Chapter 114: The Poisonous Scheme (I)

Chapter 114: The Poisonous Scheme (I)

Once the surge of malice arose, it was hard to suppress.

To avoid tipping their hand early, the three men dutifully paid their taxes in full, not a penny short, so as not to leave a bad impression of being troublemakers with the Master.

Then, they pretended to be holed up at home for the winter, but behind closed doors, they were ambitiously plotting to rid Nanting of this nuisance.

The other gentry had no idea of their good intentions.

Fine, fine. So that's the game you're all playing, is it?

All that mutton that day—was it just fed to the dogs?

The temporarily united gentry, rife with mutual suspicion, fell apart completely and, crestfallen, paid up their taxes one by one.

In less than a month, Nanting's taxes were fully collected, making it the first county in all of Yizhou to complete its tax quota this year.

Word had it that Prefect Lyu stared blankly at the taxes submitted by Le Wuya for a long while, before squeezing out a two-word verdict:

"...Quite good."

Shi Liangyuan, Hou Peng, and Zhong Junxiong were busy plotting their grand scheme, unaware that their reputation among the local gentry had already plummeted.

They had originally planned to bring Li Asi into the fold.

After all, he had hacked out a fortune with his butcher knife, and his connections and networks were truly extensive.

Unexpectedly, after feasting at the Shi household, he vanished from Nanting once again.

The man had the appearance of a fat pig, but the cunning of a hidden dragon, and his movements were extremely secretive—whenever he wished to hide, others found it hard to track him down.

After lamenting this, the three decided to join forces and do it themselves.

Three cobblers with their wits combined—surely they could outsmart even Zhuge Liang, right?

Before the red glow of the charcoal brazier, with a world of white snow outside the window, their poisonous schemes bubbled up one by one like tea in a clay pot.

Shi Liangyuan was the first to propose: How about seducing him with a woman?

Or simply hiring a prostitute to show up at his door holding a baby, to ruin his reputation?

But after some discussion, they found this approach unworkable.

First, this Little Master was famously odd—he showed no interest in women whatsoever.

Second, the Little Master was unmarried, a bachelor through and through. Even if a prostitute tried to latch onto him, it would only be a spicy anecdote, with no risk of domestic trouble.

Third, the Little Master was far too skilled at trying cases.

He could make big tough guys cry and wail in his courtroom—let alone a courtesan stuck in the brothel district, who only knew how to please men.

What if the courtesan couldn't withstand the interrogation and squealed on them? That would be disastrous.

Hou Peng, after deep deliberation, raised his hand and suggested: What about going after Scholar Ming?

Right now, he was the apple of the Master's eye.

After some discussion, they still felt it wouldn't work.

Ever since Scholar Ming had turned over a new leaf, he stayed out of legal cases, devoting himself wholeheartedly to being a good man, and his reputation in Nanting had only grown—it was hard to find any dirt on him.

Moreover, it hadn't been long since he was falsely accused in the rebellion case—less than a year. If he got dragged into another legal matter now, folks would think it was payback.

It was Zhong Junxiong, the well-traveled one, who was the most ruthless.

He knocked back a swig of hard liquor and suggested: "The Little Master is from Jiangnan, isn't he? Doesn't he have a father who does business back home?"

Lowering his voice, he continued: "If the father were to die, by law, wouldn't he have to go home for three years of mourning?"

This idea made the other two's eyes light up, and they deemed it quite feasible.

But after further deliberation, the three deflated like pricked balloons.

...Plain and simple: Jiangnan was too far.

They could throw their weight around locally in Nanting, but once they left its borders, nobody knew their names out there.

Forget killing a living person—even messing with the Wen Ren family business across such a vast distance was no easy task.

The three sighed and grumbled, feeling that all these ideas were either too risky or not worth the trouble.

Gradually, they started to back out.

Forget it. They'd just muddle through day by day.

Li Asi's deductions couldn't be taken as gospel.

Hadn't the Emperor bestowed a sword upon the Little Master?

When the Emperor's decree came to promote him away, wouldn't Nanting be theirs again?

...

With night falling, Hou Peng was the first to take his leave—he had a tigress at home, and if he didn't return on time, he'd face an earful of her yelling.

Zhong Junxiong and Shi Liangyuan knocked back three more cups before ending the gathering with little to show for it.

Stumbling out of Shi's place into the heavy falling snow, Zhong Junxiong, stinking of booze, belched loudly into the freezing wind, almost swallowing the wind.

He grabbed his queasy gut, pulled his fur coat tighter, and scrambled into his heated palanquin.

By the time he stepped out, after the bumpy ride, the booze hit him in waves, so he could barely walk straight.

Blinking blearily, he saw that his front door was hanging open, with two gatekeepers, one up, one squatting, checking out a big heap of dirty felt huddled by the gate, like a mangy, half-dead animal.

Zhong Junxiong's vision blurred as he walked straight over, slurring his words: "What's going on?"

The crouching doorman stood up and replied, "Master, it's a street person, froze stiff, barely breathing."

Zhong Junxiong got closer and saw it wasn't an animal but a person, wrapped in a stinky rag he'd found somewhere to keep out the freezing wind and snow.

Once he saw it was a person, not a thing, Zhong Junxiong couldn't care less: "Not dead yet? Drag it away. I'm a kind man—can't stand seeing corpses."

With that, he headed for the door.

But the front steps were iced over. He slipped, pitched forward, and almost busted his teeth.

The next moment, a big hand shot out from under the filthy mess and grabbed Zhong Junxiong by the ankle.

