Chapter 122: Tactics (4)

Chapter 122: Tactics (4)

Go forward, and it's certain death.

Pull back, and there's still a sliver of hope.

After seeing off Secretary Wen, Zhong Junxiong sat alone in the private room of the restaurant, his mood seesawing between rage and despair.

If he could just make up his mind, he could still procure a few muskets from the hunters under his command...

But every time he thought about throwing his weight around like a desperado to teach the Little Master a lesson, that escape route would pop back into his head.

In Nanting, he could see plain as day there was no future for him whatsoever.

Sell the shops, sell the land, skip town to dodge the trouble, and start fresh somewhere else—while he still had the legs to get up and go.

Perhaps, one day, if Dabao would apply himself with determination and pass the provincial or imperial examinations, he might even come back to Nanting and settle the score with the Little Master out in the open...

Sure, a fight to the death would feel good for a hot second.

But that faint, hazy future full of hope kept calling to him from way off.

Zhong Junxiong staggered to his feet and gave a dejected smile.

Outclassed, plain and simple. Beaten flat.

The Little Master was a snake, but you had to hand it to him—he was sharp.

...

Zhong Guotai, working at the Nanting coal mine, had no clue about the mess blowing up back home.

Once his month of hard labor was up, he walked out of the mine with a bunch of other gamblers.

Originally, he'd been gambling around the clock, day and night blurring together, grabbing a bite whenever he could, and had starved himself down to a bony rack.

After entering prison, since he was a spoiled young master who couldn't do any real work, they stuck him in the kitchen to lend a hand.

That month, he ate on a regular schedule, crashed the second his head hit the pillow, and with the cook's perks right at hand, he actually packed on some solid weight.

He'd figured that when he got out, his family and friends would be waiting for him outside, and a big welcome-home feast was a must.

Unexpectedly, the spot outside the mine was bare and dead quiet, with no family members there to greet him.

Zhong Guotai's spoiled-young-master temper flared right up.

Nobody came to get him—was he supposed to hoof it home on his own?

A local soldier nearby saw him dithering and not leaving, and mocked him: "You'd think you just got out of jail, but I'd swear you'd aced the imperial exams, expecting them to roll out the red carpet for you? You think this is some big honor?"

After that earful, Zhong Guotai just choked down his anger and headed home.

Unexpectedly, upon returning, he didn't get a warm welcome either. All he felt was a heavy, suffocating vibe in the house, servants darting around looking nervous, packing stuff up, and a lot fewer servants around than before.

Zhong Guotai didn't think much of the commotion.

Dad was always off on business; a little chaos at home was par for the course.

He grabbed a servant and asked what juicy stuff had gone down while he was gone.

The servant hemmed and hawed, couldn't give a straight answer, and didn't dare run his mouth, so he just picked the least important thing to spill.

...Chunniang, the concubine he'd spoiled the most, had skipped town.

Zhong Guotai felt like he'd been clubbed over the head. He latched onto the servant and wouldn't let go, demanding to know why she'd run off.

He had treated her so well—how could she be gone just one month after he'd left?

The servant had no choice but to come clean.

When he heard the whole story, Zhong Guotai's heart shattered.

Turns out his dimwitted mother had forced her out in public to make a scene in front of the yamen, getting her pointed at and cursed out by the whole town!

At that moment, Lady Zhong, hearing from the inner quarters that Zhong Guotai had returned, came out to meet him, eyes brimming with tears.

But before she could even get a proper look at him, Zhong Guotai stormed up furiously and demanded, "Mother! Look what you've done! Go find Chunniang right now—I'm not done with her yet!"

Lady Zhong's tears went cold, and so did her blood.

She stared at him blankly for a moment, then said, "Do you have any idea what it cost this family to clean up your mess?"

Zhong Guotai, with his head full of mush, blustered furiously: "It's all your meddling! I know you, Mother—you always make mountains out of molehills. I was suffering in that coal mine, and instead of spending money to get me out, you went and pushed Chunniang to make a fool of herself at the yamen! Now look what's happened! What will my friends think of me? What will Chunniang think of me? I only gambled a bit of money, and you go around the world ruining my reputation—"

Lady Zhong raised her hand and slapped him hard across the face.

Zhong Guotai's towering rage was smacked down into a pile of smoldering, useless embers.

He clutched his cheek, staring at his mother with wide, stunned eyes.

That slap took effect immediately, and his voice shrank to something meek and thin: "What's wrong, Mother?"

"Those fair-weather friends of yours—you won't be seeing them anymore." Lady Zhong had cried all her tears dry over the past two days; now she had none left to shed, only a face of numbness. "The shops are pawned off, the properties sold. In half a month, once we leave Nanting, you'd better straighten yourself out and be a proper person."

Zhong Guotai, having just been struck a heavy blow, now received a thunderbolt from a clear sky.

His legs gave way, and he plopped down onto the stone steps, letting out a bewildered "Huh?"

Once his wits returned, he cried out again, his voice choked with tears: "Huh? ...We're leaving? ...Going where?"

