It's late at night, the moon is waxing, and the streets are quiet.
From time to time, there are several thin gray shadows running quickly close to the ground.
Some crawl into the holes at the base of the wall, or walk along the wall and invade the window lattice on the wall. Occasionally, they make tiny squeaking sounds, and carry out a night-long plan to steal food.
Luzhou County has the Yangtze River flowing through it and is located at the junction of Sichuan, Guizhou and Chongqing. It is a rare and wealthy county in Shu.
It is said that rats disappear because of the lack of food, and dogs sleep bravely because the family is poor. Most of the households in the county are well fed and have no worries, so rats are often infested.
No matter how wide the coverage of the sun, there will always be the shadow of the gutter, and many dirty and dirty things are hidden in it.
After eating a bowl of noodles in Niuxin Village, Jiang Yichen settled in Luzhou County that night.
For three days, he spent his mornings on the inn bed.
At night, under the cover of darkness and relying on General Black's foot power, he went more than ten miles away to kill repeatedly.
Three months ago, of the thirteen people who forced him into despair and jumped off the Yin-Yang Bridge, only three of them are still alive.
Ironically, the number of people who died at the hands of Jiang Yichen in three days was only eighteen from the five factions, but there were rumors in the world of eight gangs and thirty people.
Jiang Yichen will naturally take the blame for those extra scapegoats.
Gang leaders such as Ziyexuan died unexpectedly, and all of them fell into disarray. They either found other places to rely on, or scraped together to build new sects. Taking advantage of the turmoil of the killer Ye Xiao, the martial arts pattern in Sichuan and Guizhou quietly changed.
A lot of changes have taken place.
Jiang Yichen, who saw everything in his eyes, could not tell whether the changes were good or bad, but the day of his departure was undoubtedly getting closer.
The reason why he has used Luzhou County as his base these days, hiding day and night, is to solve a mystery for the squatter, apart from the safety considerations of darkness under the lamp.
A question that arose after eating Changwang Noodles three days ago.
——Where do the almshouses in various counties get the funds and manpower to feed and control the supposedly large group of beggars?
This doubt can be divided into three types.
Where have the beggars on the street gone?
What is the real reason why the Beggar Gang, which used to be so powerful, has declined to such a low reputation now?
What role does the almshouse play in this?
Every afternoon, Jiang Yichen took these three questions to the nursing home in Luzhou County to find out.
In order to flaunt their benevolent rule, the successive dynasties of Zhongzhou have introduced corresponding relief policies and specific measures to arrange care for homeless people and beggars in the country. The measures of each generation are varied and not the same, but they have indeed provided great help to the people who have passed the time and have left no room for them.
Few people survived hunger and cold winter.
By the time of the Zhu family's reign, the nursing home system had become relatively mature, and ordinary people who were lonely, disabled, sick, and unable to survive were allowed to be admitted to the hospital.
In order to ensure the implementation of the welfare policy, the Zhongzhou Code even stipulates: "Anyone who is widowed, lonely or seriously ill, who is poor and has no relatives to rely on and cannot survive on his own, and who should be adopted in a lawsuit but is not, will be punished with sixty sticks; if he should be given food and clothing, he will be punished."
Those who take advantage of the officials and detract from them are said to be stealing from the guards."
As for those lazy people who still have the ability to take care of themselves, the Almshouse takes care of their food, clothing, housing, and transportation, and they need to work and contribute to the Almshouse. Those who really change their bad habits will be allowed to leave the hospital and find a job. Those who do not change after repeated admonitions will be in prison for a long time.
Even with such a system, it still cannot fundamentally solve the problem of beggars.
The number of beggars in Zhongzhou has never declined sharply, so the beggar gang has been prosperous for a long time.
After wars and catastrophes, the number of beggars is increasing.
But since the foreign disaster 20 years ago, when the imperial court was short of funds and could not guarantee the supply of almshouses, there were fewer and fewer beggars in the streets and alleys.
Are people's lives getting richer?
impossible!
So how come there are fewer and fewer beggars?!
