“It’s not that serious. It’s nothing more than those peddlers and merchants making a fuss, trying to stir up some trouble to force Constantine to make concessions.” Philip Brooks saw through these matters quite clearly.

In ordinary places, it wouldn’t matter, but Linqing City is one of the most important locations in Shandong. The Ministry of Revenue has a customs office and a granary for canal grain here. If trouble breaks out, there will surely be endless bureaucratic wrangling.

The scholar-officials of the Great Zhou dynasty are not to be trifled with. Once the censors and remonstrators get riled up, it doesn’t matter who you are—you’ll be skinned alive.

That Constant, though greedy and despicable, is no fool. He naturally understands the stakes involved, so things shouldn’t get out of hand.

As for these merchants and peddlers, they’re acting a bit strangely. Normally, they wouldn’t dare go this far. But since it doesn’t concern him, Philip Brooks can’t be bothered to interfere. After all, there are still several hundred elite guards in Brick City, so nothing major should happen.

Brian Brooks also knew that the Uncle Philip his father had specially arranged to escort him back to their hometown was no ordinary person.

He and a few others had followed his father for many years, even changing their surnames to Feng. In reality, they had served as his father’s personal guards when he was stationed at Datong.

After years of life-and-death struggles with the Mongols on the frontier, when his father was dismissed from office, these old brothers who had followed him for so long returned to the capital with him.

At least the family still had a few estates outside Wanping, so they settled their families there. Life wasn’t exactly prosperous, but they could get by.

Philip Brooks and the others took turns staying at the General Shenwu’s residence in the capital, now serving as long-term attendants. They had some understanding of court affairs in the capital.

But some things are simply beyond ordinary people’s ability to predict.

“So, in Uncle Philip’s opinion, there’s nothing to worry about?” Brian Brooks was a bit concerned.

He knew he hadn’t been in this world for long. Although he had already absorbed the original memories and consciousness of this body, when it came to analyzing and judging outside affairs, he still couldn’t compare to someone like Philip Brooks, who had traveled far and wide for years.

However, Philip Brooks’s main duty in Datong had been to protect his father. Only after his father was dismissed and returned to the capital did he learn to serve as a long-term attendant, so his understanding of outside matters might not be that deep.

“Uh, Little Ethan, I can’t say for sure.” Philip Brooks’s stiff face showed little expression. Because of an old wound on his left cheek, only the right side of his face could move, and it twitched slightly.

“Anyway, we’ll be boarding the boat today, and by afternoon we’ll be heading north. Even if something happens, it’s nothing to fear. As for the old house, it’s right under the garrison’s nose. At the very least, they’ll want to save face. No one would dare provoke a tiger.”

“Let’s hope so.” Brian Brooks still felt uneasy. He always thought it was too strange that he had transmigrated into this alternate Great Zhou world that didn’t exist in history. It couldn’t be so easy for him to just live a carefree life as a rich young master.

Although his father had been dismissed, the title of General Shenwu remained. While it couldn’t compare to the highest nobility, at least he was a descendant of a meritorious family that had fought alongside the founding emperor.

By rights, as the only legitimate son of the The Brooks Family, he should be living a life of multiple wives and concubines, eating and drinking without a care. Wasn’t this the very life he had longed for in his previous world when he was exhausted from work?

But could such a life really last? Brian Brooks had his doubts.

He hadn’t felt it in the capital, but on this trip back to his ancestral home in Shandong, he could sense the unrest everywhere.

Traveling south from Tongzhou by boat, Brian Brooks saw firsthand the hardships of life along the canal.

For the past decade or so, the canal region had suffered either drought or flood. The people were destitute. Every autumn after the harvest, large numbers of refugees would head north or south. In winter, the frozen and starving dead lined both banks of the river. This was what Brian Brooks learned from the boatmen during their journey south.

Every year, the stewards of the great families in the capital would go to Cangzhou and Dezhou to buy slaves. Many poor families would give up their children for nothing, just hoping to find them a way to survive.

In Cangzhou, private salt smugglers even colluded with local refugees to openly rob government salt. At the end of last year, they even resorted to violence. It took the intervention of the garrison troops to barely suppress the chaos.

In that battle, heads rolled. Dozens of heads were hung on the city walls of Cangzhou, left swaying in wooden cages until maggots had picked the flesh clean.

A few days ago, when Brian Brooks and his party traveled south from Tongzhou and passed through Cangzhou, they could still see the grisly heads hanging in wooden cages under the battlements. The dark, empty eye sockets sent chills down their spines.

Philip Brooks’s cheek twitched, the corner of his mouth lifted, and his stubbly jaw moved slightly. He glanced at Little Ethan, who was still looking around. He felt that this young master, who used to be rather rough and boisterous, had become more meticulous and calculating.

In the past, he would never have asked so many questions about such matters—he would have just kept his head down and moved on. If he asked anything, it would have been about the interesting things on Linqing’s streets: lion cats, thrushes—those were Little Ethan’s old favorites. Who cared about serious business like this?

Could it be that a few months of studying at the Imperial Academy had really made him more ambitious?

“Nathaniel.”