Chen Ji sat on Zhaolei's back, looking down at the graying Fang Zhongqing, with a sincere expression tinged with a hint of worry and anxiety about the future.
All the villages and towns around Guangling County were dominated by the Fang, Li, and Wang families, either as clan relatives or by marriage ties.
The grievances among the three families had a long history. Jiang Chai didn't even need to deliberately inquire upon arriving in Guangling County. Just sitting in a teahouse for half a day, he could hear a lot: "There are only a few scholars in the county school who can receive grain, and every time the Imperial Examination year comes, the three families fight fiercely for them."
"The year before last, during the great drought, the Wang family blocked the dam upstream, and the Li family drew lots for life and death in the ancestral hall to open the dam. In one month, the two families killed more than forty people."
