Chapter 490
Old Fei shook his head, utterly disagreeing with the man's words. Who was the Divine Maiden? How could she not know something so trivial? "The Divine Maiden is all-powerful and all-knowing. I'd stake my head on it—She definitely knows!"
"The fact that She didn't come must mean She has Her reasons!" Old Fei's two sentences made everyone's faces fall, especially those clever types who liked to overthink things. Staring at the still-damp bloodstains on the street, a storm of thoughts raged in their heads.
"It must be those soldiers—they refused to surrender and dressed up as common folk like us to ambush the Dayan troops!" someone gnashed their teeth. "They're the ones who dragged us down, making the Divine Maiden think we aren't truly loyal to Dayan!"
"Those people are blocking us from receiving the Divine Maiden's blessings!" another voice shouted along.
A woman sobbed quietly, "Those damned bastards forced my husband to guard the city gates, then they ran away themselves before the city even fell!"
"They stole our grain too!" an old woman chimed in through gritted teeth. "A full hundred catties of grain, they just took it by force."
"My wife's dowry jewelry—those soldier-bandits barged into our house and snatched it all!" a man stretched out his arm. "And they beat me too."
"Those who robbed us weren't the Dayan army—they were our own Southern Yue soldiers!" an old man wailed, covering his face.
The citizens of Yu City traded stories one after another, and as they counted up the grievances, they realized just how much havoc the Southern Yue soldiers had wreaked.
They had treated them worse than the Dayan outsiders.
Young people were the most hot-blooded and impulsive. A young lad shouted, "We need to find them and make them pay blood for blood! Then the Divine Maiden will surely look favorably upon us citizens of Yu City!"
"That's right, Da Wa's right! Find those troublemakers and hand them over to the Dayan army. No one's going to stand between us and the Divine Maiden's blessings!"
Seeing the crowd's righteous fury, the system popped up again, [Host, when it rained a few days ago, you never expected this little bonus, did you?]
Yue Fuguang nodded. Indeed, she hadn't expected it!
As the old saying went, things forced on people never work out, but this time, without her saying a word, these people had taken the initiative themselves.
Old Fei, who was standing right there, was also taken aback by the angry crowd. But thinking about how hard it had been for his whole family during the water shortage, he—who had just drunk his fill—could understand where they were coming from.
But now wasn't the time to dwell on those rats who were destined for nothing. He still had a big piece of news to share!
He'd delivered the good news; now it was time to deliver the bad. Well, the unfortunate news, that is.
"No need to panic, everyone!" Fei San's voice wasn't loud, but the people standing in a circle around him all heard it. "In another ten days, Southern Yue is bound to get heavy rain!"
Someone couldn't help but dig a finger in their ear, looking absolutely incredulous. "Fei the Third, are you serious? In another ten days, the Divine Maiden will bring rain to our Yu City too?"
"The Divine Maiden said so herself? How do you know?"
"Fei the Third, you're not pulling our leg, are you? We're all neighbors here—you'd better not be conning your own people!"
The crowd buzzed with discussion, and by then, Fei the Third's family had rushed over to the 'battlefield' after hearing the news.
His mother came straight at him and grabbed his ear. "You little brat! You tell me right now—how do you know it's going to rain in ten days?"
Her spittle nearly sprayed all over Fei the Third's face. "If you tell a single lie, I'll skin you alive!"
"Ow, ow, ow! Mom, ease up, that hurts!" Fei the Third stood on his tiptoes, following the direction his mother twisted, not daring to struggle.
The way he did it was so practiced it was almost pitiful to watch.
"Sister Fei, calm down first, let the Third explain himself," a familiar woman stepped in to mediate.
Fei the Third looked utterly wronged. "Mom, everything I'm saying is true. I heard the Divine Maiden say it with my own ears."
He swore an oath. "If you don't believe me, go ask around—I'm not the only one who came from Feng City. If I'm lying, may the Divine Maiden forsake me and never accept my offerings!"
In those days, that was a heavy oath indeed—almost as serious as swearing you'd never become rich!
"The Divine Maiden really said that? You actually saw her with your own eyes?" His mother's first sentence was skeptical, but the second one sounded... awfully envious.
"More real than real pearls! The Divine Maiden was standing up in the sky," Fei the Third pointed to the sky above. "She was standing on a glowing lotus flower. The moment I saw that flower, I wanted to kneel!"
He really had wanted to kneel forever the moment he laid eyes on the Divine Maiden.
At the very front stood old man Zhao Quan, over sixty years old, his face wrinkled like a dried-up riverbed. Listening to Fei the Third's words, his expression barely changed at first. Over these past few months, he'd heard plenty of hope and plenty of disappointment.
But this time was different. This time it wasn't 'might rain'—it was really going to rain!
His lips moved, but no sound came out.
Then his eyes changed. Something cracked behind the cloudy film.
His eyes slowly turned red, and then his face broke into a smile he hadn't worn in a long time. Just eight more days—eight more days and they'd have water!
Their whole family wouldn't die of thirst, and as long as they worked hard, they could still plant another crop in the fields.
Many people around him had the same thought. No one spoke, but the atmosphere suddenly came alive.
"Water! The Divine Maiden be praised—we're getting water too!" Fei the Third's mother had tears in her eyes as well, and she hastily wiped them with the sleeve of a shirt she hadn't washed in a month.
"That's right, the hard times are finally coming to an end!"
Some couldn't help but let their imagination run wild. "We're under Dayan's rule now... think they'll let us plant that miracle grain that yields a thousand catties per mu?"
They lived in Yu City, but some weren't originally city folk. Some had a few thin plots of land in the countryside, and if you had land, of course you wanted high-yield crops.
The people nearby perked up at the idea. "We don't dare dream of the multi-thousand-catty yields, but even if they give us the lowest-yield corn to plant, I'd burn three sticks of incense a day for the Divine Maiden!"
One impatient woman turned and sprinted for home. "I'm going right now to light incense for the Divine Maiden and beg Her properly!"
She had a son and two daughters; even the youngest was five, and none of her three children had ever really eaten their fill in their entire lives.
"Right, right, I'm going home to burn incense too!"
"I'm going to Sage Hand Liu to get a statue of the Divine Maiden. From now on, our family worships only the Divine Maiden!"
"Brother Zhao, let's go together!"
Fei the Third had actually been feeling a little guilty, watching his parents and the neighbors get so excited about the rain. He was agonizing over whether to ruin their mood by dropping the bad news at the happiest moment.
But when he saw the crowd starting to disperse, he gritted his teeth. Time waited for no one, and better to rip the bandage off fast. A quick sting beats a slow ache... He ran through every shred of self-encouragement he could muster.
After mentally steeling himself, Fei the Third shouted, "Wait! Everyone, wait! I still have something to say!"
"Third, speak quickly! Don't keep an old man like me from going to burn incense for the Divine Maiden!"