Heaven's Formula

"What choice?"

Gong Shufeng noticed that the other party's eyes fell on the refugees on the shore.

"No way……"

"It's just that it won't." Gong Shujin whispered, "We can blend in with the refugee crowd and walk over with our feet. Didn't those people say that we are not like the lower class people? In this way, no one should be able to single out It's our problem."

"But only with my feet..."

"We don't need to go all the way from Huiyang City to Jinxia. You have heard from others that as long as you enter Shenzhou, you can immediately transfer to a carriage or ice boat and arrive at Jinxia within a day. The distance we have to travel is, It’s just the official road from Huiyang City to the border of Liuzhou.” Gong Shujin closed his eyes and thought carefully, “The two points are more than 130 miles apart in a straight line, and the actual distance should be about [-] miles. Let’s speed up our pace and we can walk in four days at most Completing this journey is better than waiting half a month anyway."

Gong Shufeng took a deep breath.

This is undoubtedly a difficult choice.

But the hope of the family is on their shoulders, and rational thinking has pointed out the answer.

"Just do as you say."

……

Two days later, the two brothers were already walking in the open fields.

Leaving Huiyang City did not encounter too many obstacles, and the official pass played its due role-it seems that as long as it is not a "rebel" in the words of the ship owner, the city guards don't care where they are going.

The plan to mix into the refugee group was also very smooth. No one questioned their identities, and no one minded them coming uninvited.In other words, when this group of people could not even save their own lives, they had no time to take care of other things.

And the reason for choosing to walk with the refugee group is also very simple. There may be robbers and robbers on the road. A dozen people are easy to be robbed, but hundreds of people are different.Because it is safer to move with a large group of people, the two chose to chase the refugee group ahead at a fast pace during the day, slow down at night, and sleep with the nearest refugee group. The time on the road can be shortened as much as possible.

However, in just two days, Gong Shufeng and Gong Shujin had a deeper understanding of what the real low-level people are.

They are numb to despair, and when they see food, there will be a look of fear in their eyes.

Every time the camping ended and the crowd set off again, some of them would stay in place forever, without breath.

As for the crying at night, it never stopped.

Sometimes it is the cry of a baby, but more often it is the suppressed sob of an adult.

After the two-day journey, the communication between the two brothers has decreased a lot.

Especially for Gongshu Jin, the symptoms of seasickness after disembarking did not ease much, but became more serious.Whenever he heard crying at night, Gong Shufeng could see his brother covering his mouth and retching.

The only thing he could do was to squeeze out the little clean drinking water left in the water bag and hand it to the other party's mouth.

After all, they had no chance to boil water on the road.

Just as night fell on the third day, a rush of horseshoes broke the tranquility of the countryside.

8 Chapter Twenty

"Get up." Gong Shufeng was the first to notice. He sat up from the sackcloth blanket and shook his sleeping brother.

"What happened?" the latter asked vaguely, covering his head, "Is anyone here?"

"I don't know, but it's better to be careful." Gong Shufeng replied in a low voice.It is definitely not an ordinary person who is still riding a horse in the countryside at this hour.

If they were thieves, they would generally not attack a group of refugees with hundreds of people.One is that you can't grab anything of value, and the other is that it is easy to damage your subordinates.But this is just a general situation. Who knows if there will be accidents. Once the crowd runs away and tramples, it is definitely not wrong to be prepared first.

Gong Shufeng looked towards the dark north—with the help of the faint moonlight, he could vaguely see a group of people approaching here.Many of them held torches, and judging from the scale, there were also as many as a hundred people.

At this time, most people have woken up.

As vagabonds, they already had an instinctive reaction to this situation. Young and strong men picked up sticks and pitchforks that could defend themselves and faced the approaching people, while women, old people and children gathered together, waiting anxiously for the danger to pass.

However, when these people approached dozens of steps, Gong Shufeng took a deep breath.The opponent's armament can be said to be everything, not only wearing armor, but also a bronze helmet on the head, and a hand crossbow hanging on the waist.The clothes and pants under the armor are also neat and tidy, and it doesn't look like he often sleeps in the forest.

Robbers don't have such configurations!

"Who are you? What are you here for?" Someone asked boldly.

"I'm the steward of Tuntian Manor," shouted a horse rider over there, "Master is very merciful and willing to take you in. Pack up now and follow us on the road!"

Tun Tianzhuang?

Take in?

These words caused a commotion in the crowd.

"Where is Zhuangzi?"

"Do you want a few hundred people?"

"Why don't they come over during the day?"

While everyone was shouting, Gong Shufeng smelled a trace of uneasiness.

