Burning, killing, looting, they call me a saint

Chapter 82 Red and Purple

The biggest difference between Zhulan and Taiyang is that the city's administrative divisions are not strictly divided into two quarantine areas.

But the urban areas and villages at different levels.

The entire urban area is not big, about the same size as Yaoguang, and the population is not dense. Every resident here lives a very rich and happy life.

After leaving the station, Levi found a small park near the station and bought a batch of Zhulan's newspapers for the past half month from the park's newsstand.

Although he bought some newspapers and magazines from Zhulan in Taiyang before setting off, the information in those newspapers and magazines was outdated. They were fine for simply understanding the local customs and people. It took five days for the train to travel between the two cities, and there would be a huge information gap unless there was cross-city communication.

Sure enough, after finding a bench in the park, Levi spread out the thick stack of newspapers and read from the front date to the back. He realized that while the Sun was being turned upside down by him, Zhulan's life was not at all peaceful during this period.

The government of this city is called the Lanting Grand Council Hall, which is formed by 72 large landowner families in the city. The seats are inherited from generation to generation, and the leader who coordinates the entire council hall and manages the entire Zhulan is called the chairman or general councilor.

The position of chairman is also inherited from generation to generation by a family surnamed Qi.

And just in the days when Li Wei and Feng Zi sneaked from Yu Guang to Yao Guang together, Zhulan's current chairman suddenly suffered a heart attack and died at home.

His only daughter was sent to college at the age of 5. She rarely returned to her hometown over the years and has never appeared in public.

Instead, his nephew who stayed in Zhulan and took care of government affairs for him was eyeing the position after his uncle's death. At the same time, a large number of people in the Lanting Grand Council Hall wanted to take this opportunity to abolish the hereditary position of chairman and replace it with an election system with a four-year term.

So when the former chairman's confidant saw that the situation was not right, he immediately informed the "princess" who was supposed to be the heir, and asked her to take a leave of absence from the academy and return home immediately.

Things were already chaotic enough at this point, and Zhulan's government affairs had been affected over the past few days. As a result, an even bigger mess happened two days ago.

The train carriage of Zhulan's 'Princess', the daughter of the former chairman who was scheduled to return to her hometown today, was accidentally derailed!

An entire carriage, she, her servants and security guards were all missing!

Missing is just a nice way of saying it. Everyone knows that when the carriage was separated from the main train in the intercity tunnel, it was absolutely certain death!

According to newspaper gossip, after learning about the incident, the former chairman's nephew held a private party to celebrate that night. When questioned by reporters the next day, he cursed and said that his sister's death had already dealt a great blow to him, and now he had to endure such a wrongful slander.

At the same time, early this morning, his face was filled with sadness, and he cried so hard that he almost fainted. He stood in front of the station, ready to hold the train management and operation accountable on behalf of all Zhulan people!

Yes, that’s right, this nephew is the yellow-haired guy that Levi met when he got off the bus.

After reading about the dirty intrigues that have been happening in the upper echelons of Zhulan recently, Li Wei smacked his lips and sighed in his heart that the newspapers in this city are full of factions, and they are all dogs raised by different families.

The previous daily newspaper was still scolding the former director's nephew for murdering the "princess", and the next morning paper began to rant that there was a group of traitors in the Lanting Grand Council Hall who wanted to make the Qi family extinct!

Of course, some of the recent major events on the Sun were mixed in, especially mocking the fact that the neighboring city was tormented like that by an artificial creature, and even the tokens of the parliament and the city's name were destroyed.

After learning about the latest situation of the city's top leaders, Levi lost interest in these things. He went straight to the owner of the newsstand, bought ten different magazines and newspapers, and began to ask in a roundabout way.

"Uncle, were the villages below us particularly short of manpower four years ago?"

"Four years ago? There was never a year when the village didn't need people! All the local farmers who grew fruit trees ran away, and they have been relying on selling people from other cities to survive these years."

“All the people who bought in other cities were assigned to plant fruit trees?”

"That's about right. If you really mean four years ago, the masters of the Great Council did a big deal with the people of the Sun. The newspapers were reporting on it at the time, saying it was a great political achievement. All the people were resettled in the Red and Purple Village down below. But the contract was only signed for three years, and those people must have gone home a long time ago."

The old man at the newsstand waved a fan and looked up at Li Wei.

"Why are you asking this?"

Levi smiled and put back all the newspapers and magazines he had just bought.

"Those Sun workers haven't returned home yet. My family is very worried, so they asked me to come and ask when they can go back."

"They haven't gone back yet? They must be enjoying themselves here and don't want to leave. Look at what has happened to your Sun these days. To make a man-made thing mess up like this, life must be hard for them, right?"

