Chapter 2: Chapter Two: Beheading

The next day.

Ma Chaguan on South Street was the noisiest place in Lueyang County, teeming with cart drivers, peddlers, and laborers, making it one of the few designated execution sites.

Just after noon, the yamen runners cleared the road, for the execution drew a large crowd, so they chose Ma Chaguan at the crossroads, where a squad of strongmen had already set up a table and platform at the main street entrance.

The county magistrate, the assistant magistrate, the garrison commander, and others had already taken their seats; the scholar who had devised the plan, Li Youyin, dressed in a golden Chengzi robe, looked triumphant and stood by their side.

The crowd grew ever larger, most dressed in tattered clothes, faces gaunt and sallow, their bodies emitting stench.

Among them were some young men whose accomplice roles were obvious, carrying cloth sacks for meat, walking at the very front of the crowd, their eyes darting over the prisoners on the open carts.

Like selecting livestock for fattening, they pointed and joked; the zao-class officers maintaining order made no move to stop them, only laughing and bantering along.

Eleven men were dragged from the cart, all stripped naked, each wearing neck irons, ankle irons, and hand irons, plus a pot-hand restraint.

Naturally, Li You was among them.

Li You felt like a colossal victim—how could a scene he'd seen so often in movies be unfolding on him in reality?

Since most were "bandits," the procedure of family identification was skipped, so they were directly dragged to the street corner, where two executioners had already prepared their tools.

After receiving the magistrate's nod, Jail Warden Wang Chong sneered at Li You and Wu Dading, then loudly proclaimed the "crimes" to the crowd…

These "charges" were entirely fabricated, repeating endlessly: "colluding with bandits," "remnant rebels." In just a few sentences, the execution began.

Two executioners stepped forward—one tall, one short. The short one forced the prisoner to kneel with legs together at the center of the execution ground, removed the three irons, and bound his hands behind a wooden post.

With his center of gravity tilted outward, the prisoner's upper body naturally leaned forward, revealing a dark, rough face.

Rather than resembling a bandit, the prisoner looked more like an honest farmer; now he trembled uncontrollably, his neck retracted like a turtle's.

"Brother, Wang Ge's work is good—you won't feel pain…" The short executioner pulled the prisoner's hair hard, exposing his entire neck.

The tall executioner, known as Wang Ge, did not raise his axe. First, he licked his left palm, then ran his hand over the prisoner's neck.

Then, with a swift twist of his waist, his right axe swung in a circle like lightning, his left hand snapping back, both hands gripping tightly as they came down…

"Deng… Puh…"

Two sounds later, the short executioner held up a severed head, its face still grimacing and blinking, eyes wide with terror as it stared at its own body, blood gushing profusely over both men.

At that moment, the farmer's consciousness remained—he didn't know whether his head had fallen off or his body had.

The crowd fell utterly silent, then erupted in gasps and laughter; only the heavy corpse crashed to the ground, while more people stared blankly at the "pup-pup" bubbling stump, spurting blood.

The pair continued executing five in succession; the sixth was the great victim, Li You. His face was pale, and he felt he had disgraced every transmigrator ever.

Yet having already faced death, his mind remained calm—only regretting he'd eaten too much yesterday and hadn't fought back.

Now he noticed that during executions, the ankle and hand irons were removed, replaced by thick hemp ropes tied to the post—this might be his only chance to resist.

The short executioner removed Li You's irons. Li You's gaze fixed on the tall executioner's demon-headed axe, his eyes flashing with intent—just as a piercing, teeth-grating whistling sound filled his ears…

"Soo-soo-soo…"

A rain of arrows and flying spears fell indiscriminately across Ma Chaguan. Before anyone could locate the archers, the thunder of hooves erupted like a storm at the West Gate, and a blue-clad cavalry unit surged through the gate like a tidal wave.

"Bandits are here…"

"Zhang Xianzhong? It's the Rebel Zhang…"

"Ah, the Eight Great King has come! Is it truly the Western Camp's Eight Great King? Has he raised his banner again?"

Some in the crowd wept and moaned, others panicked, some stood frozen, yet a few even shouted and ran forward to greet them.

Meanwhile, the magistrate, the jail warden, and the other officials had already fled in terror the moment Li Youyin was struck down!

"South Street! South Street! All those nobles are holed up on South Street!"

Leading the cavalry was a square-faced, burly man wearing a six-segment iron helmet, a jacket-style willow-leaf armor, black tassels dangling from his iron helm, a neck guard resting on his shoulder guards.

Below the waist, he wore iron mesh skirts and mesh trousers, a quiver and bow case slung on his back, and a tiger spear resting across the saddle's victory hook.

On horseback, he shot left and right at the slower-running magistrate and garrison commander, bellowing for his men to follow.

"Damn it all, you bastards still playing tyrant here, chopping the heads of hardworking folk like toys—today, Dad's gonna hang every last one of your heads from my horse's tail!"

One of the bandits behind him glanced at the five decapitated corpses at Ma Chaguan, spat, and cursed viciously.