He noticed that the torches were spreading around, which was clearly a sign of encirclement.If they were just here to collect people, why did they come with so many fully armed servants?If it is to protect the steward and maintain continuity, obviously a dozen or so people are enough.

Just at this moment, a slight sound of strings being played entered Gong Shufeng's ears.

His complexion changed drastically immediately, and he pushed his younger brother down under him, "Get down!"

He was all too familiar with that sound—it was the tremor of the mechanism bowstring rebounding!

However, the arrows were not aimed at the young and strong men in the front row, but the old, weak, sick and disabled in the middle.There was only a series of soft swishing sounds, and screams and wailing erupted from the crowd. In the blink of an eye, dozens of people fell to the ground, and their lives and deaths were unknown.

"Take it down." The steward ordered.

The cavalry rushed up from all directions, rushed into the crowd on tall horses, and cut the refugee group into pieces in an instant.In the face of well-equipped enemies, sticks and pitchforks are simply irresistible. In addition, one's relatives are attacked, and everyone's fighting will is so low that they can't be lowered.

The battle ended in less than twenty breaths.

Even because of being surrounded by the other party in advance, few of the hundreds of refugees even escaped.

All the people were forced to kneel down by the side of the road, waiting for their fate in horror.

And these people who claimed to be from Tuntian Village did not seem to be the first to do this kind of thing. They skillfully separated the refugees, and then picked out the young and strong men with intact hands and feet, and took them aside alone.

Seeing this, Gong Shufeng already knew exactly what the other party was going to do.

The people in Tuntianzhuang want to take these people into slavery!

This is absolutely illegal, even if it is a homeless person, no one can take it as a personal property.This is not only to prevent the local power from becoming stronger, but also to avoid the public resentment caused by the naked deeds of extortion.If you want to obtain slaves, there is only one legal way, and that is to buy and sell through government authorized persons, and you must have a contract of selling yourself to be recognized.

"This person has a good frame and a decent face. He may fetch a good price if he is brought to Gaoguo." A man with a sharp mouth and monkey cheeks commented after following Gong Shufeng for a while, "A first-class product, take it away alone."

"Yes!" Immediately, two servants grabbed his arms and pulled him out of the crowd.

Gong Shufeng was so anxious that the sweat on his forehead was about to come out. He thought that the biggest risk of traveling by land would be robbers and bandits, but he didn't expect to encounter such an unimaginable thing!If this kind of thing was placed in Xu State, it would definitely be a crime of copying the family and exterminating the family. No matter how powerful the local wealthy family is, it would be impossible to be so disrespectful to the world, right?

There should be officials from the Privy Council stationed in Huiyang City!

Aren't they afraid of being liquidated after leaking the news?

"It's not legal for you to do this!" Gong Shufeng couldn't help but said.

He wasn't really worried that he would be sold into slavery. As a public loser, he had too many ways to prove his identity to those in power.What he was really worried about was that after he was exposed, he would not be able to fulfill the old lady's entrustment, which would delay the family's important affairs.

The other party ignored him at all and looked directly at the next person.

"What's the matter with this man... Could it be that he has an epidemic disease?" The man looked at Gong Shujin a few times, "He's sick, not a good guy, and he's too young to do much work. Hmm... Let's deal with it on the spot .”

"Wait, that's my brother, where are you taking him?" Gong Shufeng shouted, "Let him go!"

A servant raised his fist and hit him violently in the abdomen.

"You fucking shut up!"

Another person brought hemp rope, "Tie him up, this guy is quite strong."

"Be careful, don't hurt the first-class goods." The man in charge of the appraisal frowned and said, "Just cover your mouth with that piece of cloth, don't do anything."

Seeing that Gong Shujin was about to be taken away, Gong Shufeng couldn't care less.

With sudden luck, he pushed his shoulders left and right, and pushed the two servants away a few steps.

This is exactly the power given to him by the qi senser.

"Stop for me—" Gong Shufeng snorted.

"Bold!"

"You still dare to resist!?"

Several servants who followed the man pulled out the long swords around their waists in unison.

"I'm from the Privy Council, so is that person." Gong Shufeng lowered his voice, staring at the other party and said, "Now I have something important to do, so I have to act in secret. If you don't want to be ransacked and beheaded afterwards, it's best not to hinder me The actions of the two. Now let's go, and we can pretend that this never happened."

"The Privy Council?" The sharp-mouthed man scrutinized Gong Shufeng for the first time.

