Chapter 608: The Night Is Not Quiet, the Matter Is Not Over

By now, only one option remained. All the desperate, reckless bravado had vanished like smoke. Those lucky enough to still be alive dropped straight to their knees, kowtowing and begging for mercy.

Not many households lived around the Cloud Mountain Martial Hall. The residents in that three-street area were already gone, and those living further out had long been instructed not to come out and look no matter what noise they heard at night, lest they court death. Hearing the sky-shaking battle cries from that direction, no one dared to stick their head out anyway. Even without those instructions, no one would have dared show themselves. With the clamor of such slaughter, did they want to invite disaster upon themselves?

Yet the shouting and killing were brief. It made one's heart pound with terror at first, but soon it ceased. Not long after, the thunderous roar of hoofbeats could be heard, as if a large mounted troop was heading toward the bustling area of Qingjiangpu.

Moving from the outskirts inward, the population grew denser. In the deep silence of the night, a large mounted troop galloping made the hoofbeats sound like rolling thunder, carrying especially far. Dogs at house after house began barking wildly. People along the road lit their lamps and, trembling, stepped out of their houses, pressing against the cracks in their doors to peer outside.

By the time they looked out, the mounted troop was long gone. A few bold ones stepped out of their courtyards and could see the troop heading east with torches blazing.

"What are those Xuzhou men up to now?"

"Could it be they've found some scourge? There are a few scoundrels who deserve a good lesson."

Had this happened a few days earlier, seeing such a large mounted troop moving at night, people would not only have guessed it was the Zhao Battalion, but would also have grumbled about the Zhao Battalion being lawless, those Xuzhou brutes running rampant in Qingjiangpu. But after the incident with Niu Shengjie, everyone instinctively began to see the Zhao Battalion and these Xuzhou men as their own people. They figured such a night operation must be for everyone's good.

Having startled countless commoners and households awake, they arrived in front of a shop. The shop was merely a three-courtyard residence, with a storefront facing the street and a warehouse and living quarters for the manager and staff in the back. It dealt in general goods and sundries.

This shop was a full several hundred paces from the canal. Judging by that distance, it was a very ordinary shop. There were no fewer than eight hundred, if not a thousand, such shops in Qingjiangpu. Tonight, however, was somewhat unusual. Other shops had long since closed for the night, but this one was still awake. Lanterns hung in front of the shop, and two men were craning their necks to peer outside, chatting and laughing as they looked. Hearing the distant rumble of hoofbeats, they both froze. Such a sound was rare in Qingjiangpu.

When they saw the large mounted troop appear at the street corner and rapidly close in, the two men still hadn't reacted. They didn't even know if the troop was heading for their shop. Only when they were right upon them did they realize something was wrong. By the time they hurriedly tried to retreat into the courtyard, it was already too late. Standing under the lanterns at the door, they made far too easy a target. All that was heard was the whistle of arrows cutting through the air. The two men screamed as they were struck, collapsing over the threshold so that even the door couldn't be closed.

There were cries of alarm from inside the courtyard, but seeing the arrows in their companions, no one dared approach. All they heard outside was a group of men shouting as they dismounted. Unlike the encirclement and night raid on the bandits, where household troops had been used, for this kind of operation it was the men of the Inner Guard, all jianghu fighters, who stepped forward.

"We're not fit for the banquet table; we can only handle the odd jobs!" someone joked self-deprecatingly as they surged into the shop, weapons in hand.

There were only a dozen or so people in the shop. Late as it was, from the manager to the staff, not a single person was asleep. All were fully dressed, gathered around the lamplight. When they saw the Zhao Battalion's Inner Guard charge in, these managers and staff reacted unlike normal people. Though their faces were pale and their bodies trembled, they were not frozen in terror. Instead, several drew their weapons.

After a night of slaughter, the Zhao Battalion household troops could no longer hold back. Seeing their opponents still dared to resist, they immediately swarmed them. After three were cut down by pudao blades, the rest obediently surrendered. Those who mixed in the jianghu and the outlaw world knew better than anyone who they could not afford to offend.

A rough search of the shop was conducted, and with several men working on each captive, they immediately began applying torture. Every method was used, and the people in the shop quickly broke. After only a few howls of agony, they spilled everything. The Inner Guard men worked swiftly, trussing up everyone in the shop tightly. Leaving five men to stand guard, the rest mounted up again and headed straight for the canal bank.

The canal bank, bustling and lively by day, was utterly quiet at this hour. Yet the silence here was different from that within the city. There were still some sounds of human activity. The shore was pitch-black, but the river surface was quite bright. Many boats had wind lamps hung at bow and stern to prevent collisions.

More people were awake here than elsewhere. Hearing the sound of hoofbeats, many poked their heads out from their dwellings to look, showing no signs of fear. Seeing it had nothing to do with them, they simply withdrew back inside.

Riding horses was rather inconvenient here. The jianghu men of the Inner Guard dismounted one after another. Someone familiar with the area found a wooden shack on the bank. From outside, they could hear a clamor of voices within, the sounds of shouting and gambling in high spirits. The one who knew his way around went straight in and emerged shortly after, calling out a few men dressed as grain-transport laborers. They huddled together with the Inner Guard leaders, speaking in low voices for a while, and a silver ingot was handed over.

