Chapter 162: When One Can Endure No More

The affairs of the world are ever-changing, treacherous and unpredictable.

On the second day after the new 'wife' entered the household, all the Household Staff lined up by rank and came forward one by one to kowtow to the mistress.

From this moment on, the mistress who held the "Shadow Marriage Certificate," commonly known as the "Hong Lü Shu Zhi," legally grasped the great authority of the Back Residence — if the primary 'wife' wanted to sell off some vixen, unless the male master invoked the ultimate technique of "Seven Grounds for Divorce" to formally depose his legal wife at the government office, he could not prevent her from exercising her rights.

Anyone who has read Red Mansions knows how Lady Wang pushed those gold and silver hairpin-wearing girls into the fiery Pit, yet this was feudal law and ritual. In Jia Fu, Lady Wang still had Grandmother Jia above her, but now in Huang Fu, the newly ascended "Huang Zhongshi," "Madam Huang," had not even parents-in-law above her — she could truly do whatever she pleased.

"Fortunately, the master promised. Just endure it a little longer, carefully get through these few days and then..." Though the several vixens of Huang Fu were uneasy at this moment, they still had confidence in their hearts: the master had promised before that after the wedding, he would take them to Fujian and leave the primary 'wife' to watch the house.

Yet the affairs of the world are ever-changing. When the several vixens arrived at the main hall, what they saw was a freshly minted 17th-century scumbag model.

Dressed in formal attire, classmate Zhong Xiuxiu sat upright at the head with furrowed brows and a stern face; surrounding her were Steward Wu, the inner residence Steward, the old maids brought from Zhong Fu, and the bedchamber maids brought from Zhong Fu.

And Master Huang, wearing a soft robe of fine household cloth and holding a folding fan, sat to the side with a face full of smiles, watching with gratification as the Household Staff came forward to kowtow and pay respects to the mistress.

A certain scumbag, while waving his fan, would occasionally help the mistress bark a few orders at the Household Staff, and after barking, he would sweetly turn his head and smile — what was that saying again: "He looks just like a dog..."

The several vixens could tell with the tips of their tails at this moment: the scumbag had changed his heart.

Sure enough, three days later, when accompanying the new 'wife' on her return visit home, the scumbag publicly announced a major matter: he was taking Zhong Xiuxiu with him to Fujian.

The Zhong Family was astonished: hadn't it been agreed before that the couple would live separately? Of course, no one would refuse such a welcome change — if there was any possibility, who would be willing to have their daughter guard an empty chamber alone, doing nothing but serving her parents-in-law? Besides, Huang Fu didn't even have parents-in-law. Once Huang the Provincial Graduate left, Zhong Xiuxiu, newly married, would be practically a widow watching over the household within days.

And Zhong Xiuxiu, blushing, privately told her mother: this... so far the marriage has been blissful, it's just that my husband says many strange things and has rather... varied tastes...

After Master Zhong figured out the situation, the old man was greatly comforted: in his expectations, if his daughter and her man could "treat each other with the respect due a guest" and mechanically finish out the rest of her life, the marriage would be considered perfectly satisfactory. Who would have imagined such an outcome?

Aside from concerns about the safety of the sea route, no one voiced any Opposition, but what Huang the man worried about least was the sea route, and he brushed this off with some perfunctory excuse.

The story of Huang the Provincial Graduate basically comes to a pause here. The next place where Master Advanced Scholar will display his talents should be in Fuzhou.

However, two days before Departure for Fuzhou, Master Huang ultimately stirred up one last bit of mischief.

In the afternoon, at Da Shufang, Zhao Liu, the most inconspicuous Steward of Huang Fu, came to report to the master with a gray cloth bundle tucked under his arm.

After the two exchanged a few furtive words, the master took the bundle and headed back to the inner residence with a face full of sly glee.

The bundle was opened, revealing a fist-sized mini camera and a white blouse. When the master then ordered the primary wife's maids to open all the wardrobes so that he, the Old Man, could pick out an item, a certain person's intent became obvious: this guy wanted to play cosplay.

Before long, amid a rustle of stifled giggles, the master found a red-and-white floral long dress, then made a chopping gesture across the waist and handed it to the maids for on-the-spot alteration... Alright, a certain someone here is just whatever he is.

Next, the master went to the painting studio — Huang Zhicheng had been a forger of paintings before Crossing Over, so his painting foundation was quite high. Thus, drawing a few circles of colorful ripples on a glutinous rice round cake was effortless.

"My lady, if there were a group of people who insulted me, slandered me, mocked me, day in and day out... what should you do?" Master Huang asked his newlywed wife, who was giggling beside him watching his antics, while he used a brush to color the glutinous rice cake on the worktable.

Zhong Xiuxiu first let out an "Ah," then misunderstood, thinking her husband meant people outside were mocking him for marrying a big-footed woman. The girl instantly flew into a rage: "Such villains must be severely taught a lesson!"

"Yes, yes, these bastards have been jealous of me for many days. They sent notices slandering me long ago. I, your master, have harbored this grudge for a long time. Now that you and I, husband and wife, are one body, how can we tolerate these petty wretches any longer? Come, come, put on this blouse first."

"... Master, what mischief are you up to now?"

"My lady, you do not know. Today, your master will employ the ancestral Void Grand Curse Technique to teach these villains a lesson. This method requires our combined strength as husband and wife, twin swords united, to be effective. Its power curses people across the void; those struck will nearly go mad, with no medicine to cure it..."

"What is this black mirror-box thing?"

"The altar. Wait until your husband adjusts the focus first."

Twenty days later, "Master Huang's Back Residence Playful Selfie" was pinned to the top of every section of the Dayuan Forum.

