Chapter 185: The Madman

Grabbing a tongue is easy; after all, almost twenty thousand people in this city are Manchu families stationed with the Eight Banners, so any one of them would know where the armory is. They've lived here for seventy or eighty years; how could they not know the details? Bai Lang kicked open a door and dragged a woman out of the room—there were no men inside, so he could only take a woman as a placeholder.

Many Manchu women go out, and the woman in her twenties was probably the head sister of the household. Bai Lang looked at the round‑faced woman and said, "Take me to the training‑ground armory and I'll guarantee you're safe." Bai Lang, tall and broad‑shouldered, fierce and heroic, his imposing presence made the girl's face flush. He had no intention of killing her; as long as she obeyed, that was enough.

Sure enough, the woman dared not defy the tiger‑like brute; although she was clearly a rebel, the rebel held her life in his hands, so she obediently led Bai Lang to the armory. Guards were on duty, but they looked lazy and scattered, and fled at the sight of Bai Lang. Bai Lang waved his hand and told the woman to go, "What's the point of you hiding and spying on me? Should I charge you for it?"

The armory's main gate was locked with an iron padlock; Bai Lang grabbed both sides, applied a single burst of force, and the lock broke while the door shattered. He kicked open the two broken doors, "Even the Qing Empire's medicine pills inside are rotting, and no one cares." Indeed, the doors were wooden panels nailed with iron strips; the exterior iron looked fine, but the inner wood was already decayed. Seeing the exterior, Bai Lang had an ominous feeling about the interior.

Sure enough, this is the typical state of a neglected arsenal: the armor and weapons stored near the entrance were still visible, but those deeper inside were almost all rotted; a simple report of mouse damage would finish the job, maybe even fetch a bonus. The metal armor was riddled with leather straps or leather pieces gnawed and decayed by rats, and the weapons were covered with rust as a matter of course. As for the quantity, Bai Lang could swear on his chest that it was definitely inaccurate.

Bai Lang paid no attention to these weapons; the swords and iron maces he had previously seized were far superior to most of the armory's stock, at least in condition. He was looking for armor, but most of it was worm‑eaten and gnawed by rats, essentially unusable. Even the seemingly pristine cotton armor was just two pieces of cloth stuffed with a little cotton, offering no protection at all.

There were plenty of weapons in the armory, and at the back Bai Lang finally uncovered a usable suit of armor. "Can it still be used with this surface rust?" he sighed, looking at the mountain‑patterned armor. In the end, Bai Lang could only give up, abandoning his fantasy of marching across the world in shining armor. He wasn't going to set fire and then leave; there was no place for that, only to help someone escape punishment.

His appetite for killing waned, so Bai Lang decided to leave; killing the Shaanxi governor was enough for him, he killed on sight. He wanted to head southeast, where he could continue cultivating his martial arts. The world Yu Yu traversed was perfect for that, at least it gave him time to train— even if on the surface it was said to be a ten‑year cycle, not a single year had passed. "Even two or three years would do; I'll just cultivate while I kill."

Bai Lang was leaving, and securing a few horses in the city was no problem—though the horses were mediocre, they saved him the effort of traveling on foot. Moreover, the jade pendant he stored could not be used, so he needed to load some luggage onto other horses—mainly the loot he had seized and horse feed. For that, Bai Lang had to find a carriage.

Bai Lang rode his horse, drove the carriage, and wore a bamboo hat as he set out. Let the Xi'an General and Xi'an Prefect worry about how to report to their superiors that the Xi'an governor was slain by rebels in the yamen; they can fret on their own. They'll probably be stripped of rank or exiled, but they should be grateful they survived. If luck had been worse, Bai Lang would have taken their heads; this outcome isn't so bad.

Bai Lang strolled along the main road, planning to travel from Xi'an southward to the Yangtze, take the river downstream to Jiangnan and cultivate his own martial arts. As for the Tartars, he had just taken the county magistrate's head in the county town under cover of night. He also learned that the Xi'an incident was still being cleaned up; the imperial envoy had been sent, and those two officials had been stripped of their posts pending punishment. No one bothered the hat‑clad Bai Lang; apparently they didn't realize he was a massive rebel.

The sea capture warrant was posted at the city gate, but the illustration of the person looked off, and the description of a nine‑foot height seemed copied straight from a tale. Bai Lang's weapons were not slung on his body; they lay on the carriage, pressed under the horse feed and Gold Beads, and no one inspected them when entering the city. Bai Lang simply stared at the gate guards, who instinctively knelt and said nothing, allowing him to pass.

Bai Lang only chuckled; at this level, even if his portrait were plastered across the realm, they couldn't catch him. The rebel's bounty was high—one thousand taels of silver, plus a military official's recommendation. It seemed the imperial envoy finally clarified the events and issued a fresh sea capture warrant. The Xi'an Prefect turned out to be an unlucky fellow, shouldering all the blame—after all, he was a Han official. He was taken out for beheading, his family reduced to slaves. The Xi'an General was dismissed and exiled to Heilongjiang to serve, escaping a disaster; the other city officials were demoted, but no one faced a second execution.

The governor Zhong Yin that Bai Lang killed enjoyed posthumous glory, rising several ranks and even siring a few sons. Bai Lang, on the other hand, became instantly famous across the land; everyone knew a rebel the size of a "Heaven" character named Bai Lang had slain the Shaanxi governor and even called himself the Ming Dynasty Crown Prince's Junior Guard. The proclamation urged Bai Lang to surrender and then be beheaded at the market gate, which would spare his entire clan. Bai Lang only laughed heartily; his whole family was just him, and they wanted him to be beheaded?

He traveled onward, killing many officials but never with such swagger, acting only when the mood struck—sometimes breaking into a county seat at night to kill the magistrate or prefect. One day he arrived at Xiangyang, where he could board a boat and sail downstream without needing horses. So far, it was amusing that he outran the sea capture warrant; there was no warrant for him in Xiangyang, and even the scoundrels of the jianghu hadn't targeted Bai Lang for a bounty.

Perhaps this truly reflects the ancient reality; without radios or telegraphs, news couldn't spread that fast—so the claim of instant fame likely only reached Gan Su and the Capital (Jingcheng), especially as the Capital (Jingcheng)'s canal network just began to expand. Elsewhere, it would take over half a year to circulate. That day Bai Lang sold his horses and carriage, planned to rest a few days before hiring a boat to go downstream, and felt in good spirits. "Tonight I'll kill the Xiangyang Prefect," he thought.