Song Zhigang waited at home for news of his father, burning with anxiety.
Around eight o'clock, chugging, rattling noises rumbled incessantly from outside the gates.
What was that sound?
Two guards burst inside. "Young Master, bad news! Someone drove a steamroller right up to our front gate!"
"Who the hell is it?! Who authorized them to drive a steamroller into the village? I swear to..."
Song Zhigang put on a furious display, but in truth, he was not angry at all. Fear was the only thing coursing through him.
Before long, another guard ran in to report, "Young Master, there's a lunatic outside! He says he's giving us ten minutes. If we don't move out in ten minutes, he'll drive the steamroller into the courtyard!"
"How can anyone move out in ten minutes?! Pay that maniac no mind—take your gun and shoot him!"
The guard acknowledged the order and went out.
Did he actually dare to shoot?
Not if you lent him ten times his courage.
Too many strange things had happened over the past two days: the head housekeeper had vanished, the master of the house had vanished, the second young master's whereabouts were unknown, and the eldest young master had lost the duel in the ruins.
Word had spread like wildfire outside: Lanyang Village would no longer belong to the Song family.
The young master was frantic about it, naturally, but there was no reason for the guards to share his panic.
When the young master himself didn't dare come out and risk his life, what were the guards supposed to risk theirs for?
The guard reached the gate, looked up at Li Banfeng sitting atop the steamroller, and didn't dare say much.
Ten minutes passed quickly. Li Banfeng checked his pocket watch and smiled. "Time's up."
One bolder guard stepped forward to reason with him. "Sir, please calm your temper. Where mercy is possible, one should show mercy. Even if you want us to move out, we still have to wait for our master to return. You parked your steamroller at our gate, but surely you wouldn't actually drive it in, would you? If you ask me, why don't you first—"
Li Banfeng shoved the steam valve forward. With a hiss and a chug, the steamroller lurched into motion, charging straight toward the gates.
The guard went completely numb with fright, spun on his heel, and ran for his life.
A few road workers watched from a distance. One worker named Xiao Genzi kept his head low and asked, "Can this really be all right? Lending the steamroller to an outsider to fool around like this?"
Xiao Chuanzi rolled his eyes at him. "What do you mean, outsider? That's the Fifth Young Master!"
Xiao Genzi was still worried. "The point is, he was kicked out of his family!"
Xiao Chuanzi scoffed. "Hey, is that any of your business? Master Five paid us. Now that you've taken the money, what are you afraid of? Worst case, we quit this job and follow Master Five from now on."
Li Banfeng crashed into the courtyard wall.
To be fair, the Song residence had been built quite solidly; smashing straight through it with a steamroller was not entirely effortless.
However, Li Banfeng had laid the groundwork beforehand, quietly placing stone-boring silkworms at several key structural points.
Many bricks across the front had already been hollowed out. The steamroller smashed through the wall and rolled right into the courtyard.
Standing in the front courtyard, Song Zhigang's voice cracked in sheer terror. "What are you doing?! What do you want? When you kill a man, his head merely falls to the ground—what more do you want?!"
Li Banfeng took out his pocket watch and looked at Song Zhigang with a smile. "I'll give you another ten minutes. If you haven't left in ten minutes, this steamroller will drive straight into your house."
The guards had all fled.
The women of the household were also running about in a panic.
Song Zhigang grabbed hold of a passing guard. "Quick, go fetch Ni Ruiliang!"
The guard shoved Song Zhigang away. "Fetch who? Ni Ruiliang ran off long ago!"
Ni Ruiliang had indeed run. He was lucid enough to realize one plain truth: the Song family had fallen.
He had even guessed that Song Jiasen was dead.
He knew the Ma family was not to be crossed, yet he could faintly sense that this did not seem like their handiwork.
Behind Ma the Fifth, there seemed to be another force—one that Ni Ruiliang could not comprehend. So crazy, and so ruthless. In all his years, Ni Ruiliang had never encountered anything like it.
With his fourth-tier cultivation, he could earn a living anywhere. He had no desire to stay here and gamble with his life.
Song Zhigang tried to rally the guards, while Li Banfeng watched with cold detachment.
Was Li Banfeng not afraid?
Of course not.
A third-tier Dwelling Cultivator combined with a second-tier Journey Cultivator—what was there to fear?
Even if all these lackeys attacked together, Li Banfeng would take as many as they could muster. They were nothing more than meals to feed his wife!
Song Zhigang gritted his teeth, longing to fight Li Banfeng to the death, but no matter how much he hollered, not a single guard answered.
There were things Song Zhigang had heard from his father as a boy; he understood the saying that when a tree falls, the monkeys scatter.
