Chapter 240 Breakup
The two looked a little embarrassed, but still clasped their fists and said, "I am Zhang Ning."

"My name is Li Ji."

"Young Taoist priest, we were ordered to come here to guard the evil spirits in the desolate graves. The Wulin Alliance instructed us to trap this group of people in the white fog and not let them out before dawn tomorrow. Everything was going well until you suddenly showed up and fought with them, which led to this result."

Pan Yun sneered, "You are quite well prepared. You knew they were preparing a human sacrifice, and you deliberately made the vengeful spirits angry and magnified their abilities, so that the human sacrifice they prepared would not be enough to break the fog."

"It's a pity that they lack everything except people. They sacrificed nine lives. If they can't break through the fog, do you think they will kill a few Green Guards to make up the number?"

Pan Yun turned around and asked Zhu Zixun: "Zhu Zixun, you have followed Song Bei for the longest time. Has there never been a case of a Qingyi Guard dying in the thick fog before?"

Zhu Zixun's face changed drastically, his breathing became rapid, and he couldn't help but defend Song Bei, "It was those evil spirits who were causing trouble. How can you put the blame on us?"

Pan Yun sneered, "If my guess is correct, every time the caravan returns, it will bring a large number of merchants and travelers with it, under the pretext of providing them with free shelter, but every time you will select some people from them and trick them into following the caravan. And these people, without exception, all died in the thick fog, right?"

"Zhu Zixun, do you really not know what they are doing, or are you just turning a blind eye and a deaf ear?" Pan Yun pressed on, "Since they are willing to sacrifice human lives in order to break the fog, why don't you think about where they will find people to fill the gap if the number of sacrifices is not enough?"

"You've followed him for so many years. Have you ever had a single incident where the Gray Guards died but not the Green Guards? Is it that our Green Guards' martial arts are not as good as the Japanese, or are we just so unlucky that every time there are not enough human sacrifices, it's the Green Guards that are bewitched and dragged away by the vengeful spirits?"

As soon as these words came out, not only did the faces of the standing Qingyi Guards change drastically, but even the Qingyi Guards lying down also turned pale. Some of them tried to get up despite their injuries, staring at Song Bei with wide eyes, "Boss, is what she said true?"

Song Bei was completely naked at this time, with nothing on his body except a piece of cloth.

He neither admitted nor denied it, but directly asked them, "Your family members are all on the island right now. Since you followed me, have I ever treated you badly for a single day? Now, just because an unknown person is trying to sow discord between you, do you believe her?"

"How can there be no casualties when escorting a caravan?" Song Bei said, "But I have taken good care of the families of the brothers who died."

"They could have lived. If they had lived, their families would have lived a better life," Pan Yun said coldly, "So, it's not you who's taking care of them, but you're depriving them of a better, happier life."

The blue-clothed guards, whose eyes had softened, immediately became firm and looked at Song Bei, "Brother, you are Japanese, why did you lie to us that you are Han?"

Song Bei: "What is the difference between the Japanese and the Han people?"

He shouted, "Aren't we all human? Aren't we all forced to become bandits? Are we still divided into high and low?"

"Of course!" The Blue Guard said loudly, "We are Han Chinese, and you are Japanese, so we are different."

"There are also Miao people on the island. Aren't they different?"

"That's different," the Qingyi Guard said with a sullen face, "No matter what nationality he is, he is from the Ming Dynasty, but you are not from the Ming Dynasty."

Song Bei sneered, "Yesterday you even persuaded me to rebel against the court. You don't care about the Ming Dynasty at all, but now you use the Ming Dynasty to divide the inner and outer worlds. In the final analysis, you are greedy for profit and forget your loyalty. You know that I can't beat Sanzhu now, so you gave up on me and chose to surrender to her."

The Qingyi Guards had never thought about it this way, but when Song Bei mentioned it, it seemed as if they really thought so. Their faces suddenly turned red and they didn't know how to refute.

Pan Yun said quietly: "Brother, is it possible that you are distinguishing between the descendants of Yan and Huang and the Japanese? In my country, no matter what ethnicity they are, they are all descendants of Yan and Huang, that is, we are one family, and they,"

Pan Yun pointed at Song Bei and the man in gray and said, "They are aliens. They are not of our race, so their hearts must be different!"

The Qingyi Guard nodded immediately, "Yes, yes, that's what I mean. If you say you are Japanese, we will definitely not associate with you, and we will not send our families to the island."

Song Bei looked at them with disappointment, "So that's how you think of me. All these years, I've been nice to you for nothing. There are quite a few Japanese on the island, including in the caravan. Brothers, who doesn't know that the ones who follow me around are Japanese?"

"You can accept them, why can't you accept me?"

The Qingyiwei opened his mouth, but didn't know what to say.

"Because we accepted them for your sake," Ah Xin staggered to his feet and looked at Song Bei with red eyes, "The Japanese are different from us!"

