Transmigrating to the Qi Family - Chapter 153

Pei Che spends two days gathering all the missing persons cases from the past seven years and begins compiling the statistics.

The results are shocking. Pei Che is surprised to find that over the past seven years, the total number of missing people across all counties in Cangzhou has reached several hundred.

Among them, about seventy or eighty are men between the ages of twenty and forty. Then there are young children, young women, and the elderly. Some of these people, after going missing, are quickly found dead, and the cases are closed. Others are suspected to have been trafficked, but the authorities can’t find any leads, so the cases remain unsolved in the government office.

However, for those seventy or eighty missing men, only a few have had their bodies found. The rest are almost exclusively marked by bloodied clothing or personal items. Since most of their disappearances occur in the deep mountains, the authorities close the cases, assuming that wild animals are responsible for the deaths.

When Pei Che shares the results with Jiang Miao, Jiang Miao is also greatly shocked. “So, you’re saying that more than seventy people have gone missing without a trace? Didn’t anyone in the government office suspect anything before?”

“The missing people are spread out across various counties, and each county has its own towns and villages. Take Tuyan Village, for example. Over the past seven years, only two people have gone missing there, which wasn’t enough to raise suspicion among the authorities. Moreover, most of these missing persons cases are directly closed by the local government offices. Every month, they handle many cases, and unless it involves something like a murder, most of these cases aren’t revisited,” Pei Che explains, not trying to make excuses for those involved, but simply stating the facts. If it hadn’t been for Zhang Quan’s words, he wouldn’t have gone back to review these closed cases.

However, the local officers are indeed not vigilant enough. Some cases that clearly have issues are hastily closed to save time, allowing many leads to be overlooked.

Jiang Miao sighs. “If someone is manipulating this behind the scenes, they must be really devious, carefully spreading out the disappearances and controlling the numbers. What are they trying to do?”

Pei Che shakes his head. “That’s what I want to know too. But one thing is certain: these cases are definitely unusual. The top priority now is to gather more people and head to Tuyan Village to see if we can uncover any clues.”

“Alright! Go ahead; I’ll come with you. You all head up the mountain, and I’ll go cultivate the tea trees,” Jiang Miao says. He’s not very skilled or particularly agile on the mountain. Rather than being a hindrance, it’s better for him to stay below and wait for them.

Pei Che breathes a sigh of relief. He had just been thinking about how to persuade Ah Miao not to go up the mountain. Although Zhang Quan has said there are no large wild animals on the mountain and that his father had been captured, all of this is just speculation. If a large wild animal suddenly appears and Ah Miao gets injured in the chaos, it would be a great loss for him.

Pei Che selects fifty yamen runners to accompany him, along with four guards from the Duke’s residence. Although there are only four of them, they’re strong enough to take on dozens.

The group sets off toward Tuyan Village in a grand procession. When they reach the village entrance, the villagers, who have come out to watch the commotion, are almost frightened to their knees. Village head Huang hurries over from his home, sweating profusely despite the cool autumn weather.

“Your… my lord, what brings you here?” Village head Huang stammers, fearing that someone in the village has committed a crime and implicated everyone.

Jiang Miao and Pei Che lift the curtains of the carriage and get out. Jiang Miao says, “Village head Huang, there’s no need to worry. We’ve come to go into the deep mountains to see if we can find any tea trees.”

Upon seeing him, Village Head Huang breathes a sigh of relief but can’t help trying to dissuade them. “Ah, it’s you, Master Jiang! But the deep mountains are not a place you should go. What Quan said that day was all nonsense; please don’t believe it!”

“It’s fine. We have enough people with us today, and even if a bear or wild animal shows up, we won’t be afraid,” Jiang Miao says with a smile.

Suddenly, someone emerges from the crowd—it’s Zhang Quan, the very person Village Head Huang just mentioned. He approaches excitedly and says, “My lord, let me guide you! I can find the place where my father disappeared years ago!”

Jiang Miao shakes his head. “They’ll handle the mountain. You stay here and wait for news. If anything happens, we’ll inform you.” To Jiang Miao, Zhang Quan is just a middle schooler—how could he let him take risks on the mountain?

“Please, my lord, take me with you! I can guide you. I’m very familiar with the path!” Zhang Quan suddenly drops to his knees, catching Jiang Miao off guard. Jiang Miao almost kneels too as he rushes over to help him up, but Zhang Quan refuses to rise, insisting that he won’t get up unless they agree to take him along.

“Alright, get up. If you want to come, then come along,” Jiang Miao says helplessly, giving Pei Che a look to signal him to take care of the boy.

Pei Che nods in agreement, and the group heads toward the back mountain.

After passing a gentle slope where tea trees are planted, they walk a little further and enter the deeper mountains. Zhang Quan is visibly excited, frequently turning around to point out the path to Pei Che and the others.

After walking for about half an hour, Zhang Quan points to a spot ahead and says quietly, “This is where they found my father’s clothes back then.”

Pei Che waves his hand, and the group immediately disperses to search the area. Pei Che himself follows Zhang Quan toward a shallow pit up ahead.