Other cavalry members erupted in crude, brazen shouts…

"These fat-headed bastards are probably hiding under their wives' beds—later we'll make their whole families wail like mourners…"

"Jie-jie, today we'll let these tyrannical officials, little ladies, and noblewomen have a real good time… see what true pleasure is… Gah-gah…"

The terms "ma" and "ba" were already used in some regions during the Three Kingdoms period and had become widespread in northern Shaanxi during the Ming Dynasty; for example, after Zhang Xianzhong established the Great Xi regime in Chengdu, he issued an imperial decree to his third son, Zhang Nengdi:

"By the grace of Heaven, the Emperor decrees: 'I told you not to go to Hanzhong, yet you insisted—you've lost countless troops. You son of a bitch, I'll fuck your mother's hair! Done.'"

This uproar swept through like wind, adding many more corpses to the ground—those civilians who had rushed forward were trampled and crushed by the cavalry.

Where once Ma Chaguan had been packed with people, now hardly a soul remained.

The tall executioner had his belly torn open by a spear's chain-blade; he knelt on the ground, weeping loudly, frantically trying to stuff his intestines back inside, the demon-headed axe long fallen at his feet.

Li You was overjoyed—he twisted his waist violently, and the thick hemp rope binding his thumbs snapped into several pieces. He stood upright, snatched up the long axe, and walked toward Wu Dading.

"You, Brother You…"

Wu Dading was stunned to see Li You snap the rope, then even more stunned as Li You raised the bloody axe toward his neck—he was stunned twice over.

But Li You gave him no time to react.

"Bang-bang-bang!" Three swings, and he shattered Wu Dading's three irons.

"Run… fast! These bandits… they'll… come back to retrieve their arrows!" Wu Dading, mouth full of blood, spoke incoherently.

In the Song Dynasty, a dozen arrows cost one guan; add a few more, and you could buy a cow—clearly, they were expensive.

Though Ming industry had improved, in this chaotic age, the cost of a single arrow shaft approached a hundred wen—so every arrow shot had to be recovered.

"Mm."

Li You, bare-chested, ran to the table, stripped a dead man's clothes, and quickly put them on, turning to flee with Wu Dading—when behind him came a chorus of sobbing cries.

A burly man with high cheekbones and a pointed chin had wriggled free his gag and gasped urgently: "Young sir, save me! My name is Yuan Kaitai—my uncle is Yuan Shizhong…"

Only then did Li You realize four other prisoners remained.

These men, Li You did not know, but he did not hesitate; he picked up the axe with one hand, turned back, and with a flurry of swings, freed them.

The burly man named Yuan Kaitai was about to say something to Li You, but the other three clearly were Yuan Kaitai's accomplices; they dragged him away swiftly.

Li You's flurry of swings left Wu Dading gaping—this demon-headed axe weighed over twenty catties; just moments ago, the executioner had used both hands, and after five swings was already gasping for breath, and even he had used finesse, deliberately avoiding the cervical vertebrae.

Yet Li You had swung over ten times in mere breaths, and with only one hand—how could this not astonish him?

"Go!"

After finishing his swings, Li You gripped the axe in one hand and reached out with the other to pull Wu Dading away; they had barely taken two steps when he noticed Wu Dading's left foot swollen like a pig's rump.

It had been twisted by the ankle shackles; Li You hoisted him onto his back and asked, "Which way?"

"Dongmen, Dongmen!"

Li You said nothing; even with Wu Dading on his back and the demon-headed axe in hand, his steps remained swift as flight, and in less than half an hour, they reached Dongyi Street. The street was already in chaos—there were scattered bandits here too, brazenly raping and looting.

"Probably local ruffians, knife-wielders, petty thieves—taking advantage of the chaos to plunder."

Wu Dading instantly recognized them by their clothing; these men clearly lacked the fierce ferocity of the earlier group, and their padded coats were torn to shreds—where was even a scrap of armor?

"Maybe we should hide for a while."

"Alright."

Li You nodded, tightened his grip on the demon-headed axe, and circled the alley, continuing toward the Dongmen.

"Aaah… kill me… kill me…"

At the Dongmen tea stall, a woman around twenty had her hands and feet nailed to the door with long spikes; her clothes had been torn completely off, and blood streamed down her legs onto the ground.

Already near death, she seemed to hear footsteps and suddenly shrieked aloud, causing Li You and Wu Dading to turn their heads—when they saw her, both were struck as if by a hammer.

Li You felt as if a sledgehammer had slammed into his chest; his vision darkened abruptly, making it impossible to breathe.

As he stood frozen, a bearded man with a thick, curly black beard stepped out from the shack; his face was covered in pockmarks, and as he emerged, he tossed a few pieces of broken silver into the air, his shoulder bearing a girl who appeared unconscious.

Behind him came a thin, wiry youth with wild, curly hair, wearing a tattered short shirt and holding a board knife with its tip broken off.

No sooner had they stepped out than the wiry youth jammed his broken knife into the woman's throat, silencing her forever; she convulsed once, then died.

The bearded man now turned his gaze upon Li You and Wu Dading, pausing—his eyes fixed mostly on Li You.

At present, Li You wore a well-fitted golden-brown Cheng robe, its sleeves and waistline perfectly smooth, without a single wrinkle or disarray; though his face was pale and haggard, his handsome features still shone through, giving him an unmistakable air of a wealthy young master.

Yet the massive axe in his hand still dripped blood…

The bearded man raised his broken silver and grinned, testing them in underworld slang: "... Bandits? New to the board? If you're all comrades on the same boat, let's share a bowl of wine together."

【Note】: Gao Jian is a container for storing arrows and bow.