The captain of the Fifth Brigade and his men were busy straightening the two corpses, then using needle and thread to sew the severed heads squarely back onto the necks.
Tears streamed down their faces as they worked.
Li Keshi walked over in silence, wiped the blood from his blade with two pieces of white cloth, and laid the bloodstained cloths beside the bodies.
"Look after the families..." he said heavily.
The Fifth Brigade captain kept his head bowed, his voice thick and muffled as if speaking through gritted teeth. "We can manage! Even if every last one of us dies, our brothers' widows and orphans will be cared for!"
With a dark face, Li Keshi said, "If you need anything, tell me."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, my lord."
Li Keshi stood there awkwardly for a moment before saying, "In a little while, all brigade captains will assemble for a meeting."
"Understood."
Li Keshi turned to leave, but the Fifth Brigade captain suddenly halted his hands. Hearing the desperate, hysterical weeping of the women and children nearby, along with the young boys crying out in bitter, uncomprehending hatred—promising vengeance and cursing their names—a momentary struggle flared in his eyes. With a sharp gasp, he shot to his feet, eyes wide as he stared at Li Keshi, his voice hoarse. "Lord Li!"
Li Keshi turned back without speaking.
"My lord, anyone with eyes to see this matter—even if it were His Majesty the Emperor or Lord Bai himself—would have to call it a misfortune born of natural disaster, wouldn't they? Isn't that the truth of it?"
The tower of a man spoke with a deep, rasping voice, his burly frame trembling slightly.
Hearing his words, the two pairs of mothers and children choked back their sobs, turning tear-streaked faces toward him.
"Yes!" Li Keshi replied unequivocally. "That is true!"
"Then let me be bold enough to ask one more thing: regarding exceptions, harsh though Great Qin's laws may be, has there never been a precedent? Have there never been cases in Great Qin where evidence was fabricated just to spare someone?" the Fifth Brigade captain pressed heavily.
"There have!" Li Keshi answered, just as clear and direct. "Not only have there been, but many. It is a common occurrence!"
"Then why..." The man practically tore his throat, veins bulging thick along his neck, his eyes shot through with blood. "Why couldn't you give our brothers that chance?!"
Li Keshi's face grew solemn, his voice quiet. "You asked if such things happen in Great Qin. So I answered you that they do. However, I can tell you just as clearly: in Lord Bai's Mountain and River Prison, no such thing exists! Neither in the Demon Suppression Bureau nor in the Martial Suppression Bureau!
"There has never been a precedent!
"If the Mountain and River Prison had ever had such a precedent, then without any of you saying a word, I, Li Keshi, would have gone straight to Lord Gu Huo. And if Lord Gu Huo refused to intervene, I would rather have smashed my head open on the stones before the Mountain and River Prison tower, standing face to face with Lord Bai, to wrest a path of survival for my brothers!
"But there is no precedent!
"That is the sole reason why neither of them could live today! Because that opening cannot be made. Once we open that crack here, how many mountain demons, wood spirits, fiends, and monsters must the eight reaches of Great Qin face every single day? Lapses and oversights happen daily across every circuit, prefecture, commandery, and county!
"If we open that crack today and others seize upon our precedent to demand pardons, what then? When everyone demands an exemption, what is Lord Bai supposed to do?
"This time, the mountain demon was caught in the end. But what if it hadn't been?"
Li Keshi did not raise his voice, yet every word fell like lead.
Everyone heard him.
Heads drooped in dejection.
The two mothers and their children heard it as well. The resentment on their faces froze, replaced by an inkling of understanding as tears silently spilled over. The hatred burning in the children's eyes softened into bewilderment and sorrow.
Both Li Keshi and the Fifth Brigade captain quietly let out a breath of relief.
If that hatred were not dispelled today, those boys might do something reckless in the future, and people would die for it. It had to be resolved here and now.
Liu Zhen rested a hand on Xu Yao's shoulder and whispered, "Big Fatty, do you understand now?"
"I understand."
No matter how forgivable the circumstances, human sentiment was not the law!
"Good that you understand. In everything you do from now on, remember today. Never let an oversight happen on your watch."
Liu Zhen's lecturing streak resurfaced, and he tweaked Xu Yao's ear as he admonished him, "Every man holds the lives of his entire squad in his hands! This time, mercy was shown by executing only the men responsible. Next time, there will be no mercy—not even if the mountains collapse and the earth splits open all over again."
"Understood, understood."
With fresh blood pooling before him and the bodies still warm, Xu Yao truly took the lesson to heart.
No matter how unavoidable the situation, no matter how severe the natural disaster, failure was failure.
By then, Chen Chong had finished speaking with several squad leaders and walked over to Liu Zhen, casting a meaningful glance at Xu Yao. "Did you see?"
"I saw."
"Good. It's good that you saw it."
Chen Chong nodded.
He had wanted to explain how Li Keshi had never touched upon the actual fault from start to finish, framing everything under the merciless rigor of the law, and what that truly signified.
Yet on second thought, he held his tongue.