He stepped forward with his knife in hand, tears almost spilling from his eyes. "We are pirates. We only rob merchant ships and wealthy families on the shore. We only rob things, not people."

He said word by word: "But the Japanese pirates are not like that. They will rob everyone, no matter if they are rich or poor. They will kill everyone they see because it's fun. They will also rape our mothers and sisters and take them away. We will never see them again in this life..."

"I hate Japanese pirates, it's you!" Ashin gritted his teeth and said, "You said they were just wanderers who had just come to sea, they had never been pirates, and they had never committed these crimes, so we accepted them!"

"You lied to me, you lied to us!" Two lines of tears fell from his eyes like strings, but he still stared at Song Bei with wide eyes, "I treated you as my own brother, but you turned out to be a Japanese, you turned out to be a Japanese!"

The eyes of the other Green-robed Guards were also red. They were all bandits who had escaped from the coastal fishing villages.

But they didn't start out as pirates.

I came out because I couldn't survive anymore. Why couldn't I survive anymore?
Some were simply exploited by landlords and government officials. No matter how much land they cultivated or how hard they worked, they could not support themselves and their families in the end, so they had to flee and eventually became pirates.
Others were able to farm well and barely support themselves and their families, but they always encountered pirates and finally had to become pirates themselves.

So they have their own set of rules, which is not to rob poor people, only to rob their money, not to kill people, and certainly not to commit adultery.

The number of robberies these people have participated in can be counted on one hand. They mainly use the money to go inland to buy various contraband items.

Daily necessities such as salt and tea;

Weapons include knives, swords, muskets, gunpowder, etc.

They have cannons on their island, which were stolen from merchant ships going out to sea.

Anyway, they are in charge of logistics.

Ashin always thought they were righteous pirates.

After all, the merchant ships that could sail on the sea either belonged to the imperial court and the royal family, or to the garrison and the dignitaries who were in collusion with them.

These people, one by one, would not feel guilty no matter who they robbed.

As a result, the northern part of Song was inhabited by Japanese.

Then...what about those people standing behind Song Bei? What about the people on the other island?
All the hard work they have done over the years has gone into the pockets of the Japanese...

Just thinking about this possibility, Ashin felt cold all over. The other men in green also looked at Song Bei coldly, with no trace of affection in their eyes.

Zhu Zixun couldn't understand them and said in disbelief: "But he paid the money, he hired us..."

Pan Jun thought he was so annoying, so she condensed her energy and hit him directly on the acupuncture point on his neck. Zhu Zixun rolled his eyes and fell to the ground with a thud.

Seeing that they had finished their quarrel, Zhang Ning immediately said, "Now that we have finished talking, can we go and save people?"

Pan Jun glanced at them and said nonchalantly, "Why are you so anxious? Zhang Weiqin is at least a fourth-year student of Longhu Mountain. Even if he is not very good at learning, he is still capable of surviving this resentment. No matter how bad other students are, they always have a talisman on them, right?"

Zhang Ning was sweating profusely and said hurriedly, "But the three fellow martial artists who disappeared together, they don't know any mystical arts, and they don't have any amulets."

Pan Yun: "What's the big deal? If he dies, he dies. Just think of it as feeding the ghost."

Zhang Ning and Li Ji's faces changed. Li Ji said angrily, "How can you say that? Those are three lives. Do you Taoists in Longhu Mountain treat human lives as worthless?"

"Isn't it good to treat human life as worthless?"

"Of course it's not good," Li Ji said excitedly, "If people regard the lives of their own kind as worthless, what's the difference between them and animals?"

"So you also know that you are like animals?" Pan Yun's eyes were as cold as a knife. "You are indifferent to the lives of nine people, but you are anxious about the lives of three people. Why do you still distinguish between high and low lives?"

Zhang Ning and Li Ji knew that she was referring to the nine people who escaped, and they indeed did not intend to stop them at that time.

When a person came in at this moment, he was suddenly ashamed and embarrassed, and was speechless for a while.

Pan Yun then snorted, collected the formation plate beside Zhang Weiliang, and said coldly: "Tie up all the people and move the bodies here. It won't be difficult to rescue them. Don't we have a ready-made human sacrifice?"

Those who were standing took a step back in fear, and those who were lying down also had horror in their eyes.

Pan Yun waved at them and said, "Don't worry, you are not Japanese. Although pirates are hateful, I will not kill them easily."

Everyone:...

It seems that Taoist Sanzhu is not as honest as they imagined.

Most of the people lying on the ground were her creations, and she actually said that she would not kill easily?
Hu Jing and Su Ying looked at each other and said hurriedly, "There's no need for us to tie him up. You see, we haven't done anything since you stripped him naked."

Pan Yun's face turned black, and he shouted, "It's okay if you don't tie me up, but you two can let me press my acupuncture points. You two have learned from the past. What if you kidnap Young Master Zhang from Mount Longhu and threaten me?"

Miaozhenmiaohe nodded repeatedly.

　see you tomorrow
　　(End of this chapter)