Chapter 1029: To Move or Not to Move

"So many directions — east, south, west, north — how do you know they came through Qingjiangpu? And those big shots in the capital know perfectly well what that bunch of useless trash in the Nanjing Brocade Guard can do. If Old Ma were still running things over there, maybe they'd be worth something. But now? A joke, nothing more." Li Dajin sounded impatient.

After saying this, Li Dajin slowed his tone and instinctively lowered his voice. "Little Wei, if we just do our own jobs properly, we won't have to worry about any slip-ups. The number one priority right now isn't those useless runner scum — it's the expansion and restructuring. You're in the Inner Guard, and you've been close to Sixth Master Dong's side. Have you heard anything?"

This question only irritated Wei Mugen. He replied sullenly, "Squad Leader, Inner Guard intelligence can't be shared with outsiders. As for the expansion and restructuring, Master Jin always handles things fairly. We just wait. This subordinate believes that if Master Jin promotes us, it's because we've done well. If he doesn't promote us or demotes us, then we haven't done well. We just obey."

"You're too young, and you've never spent time in official circles — you're thinking too naively. Some things, if you don't fight for them, you simply won't get. Fall one step behind now, and you'll keep falling behind at every step after!" Li Dajin wasn't really angry; instead, he let out a long sigh, seeming full of deep feeling.

Hearing Li Dajin's words, Wei Mugen lowered his head for a moment, then said sullenly, "We're always at a disadvantage down south. Up north they're fighting and making arrests — more action means more merit. If that Wang Haoxian had fallen into our hands, the credit would've been ours. But now that credit's going to count for those people over in Yutou Town."

Li Dajin gave a bitter laugh but said nothing more. Just a few days earlier, Shanyang County, the seat of Huai'an Prefecture, had cracked a major case. Both the prefect's and the county magistrate's yamen had earned great merit. The achievement was intercepting Wang Haoxian, one of the ringleaders of the Smelling Incense Sect, at Qingjiangpu — and capturing him alive. After the arrest, he was immediately escorted to the capital. The whole official hierarchy was celebrating; the rewards for such great merit would greatly benefit everyone's career prospects.

Outsiders looking at this matter all said Huai'an Prefecture had gotten lucky, but Li Dajin, Cheng Dahu, and Wei Mugen knew the inside story, and couldn't help feeling a bit sour about it.

At a certain inn inside Hejiazhuang, a wealthy guest from Kaifeng had rented an entire private courtyard and had already stayed for seven days. His personal attendant had notified the front desk that they would settle accounts and leave early the next morning. The innkeeper himself had gone to exchange pleasantries and even specially sent over wine and dishes, because this wealthy guest spent generously and had been very good for the inn's business.

After this wealthy guest had settled in, he had been openly observed, secretly searched, and shadowed and probed by surveillance. Layer after layer of screening had confirmed he posed no danger. He had brought over twenty servants, but only four bodyguards possessed martial skills. Once they learned the rules of Hejiazhuang, however, they immediately handed over all their weapons. Apart from occasionally going out to see the sights, they spent the rest of their time inside the inn.

Besides his servants, the wealthy guest also had several beautiful concubines attending him. He spent more time shut up in his room with them than he did out sightseeing. The man was a wealthy householder from Luoyang City in Henan Prefecture, dealing in medicinal herbs and specialty goods from Shaanxi. He wanted to purchase some southern goods in Xuzhou to take back, and he was an experienced hand at negotiating business. People like this were common around Hejiazhuang and nothing out of the ordinary. After the initial inspection was passed, no one paid him much attention.

During this period, however, security at Hejiazhuang had been tightened considerably. The guards around Zhao Jin's residence and several critical locations had been increased. Patrolmen in uniform on the streets and plainclothes eyes-and-ears had also been reinforced. At every inn and trading house — anywhere outsiders gathered — additional resident agents and watchers had been planted. Firearm companies and pike companies were now mixed together patrolling the streets. The cavalry unit was permanently stationed on the outskirts. The uninformed just saw a show; those in the know could sense the dense, murderous tension.

As for the reason, it wasn't much of a secret. Some people already knew that assassins from the enemy had been discovered in Yutou Town, in Qingjiangpu, in Xuzhou City, in Feng County, and in Dangshan. It seemed the enemy had been watching Xuzhou all along, looking for a chance to strike, so strict security was essential. In fact, all the trading houses and goods depots had made their own preparations as well — outwardly warm toward unfamiliar merchants, but secretly cautious. They too loathed these assassins deeply. Several times when trouble had broken out, it had started with arson and killing at the trading houses' warehouses. It was truly infuriating.

Yet these defenses were maintained in a state of outward calm and inner tension. Only those who had stayed long in Xuzhou and were fairly familiar with the Zhao Character Camp could detect anything amiss. To everyone else, it was still a scene of peace and prosperity, a place to gather treasure and rake in gold. As long as you came to do normal business or sightsee, you could come and go freely and wouldn't notice much difference.

The wealthy guest from Luoyang left Xuzhou just like that. The stretch of official road between Kaifeng and Guide had once been plagued by mounted bandits and robbers, but now it was peaceful territory. Traveling by land was actually more convenient than going upstream against the Yellow River. They unhurriedly departed Xuzhou, then entered Guide, and continued westward. They had also picked up a useful tip: staying at the Cloud Mountain Inns run by the Zhao Character Camp was safe, clean, attentive, and reassuring — even the government post stations couldn't compare.

