With a sharp whoosh, an arrow flashed out. A figure tumbled from the west room's window, thrashing on the ground for a short while before falling completely still.
Wang Huadu remained locked in a relentless struggle with the other man, rolling back and forth across the floor.
Both had lost their weapons and were fighting with desperate, barehanded savagery. Nails, teeth—anything went, neither willing to stop until the other was dead. Yet their strength was evenly matched, and neither could gain the upper hand.
Having dispatched his own target, Cheng Ji drew his ring-pommel saber and seized the opportunity to slash the bandit across the back of the neck. Blood gushed out like a fountain.
Wang Huadu felt a violent shudder run through his enemy. Overjoyed, he summoned his remaining strength, rolled over to pin him to the floor, and began hammering down with left and right fists. There was no technique to the strikes, but every blow landed solidly—heavy with fury, burning with hatred, and tinged with lingering terror.
"He's dead. Go to the east room; I'll check outside," Cheng Ji said, pulling Wang Huadu off the corpse.
Bold and confident in his martial prowess, he slung his bow over his shoulder, hung his ring-pommel saber at his hip, and actually prepared to head out in pursuit.
Without a second thought, Wang Huadu abandoned his opponent—who was already exhaling far more breaths than he drew in—and did not even bother to retrieve a weapon. He bolted straight through the central hall and headed for the east room.
Kicking the wooden door open with a crash, he saw a solitary lamp flickering like a bean within. Shao Shuyi sat leaning against the bedframe, looking slightly injured.
Yu Yuan stood beside him, clutching an axe with visible effort, his face pale and panicked as he stared intently at the window.
"Xiaohu, you're all right?" Wang Huadu's eyes widened in joyful surprise.
Shao Shuyi rubbed his aching chest and asked, "Are you two all right?"
"Two bandits broke in through the window. Cheng Ji and I took down one each," Wang Huadu said. A moment later, looking somewhat abashed, he lowered his voice. "To be honest, Cheng Ji killed both of them. I just held one down for him."
As he spoke, he bent down and flipped the burly corpse over.
"This bastard was built like an ox." Having gotten a clear look at the man's build and features, Wang Huadu was somewhat astonished. He unconsciously eyed Shao Shuyi's frame, muttering, "Scars on his body, calluses on his hands... He definitely knew martial arts and got into brawls all the time. Besides, ordinary folk can hardly swing an axe properly. If this bastard dared wield one, he must have been confident in his skill. Xiaohu, you—"
Shao Shuyi tossed the bronze hand cannon onto the bed and said, "No matter how skilled he was, taking a shot from me within two paces meant death or crippling injury. Check where he was hit."
Wang Huadu pulled open the coarse hemp shirt on the corpse, looked closely, and said, "Seems to be in the chest."
Shao Shuyi nodded and began gathering up the powder jar, touch cords, shot, and other gear, remarking, "No wonder."
Bending down to help him pack, Wang Huadu asked in a low voice, "Xiaohu, none of these three dead men were decent folk. Exactly who went to such vicious lengths to take your life?"
"Does that even need saying?" Shao Shuyi shot him a glance and slowly got to his feet.
Dropping the axe, Yu Yuan stepped forward to support him.
"Good brother!" Shao Shuyi patted Yu Yuan on the shoulder. "If not for you today, I might not have had time to fire the hand cannon."
"I..." Yu Yuan stammered.
Shao Shuyi smiled at him.
Yu Yuan's heart tightened abruptly. Whether it was his imagination or not, he seemed to catch a glimpse of cold cruelty in Shao Shuyi's eyes.
Had he... gone mad?
"I'll need to have a proper set of campaign garments made," Shao Shuyi said, looking down and muttering to himself as he looked away. "If I could hang the fire pot, powder flask, shot, touch cords, and scouring stick all over me, killing people would be much more efficient."
Yu Yuan had no words. Sensing that something was wrong as well, Wang Huadu froze on the spot, and the room fell dead silent.
A moment later, approaching footsteps sounded.
Having finished loading the weapon, Shao Shuyi told Wang Huadu to open the door.
"Caught one!" Cheng Ji's voice called from outside.
Along with his voice, a dark bundle of a silhouette crashed to the ground with a dull thud.
Yu Yuan quickly brought over the oil lamp to shine light on it, revealing an elderly man with snow-white hair and beard, thoroughly battered and dazed.
"I've already questioned him. His name is Zhang Di, the paternal uncle of Zhang Neng, the martial instructor at the Zheng family's celadon shop," Cheng Ji said as he stepped inside. "Four killers came tonight in all, all of them Lake Tai water bandits. Three are dead, and one slipped away—hey, Xiaohu, what are you doing? Stop!"
