noffsinger Chapter 284 City Guards Make Things Difficult
Chapter 284 City Guards Make Things Difficult
She took the map, carefully examined the marked locations, and nodded repeatedly: "Thank you for your guidance, I've memorized it."
Xiaoman handed her the map: "Take it, it'll be useful on the road."
Qiu Ying thanked the two women again, then turned and beckoned to the other women, who helped each other onto the road.
Watching their figures gradually disappear into the distance, Shi Zi turned his horse around and said, "Let's continue on our way."
Xiaoman responded with a "okay" and rode alongside him.
In the past three months, apart from the most troublesome matter of dealing with the bandit stronghold, most of the other work involved treating patients along the way.
In fact, if you travel at full speed without changing horses from Huanling City, it will take about two months to reach Su Family Village.
If you keep changing horses along the way, you can get another twenty days or so faster.
However, Shizi and Xiaoman were often delayed along the way, and they would stop to treat patients they encountered.
This back-and-forth dragged on for more than three months.
We just arrived in Fengming City today.
Fengming City is still about 100 li away from Fengdang Town.
When Shi Zi and Xiao Man arrived outside Fengming City, they felt that the place was very strange.
Because there are very few pedestrians here, it is far less lively than a typical town.
The two dismounted and walked towards the city gate, holding the reins.
The two of them wanted to enter the city discreetly and avoid getting too entangled with the guards, but things didn't go as planned.
Shi Zi took out a small piece of silver and intended to hand it over as an entrance fee, but the guard stopped him.
Both men frowned simultaneously, and Shi Zi asked, "Sir, why are you blocking my way?"
The guard glanced sideways at the broken silver, a mocking smile playing on his lips, his tone even more arrogant, "Not enough!"
Shi Zi was taken aback: "Not enough? This piece of silver weighs almost four qian (a unit of weight), and the usual entrance fee to the city doesn't even need to be this much!"
"If I say it's too little, then it's too little!"
The guard puffed out his chest and held his chin high. "I made the rules, what right do you have to object?"
Shi Ziqiang suppressed his anger, took a deep breath, and asked, "So, according to the general, how much should we give?"
The guard pointed his finger, spitting as he shouted, "Half a tael of silver for each person, one tael for the horse! You two with two horses, that'll be... ah..."
Before he could finish speaking, Xiaoman, unable to bear it any longer, kicked him away.
The guard fell to the ground a few steps away like a tattered sack, howling in pain.
The other guards erupted in chaos when they saw their colleague being kicked away.
The men raised their spears, pointing them directly at Shizi and Xiaoman, and shouted angrily, "How dare you! You dare to assault officials of the imperial court! Don't you want to live?"
Xiaoman didn't care at all. She took out a token from her waist and said coldly, "Enough nonsense, take us to see your governor."
The token was engraved with the three ancient-style characters "Imperial Physician's Order".
But how could these guards recognize such a token?
They were just street thugs who got the job of guarding the city by virtue of their family's connections to minor officials.
Forget recognizing any tokens, he's barely even seen a few pages of decent documents in his daily life.
The Imperial Hospital's token corresponded to a near-fifth-rank official, so how could they recognize it? They just treated it as an ordinary plaque.
Just to clarify, the Prefect of Fengming City is a fifth-rank official, which is slightly higher than Xiaoman's quasi-fifth-rank official by half a rank.
That is why Xiaoman asked them to inform the prefect.
Instead of directly ordering the other party to come to them.
He did understand some of the rules of officialdom.
But the guards didn't care about any of that. When they saw the other party pull out a sign and try to put on airs, they became even more arrogant.
"What kind of lousy sign is this? How dare you put on airs here! If you know what's good for you, hurry up and pay up and kowtow a few times, or don't blame us for having no eyes when it comes to guns!"
On the other side, a guard had already helped up his companion who had been kicked away by Xiaoman.
He asked with concern, "Brother Li, are you alright?"
The guard, known as Boss Li, clutched his stomach and grimaced in pain.
But he still couldn't help but curse: "Damn it! You dare kick me? I'll make you both wish you were dead!"
"Everyone, get them! Seize those two arrogant bastards!"
Upon seeing this scene, Shi Zi turned to Xiao Man and joked, "It seems your imperial physician's order isn't working here. You'd better watch out for me."
He had barely finished speaking when he vanished in a flash.
Then, several muffled thuds were heard in succession.
In the blink of an eye, the guards who had been holding long spears were sent flying backward like kites with broken strings, crashing to the ground and crying out in pain.
The most unlucky one was Boss Li.
He had barely been helped up and hadn't even stood up properly when several of his companions flew over and slammed into him again, causing him to fall to the ground once more.
"Ouch—it hurts like hell!"
"Damn it! Stop pressing down on me!"
"Get up! You're suffocating me!"
The group huddled together on the ground, clutching their sore spots and howling in pain, their earlier arrogance completely gone.
Shi Zi clapped his hands and gestured with his chin towards Xiao Man.
"Let's go, it seems we'll have to find their governor ourselves."
Seeing this, Xiaoman could only shake her head helplessly.
Before the people lying on the ground could even get up...
Shi Zi had already reached them, and with another sweep of his foot, the men who were pinning down on Li Laoda were sent flying again.
He reached out and grabbed Li Laoda's hair, forcefully pulling him up.
Before Li Laoda could react, a mouthful of sour water gushed out of his mouth, choking him and causing him to cough repeatedly.
It turned out that a pebble had elbowed him in the chest again.
"Cough...cough cough...this...great...hero...spare me...spare me!"
Shi Zi's eyes darkened: "If you don't answer my questions honestly, I'll kill you."
Li Laoda coughed even more violently, and said intermittently, "Cough...this...this great...hero, I...I will definitely...tell you everything!"
"Why is the entrance fee to Fengming City so expensive? Who approved it?" Shi Zi pressed.
Old Li was still coughing incessantly, panting as he said, "This...this hero...could you...put me down first..."
Seeing that he was coughing badly and his stammering replies were taking up too much time, Shi Zi let go of his hand.
Li Laoda stumbled and fell to the ground after being pushed by a stone.
Afraid of being hit by stones, it struggled to its feet and stumbled to its feet.
His chest was still aching slightly, and he was breathing heavily as he spoke.
"Cough...cough cough...Young hero, is...is..."
Shi Zi raised an eyebrow, his tone suddenly turning fierce: "What is it? Speak up! If you keep stammering, believe me, I'll slap you to death!"
Li Laoda was so frightened by Shi Zi's words that he trembled again, and his trouser legs shook.
“I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you! A while ago, there was a small epidemic in the city, and many people died from it.”
Some people fled the city to escape the plague.
Later, when the city ran out of medicinal herbs, an order was issued that everyone entering or leaving the city had to pay...pay money, supposedly to buy more herbs..."