Today's beggars' gangs exist in name only, and their appeal to beggars is not as attractive as before.
There are thousands of gangs in Kyushu all over the world. It can be partly absorbed by personal qualifications and abilities, but it is difficult to greatly reduce the number of beggars.
The only one who might be able to take in these beggars in large numbers or control them is the Almshouse.
The people behind the Yangtze Yuan were either the imperial court itself or the people behind the scenes who had the ability to use the imperial court's resources.
There are not very strict security measures in the almshouse.
At least Jiang Yichen can still come and go freely in the almshouse in Luzhou County under the blue sky and white sun without anyone noticing.
He squatted in the study room and rummaged through the Almshouse's "Personnel Registration Book", "Servant Registration Book", "Food Purchase Book", "Supplies Purchase Book" and other information record books one by one.
I have observed the daily activities of the officials and interns in the hospital.
The intention is to discover the clues and discover the truth behind it.
But things went against expectations, and for three whole days, nothing was achieved.
Today is the fourth day and the fourth night.
He can stay for two days.
If there is no more gain, he will leave.
In the past few days, his contact with the Anbu of the Justice League has not been broken.
The situation in the northeast is said to be tense.
The next confrontation between Zhongzhou and Wala after twenty years is about to begin.
However, it remains to be seen whether this confrontation is a bloody battle with real swords and guns, or a stage show used by conspirators to disrupt the audio-visual fabric.
The Yuluo tribe killed many of the stragglers in the North, but not all of the dead were Walas.
The large increase in merchant ships along the southeast coast has been confirmed to be the action of the Red Cult. It can be determined that those merchant ships did not bring many people with them, but the large amount of foreign goods obviously had a big impact on the trade along the coast and inland of Zhongzhou.
It is unknown whether there is any other secret hidden in it.
The old man's side is short of manpower.
Jiang Yichen now has enough ability to explore the southeastern coastal areas.
…
…
Squeak!
A mouse seemed to suddenly notice the figure following behind it, and it hurriedly passed through the gap in the gate of the house and disappeared at the entrance of the almshouse.
In fact, this mouse wronged Jiang Yichen.
Precisely because he found nothing during the day, every night in the dead of night, as long as he still had time to finish killing people, Jiang Yichen would come over and watch to see if the almshouse would reveal its true form at night.
But judging from the observations of the past few nights, everything was just Jiang Yichen's whim.
Seeing the little mouse disappearing through the crack of the door, Jiang Yichen lost consciousness for a while.
It took a while to calm down.
The little mouse can pass through the door, but he cannot.
But just as he was about to climb over the wall, the creaking sound sounded again!
Jiang Yichen's heart tightened.
The voice seemed to be that of the little mouse that had just entered the courtyard in front of him.
Sure enough, a moment later, the little gray figure emerged from the same gap again.
Seeing that the man who had been following him was still standing at the door, the little mouse's tail stood up, its hair stood on end, and it shivered.
Without a breath, the little mouse fell straight to the ground. I don't know if it was deliberately pretending to be dead, or it was frightened and fainted.
The door of the almshouse has never been moved.
The person outside the door who wanted to go in did not go in.
The person inside the door who wanted to sneak out slipped out instead.
Anyone who sneaks out will never take the main entrance.
Jiang Yichen did some searching before he found the traces of the sneaky man and chased him.
Not long after, Jiang Yichen came within ten feet of him.
He didn't come any closer and used some Qi to open his eyes to confirm the situation.
He was a thin, middle-aged beggar. Jiang Yichen remembered that he came to the almshouse to receive relief yesterday afternoon.
He also observed the beggar carefully and found nothing fishy.
It had only been one day, but he couldn't stand the meager food in the nursing home and went out to eat meat for himself at night?
Jiang Yichen sniffed the aroma of roasted chicken in the air, his stomach rumbled dissatisfiedly, but he stepped closer to him confidently.
When he saw the thin beggar enjoying his meal, he couldn't help but swallow his saliva.
When he saw the beggar taking out an egg from his arms and smashing it open, an idea flashed in his mind and he was able to determine the identity of this person!