When the bunch of losers clicked on the video, the first thing they saw was the 19-year-old collagen-rich version of Huang Shengyi, wearing a white blouse and a red-and-white floral soft skirt, holding a lollipop, standing in the garden. Then, a sleazy man beside her, with one arm around the girl's waist, made an incredibly lame peace sign with his other hand. Behind this man stood six pretty maids in a row, smiling charmingly... At that moment, the Forum exploded.

At the end of the video, a line of crudely edited text appeared: This is my reply to you cheap bastards who have long insulted and slandered me on the forum. When one can endure no more, there is no need to endure further!

Master Huang had incurred public wrath.

Master Huang was called: "Yellow Dog."

Master Huang was demanded by the masses to be "expelled from the Transmigrator registry."

Master Huang swaggered off to Fuzhou with his wife in his arms.

Wuxian Temple outside Qingtai Gate was the Hangzhou Beggar Sect Headquarters.

This dilapidated old temple with three courtyards was now completely renovated. Ever since Zhou Tong, that bandit leader, seized this place with the support of the Crossing Faction, Wuxian Temple had undergone profound changes.

Aside from the Five Manifestations Deities brothers in the first courtyard hall behind the Mountain Gate, Wuxian Temple now had not the slightest hint of a temple's atmosphere. The temple entrance was perpetually blocked by a seemingly chaotic Pile of beggars, and ordinary Incense Guests had long since stopped coming here to offer incense.

The original three-courtyard main hall had now been expanded to four courtyards. A large cellar was dug beneath the newly added Backyard, supposedly for storing winter vegetables. The original Enclosing Wall was heightened, and the previously dilapidated halls and side rooms were all rebuilt. In short, the entire architectural layout of Wuxian Temple was being remodeled to match Moyun Temple, which combined a prison, a troop station, and a shelter into one.

If someone passed by the side rooms on either side of the rear hall, they would hear waves of miserable screams — these had now all been expanded into prison cells.

Were there many people who needed to be locked up? Very many.

Ever since Zhou Tong took power, the great purge of the Hangzhou Beggar Sect had never ceased.

The first to jump out were some old ministers of the former dynasty who refused to submit to discipline. These people's thinking was quite normal: during a change of power in the gang, appropriately expanding one's own Discourse Power — this kind of behavior is called "warlord expansion" in the history books.

However, the newly appointed Beggar Sect Group Head did not compromise: during that period, the main force of the Transmigrators had not yet sailed far away.

The war to suppress the vassals thus began, erupting simultaneously inside and outside the city.

The opposition entrenched in the dilapidated temples within the city received relatively higher treatment: because certain people did not want to make the situation a scene of earth-shaking slaughter and rivers of blood, after dark, a few loud shouts would first be heard from outside the door, and then a Flash-Shock grenade would come tumbling in.

The dilapidated temples outside the city were dealt with even more recklessly. In broad daylight, several big men would charge in and fire wildly with silenced pistols, and the beggars would instantly lie dead all over the ground.

The war to suppress the vassals ended quickly.

After this came a brutal Confrontation phase.

Wave after wave of crack troops from Pingfeng Mountain began to garrison the various branch strongholds. Within a month, Zhou Tong continuously held Hongmen Banquets. Including those Newly Ascendant Favorites who had been briefly propped up earlier, large numbers of Beggar Sect cadres with positions were successively imprisoned and killed within Wuxian Temple.

Only a very few clever people who saw the ominous signs survived — these people abandoned their foundations and escaped to Suzhou. During that period, there were wooden boats being sent to Qiantang Jiang Kou to dump bodies every day, passing through the River in front of Tangzhuang.

By this time, the original management system of the Beggar Sect had been completely swept away. After this, Zhou Tong, through a Series of measures like dividing, reassigning, and merging, evenly dispersed the men from Pingfeng Stronghold and fundamentally seized control of this ten-thousand-strong society.

Did the matter end there? No, this was only the beginning.

Among the newly established gang rules, the most important one was the previously non-existent "rotational duty."

With Wuxian Temple and the dispatched Pingfeng Stronghold men as the reef, and the rest of the gang members as the flowing water, the muddy current of the Beggar Sect began to slowly circulate.

And Moyun Temple, long thirsting with impatience, now became the settling pond. All the old-timers of the Beggar Sect, as long as they had sound limbs and didn't look like the sort about to die of old age, would, after the so-called rotational duty, all disappear within the Mountain Gate of Moyun Temple.

Grinding away round after round like this, by the time it was the spring of 1628, when Xiong Wencan stopped over in Hangzhou, over 4,000 person-times of beggars and Refugees had already been sent to Dayuan.

In this process, the entire Beggar Sect management system had put forth arduous and extraordinary efforts, surviving the most difficult Early Stage years amidst hardship — anyone Spreading any kind of "rumors" about Moyun Temple among the crowds was killed; anyone who had heard the rumors was arrested; anyone whose mouth had uttered the Three Words "Moyun Temple" was Sent Off...

Maintaining a channel for transporting people was not so easy.

Large numbers of beggars were Sent Off, and large numbers of displaced Farmers took over their posts. In this process, the Beggar Sect appeared on the surface to still be that same Beggar Sect, yet its fundamental nature was undergoing a fundamental change: the One Generation of new beggars could not sing the "Lotus Flower Fall," could not lie in front of shop doors extorting and blackmailing, and lacked all manner of skills that required instruction to learn — such as the art of Empty-Handed Dexterity.

The One Generation of new beggars could only hold a broken bowl, Sitting In place with an outstretched arm to beg for food. In their ignorance, they would be ordered to Exchange posts at regular intervals, and exchanging and exchanging, they eventually Exchanged their way to Moyun Temple.