"Yeah, they must be staying here to enjoy themselves."

Levi spoke softly, no longer paying attention to the smug old man who kept complaining about how bad the sun was and how good Zhulan was, and turned around and left.

Soon after finding a place to have lunch, Levi rented a car from a car rental company. He drove out of the city according to the Zhulan map he bought and found Hongzi Village among the densely packed villages in the countryside.

This is the western district of Zhulan. Most of the land is used to grow fruit trees. After driving into the country road, you can clearly feel that there are many more people here than in the urban area.

But their mental state was very bad. They looked thinner and darker than the laborers seen by Yu Guang. Most of them were working in the vast fields. Occasionally, one or two would sit by the roadside to rest. They all looked taciturn, with numbness in their eyes.

When those people saw Levi driving the car, there was obvious fear and cowardice in their eyes.

Levi drove like this for the entire afternoon and finally arrived at Hongzi Village in the evening before it got dark.

This place is more like a shantytown than a village. The ground is full of mud and there is no so-called infrastructure. You can't even find a piece of cement floor or a piece of brick or tile.

Levi abandoned the rented car directly on the roadside at the entrance of the village and walked into the village on the mud.

It was not yet dark, and most of the young and strong men in the village were still busy working in the fields. Only a middle-aged man who seemed to be going home to get farm tools was stopped by Li Wei and handed a cigarette.

"Brother, can I ask, is Liu Bao in this village?"

The middle-aged farmer who was stopped by Levi was obviously a little terrified. He clearly saw how Levi came here and didn't even dare to take the cigarette he handed over.

"Master, you're looking for Liu Bao? I know where he's buried. How about I take you there right now?"

"he died?"

"He's been dead for two years. He died of exhaustion in the fields."

"Where is Yu Haichao? Do you know this person?"

"He was the previous village chief and died a year ago."

"Where are Yao Jiang, Chu Dafu, Wu Zhouping, and Zhao Sheng?"

"I don't know Zhao Sheng and Wu Zhouping, but they must have died a year ago. They were buried together."

Levi was silent for a while, took a deep breath, and then spoke calmly again.

"Are there any of the hundreds of people who were sold here from the Sun four years ago still alive?"

"The people from four years ago? There was also a child, but he was crazy and had been living in the old woods in the cemetery."

Chapter 83 Natural Disaster

The middle-aged farmer brought Li Wei to the old forest behind the village.

There are densely packed graves here, but not a single one has an inscription. Even if someone wants to pay tribute, they can't find whose grave it is.

"La la la, la la la, we have meat to eat today! This is chicken, this is duck, this is pork, and this is fish. They are all delicious meat!"

A dirty boy wearing only a pair of ragged trousers was singing and jumping in the woods with a lump of mud in his hand.

He looked to be no more than eight or nine years old, his body was extremely dirty, with his ribs supporting his dark skin, making him look like a skinny, hairless monkey.

The boy noticed someone coming, and he ran to Levi with mud in his hands, smiling.

"I'll treat you to meat!"

This frightened the middle-aged farmer nearby so much that he trembled all over. He pulled the boy aside, but because he used too much force, the boy fell to the ground and the mud on his hands fell off.

After falling, he seemed to be stunned, staring at the mud, muttering to himself foolishly.

"No meat, mom. No meat."

"Master! Don't give this crazy kid a hard time! He has offended your eyes! I will definitely teach him a lesson later!"

The middle-aged farmer's face was full of pleading. He was afraid that this noble man, who was obviously from the urban area, might be so angry that he could not even protect the last seed left by the third generation of the village four years ago!

Levi ignored his pleas for mercy and just stared at the boy.

"How did he go crazy?"

"It's all his parents' fault! It's the fault of the farmers in that generation of the village who were unwilling to endure hardships! They didn't know how to work hard, and they can only blame themselves for those who starved to death! It's their own fault!"

The middle-aged farmer was frightened by Levi's questions. He was terrified, afraid that if he said a wrong word, it would bring disaster to the whole village!

"What I'm asking is, how did he go crazy!"

Levi raised his voice and asked again in a cold tone.

The middle-aged farmer was so scared that sweat kept coming out of his forehead. He regretted it to the extreme. If he had known earlier, he should not have brought this master to this place.

He didn't know if this question was a trap, because there had been too many such cases in the past. But since the questioning had reached this level, he didn't think that the old man from the urban area really didn't know what happened back then.

So, he made up his mind and just told the truth.