"The head of Huiyang Mansion is called Wu Qingping, rank four and a hundred blades, right?" The latter said word by word, "If you don't believe me, you can contact the city and ask the Privy Council to send someone to confirm your identity."

This is absolutely information that refugees do not have access to.

Of course, this fourth-rank Bairen didn't know him, but as long as he was a person who was sensitive, the Privy Council would not sit idly by.

Speaking of this, Gong Shufeng is also betting.He bet that the other party would not dare to really bother a Privy Councilor Bai Ren, but let him and Gong Shujin go with the idea that more things are worse than less things.In that way, he still has the possibility to go on to Jinxia—although these twists and turns have greatly increased the possibility of exposure.

The sharp-mouthed man did show suspicion and fear for a moment. He stopped the servant who was about to take Gong Shujin away, hesitated for a moment and said to the two, "You guys wait here for a while, I will go and ask the housekeeper for instructions."

Chapter 821 Rebels other than Jinxia

"Brother..." Gong Shujin suddenly whispered.

"Don't worry, I will take care of everything." Gong Shufeng comforted him.

"No, brother...look over there..." The younger brother pointed to the other side of the official road - that side was far away from where they were, and with the obstruction of the torches, it was difficult for ordinary people to see the scene in the dark.Even Gong Shufeng squinted his eyes for a moment, before he could clearly see a few swaying figures and the long swords in their hands that reflected the faint red light...

Gong Shufeng suddenly froze.

He remembered that some selected people had also been sent in that direction before.

And the facts quickly confirmed his thoughts.

Another group of people were led outside the encirclement, and then pressed down to the ground.The standing figures raised their swords and fell, and the people also fell one by one, as if disappearing into the night.The whole process was like a silent show, although it happened behind the crowd, no one noticed this scene.

A bone-deep chill shot up from the soles of his feet.

The phrase "solve it on the spot" from the sharp-mouthed man came to his ears again.

He finally understood what this settlement meant.

The women and children who were taken out were by no means lacking the strength to scream—the reason why they were slaughtered silently was because the spells blocked their movements!

"What are you doing?" Gong Shufeng pulled Gong Shujin in that direction in disbelief.

Although there were a lot of servants around, but the person in charge was not there, and with what the two said before, they didn't dare to kill for a while, so they could only yell loudly to catch up, but in the end they didn't stop Gong Shufeng.

He came all the way to the dirt slope beside the official road, and the smell of blood suddenly became stronger.

I saw many corpses lying here and there in the grass at the foot of the slope, most of them were elderly Confucian scholars and children under ten.Obviously, as slaves, these two types of people can hardly be sold for any price, and Tuntianzhuang also knows that what they have done is not justified, and it is a felony anywhere, so they have no intention of keeping them alive!

"Stop here." At this moment, a person stopped in front of the two brothers.

There was a sense of command in his words, as if he was born superior to others, and with the organ ring on his hand, he was probably an alchemist who performed the technique of silence.

"Are you a member of the Privy Council?" Gong Shufeng asked loudly, "Why do you help them do such vicious things?"

The other party raised his eyebrows unexpectedly, but did not reply immediately.

"Even if they are fugitives, they are also citizens of the Qi Kingdom. As long as they don't sign a contract of selling their lives, any act of slavery is against the law of the king, let alone wanton massacre!" He clenched his fists, "They——they are also human beings!"

"Wang Fa?" The alchemist stared at him, and only after a long while showed a hint of amusement, "Wang Fa has been gone for a long time."

What is he saying……

Gong Shufeng almost doubted his ears.

Isn't this place still under the control of the Privy Council?

If the Privy Council is not counted as king's law, who else can be counted?

"The two of you are the secret agents of the Privy Council with important responsibilities?" A flat voice suddenly sounded from behind.Gong Shufeng looked back, and saw that the speaker was a middle-aged man in his 30s, wearing a luxurious brocade robe and leather boots.The sharp-mouthed man was also by his side, but the previous arrogance was completely gone from his face.

There is no doubt that he is the butler the other party calls.

"Not bad." Gong Shufeng could only suppress the turbulent thoughts in his heart, and turned his attention back to dealing with this person.

"It turns out that the flood rushed into the Dragon King Temple, and they are all a family." The butler grinned, "I don't know which mansion you two come from, and what level of master are you two?"

"This... I have nothing to say."

Theoretically speaking, the two brothers can't even be counted as the eighth rank, because they, as disciples of the public loser, don't need to take the scholar's examination to obtain high officials and generous salaries.Moreover, their qi-sensing abilities are all used in mechanism techniques, and fighting techniques is definitely not their forte.

"Can't you tell me where you're going?"

"No."