“There are still fugitives at large right now — please, submit to inspection,” the man continued.

“Inspect what? Didn’t you already inspect us when we set out earlier?” a fisherman on another boat shouted.

“We’ve been sealed inside the village for days already, not even allowed to flee, and now you won’t even let us catch a bit of fish to bring back for everyone?”

“Don’t push us too far!”

“If you want to come rule over us, shouldn’t you at least ask us common folk our opinion? Are you planning to kill us all?”

“Get out of the way! We’re honest fishermen, move aside!”

“Get lost!”

“Kill us or maim us, do as you please!”

“We’re going fishing today no matter what! No one can stop us!”

All at once, the fishermen on the various boats erupted like a pot boiling over.

This only made those inside the ship’s cabin more certain that something was wrong with these boats.

If the common people had been this stubborn from the start, Chen Hong wouldn’t have been able to keep them locked in the village for so long so easily.

Lei Family Town was wealthy, but the common people here were, for the most part, cowardly and afraid to die — yet today, something seemed to have provoked them.

On the large ship, a man came out carrying a small chest.

He came to stand beside the man who had just spoken and opened the chest.

A small chestful of gold gleamed brilliantly under the morning sun, even more dazzling.

“Stop the boat, submit to inspection, and each captain will receive an ingot of gold,” the man said in a deep voice.

Seeing the gold, the fishermen’s eyes lit up.

“Submitting to inspection isn’t a problem, but you can’t drag it out too long — we still need to fish, and if we miss the good timing, we won’t have any fish to bring back.”

“Also, you mustn’t damage our boats, or you’ll have to pay for the damages.”

Some of the fishermen began to relent.

Lei Family Town was wealthy, but not everyone in it was rich, and besides — this was an ingot of gold, a real ingot of gold.

“Exactly, without food, gold is useless.”

“Right, right, hurry up and take it!”

“Alright.” The man nodded in response. “Rest assured, if you don’t delay too long, we’ll be quick too.”

Hearing this, the fishermen stopped their protests.

Still, the same thing held true — an ingot of gold was simply too tempting!

Soon, the fishing boats gathered and stopped around the large ship.

Many brothers descended from the large ship and searched the different fishing boats separately.

“Is everyone here?” a brother standing at the front of a sizable fishing boat asked.

“Everyone’s here,” the captain replied without even turning his head, his eyes fixed on the ingot of gold in the man’s hand.

On the deck of the fishing boat, including the captain, there were twelve people in total.

Among them were tall and short, men and women.

Seeing the man say nothing, the captain looked up.

“If the officer doesn’t believe me, feel free to search — just don’t damage anything on my boat.”

At this point, since the men were already aboard their boat, even if they did damage something, the captain could do nothing about it.

One could even say that once stopped, there had been no way to prevent this inspection from happening at all.

The initial defiance had only been genuine frustration at being suppressed, harboring resentment.

“Search,” the man said expressionlessly, waving his hand.

“Yes.” Ten soldiers nodded in unison and headed inside.

As a result, the soldiers brought out two old women from the back.

“What’s going on here?” the man stared at the captain and asked.

—

The captain turned around and also saw the two old women being escorted over, trembling with fear.

“Officer, I truly don’t know what’s going on.”

“My boat has always been docked at the harbor — perhaps these two snuck aboard overnight, I really don’t know.”

The captain assumed they were simply women trying to flee and didn’t think much of it.

He turned back and looked at the man holding the gold ingot.

“Officer, I truly don’t know what happened. You’ve already come aboard to inspect — this gold ingot is mine now, don’t go back on your word!”

“Our master always keeps his word!” the man said in a deep voice, looking at the two women held before him.

“What’s going on with you two? How did you end up on this boat?”

“In answer to the officer,” the shorter of the two women replied softly, “we wanted to cross to the other side of the river. My sister and I aren’t originally from Huangsong Village.”

“Our family is all in Qiyuan Village. We only came over for a family visit, and never expected we wouldn’t be able to go back.”

“Officer, please have mercy, take us over there. We had no choice but to hide in this brother’s cabin.”

“Whose family are you from? Why hide on my boat — trying to get me killed?” the captain said with some anger.

Moreover, he didn’t recognize either of their faces at all.

“We came from the north of the village,” the shorter woman continued. “Lei Chi is our younger brother.”

“With the war breaking out so suddenly, we don’t even know how our family is doing now.”

“The new officials won’t let us go back either. We just wanted to come see our family — what’s wrong with that?”

“Bring them onto our boat, we’ll take care of sending them off,” someone behind said.

“Yes.” The man holding the gold handed it over.

The captain took the gold and immediately bit into it to test it.

“Our master keeps his word, absolutely better than Lei Shenbao — but the fighting isn’t fully over yet, better to stay indoors as much as possible.”

The man dropped this remark, waved his hand, and turned around.

“Take them away.”

“Yes.” Two soldiers escorted the two old women forward.

“What are you going to do? We want to cross the river, we don’t want to go back,” the shorter woman said in a deep voice.

“We want to go back,” the taller woman also shouted.

“Follow the arrangements — our master will never harm the innocent, rest assured!” the soldier escorting the women reminded gently.

Those brought aboard the large ship included men and women, old and young, adding up to over ten people.

After the two women were brought aboard, they were not taken to the deck where most people were.

The shorter woman seemed to sense something was wrong and grew anxious again: “What are you going to do? Why are you taking us away?”

“What are you going to do? We’re just old women — are you going to bully us too?”

“Let us go!” the taller woman also shouted.

But the soldiers escorting them did not loosen their grip.

Being old women, their strength naturally couldn’t match the soldiers’.

Soon, several figures not wearing soldiers’ uniforms appeared before the two old women.

Feng Jiu’er stood in the middle, with Tang Xiaohua and Qiao Mu on either side of her; beside Qiao Mu stood Yu Jingfeng, and beside Tang Xiaohua stood Yue Jianfei.

“Chen Hong, still trying to run?” Feng Jiu’er frowned and waved her hand.

The soldiers not far away led the people they had brought aboard toward the other side.

The remaining soldiers all drew their swords and rushed forward.

Qiao Mu looked at the taller old woman, raising her crescent brows slightly.

“Afraid of aging your whole life, yet now dressed up like this in front of the man you love.”

“Chen Hong, do you feel any regret?”