Chapter 321

"Cough, cough, someone go sprinkle some water, clear the dust, find the plaque, pick it up and hang it back up."

"Where is the physician? Call the physician over; I have several broken ribs and a broken right arm. It hurts me to death."

"I can't do it, I can't do it, does anyone have a Qi-replenishing pill? Give me two quickly, I'm dying, I'm dying..."

"Someone come and help me! Are you all dead?"

Lian Jingye, Huyan Shijing, and others shouted a few times, staggered to their feet with the help of the gang members who rushed over, and walked out through the hole in the wall.

Just as they exited the hole.

Muffled thunder rolled.

The entire Gathering of Righteousness Hall collapsed with a roar, blowing their robes and sending dust billowing.

Lian Jingye waved his hand to sweep away the dust, stood on tiptoe, turned to face the ruins, and saw everyone looking at him.

"What are you looking at me for? Is anyone inside? Hurry up and save them."

"By the way, where is the person who came with Lord Liang?"

"Here, here!"

Lu Xinqing pushed aside the bricks and stones, revealing his head; his entire lower body was firmly pinned by a beam.

Lian Jingye hurriedly ordered people to move the beam.

Huyan Shijing rested one hand on a gang member's shoulder and the other on an iron mace, half-jumping and half-walking to the courtyard.

It was a cloudy and humid day, with shallow puddles left by last night's heavy rain on the ground, some mud and sand accumulated at the bottom of the pits, and the sky reflected the swaying ancient trees.

Under the tree pool.

Cheng Chong sat quietly with his head lowered, his shoulders covered in fallen leaves, and muddy water climbed up through the gaps in the burlap, merging with the blood into a dark red.

Liang Qu stood under the tree with his long spear, looking out at the terraced fields of the Shahe's back mountain; the pond at the bottom of the valley was clear, and a thatched cottage stood by the pond.

"Lord Liang... Gang... Cheng Chong, he..."

"He's not dead." Liang Qu turned around, "It's just that his Dantian was broken by me, and he lost too much Qi and blood, so he fainted."

Cheng Chong's Dantian was destroyed, making it difficult for him to exert force; with Liang Qu's current strength, he no longer posed much of a threat.

Capturing a live prisoner was much more meritorious than a corpse.

Huyan Shijing sighed: "I didn't expect Yingjian to be the Third Leader's son, but he didn't say anything, so how were we supposed to know? To commit the heaven-defying act of destroying the dikes himself, it really is..."

Liang Qu glanced at Huyan Shijing and said lightly: "I, Liang, have always kept my word, and I won't nitpick. If I said I would protect your lives, I will protect your lives, provided that you truly did not participate in destroying the dikes."

Huyan Shijing's old face smiled like a chrysanthemum, and he hurriedly raised his hands in a bow: "Thank you, Lord, thank you, Lord."

"Do you remember what I came to the Shahe Gang for?"

Huyan Shijing was stunned, and it took him a while to remember that Liang Qu had come this time to borrow boats!

"I'll arrange it immediately, I'll arrange it immediately. I'll notify them right away and equip you with the best sailors! It is truly a blessing for the people to have an official like you in the River Patrol!"

Liang Qu ignored Huyan Shijing's flattery: "Your Shahe Gang has to support so many people, with food, clothing, promotions, and rewards, you must have a treasury."

"Treasury..." Huyan Shijing looked troubled, "We have one, but there aren't many good things inside, last time... but if you want to see it, Lord, there's no problem. Take whatever you want, I'll make the decision here! Lian Jingye!"

Lian Jingye, not far away, hurriedly ran over.

"Lord Liang wants to go to our Shahe Gang's treasury, where is your key?"

"It's on me."

Lian Jingye took out a strangely shaped long key from his hand, the top of which looked like a flower.

Huyan Shijing explained: "The treasury requires two keys to be opened together. Previously, the First Leader had two, and the Second and Third Leaders each had one.