When Lady Zhong hadn't seen him, she had missed him with a gnawing ache; now that she saw him, it was like looking at a pile of mud—only annoyance and vexation remained, better not to see him at all.

She couldn't be bothered to waste more energy or saliva on him. She glanced at him, saw that he had grown plumper and sturdier, with all limbs intact, and her eyes blazed with irritation. She waved her handkerchief impatiently and swept away with a gust of wind.

Zhong Guotai's heart burned like fire. He hurried off to find his wife and trusted confidants, determined to get to the bottom of the family's affairs.

Unexpectedly, these people, though living in the house, were even more confused than he was.

In the eyes of his wife and the servants, the master seemed to have been possessed by some spell—restless and fearful for no reason, sending money to the yamen like flowing water.

The young master had indeed been dragged into the whirlpool of an illegal gambling den, and the family's shops had been sealed for a time, but once the investigation was cleared up, the shops were quickly unsealed.

The yamen had neither extended Zhong Guotai's sentence nor mistreated him.

Zhong Guotai thought and thought, still unable to understand why they had to leave. He could only conclude that his parents had grown old and become timid, muddle-headed fools.

Could it be that his parents were doing this for his own good? Trying to emulate Mencius's mother, moving three times to force him away from his old friends in Nanting?

Pfft. What an overreaction!

Zhong Guotai stayed at home, couldn't be of any help, and just ended up stewing in his own anger.

Holding onto a faint hope, he wanted to go out and search for Chunniang again.

Lady Zhong, fearing he might go out and stir up more trouble, sent a sharp servant along with him as a companion.

Unexpectedly, he'd barely stepped out the door when he ran into a huge commotion.

Many people were rushing toward the city gate.

Zhong Guotai grabbed a passerby at random: "Hey, what's going on?!"

The guy shouted, all excited: "There are dead bodies!"

Zhong Guotai was taken aback, thinking, what's there to see in dead bodies?

Besides, in winter, dead bodies by the roadside were a dime a dozen; dead people were hardly news.

The guy was so worked up he could barely get his words out, his tone all over the place: "It's assassins—they tried to kill the Magistrate. ...They were all cut down by him!"

Zhong Guotai curled his lip: "You're full of it."

He had seen the Magistrate before—that guy was definitely easy on the eyes.

If he weren't the Magistrate, but a boy in a brothel, with a face like that, even with a nasty temper, he'd still be the number one guy.

But him? He could kill people?

Seeing this guy didn't know what he was talking about, the passerby sounded genuinely frustrated: "What do you know? The Magistrate's archery is out of this world—second to none! Go ask around—how many people saw him take down that Ge Erzi with one arrow from way off? Do you know, to get back the stone for fixing our Nanting roads, he went to the Jing tribe's territory and took on those Jing people in horseback archery without batting an eye! Three matches, three wins—he really did Nanting proud!"

Zhong Guotai listened to the guy's rambling and found himself tagging along without thinking.

The servant had no choice but to follow along, step by step.

Zhong Guotai was a born fool, easily swayed—he'd believe anything anyone told him.

He was already about seventy percent convinced, and asked in surprise: "Who'd have the guts to go after an official?"

The guy just kept shaking his head: "Have you heard? The Magistrate busted the drug den in Xingtai County and pissed off a lot of opium dealers, so they put a price on his head."

"Really? I thought the Xingtai County magistrate was crooked—"

"Really! Otherwise, if he'd just arrested some crooked official, why would the Magistrate have gone to the capital to get a reward?"

The two chatted as they headed to the south city gate.

When they looked up, they saw five corpses frozen solid.

One of them had been decapitated, but its eyes were still wide open, bulging like they were about to pop out.

The guy's voice was a mix of fear and excitement as he raised a hand and pointed, trembling: "Look, that head—it's got foreign features! Either a Liao or an Annamese!"

A notice was posted right by the city gate.

So the folks who couldn't read would know what happened, He Qingsong stepped up to explain.

He rolled up his sleeves and bellowed: "A few days ago, the Magistrate was injured—I'm sure all of Nanting has heard by now. It's been fully investigated: it was these five reckless thugs who dared to try to assassinate an Imperial Official, and what happened? The Magistrate took them all out in one go!"

"The Magistrate is putting these five bodies on display not to scare the good folks, but to tell those lawless thugs that he's not the kind of coward who runs from trouble! If you dare to come at us with weapons, we'll answer blood with blood!"

The crowd below erupted in cheers.

Zhong Guotai had been partying day and night, and his eyes, young as they were, had already gone bad.

Besides, the Liao man's head was covered in frost, so his features were kind of blurry.

But the young servant next to him was getting paler and paler.

He nervously tugged on Zhong Guotai's sleeve: "Young Master... there's nothing to see here—let's get out of here?"

Zhong Guotai had barely seen any dead bodies in his life, and his legs were starting to shake, but he wasn't about to lose face in front of a servant.

Acting like he'd seen it all, he blustered: "You clueless brat, why are you scared out of your wits like a coward?"

