Chapter 87: The Final Reliance

"Under no circumstances can we let them leave!"

Everyone's faces changed at those words, especially the few households who had bought abducted women — they were the first to turn back around, fixing Heifu with hostile stares.

Seeing things turning sour, Heifu immediately shouted: "The Hamlet Gatekeeper is lying to you! The statutes say that if you turn yourself in, your punishment will be reduced! If you help me seize the Hamlet Gatekeeper and those who bought the women, your crimes can be lessened even further! You won't have to die!"

This was still a lie, but what Heifu needed to do now was pin his hopes on the people of Blind Mountain turning on one another because of the different punishments each would face.

But he had overestimated how much this impoverished backwater feared Qin law.

Some wavered, some hesitated, but no one heeded Heifu's words and took that first step. Raising a hand against one's own clansmen and neighbors always takes far more courage than uniting in common hatred against a stranger.

Instead, the Hamlet Gatekeeper, Zhong Sheng, simply scrambled onto the roof of a nearby tile-roofed house and began shouting, arms flailing.

"This dog of a Village Chief is sowing discord among us — don't fall for it! If we turn on each other and let them leave, the whole clan is doomed. Better to kill all these village soldiers! Blind Mountain is so remote anyway — once it's done, no one will ever know!"

Heifu, however, laughed loudly: "I already reported this matter to the county officials long ago. If I fail to return in time, the authorities will certainly investigate and send troops from the county and township to suppress it. What awaits you then won't be the crime of banditry — it'll be the crime of rebellion, punishable by the extermination of three clans! Not one of the two hundred-plus people in this entire hamlet will escape!"

Zhong Sheng's viciousness showed fully: "So what? Even if we have to flee for our lives to Chu territory, that's still better than the whole clan sitting here waiting to die!"

He was brazen enough — he'd already come up with the idea of killing the officials, fleeing for their lives, and the whole clan escaping together.

Heifu's face instantly changed. If the crowd outside really listened to him and threw all caution to the wind, then this time, he truly would be in mortal danger...

He quickly raised his hand crossbow and aimed at the Hamlet Gatekeeper, wanting to shoot the rider before the horse, but unexpectedly, countless raised hands blocked his line of sight!

Kill the officials and flee for their lives — this thought spread like wildly growing vines, steadily swelling in everyone's minds.

The faces before him began to twist and contort, shouting at Heifu and the village soldiers: "Kill them!"

At this very moment, under the threat of clan extermination, these people no longer cared about the lives of the hamlet clerk or the field overseer. A few of the more hot-tempered ones had even raised the sharp-pointed plows and wooden spades in their hands, about to swing them straight at Heifu!

Heifu hurriedly stepped back, forming a circular formation with the others, protecting the few women who had no fighting ability in the center.

They did not weep, only watched coldly as all the hamlet folk around them turned into a mob — they seemed long accustomed to this, only the despair in their eyes growing deeper and deeper. Meanwhile, Li Xian, Dongmen Bao, and Ji Ying had all clenched their jaws, gripping their weapons tightly, readying themselves for a desperate battle against overwhelming odds!

A dozen paces away, the Hamlet Gatekeeper Zhong Sheng on the rooftop laughed wildly and arrogantly: "This Village Chief of yours — the statutes you speak of may be strict, but they're far away in the county seat. What can they do to me? What can they do to me?"

The words had barely faded when a bowstring twanged outside the hamlet gate, and an arrow came whistling through the air, piercing straight through the Hamlet Gatekeeper's throat from behind!

The Hamlet Gatekeeper Zhong Sheng, who just moments ago had been shouting hoarsely, inciting the hamlet folk to kill the officials and flee for their lives, looked down in disbelief at the arrow that had pierced through his throat.

The arrowhead was a cast-bronze diamond shape, congealed with drops of vermilion blood upon it...

He opened his mouth, as if wanting to say something, but what came out was not words — it was blood, bubbling ceaselessly from the wound, starting as bloody froth, then slowly turning into a trickling stream.

Then, Zhong Sheng lost his balance and collapsed with a crash, tumbling over and over from the tile roof where he had stood, rolling down and slamming onto the ground, motionless...

The two hundred-plus people of Blind Mountain Hamlet watched, utterly stupefied, as their Hamlet Gatekeeper was killed by an arrow that had come out of nowhere. They looked around in bewilderment, but could not find who had shot it or from where.

The only clue was a bronze whistle that suddenly sounded...

Peeep!

The whistle sounded outside the tightly shut hamlet gate.

Peeep!

Not long after, the whistle sounded again in the mulberry grove to the left!

Then, behind the tile-roofed house, beside the little bridge — every few moments, a sharp, ear-piercing whistle blast would ring out from beyond the wall!

For a time, the whole of Blind Mountain Hamlet seemed to be surrounded by the sound of these bronze whistles!

The hamlet folk grew extremely tense, looking around in all directions, their faces filled with fear.

They did not fear the few men standing before them, Heifu and his group, but they feared even more these hidden arrows — not knowing where they were concealed, not knowing how many there were.

Only Heifu, hearing these whistles, understood.

"That kid Xiao Tao — he didn't leave!"