It was too late. Without anyone noticing, Shao Shuyi had put aside the hand cannon and picked up the axe. Under Cheng Ji's horrified gaze, he swung it down hard against the old man's neck.
Perhaps his hands were trembling, or perhaps he lacked sufficient strength, but the axe failed to sever the head in one blow. Even so, the scene was utterly gruesome.
Zhang Di did not even manage a scream. His body merely twitched violently, letting out a ragged rattle from his throat, before going entirely limp.
Wang Huadu felt his scalp tingle, yet he also experienced a surge of excitement.
Yu Yuan went blank once more, his mind in complete disarray. He had never imagined a human body held so much blood, or that it could spray so high...
Shao Shuyi chopped down several more times until the head was completely severed, then wrapped it up in a scrap of cloth.
He offered everyone a faint smile, walked back into the east room on his own, and changed into his new blue-green robe.
In that moment, it was as if he had wiped away the dust from his heart, or shattered the chains binding him.
Had he gone mad? No, he was not mad; it was this world that was insane.
In such a madhouse of an age, anyone who refused to go mad was the abnormal one.
"Xiaohu, you're..." Wang Huadu followed him inside and asked in a low voice.
"Evil must be uprooted entirely," Shao Shuyi replied matter-of-factly.
"You mean—"
"With Zhang Neng still alive, how can I rest easy?" Shao Shuyi said. "If he could try to kill me once, what's to stop a second time? Before, I didn't stoop to his level, thinking that would keep the peace for a while. And what came of it? If I keep tolerating this, I won't last more than a few days. Even if Zhang Neng gets scared this time and backs off, there will be Li Nengs and Wang Nengs down the road. I can't live the way I used to."
Shao Shuyi was not just speaking to Wang Huadu; he was speaking to himself.
Between life and death lay a terrifying abyss. Having lived through this ordeal, he felt it necessary to shed the last lingering traces of modern naivety and softness. This was not the twenty-first century, but the fourteenth-century Yuan dynasty—a land crawling with lawless men.
"I'm going to kill Zhang Neng. Are you coming?" Shao Shuyi picked up the bronze hand cannon and asked.
Faced with the intensity in his gaze, Wang Huadu's blood rushed to his head. "Why wouldn't I?"
With that, he shouldered the sickle-axe.
Yu Yuan opened his mouth, wanting to speak, but hesitated.
Wang Huadu yanked him forward, pointed at the cloth-wrapped head on the floor, and said, "Pick it up. You're coming with us."
Yu Yuan showed reluctance.
Wang Huadu spat on the ground and scoffed disdainfully, "Always going on about brotherly loyalty, but when push comes to shove, it's all hot air!"
He bent down, picked up the severed head, hung it from the sickle-axe, and sneered, "Tonight has nothing to do with you. Roll on home, then."
Yu Yuan was on the verge of tears, looking back and forth between Shao Shuyi and Wang Huadu, thoroughly torn.
Shao Shuyi nudged a powder jar on the floor with his foot and said, "One of the bandits escaped. If this reaches the authorities, you won't be able to stay clear of it either."
This time, Yu Yuan genuinely began to cry.
Tears streaming down his face, he bent down with trembling hands and picked up the fire pot, the powder flask, the touch cords, the shot pouch, and the scouring stick one by one.
"Hold on!" Cheng Ji grabbed Shao Shuyi, his expression grave. "Why go this far? They were just Lake Tai water bandits; killing them carries no guilt. If you stop here, the authorities won't do anything to you."
"Zhang Neng is still alive," Shao Shuyi turned his head to look at him. "Only when he's dead will the authorities truly leave me alone, because no one speaks for a corpse."
Cheng Ji fell silent. He was the one who had brought Zhang Di back; if push came to shove, he truly might not be able to clear himself.
"Could we capture Zhang Neng without taking his life and just hand him over to the authorities?" He looked up at Shao Shuyi, a faint plea in his eyes.
"You possess great martial skill, yet have no idea how to use it," Shao Shuyi gave a cold scoff and stepped out the door first.
***
Four figures hurried along the country road.
Shao Shuyi walked in the lead, carrying the bronze hand cannon on his shoulder.
Wang Huadu followed close behind. Having changed his clothes, he walked with puffed-up swagger, glancing up from time to time at the blood-soaked bundle hanging from the tip of his sickle-axe.
Carrying an assortment of pots and jars, Yu Yuan kept his head low, wearing a tearful, miserable scowl the entire way.
Cheng Ji looked as though he wanted to sigh every few dozen paces, his mood utterly wretched.
There were few people on the road during the latter half of the night—apart from one or two porters carrying vegetables, only a handful of early-rising farmers weeding their fields.