The warmth behind that truth might dilute the shock Xu Yao was feeling right now. Better to find an occasion later, or let the boy come to realize it on his own.
Turning back to Liu Zhen, Chen Chong said, "Everyone wants to pool a little something for the two families. But our brigade's money belongs to everyone; taking from it is taking food out of our brothers' mouths. What do you think?"
"No objections from me," Liu Zhen replied readily. "Giving a bit more is fine by me. The journey's too far for us to visit often anyway... I'll speak to the men in my squad. They'll all agree!"
In his heart, Liu Zhen genuinely wished he could give even more. After all, that day could just as easily have been his own.
"All right." Chen Chong pulled a white cloth pouch from his robes.
Liu Zhen added, "After all, whether it's the laws of the realm or the rules of the Mountain and River Prison, understanding them is one thing. But these two households are genuinely pitiable. Say whatever you want, two women have lost their husbands, and two boys have lost their fathers. That suffering is something no legal statute can tend to. All we brothers can do is lend a hand."
Chen Chong scowled and snapped, "Shut up! Just say you agree. What's with all the damn bellyaching?"
He gave the white cloth pouch a shake and strode toward the mothers and their sons.
Xu Yao's eyes flickered, realizing that the brigade captain had already prepared the pouch before ever setting out.
A funeral—he had known before leaving the First Brigade's Mountain Guard Compound that it could not be avoided under any circumstances.
Then Li Keshi called out, "All brigade captains, assemble for the meeting. The rest of you old bastards, gather together and catch up."
Lord Wang of the county Demon Suppression Inspection Office added, "Let the young fellows preparing to compete for the warrior positions gather in a separate yard to get acquainted and share some lively spirit."
At once, Xu Yao felt countless gazes shoot toward him, or dart among one another.
With a collective rustle, Liu Zhen and more than twenty burly men swarmed around Xu Yao, shielding him behind an impenetrable wall of flesh.
From within the circle of men, Liu Zhen lowered his voice.
"Remember what we taught you! The groin, the eyes, the throat, the ribs, the diaphragm, the asshole..."
"Go all out! Just don't come out on the losing end!"
"Stay on the defensive, don't initiate. Got it?"
"Try not to kill anyone. If someone dies, it gets messy."
"If you get hurt, protect the tendons in your wrists and ankles at all costs. Never mind the rest; they won't dare strike at lethal spots."
"It's your first time in a brawl like this. Watch how they play first. Learn, figure them out, be underhanded, and don't be too righteous."
"Keep an honest face, a ruthless heart, and vicious hands!"
"Whatever happens, stay on your feet! Once you hit the ground, you're done for!"
"..."
Then, along with the other hulking men, he herded Xu Yao and the other youths out toward an empty clearing beyond the main compound like a flock of chicks, before shouting to their companions and dispersing in all directions.
Not a single overseer was left behind.
No one seemed at all concerned that these hotheaded youngsters might fail to pull their punches and actually beat someone to death.
The rush had been so sudden that Xu Yao only managed a single backward glance, catching the bleak, ash-gray despair etched into the faces of the two mothers and their boys—an image seared indelibly into his mind.
*If the one who made the mistake had been me...*
The thought flickered through Xu Yao's mind, only to be crushed down instantly, leaving him drenched in cold sweat.
They arrived at a clearing bordered by a small grove of trees.
Xu Yao kept quiet the entire time, wearing an expression of clumsy honesty. Whenever someone came over to greet him, he put on a tongue-tied, awkward demeanor, offering clumsy pleasantries and a broad, harmless smile.
Within a few exchanges, he had successfully established an impression of being completely simple, earnest, and thoroughly harmless.
Meanwhile, the other youths began venting their aggression indiscriminately, the hostility thickening between them.
Across all twelve brigades, there were thirty to forty youngsters in total. Only the First Brigade was short-handed, with Xu Yao as their lone representative, while the other brigades had at least two, and some four or five.
Young blood ran hot.
A few stares turned into words, words escalated into shouts, shouting led to shoving, and shoving quickly turned into fists. Before anyone even had time to think, it had erupted into a full-scale brawl!
What was more, it was a massive melee splintered into seven or eight factions!
Xu Yao was utterly bewildered. *Was getting into a fight... really this easy?*
"What are you looking at?"
"Looking at you! What of it?"
"You looking for a beating?"
"Looks to me like you're the one asking for it!"
*Wham!*
A fist flew out, and thirty to forty youths instantly threw themselves into the fray.
Xu Yao was still thinking, *Don't you at least need a proper reason to scrap?* when he saw the clearing turn into a chaotic knot of thrashing bodies.
A fist came barreling straight toward his face. Looking completely stunned and bewildered, Xu Yao shouted, "What are you doing? What are you doing?!"
*Boom!*
A vicious kick launched the charging youth backward through the air.
The blow landed squarely below the lower abdomen, right between his legs...
And just like that, Xu Yao plunged headlong into the brawl.
*Thud, thud, thud...*
Chapter 44