ultimately remained silent.

The carriage drove until Nagam Village disappeared from view. Only then did Tao Shiyi stop the carriage. "Sir, is it okay to stop here?"

Song Tingzhou lifted the carriage curtain and looked toward Nagam Village, making sure they were far enough that no one from the village would bother coming this far to check. "Alright, stop here."

The shaman wondered why they were stopping here, but somehow didn't dare to ask. He had a feeling the Zhuang villages were about to undergo a huge upheaval, but he couldn't tell whether it would be for better or worse.

He sighed inwardly. Whether in the past or now, he and the Tribal Elder were powerless to do anything. Perhaps in the future, if young people took over the villages, they would do better than the old folks.

For the rest of the time, Meng Wan sat in the carriage eating dried fruit and preserved plums, occasionally exchanging a few words with Song Tingzhou. Both of them looked confident.

They waited there for about as long as it takes to burn an incense stick, when the sound of disorderly hoofbeats came from outside. It was the yamen runners who had been waiting in Nalao Village.

Meng Wan put down the dried fruit and stuffed it into a small wooden box beside him, then instructed Tao Shiyi outside the carriage, "Go, rush back!"

The shaman was shocked. He lifted the curtain of the carriage window, letting in a chill wind. "How could they know?"

Meng Wan looked as if it was no big deal. "With that crappy gate in your compound, even Eleven could climb over it, let alone Xue Sheng."

"Hubby, I was dead on my feet last night. Can't you get the magistrate to reward me?" Tao Shiyi had gone back overnight to summon people and then returned to act as the driver. It was only because he was young that he could stay up all night.

Meng Wan took another unopened pack of preserved plums from his small wooden box, quickly lifted the carriage curtain, and tossed it to him. "When we get back, I'll reward you with a wife!" Tao Shiyi drove with one hand while holding the oilpaper pack in the other, and said coyly, "I'm still young."