Chapter 81: Confrontation (2)

Chapter 81: Confrontation (2)

Before Shao Hongzhen could speak, the mountain folk grew restless first.

Born and raised deep in the mountains, their minds had scarcely been exercised since birth, their instincts barely above those of animals.

They could not follow the bargaining between the two men—they only saw their revered Magistrate Shao, the object of their unwavering devotion, being cornered into a pale-faced panic by some cocky young punk.

A fierce mountain man charged forward, intent on teaching this fair-faced youngster a lesson: "Damn your ancestors!"

He raised a hand as big as a shovel and swung it hard.

With a sharp crack, he landed a solid blow on the man before him.

But the next instant, the mountain man's swagger evaporated—he stood there, stunned stiff.

...Magistrate Shao had lunged forward, shielding Le Wuya with his own body.

His tidy official cap was sent flying by that vicious slap, his hair tumbling loose, and his glasses went spinning off as well, landing among a clump of bushes with hairline cracks spreading across the lenses.

The hulking mountain man stood dumbstruck, fumbling around for a second before dropping to his knees and slapping his own face twice with his big hands.

He could not muster any fine words—just two streams of bitter tears rolling down his face.

Magistrate Shao brushed it off. Through the blur, he spun around and grabbed Le Wuya by the front of his robes.

His voice, even deliberately lowered, trembled with barely contained fear: "Talk is cheap—what proof do you have?"

Le Wuya pointed at Zhi Jie: "Check his belt, and you'll find it."

He had once taken the dragon pendant from Zhi Jie to intimidate Deputy Magistrate Sun, knowing it was tucked in a pouch at his waist.

Magistrate Shao hurried to Zhi Jie's side, dropped to his knees, and with trembling hands untied the pouch from his waist. He opened it, glanced inside, and all the color drained from his face in a flash.

He whirled around, staring at Le Wuya in disbelief: "Wen Ren! You knew damn well Xingtai was a powder keg—how dare you bring this man... bring him here?!"

Seeing his pupils dilate in shock and his composure crack, the knot in Le Wuya's throat finally started to ease.

He reached down, unhooked the blade from his belt, but did not take it up—instead letting it drop to the ground.

Thus unarmed, Le Wuya walked right through that bunch of fierce but simple mountain folk, under their hateful glares, and casually retrieved Shao Hongzhen's knocked-off glasses. He shook off the stray leaves, hefted them in his hand, rose to his feet, and advanced step by step toward Shao Hongzhen: "Wenfu still has time to worry about me? This fellow-official loyalty truly moves Ming Ke."

Le Wuya's tone was soft as a spring breeze, his demeanor looking completely harmless.

The mountain folk stirred restlessly—many were itching to stick a knife in Le Wuya's back, to teach this cocky little punk the price of offending their Magistrate Shao.

But they had not forgotten how Shao Hongzhen had just taken that slap for Le Wuya, and they feared that a rash move might wound their revered magistrate. So they hesitated, daring not to advance.

A crowd primed for a fight, yet stuck watching Le Wuya swagger up to Shao Hongzhen—the whole scene was a joke.

...As if Le Wuya, all by himself, had these dozens of men surrounded.

Le Wuya reached Shao Hongzhen, and copying his move, dropped to one knee, so they were eye to eye.

He held up the glasses and peered through the lenses at Shao Hongzhen's warped face.

His tone was honey-sweet, but every word was laced with poison: "Sorry, Wenfu, but you miscalculated. I'm the cheapest thing here. Kill me, and it won't matter one bit—my deputy back in Nanting would be thrilled if I never came back, so he can step into my shoes. But I'm telling you straight: you can't lay a finger on these three."

"If the Sixth Prince and his attendants, along with General Pei, can get down this mountain in one piece, then only one head's gonna roll—yours, plus the whole bunch of Xingtai officials."

Hearing him curse their Magistrate Shao with all those blades pointed at him, the mountain folk closed in again, all fired up.

But since Magistrate Shao wasn't saying anything, they didn't dare make a move, so it stayed a standoff.

With all those dagger stares on his back, Le Wuya couldn't be bothered to give them a single look. He kept his eyes locked on Shao Hongzhen and tilted his head with a smirk: "...But what if they all die?"

"Those two rotting sacks of flesh locked in Nanting's jail—by my reckoning, their withdrawal symptoms should be kicking in right about now."

"My most loyal man is keeping an eye on them. He's been around, and the second they start acting up, he'll definitely report it."

"And my deputy—slippery as an eel—won't touch the matter with a ten-foot pole. Faced with such an anomaly, he'll certainly kick it up to the Prefect."

"Back and forth, word will soon reach them that the Prefect's meeting has long since adjourned, yet we still haven't returned to Nanting."

Le Wuya paused, then lightly laid bare Shao Hongzhen's fear: "Magistrate Shao, this is something you cannot bury."

Moreover, along the way, Le Wuya had shaved his face, chatted with the local soldiers about their blades, asked about the road to Yin Family Village, and generally made a spectacle of himself—drawing the attention of no small number of traveling merchants.

The three of them were all striking in appearance, and for some time, these people would not easily forget their faces.

