jdhmnovel Chapter 275 Arrival in Bashu
Chapter 275 Arrival in Bashu
The journey from the capital to Sichuan is quite long, so Jiang Xinyu and her group naturally wouldn't change into disguises early on.
When leaving the city, they all wore understated men's clothing and applied a skin-nourishing dark yellow dye to their faces to make their skin turn brown.
No other changes were made.
The conditions along the way, with people sleeping in the open and braving the elements, were indeed harsh. Fortunately, Jiang Xinyu had a water-based ability, so even if they missed the streams and rivers, they could still replenish their water bags.
Although the accompanying guards were curious as to why the chief eunuch and his wife always had provisions, no one asked.
They assumed that their two masters were too precious to eat such dry and hard food, so they consumed it more slowly than the others.
If you're not in a rush, there's actually no shortage of food in ancient times.
The common people lacked suitable tools, and this group of people not only carried bows and arrows but were also mostly skilled at throwing darts.
It's more than enough to catch a rabbit or a bird.
Unfortunately, we were in a hurry and didn't have much free time, so the best thing we could eat was some meat that we could grab from a small restaurant along the way.
Mountain restaurants naturally can't afford expensive ingredients like mutton and venison; they're already considered lucky if they can match pheasant and smoked rabbit.
After entering the Sichuan and Chongqing region, the ingredients gradually became more abstract.
The most delicious food is snake soup, while the most difficult to swallow are things like spiders, scorpions, and centipedes.
It's not that it tastes bad; when you bite into it with your eyes closed, it's crunchy and tastes like chicken. It's just that once you open your eyes, you can't swallow it.
No wonder this place is called the Land of Abundance; its ingredients alone surpass those of many other places.
Not only is the land fertile and sunny, resulting in good crop growth, but the wild animals that grow naturally can also feed many people at the bottom of society.
As long as you're not lazy, you can make money by chopping firewood, hunting, and picking herbs in the mountains.
At worst, they could dig up some wild vegetables and mushrooms and catch some snakes and insects.
Those are all high-quality proteins, and some of them taste quite good. They can be eaten at home or sold to restaurants.
Jiang Xinyu and the others dressed up as a group of martial arts practitioners, and Xiao Yuan also changed into a dusty gray outfit and had a beard on his face.
He then covered his eyes with a thin, translucent blue cotton cloth, making him look like a formidable martial arts master.
Jiang Xinyu and Xiaodie didn't look convincingly dressed as men, and neither of them thought they could fool anyone with that.
They simply used a special bluish-black pigment to paint their exposed skin and dye their nails black.
Xiao Die is skilled in poisons; it's said that they are trained from childhood to be poisoners and medicine people, and most people in the martial arts world would not want to provoke them.
The other guards dispersed after entering the city, at least to make contact with the advance troops.
Xiao Yuan only left behind a big guy, so now it's a group of four, two men and two women.
Xiao Yuan is a blind old man who uses a strange curved knife, while Jiang Xinyu and Xiao Die are a pair of poisoners disguised as men.
There's also a powerful and fierce thug; this combination doesn't look like something to mess with.
The kind where each person is carrying the weight of ten lives.
People in the martial arts world are known for bullying the weak and fearing the strong, treating others differently based on their status. After all, losing a verbal duel is just a loss of face, but losing a physical duel can cost you your life.
The more aloof you appear, the more bizarre your attire, and the more unusual your weapons, the less likely anyone will approach you.
If it's an elderly person, a woman, or a child, then the buffs are stacked even higher, and second- or third-rate martial arts practitioners won't want to eat in the same room with you.
How can someone dressed like that be mentally normal?
What if they're the kind of people with antisocial personality disorder who have a habit of sprinkling poison on their food after eating to add to the fun? They'd be so unlucky.
Sichuan and Chongqing were a hub for medicines and poisons, attracting not only martial arts figures from the Jin Dynasty.
Drug addicts and pharmacists from other countries also come here to search for drugs and exchange techniques.