Now that the First and Second Leaders are not here, it's changed to one for me and one for Lian Jingye. Cheng Chong should also have one, but he probably didn't bring it with him."

"Follow me, Lord."

Lian Jingye took the lead. Although Liang Qu's visit to the treasury was Huyan Shijing's unauthorized decision, he had no objections.

In dealing with Cheng Chong, the archery and spear techniques Liang Qu displayed were stunning.

The consumption must have been significant, but the key was that he had hidden in the back and hadn't been injured at all!

If the consumption was high, he could just take pills to recover; injuries were not something that could be healed in a short time.

Now the entire Shahe Gang was severely injured, and the remaining ordinary gang members couldn't beat Liang Qu even if they added them all up.

Dismissing the two young gang members who were helping them, Huyan Shijing and Lian Jingye led Liang Qu through the courtyard and into a small room inside the mansion.

The two opened a tunnel, went about ten feet deep, and a steel door appeared in front of them, with a ring knocker in the center of the door.

Huyan Shijing lit an oil lamp, combined the two keys into one, inserted them into the hole, and twisted them hard three times; the gears clicked and turned.

A crack appeared in the seamless steel door, and Huyan Shijing pushed hard.

It didn't move.

"Cough, cough." Huyan Shijing's old face flushed, "I fought too hard, I don't have any strength left."

Confronting Cheng Chong had truly exhausted their lives, and coupled with the aftereffects of taking drugs, they were physically drained; it was already good that they could stand and talk.

Liang Qu was silent, stepped forward himself, and pushed open the door.

"Creak, creak, creak..."

Lian Jingye raised a torch and stepped forward, illuminating the dark treasury. Inside was a long corridor, with shelves hanging on both sides of the walls, but the shelves were empty, only displaying some worthless trinkets.

Walking all the way in, there was a small room with two medicine cabinets.

One contained metal treasures, and the other contained precious medicines and pills.

Liang Qu flipped through the precious medicines and pills, identified them one by one, took five bottles of Qi-replenishing pills, two bottles of blood-replenishing pills, and besides that...

"I want this Zhu fruit and this Jade fruit, is there a problem?"

Huyan Shijing felt a pang of pain.

The Zhu fruit and the Jade fruit were the two best precious plants put into the treasury in the time since the last major cleanup of the River Patrol.

Lian Jingye hurriedly said: "No problem, no problem, let alone just two, it doesn't matter if you use them all up, Lord."

"Rest assured, I only want these, I won't take anything else."

While speaking, Liang Qu had already walked out of the treasury, leaving Huyan Shijing and Lian Jingye stunned.

He really wasn't taking anything else?

Liang Qu looked back: "Aren't you coming?"

"Yes, yes, yes!"

The two hurriedly followed, closed the treasury door, and walked out of the tunnel.

"Arrange a quiet room for me, I need to digest now. Before I go out, prepare all the boats for me and keep an eye on Cheng Chong."

"Rest assured, Lord, I will make sure it is arranged!"

Lian Jingye and Huyan Shijing nodded repeatedly, and the two led Liang Qu to a quiet room in the mansion, preparing to go out.

Liang Qu stopped them and asked a question.

"Cheng Chong, what was he like before?"

Lian Jingye and Huyan Shijing pondered upon hearing this.

"Very strong." Lian Jingye said, "You might not know, Lord, but previously our Shahe Gang only had two Wolf Smoke experts, one was the First Leader, and one was the Third Leader.

Looking at the entire Huazhu County, a force with two Wolf Smoke experts was among the top."

"What about the Second Leader? Wasn't he Wolf Smoke?"

"Although the Second Leader sat in the second chair, his strength was only at the Galloping Horse Ultimate Realm; he relied on his relationship as a milk brother to the First Leader, so the brothers were mostly unconvinced, and the root of the trouble was probably buried at that time."