"The natural disaster that year left his family without a single meal. His mother couldn't stand it anymore, so she discussed with his father about taking the medicine herself, so that the father and son could eat it to survive. His father agreed, and lied to him that the meat was chicken, duck, pork, and fish, but even that didn't work, so he forced him to kill himself, telling him that the meat he had eaten before was actually his mother's, and asked him to eat it so that he could survive."

"He survived, and he went crazy."

"."

After a long silence, Levi's originally cold voice now became calm, so calm that it was a little scary.

"Natural disaster? The weather in the underground city is artificially controlled, how could there be a natural disaster?"

The middle-aged farmer trembled all over on the spot, fell to his knees on the ground, and kowtowed to Li Wei continuously!

"Yes, yes, yes, I was confused! I'm dumb! It wasn't a natural disaster! There was no natural disaster at all. It was the farmers who were lazy! They didn't work in time when they should have been harvesting! That's why the masters were also implicated that year, and they were so kind to give us a tax cut, a tax cut! Thank you, master! Thank you, master!"

Levi forcibly pulled him up from the ground and stared into those eyes that were full of fear and panic.

"Don't call me master, and don't kneel down and kowtow to me! I'm not Zhulan's landlord, I'm from Taiyang. According to the contracts signed between those masters and the Taiyang workers, they should have been able to return home with money a year ago, but now there is only a crazy kid left! I just want to know how they died and who died!"

The middle-aged farmer was forced to look into Levi's eyes. After hearing his words, his originally timid eyes became a little confused and at a loss.

Zhulan has bought people from other cities not once or twice, but for one or two years. So many people have died in the meantime, and countless people cannot return to their hometowns. However, no city dweller has ever come here specifically for this matter.

He didn't know whether Levi's words were true or false, but he understood that the young man in front of him was definitely not sent by the master to extort information, so he also knew whether he should tell the real truth.

"The weather is controlled by humans. It is precisely because of human control that, more than a year ago, it is said that a great man in the city wanted to see snow to celebrate his birthday! So he let the adults who control the weather control it, and it snowed heavily for a week!"

"The farmers in the village didn't receive any notice at the time, so they could only try their best to harvest the crops when the snow started to fall, but most of them were frozen to death in the fields! As a result, they still had to pay the original land tax for that year!"

"Those who farmed were fine, as it was the season change, so they could pay the land tax and survive. But those who grew fruit trees in the village lost everything! The tax collectors rushed into their homes and took away all the edibles, not even a grain of rice was left. That year, many people died, including those who grew fruit trees. People like me who used to farm were transferred here to form the fourth generation of Hongzi Village."

The middle-aged farmer finally finished his story after stumbling over it, and Levi let him go. He then slowly walked into the graveyard and found a tattered sickle in the soil.

"Do you know what the name of the master who wants to see the snow is?" he asked softly.

The farmer kept shaking his head.

"No, we don't know. We only know that he is a relative of the tax collector in charge of dozens of villages in our area!"

"What's your tax collector's name? Where does he live?"

"Our tax collector's surname is Zhu. He lives in an apartment at the westernmost end of the city, with two big willow trees at the door. I've been there to pay taxes before."

Levi turned around silently, holding the broken sickle, walked out of the cemetery, left the village, and returned to the car.

Then he started the engine, turned around, and drove towards the west of the city with a clear goal.

At the same time, in the village not far from Hongzi Village, there was also a village responsible for the fruit trees.

The girl wore a baseball cap and had her black hair tied in a high ponytail. Even though she changed into the same ragged and dirty clothes as the farmers around her, it still couldn't conceal her own temperament. She stared blankly at the empty and dilapidated shed in front of her, and finally knelt on the ground powerlessly.

After a long time, she stood up again, found a rusty kitchen knife from the empty shed, turned around and walked out of the village.

I stayed up all night to write two chapters. I changed my schedule and will try to update at noon every day.

Chapter 84 White Pear

The only person left to sign the contract was a crazy kid.

Levi's original plan is basically impossible to achieve. Even if he wants to help those laborers who were sold from the sun get back the wages they should have received, who can he give it to?

But he doesn't rely on money to upgrade now.

Reputation, reputation, good reputation is reputation, but bad reputation is not reputation?

Levi held the steering wheel with one hand and looked at Zhulan's traffic map with the other.

The middle-aged farmer just gave him a rough direction: an apartment with two willow trees on the westernmost side of the city.

Such information was too simple, and he would have to spend some effort to find the exact location.

However, just when Levi didn't focus all his attention on the narrow road ahead, suddenly, as if he had run over some sharp stones, the left front tire made a bang, and then the tire pressure warning lit up on the dashboard of the car.

Levi had no choice but to slowly park the car on the side of the road and prepare to get out and change the spare tire.