No matter how resourceful Shao Hongzhen was, he could not possibly seal every one of those mouths.

Unless, of course, he drove the merchants off the main road or silenced every potential witness.

But would that not contradict Magistrate Shao's cherished principle of benevolence toward the people?

"A little investigation, and they'll learn that the Sixth Prince and his party left the prefectural seat and headed straight for Yin Family Village in Xingtai County—and then vanished without a trace there." Le Wuya said smoothly. "Magistrate Shao, what a coincidence, wouldn't you say? General Dingyuan, the Second-Rank Official guarding the frontier, Pei Mingqi, also disappeared in Xingtai County around the same time as the Sixth Prince."

With that, he settled the glasses back onto Shao Hongzhen's face, respectfully straightening the frames: "Tell me, when the Son of Heaven in the capital learns of this, can Xingtai County hope for any good? A grown prince—hard-won to raise—and he vanishes in your Xingtai County?"

"Yin Family Village will be the first to face inquiry; they'll be turned inside out, no question."

"Even if you burned all this opium overnight, would it help? Could you leave not a single seed or leaf behind?"

"With the opium poppies coming into season, and you unable to deliver the goods—the Jing tribe, Annam, the Liao people—do you think they're pushovers? Will they spare you? Will they spare these villagers?"

Listening to Le Wuya, unhurried and methodical, seal off every path of survival for the people he loved, Shao Hongzhen's face shifted from pale to ashen, his lips trembling, unable to form a word.

Le Wuya was not done. He painted the grim picture with vivid relish:

"Oh, and those local soldiers you so carefully cultivated—can they withstand close scrutiny?"

"With no way out, they'll all flee back into the mountains and take up their old trades."

"How many of them have smoked opium? Do you know? Have you counted? Or did you let them do it, the better to control them, to make them serve you and your people of Xingtai?"

"Never mind—once they're in the mountains and cut off from their opium, they'll go madder than ever."

"The people of Yin Family Village, the villagers at the mountain's foot, the merchants on the road... even the folk in your Xingtai town—can they be protected? These soldiers come and go through your Xingtai daily; they know every path and byway by heart, don't they?"

"Magistrate Shao, you speak grandly here of your way of serving the people—but I'd love to see how you'll protect them from a pack of addicts and pipe-dreamers when the time comes."

Le Wuya's words grew lighter and quicker, carrying a bright, reckless excitement:

"And that's not all."

"Xingtai... no, not just Xingtai. Your Xingtai, my Nanting, our Yizhou—from now on, the Son of Heaven will have us in his sights for a long time to come. Prefect Lyu's post is certainly lost; as for you—exile or execution—and from then on, no good decree will ever be enacted in Yizhou again. All the people will simply endure, and beyond supplying grain to the border troops, they'll never again be regarded as human by the throne."

"'When the Son of Heaven is angered, a million corpses fall, blood flows for a thousand li...'"

Le Wuya paused here briefly, a faint smile curling at his lips: "Magistrate Shao, after ten years of diligent study, do you still recall in which essay you read that line?"

Shao Hongzhen's mind was shaken, his heart churning like a boiling pot.

Only when a summer breeze swept past did Shao Hongzhen suddenly realize that Le Wuya, with nothing but his silver tongue, had worked him into a drenching sweat.

He managed a strained smile and asked, "Then Magistrate Wenren, what do you want me to do?"

Le Wuya blinked.

Just like that, in a blink, his tone shifted abruptly, reverting to a warm, winsome cadence: "You can say that you coerced the villagers of Yin Family Village into cultivating opium."

"You, Shao Hongzhen, for the sake of lining your own pockets, coerced the villagers, took advantage of the village's prime location, and secretly grew opium. In short, drag your name through the mud, and destroy your own reputation as an official. At least the villagers of Yin Family Village would keep their lives."

Shao Hongzhen wasn't buying it: "Magistrate Wenren makes it sound so easy. But will the Sixth Prince listen to you?"

Le Wuya answered decisively: "Of course he'll listen to me."

The moment these treasonous words left his mouth, Le Wuya himself was taken aback.

...Where did this certainty of his come from?

"I am no fool," Shao Hongzhen wasn't about to take his word for it. "The prince was hurt in my Xingtai—that's an indisputable fact. You say no investigation, but will those above truly not investigate?"

"Then the fallout won't be as big or as widespread as if you, in a fit of rage, killed all three of them."

At that, Le Wuya went down on both knees, faced Magistrate Shao, and clasped his hands in a deep bow, declaring in a clear voice: "The life and honor of every citizen in Yizhou rest on the decision of Magistrate Shao, who loves his people as his own children. I beg you, sir..."

He looked up from above his clasped hands, his gaze burning: "...to think it over carefully."

Seeing Shao Hongzhen lost in thought, Le Wuya pressed his advantage: "If Magistrate Shao is really that upset, then kill me—I'm not worth much anyway—to vent your anger."

The moment Le Wuya said this, half joking, half serious, the other three all their expressions changed and cried out in unison: "No!"

Shao Hongzhen: "..."

So what's this all about now?

These four were so thick as thieves—why did they have to come all the way to his Xingtai to play out this lovey-dovey, life-and-death drama?