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墨書 Inktalez
Lin Dahe did not rush to exchange the items; instead, he carefully pulled out a cloth bag from his pocket and gently dug into the soft soil around the plant's roots. The damp clumps of earth crumbled at his touch, revealing four or five tubers the size of pigeon eggs beneath. These wild potatoes were much smaller than modern varieties, their skins showing an unhealthy greenish hue.
"The solanine content might be excessive..." He scratched the skin with his nail, hesitating whether to harvest them. Suddenly, a gong sounded in the distance, and the hoarse voice of the night watchman echoed through the darkness: "The weather is dry—be careful with fire—"
The brightness of the torchlight was too conspicuous in the graveyard. Lin Dahe quickly extinguished his torch and lay still in the grass. The sound of the gong grew closer, and the watchman's lantern swayed twenty paces away, threatening to illuminate his hiding spot.
"Crack!"
A dry twig snapped under his knee. The watchman's lantern swung sharply in his direction: "Who’s there?!"
Lin Dahe's heart raced like a drum. He grabbed the freshly dug potatoes and was about to flee when he was suddenly knocked off balance by a shadow that sprang out from behind a grave mound. The cloth bag slipped from his grasp, and the potatoes rolled across the ground.
"Thief! Tomb robber!" The watchman shouted, his voice piercing as he banged on a gong.
Lin Dahe had no time to collect the potatoes; he scrambled down the hillside. The footsteps behind him multiplied, and the torchlight merged into a blinding glare. In his panic, he tripped over a tree root and fell headlong into a stinking ditch.
"There he is!"
A dozen torches instantly surrounded him. Lin Dahe wiped the mud from his face and saw that over twenty villagers had gathered behind the watchman, some wielding pitchforks while others held makeshift weapons. At the front stood an old man with a white beard—identified by the system as the village's Seventh Uncle—who pointed his cane at Lin Dahe's nose and scolded:
"Heartless wretch! You dare to dig up our ancestors' graves!"
In a moment of desperation, Lin Dahe grabbed a yellow-flowered plant growing by the ditch: "It's a misunderstanding! I'm here to gather herbs to save lives!"
The crowd fell silent for an instant before erupting into louder chaos.
"Nonsense! Can grass from a grave cure illness?"
"Look at him, all bulging in his clothes; he must have found something for burial!"
"Take him to court! He must be punished!"
Lin Dahe was sweating profusely, suddenly spotting an elderly man on the outskirts of the crowd carrying a medicine box. He lunged forward and grabbed the man's sleeve: "Doctor Li! Can you tell if this is Artemisia annua for treating malaria?"
The old man recoiled two steps from Lin Dahe's foul odor, squinting at him: "It does appear to be Artemisia..."
"I knew it!" Lin Dahe quickly climbed onto that opportunity, "Isn't Aunt Wang's second son suffering from high fever? I came all night looking for medicine!"
Seventh Uncle approached skeptically but suddenly frowned: "Then what do you have hidden in your clothes?"
Lin Dahe cursed inwardly; two potatoes he had concealed were now digging painfully into his ribs. Just as he stammered for an answer, a clear female voice rang out from afar:
"Make way! Li Zheng is coming!"
The crowd parted to make way for Li Zheng, who rode in on a donkey with a grim expression. After listening to Seventh Uncle's account, he fixed Lin Dahe with a cold smile: "A scholar? More like someone who has read himself into foolishness!" He turned to the villagers and barked: "Everyone disperse! Tomorrow I will personally take him to the county office!"
Lin Dahe was locked in the woodshed of the ancestral hall, listening to the sound of the door being secured outside. Frustrated, he pounded on the pile of straw. Moonlight seeped through the cracks in the window, illuminating the two potatoes he had hidden in the soles of his shoes. Suddenly, a new message from the system popped up: [Crisis Management Performance Rating: C, Reward Delayed].
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