It has been three years since Zhang Da disappeared, and the area has been battered by countless winds, sun, frost, and rain, leaving no visible traces.

Pei Che carefully searches around and notices what seems like a carved mark on a nearby tree. He crouches down to examine it; it’s a simple symbol, somewhat resembling the top radical of the Chinese character for “grass,” with an extra vertical line in the middle. This doesn’t seem accidental. But what could the mark mean?

(Translator’s Notes: grass Character (草))

As Pei Che ponders, Zhang Quan glances over and walks up, saying, “Sir, you noticed it too, right? My father carved this—it represents our house’s yard.”

“Yard?” Pei Che finally understands that the mark symbolizes the family’s fence. “Did your father have a habit of leaving secret codes?”

“Yes, he did. My father was a woodcutter, and he often foraged for wild goods while chopping wood. But in the deep mountains, with tall trees and thick grass, it’s easy to lose your sense of direction and get lost. So my father would carve signals on prominent trees to find his way back,” Zhang Quan explains.

“Did he always use this type of mark?” Pei Che asks, touching the carving.

Zhang Quan shakes his head. “No. Every time he went to the mountains, he’d ask me to think up a different mark for him. That day, he told me he was going to look for Uncle San, and I was worried he’d also be dragged away by wild animals. I wanted him to come back soon, so I told him to carve our yard as a sign, hoping it would remind him of home. I never thought…” His eyes redden, and just as tears are about to fall, he harshly wipes them away with the back of his hand.

“So, you followed these marks until you reached this point but didn’t find your father. When you returned and reported it to the authorities, you brought them here and found the bloodied clothes,” Pei Che summarizes.

Zhang Quan nods. “My father didn’t come back that night, and I was really worried. The next day, when my mother went to find the village head, I secretly went up the mountain. Uncle San disappeared around this area, so I headed straight to this part of the mountain. I found my father’s marks on the trees and followed them all the way here, but after reaching this spot, there were no more signs.”

“So, your father likely disappeared somewhere around here. And it seems that someone was watching your village, waiting for you to report the incident before planting the blood-stained clothing to make it look like he’d been attacked by wild animals,” Pei Che concludes.

Pei Che finishes speaking, but he’s still puzzled. If their goal is to capture people, why release blood-stained clothes to frighten the villagers, making them afraid to go up the mountain? And if the purpose is to conceal some secret in the mountains, why not just kill the people directly instead of creating a mystery that would draw the government’s attention?

“Sir, we searched the surrounding area but didn’t find anything, and there’s no sign of anyone living nearby,” reports a head constable, interrupting Pei Che’s thoughts.

Pei Che waits, and soon the others return with similar findings, saying they’ve found nothing. 

Sighing, Pei Che announces they’ll move on to the next location.

Zhang Quan leads the way; their next stop is where he previously discovered footprints, about four li (roughly 1.2 miles) from the place where his father disappeared.

After a fifteen-minute walk, they arrive at the location Zhang Quan described. 

Pei Che takes one look and understands why footprints were left here. There’s a mountain stream nearby, and when it rains, the water rises and floods the surrounding area. Plants don’t grow well in these frequently submerged spots, leaving bare patches of muddy ground that easily retain footprints after the rain.

“Where exactly did you see the footprints, and which direction were they headed?” Pei Che asks.

Zhang Quan recalls the scene, then walks over to point it out. “Here, here, and here—there were footprints, all pointing forward. But they disappeared around here.”

Pei Che looks at the patch of weeds at the end of the trail. After stepping onto the grass, the footprints vanish, leaving their path a mystery. Scanning the vast mountains, Pei Che feels as if hidden eyes are watching them from every corner.

…

When Pei Che and his group return, Jiang Miao is busy in a warm house in Tuyan Village, carefully pressing thick branches of transplanted tea trees into the soil. This step isn’t easy; he has to ensure the branches don’t snap when pressed into the ground, and he also has to bury them in a way that keeps them from springing back. These branches are flexible, and after a few failed attempts, Jiang Miao finally decides to weigh them down. After securing the tea trees in one area, he moves to another, planting thick cuttings in pre-dug, fertilized pits, then covering them with soil, watering, and patiently waiting for them to take root.

“Tomorrow morning, go up to the roof and remove the grass mats so the sun can come through,” Jiang Miao instructs those staying in the area. When this house was built, Jiang Miao arranged for gaps in the tiled roof, covered with grass mats, so that they can be pulled back to let sunlight in for the plants below.

Back then, Village Chief Huang hadn’t understood, wondering if this setup would lead to leaks on rainy days. But after seeing Jiang Miao transport soil and trees inside, he had nothing more to say.

Someone who builds an entire house just for a few trees certainly doesn’t mind a few leaks; they probably hope for them! 

Poor farmers, thinks the village chief——first, they couldn’t compete with the big households’ livestock, and now even their homes couldn’t compare to a few trees. Who knows what heaven is thinking, letting these strange people earn all the money!