Chapter 37: Little Pony Ma is truly the modern equivalent of Qin Hui and Tong Guan.

"Let's put the disposal of these people aside for a moment. Can we move somewhere else? I'm freezing."

Yun-ge rubbed his hands together, his face chilled by the biting late-night wind. Looking at the captives, he saw they were all huddled together, their faces turning a dull, frozen blue. If they kept standing here, they would all freeze to death.

Jiang Guang was startled, then quickly realized the situation and beckoned Le Dan to take everyone to the Zhao family's estate. The Zhao household was the wealthiest in Lengdixia Village, and their buildings were the largest.

The group herded the forty or fifty captives slowly toward the estate. They couldn't use the main hall, as it was littered with corpses, so they stuffed the prisoners into the side rooms and the woodshed. Jiang Guang then had two of Lu Tou’s men go outside the village to locate the local headman and his associates. The horse-drawn carriages were left for the moment; getting everyone into the village was the priority.

After much bustle, Yun-ge sipped a bowl of hot soup and finally let out a satisfied sigh. The room was now bright with candles and oil lamps, and in the clear light, Yun-ge finally took a good look at this "Little Teacher."

The Little Teacher was quite good-looking, standing over six feet tall. Dressed in a scholar’s robe, he truly looked the part. However, under the interrogation threatened by Deng Qiang’s broadsword, Ma Yi had confessed everything.

He was originally a petty hoodlum who wandered the streets, using his looks to charm women and swindle small change. Later, through a series of coincidences, he joined the Wu-Shi Cult. He was, in truth, nothing but an empty vessel—a "flowery pillow"—but he relied on his handsome face and his silver tongue to rise through the ranks to the position of Little Teacher.

The other fourteen Little Teachers and the three Great Teachers of the Wu-Shi Cult had been completely taken in by him. They believed he was a brilliant genius who had been left behind in the wilderness, and they congratulated themselves on their keen eye for talent. They even lamented the decline of the Liang Kingdom, thinking, "No wonder the country is failing when such pillars of society are left out in the cold! Thank goodness we found him; our Wu-Shi Cult is truly chosen by heaven."

Yun-ge looked at Ma Yi with a speechless expression. This was a man whose face alone was enough to hold an empire together—the living embodiment of the saying that one’s appearance could serve as a meal ticket.

That was the truth of Ma Yi’s background. As for why he was in Lengdixia Village, it was for a trade deal.

Liangzhou bordered the Qiang and Di tribes. Although these tribes would occasionally raid the Liang Kingdom before winter, Liangzhou itself was poor, and the raids rarely yielded much. Thus, they turned to a mix of raiding and trading. Many did this; for instance, Bu Zhao, the brother of the Bu family, often did business with the tribes, selling them salt and iron pots. But Bu Zhao only dealt in small fry; Ma Yi was aiming for a massive score.

Ma Yi had been in Liangzhou for two years as a Little Teacher, accumulating quite a fortune. The Wu-Shi Cult was constantly preparing for rebellion, so horses were naturally a necessity. Following the instructions of the Great Teacher, other Little Teachers had delivered a significant amount of grain and supplies to Ma Yi this year, specifically so he could pull off one grand trade: exchanging everything for over a thousand high-quality horses from the Baima Di, the largest of the Di tribes.

It was a massive deal. Even the Baima Di tribe had struggled to process it, having haggled with Ma Yi for over half a year before finally setting the date for the last few days. The two tribesmen Jiang Guang had killed earlier today were the envoys from the Baima Di who had come to finalize the trade. Because they had just arrived that morning, Ma Yi had treated them to a full day of wining, dining, and singing, leaving them completely incapacitated.

Furthermore, the decrease in refugees that Li Fu had mentioned was also Ma Yi’s doing. This "flowery pillow" had rounded up all the refugees, telling them to believe in the Wu-Shi Cult and that they could be full just by breathing the air. After brainwashing them with his doctrine for two days, he bound them up, intending to sell some as slaves to the tribes and use the rest as fodder for his "rebel army."

In reality, this army was useless. The refugees were starving and half-naked; at most, they could create a bit of chaos, but it made for an impressive headcount. To Ma Yi, that was enough.

He reported this as a major political achievement. A few days prior, the Great Teacher had even sent an emissary to praise him as a man of great virtue. Upon the emissary's arrival, Ma Yi had treated him with the utmost care, gifting him vast amounts of gold and jewelry, which delighted the man. Even though the emissary saw that Ma Yi’s "army" in Liangzhou was pathetic, it didn't stop him from singing Ma Yi’s praises to the Great Teacher upon his return.

After that, Ma Yi became the model Little Teacher. The cult even wrote an article praising him and circulated it everywhere. When the article arrived, Ma Yi had even copied it down to carry with him, reading it whenever he felt bored.

Yun-ge’s expression grew strange. To think there was someone who loved being praised even more than he did.

To save his own life, Ma Yi confessed everything, even producing the copied article to prove his sincerity.