The four walked and rested by turns until the sun hung high in the sky and Old Locust Tree was finally in sight.
Taking a deep breath, Shao Shuyi strode ahead to the front of the celadon shop.
"Accountant, you're here? The shopkeeper was just grumbling about you earlier," Cao Tong called out as he hurried over from a distance to greet him.
"Where is Zhang Neng?" Shao Shuyi asked.
"By the shopkeeper's orders, he's catching rats in Storeroom Jia. Rats broke in last night and knocked over several pieces of valuable celadon, sending the shopkeeper into a rage—wait, who are those men behind you?" Cao Tong froze mid-sentence.
Shao Shuyi shoved him aside and marched straight toward Storeroom Jia.
Wang Huadu flashed Cao Tong a bizarre grin without slowing his pace.
Yu Yuan kept his head down, shielding his face with a sleeve.
Cheng Ji let out a sigh and instinctively picked up his pace.
At that moment, Zhang Neng was indeed inside Storeroom Jia, with six or seven exquisite pieces of celadon piled up behind him, clearly worth a small fortune.
Once Shao Shuyi was dead, the old residence on Salt and Iron Creek would naturally send a replacement, but that would take time. This vacant window was his prime opportunity to line his pockets, and the shopkeeper had tacitly approved.
The celadon pieces he had picked out could easily fetch ten ding once resold. If he pulled this off a few more times, he could even redeem a beautiful courtesan to bring home as a concubine.
Just as he was lost in his daydream, a calm voice called from outside the storeroom: "Zhang Neng."
Before the words had even faded, a bundle rolled to a stop before the doorway, caked in dirt and grime.
Zhang Neng's heart gave a jolt. Wasn't that the voice of the accountant, Shao Shuyi? He wasn't dead? Had he come to report him to the shopkeeper?
Without time to think, Zhang Neng rushed straight to the door. Ignoring the bundle on the ground, he searched about for Shao Shuyi's figure.
Found him!
Shao Shuyi stood beneath a tree outside the storeroom door, barely two paces away, smiling at him. Both hands gripped a... firearm?
Bang!
The shot exploded forward, striking Zhang Neng directly between the brows and giving him no time to react whatsoever.
Thud!
The corpse crashed heavily to the ground.
Shao Shuyi checked the powder chamber and the iron reinforcement bands on the barrel. Seeing no damage, he called Yu Yuan over to bring the powder flask and began reloading with unhurried calm.
After handing over the flask, Yu Yuan caught sight of Zhang Neng's shattered skull—nearly half of it blown away—and promptly emptied his stomach with a loud gag.
"Splendid!" Wang Huadu roared with laughter.
Firing without a single wasted word—now that was a satisfying vengeance. Still, they needed to move fast: finish off Wu Youcai and Wang Sheng, then make a run for it.
Cheng Ji trailed at the rear, casually positioning himself to block the view of any onlookers.
"What was that noise? Xiaohu, you're here? Hey, why is Zhang Neng lying on the floor—" Before long, shopkeeper Wang Sheng suddenly appeared in the courtyard of the storeroom. The moment his gaze landed on Zhang Neng's head, all color drained from his face.
Having just finished loading the shot, Shao Shuyi smiled at the words. Inserting a touch cord into the touch hole, he strode boldly up to Wang Sheng, seized him by the collar, shoved the barrel right into his mouth, and said, "Shopkeeper, coming out in such a hurry—were you afraid I hadn't died?"
Agony twisted Wang Sheng's face as he mumbled incoherently, struggling by instinct.
Wang Huadu stepped forward swiftly and rested his sickle-axe against Wang Sheng's neck.
Both furious and terrified, Wang Sheng froze.
A gust of wind blew past, accelerating the smolder of the touch cord.
Wang Sheng watched in sheer terror, tears and snot streaming down his face. He knew his trade; the instant that touch cord burned through, the hand cannon would fire, and the projectile would punch through his skull with effortless ease.
"Scared?" Shao Shuyi blew casually on the touch cord, making the bamboo-charcoal cord burn even faster.
"Spare... spare m-my life..." Wang Sheng nodded desperately, pleading.
Shao Shuyi laughed heartily. "Had you known it would come to this, why do it in the first place?"
With that, he released his grip on Wang Sheng, pulled the touch cord from the touch hole, and flicked it right onto Wang Sheng's face.
Scalded, Wang Sheng cried out in terror and scrambled away, tumbling to the ground in his panic and coughing violently. As he coughed, several teeth spilled out, his mouth slick with blood.
"Bring brush and paper," Shao Shuyi ordered. "Make this old bastard write a confession."
Chapter 30