The young servant stared at the ground, scared out of his mind.

He remembered that Liao man's face—high nose, wide mouth, and really faint eyebrows.

That day, when that man had shown up at the Zhong family's gate and almost frozen to death, he'd even checked to see if the guy was still breathing!

The young servant was sharp; he turned it over and over in his head and figured out the whole thing.

Why the master and mistress had been packing up their valuables in the middle of the night to run—that made sense now.

As Zhong Guotai braced himself and kept staring up, he suddenly spotted a familiar figure in a corner of the city tower.

He was useless at noticing anything else, but he had a sharp eye for beauty.

His eyes lit up: Oh, if it isn't the handsome Magistrate!

By now, dusk was approaching, and the setting sun blazed an endless red, bathing Le Wuya in a bloody light that could've been fire.

Le Wuya sat on the edge of the city wall, like a masterpiece painted by a master with bold, daring colors.

He was chatting softly with a smile to the person next to him, his eyes and brows full of warmth, looking even more lively and vivid because of it.

Zhong Guotai couldn't help staring, not even hearing the servant tugging at him and telling him to leave.

It wasn't until a strong hand slapped him hard on the back that he snapped out of it.

He turned around, ready to cuss someone out.

But when he saw who it was, he immediately dropped any idea of being rude and greeted them properly: "Uncle Shi, Uncle Hou."

Hou Peng, who was in the herbal medicine business, had a smile on his face, while Shi Liangyuan stood off to the side with his hands in his sleeves, his long face neither sallow nor pale, giving nothing away.

Hou Peng said gently: "Well, if it isn't Nephew Zhong. Out of prison already?"

Zhong Guotai felt a bit embarrassed, mumbling and stammering, trying to quickly brush off this humiliating business.

Hou Peng tsked and patted his shoulder: "Uncle Hou and Uncle Shi watched you grow up—what's there to be ashamed of? ...I heard your dad is leaving Nanting to find his fortune elsewhere—is that true?"

Zhong Guotai, not suspecting a thing, opened up with a grimace: "Isn't it? Out of nowhere, he's suddenly dead set on leaving, like he's lost his mind..."

Listening to this useless piece of work's endless complaints, Hou Peng and Shi Liangyuan shot each other a cold look.

Earlier, when the Magistrate had shown his power—throwing Young Master Zhong in jail and shutting down the Zhong family's fur shop—the two had been like rats sensing danger, lurking on the sidelines, secretly watching, wondering why the Zhong family had suddenly fallen on such hard times.

Now, seeing these five frozen bodies on display at Nanting's city tower, what more did the two of them need to understand?

This whole scheme was Zhong Junxiong's doing alone, and to keep it under wraps, he hadn't told the two of them.

Now that it had come to light, how could they not panic? How could they not resent him?

After all, they had sat face to face, drinking tea and eating meat, cooking up plenty of shady schemes together.

Zhong Junxiong had now been driven far from home by the Little Master's thunderous methods, with his life spared, but who could say he wouldn't one day use what was said between the three of them to threaten and coerce them?

After this affair, Hou and Shi had witnessed the Little Master's prowess in full.

Yet the more they saw of his methods, the more terrified they grew, and the less they trusted anything Zhong Junxiong said.

...

On the city wall, Qin Xingyue wrapped a warm robe around Le Wuya's shoulders: "Master, the wall is high and the wind fierce; mind you don't catch a cold."

Le Wuya brushed it off, resting his elbow on the parapet: "The higher you stand, the farther you see, after all."

Qin Xingyue pursed his lips.

Le Wuya: "If you've got something to ask, just ask."

Qin Xingyue, having a military background, naturally followed orders: "Master, what made you suddenly think to put these five on public display?"

Le Wuya tapped his chin with a finger: "Because Zhong Guotai got out of prison."

Qin Xingyue only half understood: "...Master still doesn't intend to let the Zhong family off the hook?"

Le Wuya beamed a bright smile: "Me? Let the Zhong family off?"

Qin Xingyue: "Indeed. You even took the seal off their shop... The soldiers who guarded the city that night, any who had seen the state of your wounds that day, all whispered among themselves that the Master was pretty soft-hearted."

"Never push a cornered foe. Chasing too hard is no good. You have to ease up a bit, then tighten again."

Le Wuya rested his chin on his hand, turned back, and cast his gaze downward at Zhong Guotai, caught up with his two 'uncles' below. He tapped his temple and said with a smile: "...And besides, even if pressure is needed, it can't come from me."

Zhong Guotai had just been released from prison and hadn't talked this much in ages.

Just as his two nosy uncles were peppering him with questions, he felt eyes on him from the top of the wall.

He turned to look and met Le Wuya's gaze in the fiery sunset light.

Le Wuya, like a venomous snake that had just finished its kill, went completely loose, gazing at him with a lazy, dazzling, unguarded look, then after a moment, flashed him a brilliant smile.

Zhong Guotai's heart suddenly lurched in panic, and he quickly lowered his head.

He thought, a peerless calamity of beauty, indeed.