"Truly nauseating," Yun-ge remarked after reading it. He suddenly felt that the praise he received from his father and Zheng Zuosheng was lacking, and he decided he would ask for it to be modeled after this article in the future. He handed the paper to Uncle Jiang, asking him to keep it safe.

"What about those Wu-Shi Envoys?" Yun-ge asked. The entire Wu-Shi Cult reeked of being a cross-provincial scam, but the Envoys were undeniably strange.

When Deng Qiang had first charged in, Ma Yi was surrounded by twenty burly men covered in shimmering gold paint. Deng Qiang, fearing an attack, had struck immediately, aiming to capture the leader first. To his surprise, the men hadn't reacted at all; they were still standing out there in the fields, shivering in the cold. Even though they were breathing and their bodies were warm and soft, they stood as motionless as tree stumps. Ma Yi had shouted that they were Wu-Shi Envoys and wouldn't move without his command.

Yun-ge thought this was far too mystical.

Having spilled his biggest secret, Ma Yi had nothing to hide about the Envoys and confessed immediately. The Envoys were recruited from men who were strong and had survived the battlefield, carrying the "evil energy" of slaughter. They were then made to believe in the cult and trained continuously while being fed the cult’s "Divine Pills." Over time, they became Wu-Shi Envoys—fearless, obedient, and devoid of their own will. They followed only the command of a specific object used during their training: a bell. Different sounds told them to be still, attack, or rest.

Speaking of this, Ma Yi was filled with regret. It was all that damn bear trap! When he fell, the bell he had been holding in his hand flew away. In the pitch-black night, he couldn't find it. The Envoys had simply frozen in place, and he had been captured by Deng Qiang without his "weapons."

Ma Yi was frustrated but dared not show it. Yun-ge glanced at Uncle Jiang, who immediately understood and headed out to find the bell.

Yun-ge thought to himself that the Wu-Shi Cult wasn't nearly as magical as it seemed. Those intimidating Envoys were just people who had been psychologically broken and chemically controlled, turned into puppets. Because they lacked fear, they appeared fearless, leading outsiders to mistake it for divine power.

After Jiang Guang left, Yun-ge asked Ma Yi how long it took to train one. This time, Ma Yi’s expression turned odd. He said the Great Teachers had taught the method, but he hadn't studied it seriously because he felt it was too much trouble. Instead, he relied on his gift for swindling to get them from other Little Teachers. The twenty-plus men outside were all bought or tricked. In fact, training one was very difficult; most other Little Teachers only had about a dozen as bodyguards. Ma Yi was the only one who had twenty-plus without even knowing how to make them himself.

Yun-ge was at a loss for words. Ma Yi was truly one of a kind. If he had entered the central government of the Liang Kingdom, he would have been a talent on par with the likes of Qin Hui or Tong Guan.

Before long, Uncle Jiang returned, not only with the bell but also with the headman and a few others from outside the village, along with four or five more captives.

"Yun-ge," Uncle Jiang said, handing him the copper bell. Yun-ge turned it over in his hands, curious. Ma Yi stared at the bell, his head pounding with bad luck and frustration. Since joining the Wu-Shi Cult, everything had gone smoothly for him, but today, it felt as if he had met his natural enemy—nothing was going right.

Yun-ge tucked the bell away and smiled. "Brother Ma, tell me, where are the grains, supplies, and refugees you traded for?"

Ma Yi had mentioned earlier that the Baima Di had just arrived, and both sides had left the goods in a neutral zone for inspection before the final exchange.

Ma Yi sighed. "They’re in a mountain hollow near Lengdixia Village. I have men guarding them; it’s easy to get to."

Under normal circumstances, Yun-ge would have been sleepy by now—a child's body couldn't handle such hours—but he was wide awake. He could have gone tomorrow, but he believed in finishing things today. Well, mostly, he wouldn't be able to sleep until his curiosity was satisfied.

"Let’s go. And Brother Ma, be a dear and tell your guards to surrender."

Jiang Guang and Le Dan’s eyes lit up at the mention of grain and horses. Every year when they came to Liangzhou, aside from Uncle Li visiting Li Fu, they were actually there to exchange grain for horses. The Central Plains were desperately short of horses.

On the path of rebellion, the Li family was just like the Wu-Shi Cult, constantly dreaming of changing the heavens and the earth. To rebel, one needed cavalry, and cavalry was expensive—mostly because of the horses. The tribes were excellent at raising horses, but whenever they traded, the stallions were castrated, and the mares were confirmed to be non-pregnant. They strictly cut off the spread of superior bloodlines to those they traded with.

Hearing that the horses were in a valley only half a day’s journey from Lengdixia Village, Jiang Guang was undeniably tempted. But he quickly calmed himself. Ma Yi was a charlatan, but the Baima Di were not. With so many horses involved, the tribe would certainly have sent a large number of soldiers. If they ran into real, hardened tribal warriors, their small group wouldn't be enough.

However, they could definitely go and take a look at Ma Yi's grain.