"Two taels of silver for each person caught. The boat and everything on it are yours. Our Master Jin will cover any fallout from this case. Master Jin's word is solid!" the negotiator swore with absolute conviction.

The four words "Master Jin's word" carried considerable weight. The grain-transport laborer weighed the silver in his hand, nodded, and turned back into the shack. Before long, a dozen or so eager men poured out of the building.

These dozen or so grain-transport laborers and soldiers didn't idle along the way. They kept ducking in and out of the buildings along the dock, and shouting to people on the boats moored at the bank. Men stepped out of buildings and jumped down from boats. Soon, they had gathered over fifty men, armed with all sorts of implements — knives, axes, wooden clubs, even anchor hooks — and headed toward the riverbank just like that.

As they walked further, most of the torches held by the Zhao Battalion mounted troop had been extinguished, leaving only two lanterns to lead the way up front. Conversation among them dwindled, and a large group of people advanced in silence. No one found it strange. Nighttime loading and unloading was common along the canal bank; goods inconvenient to bring out during the day were often handled at this hour. As long as the officials turned a blind eye and the canal factions were placated, there would be no trouble.

They walked on in this silence for a while. The grain-transport laborers leading the way whispered among themselves for a moment, then pointed ahead. Moored at the bank were three wooden boats of two-hundred-dan capacity. By the lamplight at night, they looked very dilapidated and old. Someone could be seen sitting at the bow, dozing.

At the laborer's signal, the men carrying anchor hooks immediately stepped forward. With a few shouts, they hurled the hooks directly. It was only a few paces from the bank, a simple enough throw, and the hooks bit fiercely into the boats' gunwales.

The noise instantly startled the people on the boats awake. But in this situation, waking up was useless. With a unified shout, the gang of grain-transport laborers and soldiers on the bank had already stormed aboard.

Though the canal's surface was calm, it still had swells. Fighting with weapons on a boat was very different from fighting on land. But the grain-transport laborers and soldiers spent all their days on the water and were naturally accustomed to it. Although their combat skills were weak, there were only a few people on the boats anyway. Outnumbered and caught while still groggy with sleep, the defenders could only be overwhelmed.

Amid the chaos, people from many other boats came over to look, but the grain-transport laborers shouted them back. Once they dropped the names of the gang bosses, everyone knew to mind their own business.

A dozen or so people were trussed up tightly and delivered to the shore. The Zhao Battalion Inner Guard leader handed over the silver with a grin. They exchanged a word of farewell and left with their captives just like that.

Watching the Zhao Battalion mounted troop swagger off into the distance, the grain-transport laborers, while already calculating how to split the silver, all felt a bit uneasy. Someone muttered quietly, "The Zhao Battalion's methods are truly ruthless. When they strike, they aim straight for the root. Best we provoke them less in the future."

The Inner Guard men did not take the captives seized from the river back to the Cloud Mountain Martial Hall. Instead, they went directly to that shop. Closing the courtyard gate, they began the interrogation.

No one else knew what happened in that courtyard that night. But those who hadn't slept spent the night in heart-pounding terror, and those who slept without being woken were plagued by nightmares, all the way until dawn the next day.

As soon as the city gates of Shanyang, the seat of Huai'an Prefecture, opened, a fast horse was seen rushing in urgently. Those unaware might have thought it was some emergency military dispatch. Asking the gate guards revealed it was those Xuzhou men from the Zhao Battalion hurrying into the city.

"The city's perfectly peaceful. What are they rushing in for?" the person who asked muttered.

It was laughable, really. After the Zhao Battalion's mounted troop had dragged Niu Shengjie and his gang to death through the streets, a great peace suddenly descended upon Shanyang, the seat of Huai'an Prefecture, and along both banks of the canal in Qingjiangpu. Lawbreakers, troublemakers, local thugs, and riffraff either hastily reined themselves in or fled far away. The example of those several dozen men dragged to death was simply too horrifying; no one wanted to repeat their fate.

The idyllic scene of "doors unbolted at night, lost items left untouched on the road" had actually appeared in and around the city these past few days. The common folk felt this most keenly and naturally formed an excellent impression of the Zhao Battalion. So whatever the Zhao Battalion did, people's preconceived notion was to find a reason for them — surely it was for the good of the people.

The Zhao Battalion's fast horse had barely entered the city when a dozen or so constables were seen riding out on horseback, led by none other than the newly promoted Chief Constable, Meng Chao.

The entire Niu family had been punished, but the Zhao Battalion would not shoulder the crime of administering private justice. An excuse was found for the authorities to take over the case. It was simply said that the villains were so evil that when the authorities moved to arrest them, the public's outrage boiled over, and the common people beat the fiends to death. Unacceptable by national law, yet forgivable by human sentiment. The matter was thus glossed over lightly in official documents. Still, since the deed was done, someone on the government side had to take responsibility for it. The exceedingly slippery Head Constable Liu naturally had no desire to do so.

Although the task of rounding up the Niu family scourge was long finished, letting the constables take the credit sounded glorious and impressive when spoken of publicly. But the case wasn't truly over. No one knew when the Niu family's retaliation might come. Whoever took the credit for this would be asking for trouble. A slippery character like Head Constable Liu would never swallow such a hidden loss.

I'm back. Thank you all for the tips, monthly tickets, and subscriptions — I won't list every name here in thanks. I will be updating steadily from now on. Thank you, everyone. So tired.