This ghostly, elusive arrow, this clever bronze whistle — one listen and you knew it was the handiwork of that stuttering youth.

One man, yet he played it like ten. This kid — not only were his arrows accurate, his brain was sharp enough too.

Heifu had not expected that their final reliance would not be the majesty of Qin law, but a contingency he had left in place before entering the gate.

This dramatic reversal made him burst into uncontrollable laughter, and then he shouted loudly to the hamlet folk, now terrified and panicked without their leader:

"Just now was merely a test to see whether you had the heart to turn yourselves in and confess your crimes. Let me tell you the truth — I actually stationed a full platoon of archers outside long ago!"

"A full platoon of archers!"

The hamlet folk were horrified — that was a full fifty men, all hidden outside? Now that their only clever man was dead, they had no way at all to tell truth from falsehood.

Seizing the moment as the hamlet folk fell into chaos, Heifu pointed at the Hamlet Gatekeeper's corpse, his eyes bulging as he barked the order:

"Those who resist to the bitter end — this is what becomes of them!"

"All of you, if you believe yourselves innocent, then swiftly assist this Village Chief in seizing those who bought the abducted women! The chance to turn yourselves in and live comes only once — if you don't seize it now, it will be gone!"

The next morning, when Shuwu, the Constable of Yunshui Township, arrived at Blind Mountain Hamlet with the county court's Clerk Yue and thirty or forty Village Chiefs, thief-catchers, and village soldiers from the various posts of Anlu County, all panting and out of breath, he beheld a bizarre scene he would never forget for the rest of his life...

Inside the walls of Blind Mountain Hamlet, tied to posts and tree stumps with vines, hemp ropes, and belts, packed densely together, were eighty to a hundred people. Aside from a dozen or so young children, who were watched over by the abducted women outside the hamlet gate, every single adult in Blind Mountain Hamlet had submitted to capture without resistance!

And Heifu, the Village Chief of Huyang Post — the man Shuwu had dug a pit for by handing him this thorny case — was now sitting with an air of ease on the tile eaves of the hamlet wall, toying with a crossbow mechanism in his hand. Together with Xiao Tao, who had an arrow nocked and bow drawn, he kept watch over the hundred-odd men and women inside the hamlet gate, ensuring none dared make the slightest reckless move.

"Th-this... how was this accomplished?"

Although he had already heard the gist of the matter from Ji Ying, who had come seeking reinforcements, Shuwu still could not believe the scene before his eyes.

Over two hundred people, at least several dozen able-bodied men among them — and Heifu had brought only five or six men with him. Could they really have fought one against ten and captured the entire Blind Mountain clan?

"They merely feared the majesty of Qin law, and so bound themselves and submitted," Heifu said with only a faint smile, as if it were nothing at all.

In truth, the day before, after the Hamlet Gatekeeper had been shot dead by Xiao Tao, Heifu had bluffed, using the threat of the "platoon of archers" supposedly lying in ambush outside the wall to trick the people of Blind Mountain into turning on one another.

Those households who considered themselves innocent and those who had bought the women — neighbors fought neighbors in a vicious brawl, beating each other black and blue, until finally they tied all those people up.

After that, Heifu's expression changed again. He confiscated everyone's farming tools and used his crossbow to force them to tie themselves up as well — and thus the scene before them came to be.

The two thousand years of Chinese history that followed have proven countless times: when courage dissipates and the resolve to die is gone, it is a common occurrence for several hundred people to surrender meekly to a dozen.

But the county clerks and Village Chiefs Shuwu had brought with him — where had they ever witnessed such a spectacle? They too were stunned dumb by the situation before them.

From the Clerk Clerk Yue on down to the several village heads and thief-catchers, none of them paid any mind to Shu Wu's jealous glare at Tie Qing, and they all began lavishly praising Hei Fu's skill, while also apologizing: "We arrived a step too late."

Hei Fu had not slept all night, and his eyes were somewhat bloodshot.

He looked at the bound criminal rioters inside the wall, each one wilted like an eggplant touched by frost, their former swagger when abusing women completely gone. What awaited them would be the merciless yet impartial judgment of the Qin Code.

He then looked at the abducted women outside the wall. In the morning sunlight, Yuanyuan had reverted to the appearance of a little girl, lying in her father's embrace and talking in her sleep, though her brows were slightly furrowed and tears had dried on her cheeks, as if recalling something unpleasant.

And the tormented madwoman Yun had a garland of flowers and grass placed on her head by someone unknown, covering the ghastly scars left by the beatings. She stared blankly at the dawn light on the horizon, a smile gradually emerging on her face...

"Indeed."

Amidst gazes of fear, gratitude, and admiration from the crowd, Hei Fu murmured to himself:

"Justice may be delayed..."

"But it will never be absent!"

PS: The afternoon chapter was posted early, so there's nothing more today.

Also, I recommend a decent Three Kingdoms novel, "Han Mo Huang Qi" — over a million words, ready to be devoured.

Synopsis: Has the Han fortune truly declined? Is it man-made or the will of Heaven? If it has not declined, then the Han must be continued. Those who offend our mighty Han, though distant, shall be put to death!

(End of Chapter)