He mumbled something vaguely, then immediately passed out, and his grip on Zhong Junxiong's hand slipped away.

The gatekeepers were scared stiff and moved to kick the trash-heap of a man away.

But Zhong Junxiong, acting out of character, suddenly waved his hand: "Stop, stop—don't kick him. Take him inside."

The gatekeepers froze.

This didn't fit the master's usual way of doing things at all.

Zhong Junxiong slowly hauled himself to his feet, brushed the grimy snow off his gloves, and said, "That little beggar the old master keeps at the yamen... what was his name... Hua Rong? Wasn't he nearly beaten to death by Old Chen's bunch of servants back then?"

He pulled off his gloves and gave one of the gatekeepers a light smack on the head: "Can't your lord do a good deed today?"

With that, he kept swaying as he headed inside, instructing as he went: "Scrub him down before you bring him in—don't let any lice get into our house!"

The gatekeepers sure as hell didn't dare disobey. Pinching their noses against the stink, they dragged that stinking pile of felt into the warm, spring-like gatehouse.

Zhong Junxiong sat in the main hall, taking slow, absent sips of his sobering-up tea.

The bitter, strong tea jolted him, and he slowly came back to his senses.

Zhong Junxiong was in the fur trade and had been around, so he could understand a fair bit of foreign languages.

That word the man had slurred while grabbing his ankle, half-conscious, sounded like "help" in the Liao tongue.

The Liao region should be warm this time of year—so why would anyone come here to freeze their ass off?

Besides, speaking of the Liao...

Zhong Junxiong was a man of the world, unlike Shi Weiyuan, who sat at home leeching off his tenants, or that Hou Peng, who fiddled with his herbs day in and day out. He knew some dirt that others didn't.

Half a year ago, the old master had hightailed it to Xingtai and pulled off something huge and righteous.

He downed another gulp of bitter tea, and from the word "Liao," he tasted something else entirely.

It smelled like opportunity.

...

Zhong Junxiong bided his time for two days.

Two days later, the gatekeeper came to report that the Liao man hadn't kicked the bucket and had been scrubbed up to look half-decent. He asked if the master had a moment to see him.

Zhong Junxiong waved a hand—of course he'd see him.

When he'd first seen the guy, he'd been curled up on the floor in a massive lump, clearly a towering figure.

Sure enough, seeing him now, he wasn't wrong.

Since Zhong Junxiong's fur trade had a strict no-lice policy at home, his head had been shaved down to a bluish stubble, making him look like a gaunt, starving ascetic.

He spoke flawless Dayu dialect, his spiel nothing but thanks to his savior and a rundown of who he was.

He said he was a Liao merchant who'd planned to come into Dayu territory to do a little business, but he'd run into bandits—goods, silver, and papers, all of it gone. So he'd had no choice but to turn beggar and end up here.

Zhong Junxiong lifted an eyebrow and let out an "Oh?" "Our Nanting turf is real peaceful—we never get bandits around here. So where exactly did you get robbed?"

The big man mumbled vaguely, "In the mountains."

Zhong Junxiong flashed a grin: "You playing dumb with me? You don't even know which mountain you crossed?"

The big man's voice got smaller and tighter: "...Xiao Jiatuo Mountain."

Zhong Junxiong went "oh" and gave a big, self-important shake of his head: "That place used to have a real bad rep, you know. Anyone in trade knows the saying: 'Rather wear out three pairs of shoes than set foot on Jiatuo Mountain.'"

The big man spoke up: "I heard there's a Magistrate Shao there who's got the county running smooth—there aren't any bandits there anymore."

"Magistrate Shao?" Zhong Junxiong rolled the title around, finding it pretty funny. "Ha, that Magistrate Shao's been dead six months—his bones are mush by now."

"I only learned that later."

"Did you go to the yamen in Xingtai?"

"No papers. They kicked me out."

The big man rubbed his face, then his shaved head, looking all embarrassed and sheepish.

Zhong Junxiong kept digging: "So how the hell did you end up in Nanting?"

"Just stumbled along, begging for food, half out of my mind."

"That's pretty damn confused. Don't you wanna go home?"

"Yes."

Zhong Junxiong let out a cold chuckle: "You've got eyes above your nose and a mouth below—you can see, you can talk, you can walk. So how the hell did you end up here?! You came from Liao, and if you wanna go back to Liao, you take the same road you came on and go back the same way! Unless you're heading to the Jing tribe to see kin, there's no damn reason—no matter how lost you are—to end up in Nanting!"

The big man hung his head and stammered, switching his story: "I was heading to the Jing tribe to see kin."

Zhong Junxiong's eyes blazed as he slapped the armrest of his chair: "I don't think you're going home, and I don't think you're visiting kin. I think you came to Nanting to find somebody!"

Hearing that, the big man snapped his head up.

In a flash, his shy, meek act was gone.

Right now, right here, this man was a straight-up desperado—like a jungle python, fixing Zhong Junxiong with a cold, sinister stare.

Zhong Junxiong felt stabbed by that dark, menacing look, his hackles rising. But it only made him more certain of the man's intentions, and his palms went slick with hot sweat.

He got a grip on himself fast: "Just you alone—can you pull it off?"

The big man quickly dropped his gaze, gave him a once-over, and shook his head: "I don't know what you mean."

"You don't have to get it." Zhong Junxiong put on a calm front, but his body couldn't help leaning in a little, like he couldn't wait. "But what if I told you I've got a way to make your wish come true?"