Once they left Guide and entered Kaifeng Prefecture territory, everyone from top to bottom could clearly feel a difference. Everything began to turn chaotic, no longer so orderly. Only then did the ever-smiling wealthy guest let his face darken. The bodyguards, who had been keeping watch from a distance and hadn't seemed very high in status, all changed their demeanor as well, drawing close to the carriage the wealthy guest rode in. No one else raised the slightest objection; everyone looked relieved.

"We're just going back like this?"

"If you want to die, you can go by yourself. I've got a wife and kids back in Luoyang City — a whole family depending on this Hundred-Household post to survive."

"What was the court thinking, sending us to assassinate someone in a deathtrap like that? Forget a night raid — even if you got within a hundred paces of Zhao Jin, the moment you bared a weapon, you'd be dead for sure. Zhao Jin has no shortage of top fighters under him. Didn't they say that Old Ma from the capital has come over too? With that turncoat here, there's no way we can use any of our usual methods!"

"Use what? A place like that, they should send tens of thousands of government troops to storm it head-on. Sending us operatives to our deaths is bullshit. But there are plenty of desperadoes in the Henan circuit's underworld — we could let them give it a try."

The several bodyguards beside the carriage were all talking at once. The wealthy guest inside had replied once and then fallen silent, but at this he let out a cold snort. "Zhao Jin is already one of the top dragon-head figures in the underworld. You want to send desperadoes after him? Those desperadoes will turn right around and sell us out. When that happens, forget about them going to Xuzhou to kill — I'm afraid those money-grubbing types will come straight to Luoyang City to kill us instead. Do you think Xuzhou can stop them, or Luoyang can? We were just talking about that eunuch who was killed in the capital a while back — have you forgotten already?"

On a street in the capital, a major figure among the inner court eunuchs had been murdered in broad daylight, yet afterward the killer could not be traced. People from Shuntian Prefecture, the Five Wards Military Command, and the Brocade Guard had all been punished for it. Some were exiled to the provinces to serve, and that's how the news had spread. At the time, many had already guessed it was connected to Zhao Jin.

Remembering this, everyone shuddered. The wealthy guest said sullenly, "This suicide mission — whoever wants it in the future can go. We're done."

Some nodded, but one man said defiantly, "Just some local thug — who knows how much longer he can run wild..."

"A local thug? You didn't realize your packs were searched, did you? I told you bastards not to bring your commission badges and waist tokens, and every one of you refused. Well, who's the local thug now?" When the wealthy guest said this, the four bodyguards around the carriage all turned pale and fell completely silent.

Inside Jining City in Shandong, one of the province's most prosperous and wealthy cities, recovery was still underway. The new Jining Subprefect and the corresponding officials had all taken up their posts, but in the rush they could accomplish nothing. The rich and the gentry were all busy licking their own wounds or devouring and fighting each other, with no attention to spare for the authorities. Besides, the Zhao Character Camp's hand had already reached in, and after the government troops' performance, everyone held the authorities in less and less awe. As for the common people, they wouldn't recover any time soon. In the brief days the Smelling Incense Sect had occupied the city, countless families had been destroyed, and those who remained were all grievously wounded in spirit and strength.

Amid such conditions, every Buddhist temple, Daoist abbey, and nunnery that had survived the great Smelling Incense Sect chaos was holding blessings and performing rituals throughout the city, conveniently soliciting alms from the faithful and asking the common people for donations. When people are in such a state of terror and panic, they always think of praying to gods and Buddhas or placing their hopes in the next life.

While the monks and Daoists did this, the cults — those that couldn't show their faces and those that could show a little — seized the opportunity all the more. Before, the best territories in Shandong had all been the domain of the Smelling Incense Sect. Everyone had drooled with envy but dared not make a move. Too many tragic precedents stood before them: whoever rashly reached out a hand would be killed and their whole family wiped out, all their followers snatched away clean. But now, with the Smelling Incense Sect destroyed and the Xuzhou Zhao Character Camp not yet firmly established, it was the perfect time to spread the faith. Among the wealthy households it was a bit less common, but in the places where commoners lived, their traces could be seen everywhere, making only the barest show of concealment.

"Back when the Sage Confucius was traveling and teaching, he accidentally killed a pig by the Yellow River. The Sage thought it was just a domestic pig, but he never imagined that pig was actually a cultivated demon. That Xu Hongru is the reincarnation of that demon, come specifically to bring calamity upon Shandong and avenge that old grudge. And what do you think this Zhao Jin is? Zhao Jin is a long spear that once belonged to a Tartar emperor, cultivated over all these years into a spirit, now taking human form, and he too wants to drink the blood of us Shandong commoners. Think about it, everyone — between these two fiends, how many people have died in our Jining, in our Shandong? This is all karmic retribution from past lives!"

"Do you know how Xu Hongru, with all his tremendous power and the terrible chaos he caused, was captured? He was subdued by our sect leader's great dharma power. You all heard that sound like thunder, right? Yes, that wasn't cannon fire — that was our sect leader using thunder magic. He's eliminated Xu Hongru, that man-eating demon. One is gone, but one remains. That Zhao Jin will be even more terrible in the future. The soldiers under him are all demon soldiers! They haven't fully matured yet, but in the future they'll eat people and drink blood. Us Shandong folk won't escape this great calamity!"

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