135: Chapter 135 Eliminate the Weeds at the Root

Wang Lin was at a loss for words to defend himself. Sweat beaded on his forehead from anxiety as he explained:

"I, Wang Lin, swear to the heavens, if there is even half a lie in my words, may I be struck by lightning!"

He even pulled aside several elders who were usually considered reasonable and personally led them to his own now-empty granary for inspection.

The granary doors were wide open, revealing a truly empty interior, with only scattered husks and dust remaining.

"See for yourselves, everyone? It's truly all gone!" Wang Lin's tone carried a plea.

But those elders exchanged glances. One of them shook his head and sighed:

"Grain Official Wang, this... this empty granary doesn't prove anything either. Perhaps... the grain was moved elsewhere long ago?"

Once the seed of doubt sprouts, it grows wildly, obscuring all reason and past kindness.

A few more days passed, and people in the village began to starve to death one after another.

The fear of death enveloped the entire Qingniu Village.

For the surviving villagers, that sliver of doubt, catalyzed by death, rapidly swelled and soured.

They became increasingly convinced that Wang Lin had hidden the grain.

He would rather watch them die than bring it out.

Finally, the ugliest facet of human nature was laid completely bare.

On a dark and windy night.

A group of villagers, driven to madness by hunger and fear, brandishing hoes, sickles, and wooden clubs, and holding torches, charged toward the Wang family compound like demons!

They smashed open the main gate and surged inside like a tidal wave.

Wang Lin and his elderly parents tried to block their way and explain, but were met with a frenzied onslaught of blades!

Blood stained the threshold and splattered onto the window lattices.

The once-revered Zhuangyuan Lang and his parents thus fell at the hands of the very villagers they had wanted to help.

Having killed, the villagers, their eyes bloodshot, began to frantically ransack the Wang house, digging three feet into the ground, all to find the imagined mountain of grain.

However, reality was cruel.

Apart from some worthless furniture, books, and a few chests of beautiful but inedible clothing and jewelry brought by the princess, they found nothing.

The Wang family truly had no grain left.

This truth was like a basin of ice water poured over the heads of all the villagers who had participated in the atrocity.

Holding their torches, they looked at the bloodstains on each other's faces and hands.

Then, looking at the utterly empty rice vats and granary, a bone-chilling cold rose from the depths of their hearts.

"We... we killed the wrong people?"

"Grain Official Wang... was he telling the truth all along?"

"Heavens! What have we done?!"

...

Panic, boundless panic, instantly seized them.

The man they had killed was the current Zhuangyuan, and even more so, the husband of the Emperor's most beloved younger sister!

If this news reached the capital, every single one of them would lose their heads, and their nine familial clans would be exterminated!

The crowd began to stir. Some collapsed to the ground in fear, others wanted to flee.

"We can't let them escape!"

A sharp voice rang out. It was Su Mu!

He had somehow mingled into the crowd, and now stepped forward.

His face wore an expression mixed with pity and resolve. "The deed is done. Regretting it now is too late!"

"To survive, we must eliminate the root of the problem!"

His words reminded these terrified villagers.

Right, eliminate the root of the problem!

Wang Lin was dead.

But his wife, Princess Zixia, and their three daughters and one young son were still alive!

They were tied up by the villagers and locked in a side room.

The villagers' gazes turned in unison towards the side room.

Their eyes held nothing but the madness of doing anything to survive.

At this moment, Su Mu spoke again.

Lowering his voice, he put on an air of having everything under control:

"Everyone, don't panic! I have a plan. It can both preserve everyone's lives and handle the aftermath properly."

Upon hearing that Su Mu had a plan, the desperate villagers clung to it like a lifeline.

They crowded around him, bowing and kowtowing to him as if he were the merciful Bodhisattva Guanyin.

Su Mu sneered inwardly, but his face was full of "sincerity":

"Princess Zixia, her three girls, and that little brat cannot simply be killed."

"I will arrange it. I guarantee everyone's safety, and moreover..."

"from now on, Qingniu Village will still be our Qingniu Village!"

Thus, Su Mu killed three birds with one stone:

He successfully removed his thorn-in-the-side, Wang Lin.

He established absolute authority among the villagers, smoothly becoming the new village chief.

And, he obtained the Princess Zixia he had long coveted.

Coincidentally, or perhaps because the ways of Heaven are unpredictable.

On the seventh day after the tragic death of Wang Lin's family, the drought that had lasted for months ended without warning!

Torrential rain poured down, nourishing the parched land.

But this rain came too late.

After Su Mu took power, he immediately secretly imprisoned Princess Zixia and her three teenage daughters in a dungeon dug deep within his own compound.

Day after day, he subjected them to humiliation and torment, venting his years of pent-up jealousy and perverse desires.

Simultaneously, he cruelly severed the limbs of Wang Lin's only son, who was merely ten years old, and threw him into a pigsty to be raised like livestock.

He would often go to "observe" with a malicious smile, reveling in the pleasure of trampling the once-lofty bloodline of the Zhuangyuan into the mud.

However, strange events began to occur one after another.

People in Qingniu Village began to die under mysterious circumstances.

Their deaths were extremely horrifying.

Some seemed to have been scared to death, their features contorted.

Some were completely emaciated, as if their essence and blood had been drained.

Others were strangled in their sleep, with dark blue handprints left on their necks.

At first, Su Mu paid no mind, dismissing them as deaths from starvation or illness.

Only when the village population had mysteriously halved did he truly feel fear enveloping his heart.

The villagers also began to spread rumors that Wang Lin's family had died with grievances unavenged, transforming into vengeful spirits who had returned for revenge!