Huyan Shijing added: "The Third Leader was in his prime, handled matters steadily, rarely acted on impulse, didn't even get close to women, and rarely did 'dirty work' like the First and Second Leaders.

The two lords who came initially left the Third Leader behind, and I think there was this reason for it. Once the Third Leader took control of the Shahe Gang, he completely eliminated the previous friction."

Lian Jingye frowned: "Come to think of it, Cheng Chong didn't seem to want to kill us too much?"

"How so?"

Liang Qu, after all, hadn't faced Cheng Chong's might directly and wasn't very clear about the specific feelings and pressure.

"Looking back, Cheng Chong clearly had explosive means, but he didn't use them during several favorable opportunities while fighting.

Once a gap was opened in our Green Python formation and two people died, the power would be greatly reduced.

Secondly, if the leader really held a grudge against us, why didn't he take action to deal with me and Inspector Huyan before today? To pick us off one by one? Why wait for you to come and solve it together? Only to end up in this situation?"

Huyan Shijing was thoughtful: "That is indeed the case. Cheng Yingjian was very excellent, polite, strong, and looked spirited.

I can understand the Third Leader's pain of losing his son, but given the Third Leader's character, he shouldn't have committed the act of destroying the dikes."

"Anything else?"

"Oh, it should be that after Yingjian died, the Third Leader moved into a small thatched cottage by himself, the one below the terraced fields on the back mountain. Alas! I should have noticed it at the time; Yingjian's eyebrows indeed looked more like the Third Leader's, not the First Leader's."

"How could I have noticed... I thought Cheng Chong was just putting on a show, after all, the Shahe Gang 'talks about loyalty', and Cheng Chong was mourning for the First and Second Leaders..."

"Anything else?"

"Can't think of anything for now, that's all."

"Me too."

"Then you keep thinking after you go out, record all the unreasonable places, and integrate them for me."

"Rest assured, Lord, I will do it immediately."

"Go out."

The two closed the door.

The candlelight was dim.

Liang Qu sat cross-legged on the cushion.

A moment later.

Liang Qu didn't think of a result and gave up immediately.

He was a Water Official; collecting evidence and catching the culprit who destroyed the dikes was enough to earn merit. Whether there was a bigger conspiracy behind it, let the Three Judicial Departments handle such brain-draining matters.

Come to think of it, it really allowed Huazhu County Magistrate Yu Dayi to jump halfway out of the quagmire.

On the surface, the River Patrol's investigation was unclear, leading to Cheng Chong's revenge by destroying the dikes, for which they needed to bear the primary responsibility.

Magistrate Yu had poor supervision and bore secondary responsibility; if he operated well and made the right arrangements, he might still be able to mix in the officialdom.

It was just that Xu Yuelong was having bad luck.

Liang Qu ferreted out the Whale Gang, Xu Yuelong snatched the lead from Wei Lin, sent his own people to clean up the entire Huaiyin Prefecture, and used the information gap to swallow most of the merit.

At that time, Xu Yuelong was in the limelight, suppressing the Commander Wei Lin by a large margin, so much so that Wei Shao looked at him very unfavorably afterward, and there were some small conflicts before the auction; oh, after winning, it became a medium conflict.

Who could have thought that there was such a mess between the Third Leader and the First Leader?

Great merit is not easy to get...

Liang Qu operated the "Ten Thousand Victories Holding the Origin," gathered his thoughts, and improved his state.

A quarter of an hour later, Liang Qu, having recovered most of his strength, took out the Zhu fruit and the Jade fruit.

The former was undoubtedly a water plant, the latter was questionable, belonging to the boundary between water and land; he didn't know if it had water-marsh essence.

Liang Qu had now opened all five orifices, and he was only one orifice away from completing the mid-stage and generating Qi.

Before leaving, the sixth orifice was not far off; whether it had it or not, the two were enough for him to take a major step!

Liang Qu wiped the fruit skin and swallowed the Zhu fruit.

【Water-Marsh Essence +1678】