Chapter 75: Chapter 72: The General Is Demoted, Bandits Riot, the Headless Buddha Meets a Young Nun, and a Lone Rider Approaches the Autumn Exams

But the Headless Buddha statue is by the sea, in such a large open space, those kinds of tricks certainly can’t be played.

Therefore, I guess it’s fake.

The rumors spread by those merchants are too exaggerated."

The maid by Young Master Li’s side, Zhang Fanyang, dared not underestimate her, nor did he dare to treat her as an ordinary maid.

Li Xuan asked again, "Did you catch any red fish?"

Zhang Fanyang, scratching his head, said, "That red fish is too mysterious. There used to be a nest, and visiting it every now and then would always yield some catch throughout the year. Now with the flood, who knows where the nest has moved to... really couldn’t find it.

As for other valuable fish, I’m still investigating.

I just invited brothers from the upstream and downstream towns for a meal, and at that time will inquire with them."

"Well done." Li Xuan nodded in approval and said, "Thank you for your hard work, Old Zhang."

Zhang Fanyang chuckled and said, "Then... I’ll just leave the codfish here."

He placed the bucket down, turned around, and left, leading the crew from the fishing boat into the distance.

The Qing River flows into the sea, hence there are tides.

And the tides change daily and are not fixed.

Fishermen naturally need to fish according to the tides.

...

...

Seeing the sky darken, Rose, hands swinging a wooden bucket, wobbly got onto the carriage, then sat heavily on the driver’s seat.

She had become Li Xuan’s new driver.

Knowing quite a few secrets of Li Xuan and being his bedfellow, her relationship was naturally closer than the former driver.

However, the former driver named Li Shu wasn’t idle either. He took on the role of the "transport convoy leader" between Xiongshan County and Hundred Flowers Mansion, not only transporting back the "siblings" occasionally acknowledged by Li Xuan but also responsible for gathering product information for the Li family’s merchant guild, which had swallowed the Tian family’s guild at Hundred Flowers Mansion.

Buying low and selling high is always a merchant’s strategy.

After the epidemic, many merchants in Hundred Flowers Mansion were selling goods at low prices, and the Li family’s guild was not doing charity, so they naturally selected goods for procurement.

Today happened to be the day when Li Shu was about to return to Xiongshan County, and Li Xuan placed that bucket of fresh "three-whiskered rock cod" on Li Shu’s cart, instructing him to take it back to give to Tian Yuan and Wei Yao.

After all this, he sat leisurely on the cart.

Rose drove the carriage through the far more dilapidated city market than in the past.

Last year’s bustling Immortal Gathering Tower now had only a few carriages.

The boats selling by the lake had also reduced significantly, and many stalls at the meat and fish markets were empty.

Without the government, order was ultimately lost.

Li Xuan was leisurely swaying when he lifted the curtain while passing a certain place.

He had maintained contact with the eagle bandits all along.

And the reason he went to the canal gang every day was because the canal gang passed through the outer city.

If the eagle bandits had something to report to him, they would wait at a pre-arranged location in the outer city.

...

Outer city, a dark alley.

Dark gray stone walls kept even the moonlight out, a barrel emitting a musty stench sat with a homeless shadow.

This was the dark corner, the world of sewer rats...

A luxurious carriage slowly passed by the alley entrance.

After a slight pause, a shadow suddenly rose and slipped into the carriage, then knelt before the boy wrapped in a warm blanket inside the carriage, respectfully saying, "Master,"

Li Xuan closed the book and looked at the ghost reporting information.

The ghost said, "Master, we caught someone outside.

That person is not weak in martial arts; Eagle personally took action to capture him.

However, the person claims to be the incoming Prefect, and we found the official document too.

Eagle can recognize official documents; he looked at it, the document is genuine, so he sent me to ask for the master’s instructions on what to do."

Li Xuan was taken aback. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

This... has the strength of my bandits already grown so powerful?

In such a short time?

But upon reflection, it wasn’t that my bandits were overwhelmingly strong, but that this bandit force completely stood at the "crest of the tide of trends."

This crest, if not manned by my people, would just be someone else.

In other words, if he hadn’t placed Eagle in charge as a bandit earlier, it might be Qu Er or Guan Wu growing strong instead.

"How many of you are there now?" Li Xuan asked subconsciously.

The ghost respectfully replied, "Eagle has two thousand people now, and Guan Wu has fifteen hundred, but... the numbers are still rapidly increasing. Eagle wants to capture a city, so he sent me to ask the master."

Li Xuan:......

He raised his hand and gently tapped his forehead.

’Underestimated, still underestimated... there are just too many people who can’t survive.’

As a young master, he never worried about food and drink, the poverty he saw was indeed limited.

It’s no wonder that in history books from his previous life, whenever an uprising broke out, it always involved hundreds of thousands, even millions of rebel soldiers; this snowballing speed was just too fast.

A Prefect coming to take office was also caught?

After thinking for a moment, he said, "Do as you see fit, but don’t be the first to stick out, observe the situation with the rebel army in the Outer Province, let them lead the charge. And for now, do not conquer any key cities."

This matter, he couldn’t stop.

Though his ghost commanded this rebel army, the inevitable course for such a rapidly growing rebel army was to lift the veil on chaos in one corner of the world. If he wanted the ghost to stop it, then... the commanders of the rebel army would just be replaced with another group.

After saying this, Li Xuan asked again, "What kind of person is that Prefect, and how did you capture him?"

The ghost narrated at length, reporting everything.

Listening, Li Xuan finally understood.

This was a bit different from his initial thought.

He anticipated that after the epidemic, rogue bandits would run rampant in Hundred Flowers Mansion, and corrupt officials would plunder.

But he guessed right about the bandits and wrong about the corrupt officials.

The newly arrived Prefect was not a corrupt official; on the contrary, he might even be a good official willing to speak out, probably exiled here to die after a slander from treacherous officials.