Xiao Yuan and Xiao Die can both speak the dialect of Sichuan and Chongqing. Jiang Xinyu has been learning it along the way, but she has only learned it in bits and pieces by now.
But it's okay, she has a good public image.
It's quite reasonable that a person covered in poison would become mentally impaired and speak in a strange, distorted manner.
As long as I'm happy saying what I want, I don't care if others feel uncomfortable listening to me.
Their image is certainly not suitable for gathering information everywhere.
After checking into the inn, apart from Xiaodie who was running around outside under the guise of buying and selling poison, Jiang Xinyu and Xiao Yuan stayed at the inn waiting for news.
The secret guards have already gone to find the spies who entered the city a few days before them, hoping to find out as much useful information as possible.
Knowing yourself and your enemy is the key to victory; he first needs to find out just how capable Yu Sheng's men are.
His wife can release water and his sister-in-law can cause thunder; it's really hard for Supervisor Xiao to believe in science anymore.
He now strongly suspects that Yu Sheng is also raising monsters, maybe even snake or centipede spirits from the mountains.
His wife has never told him what his true form is. Although he guessed it was a fox, what if he was wrong?
He was unwilling to take any risks without knowing the other party's background or his own true form.
Over the past two days, there has been a steady stream of news, including reports that two spies have infiltrated the general's mansion.
However, there hasn't been much concrete news yet.
There are indeed a few strange people around Yu Sheng.
A thin, old man with a goatee liked to wear a blue robe and wave a blank white paper fan.
The scout said it seemed like he was wearing a disguise, and his accent sounded like he was from the capital.
There was also a snake woman with a hot figure and revealing clothes.
The woman had two snakes, one black and one white, coiled around her body, and it was said that there was a larger one in the house that slept with her.
Every month, a young maid in the general's mansion would have her blood drained and fed to her snake-wielding husband by that woman.
There was also a burly man with a red scorpion tattooed on his forehead, who was said to be very fierce and could smash a person's head with a single slap.
These three are the people who usually accompany Yu Sheng when he goes out. Whenever he leaves the General's Mansion, at least one of them is with him.
The old man with the white folding fan only joined the general's side this year, while the snake woman and the burly man with the red scorpion have been with Yu Sheng for several years.
The journey from the general's mansion to the yamen (government office) involved passing through three streets, and the people naturally remembered these individuals because of their special status.
As for the claim that the strong red scorpion man could smash a person's head and that the snake woman slept with a giant python, that cannot be verified.
It's possible that some people have seen it, or it's just that gossip gets exaggerated as it spreads.
If it weren't for Madam watching over them, Xiao Yuan would have loved to kick each of these good-for-nothings out with a flying kick.
What kind of nonsense is this? Since when did the Eastern Depot start relying on rumors to solve cases?
Aside from the appearance of men and women, you know nothing else. How dare you lick your lip and report this gold-digging news to me?
If I wanted to hear this kind of gossip, I'd ask two vegetable-selling aunties; they'd tell me more detailed stories than you do.
The Eastern Depot agents left as soon as their supervisor told them to, but each of them wore a bitter expression.
Two people with such convincing Sichuan dialect skills have already infiltrated the general's mansion, while those who are clearly outsiders can only glean very little information.
Yu Sheng wielded considerable influence in the Sichuan-Chongqing region, and they were afraid that asking too many questions would lead to them being reported by concerned citizens.
In the past, when gathering information in the capital, people mostly crouched on roof beams or squatted against walls.
The civil and military officials in the capital dared not keep too many江湖人 (jianghu people, people from the martial arts world) at home; their skills were more than enough.
But this place is different!
Putting aside how many experts Yu Sheng had around him, the elusive Scorpion Serpent alone was enough to give them a run for their money.
One of their seniors encountered a scorpion and was so caught that he fell from the roof beam.
One of their predecessors even screamed like a ghost when a snake crawled into his pants.
They also had a predecessor whose body was eaten clean by insects when the general's mansion threw him into a mass grave.
They're scared after so many people have died!