He just hadn't expected the tree of his own family to actually fall, much less that the monkeys would scatter so fast.
In the blink of an eye, another ten minutes passed. Li Banfeng placed his hand on the steam valve. Song Zhigang shouted frantically, "Sir, even an executioner lets a man catch his breath! I'll tell everyone to pack up and move right away!"
That very night, Song Zhigang led his entire family out of Lanyang Village.
Most of their valuables had been gathered up. The leftover furniture that couldn't be carried off in time was simply abandoned.
The furniture was in fine condition, but Li Banfeng had no use for it either.
Li Banfeng told Xiao Chuanzi to shout from one end of the village to the other, spreading the word to everyone: the Song family had cleared out, so hurry over to their house and take whatever they wanted.
At first, the villagers didn't believe it. Xiao Chuanzi found a few workers to take the lead in carting things away.
When the villagers saw people running past carrying tables, chairs, beds, and even washbasins...
Even the washbasins were being hauled off?
They had to go!
Hurry, go!
If they didn't go now, nothing would be left!
Now the villagers could no longer sit still. Rolling up their sleeves, they pushed their handcarts and rushed toward the Song estate.
Li Banfeng had Ma the Fifth stand before the Song family's gates to put his eloquence to work once more.
"Folks, listen to me! Over the years, we've suffered plenty at the hands of the Song family. When they ate meat, they wouldn't spare us a drop of broth! When they sucked our marrow, they didn't leave behind a single scrap!
"From this day on, there is no Song family in Lanyang Village! When you go hunting in the newlands, just let us know. As for the buying price the Songs used to offer, between Seventh Master and m—"
What Ma the Fifth had wanted to say was him and Seventh Master.
He knew Li Banfeng didn't wish to reveal his identity, but with such a golden opportunity to make a name, Ma the Fifth didn't want to hog all the credit. After all, Li Banfeng was the one who had won it all.
Yet before Ma the Fifth could finish, Li Banfeng shot him a glare.
Ma the Fifth quickly corrected himself. "The price the Songs paid for goods—with me, Ma Junyang, it will only ever be higher, never lower!"
Lanyang Village bustled with excitement the entire night. An eighty-five-year-old grandmother pushed a small cart back and forth between her home and the Song residence three full times!
The entire Song manor was stripped bare; even the door panels were taken.
Driving the steamroller, Li Banfeng had Xiao Chuanzi gather a group of workers to begin tearing down the buildings.
Ma the Fifth felt a twinge of regret. Having lived in hardship for so long, seeing such a fine compound destroyed pained him a little.
"It must be torn down!" Li Banfeng said resolutely. "From now on, Lanyang Village has nothing to do with the Song family. The Songs can forget about ever returning, and the people of Lanyang Village will never have to be reminded of them again."
By dawn, the Song family had vanished completely from Lanyang Village.
Li Banfeng instructed Xiao Chuanzi, "Tell all the workers that anyone willing to work under Ma the Fifth should sign up with you. From now on, Ma the Fifth will pay monthly wages. Anyone unwilling can keep paving the road at the village entrance; there's no need to force anyone."
Xiao Chuanzi gathered all the workers in one place and relayed Li Banfeng's words.
There were more than seventy road workers. About thirty chose to follow Ma Junyang, while the rest said they needed time to consider.
Considering it was fine; Li Banfeng had said there was no pressure.
Still, the reality had to be made clear: if they decided to come under Ma the Fifth later on, their standing would be vastly different.
Ma the Fifth consulted Li Banfeng. "Brother, doing this is practically undermining my father. I'm just afraid..."
Whenever it came to family matters, Ma the Fifth could never see things clearly.
Li Banfeng waved a hand. "No need to fear. As long as he's your real father, I guarantee he won't hold it against you. If he isn't your real father, well, then we'll discuss what to do next."
...
Song Zhigang led his family all the way to Taiming Town.
In this town, the Song family owned a residence. It wasn't overly large—just two courtyards, front and back—but sufficient to settle the household.
The moment his family was settled in, Song Zhigang took two servants and ten thousand silver dollars and headed to Liu's Paper Horse Shop.
Why was he going to a paper horse shop? To buy joss paper for his father?
Hardly.
He went to the paper horse shop to see Liu Liangyi, the local hegemon of Taiming Town and patriarch of the Liu family.
That Song Jiasen had been able to dominate Lanyang Village for over twenty years was thirty percent thanks to the Liu family, thirty percent thanks to the Si family above them, and forty percent thanks to the Lu family above the Sis.
Liu Liangyi possessed fourth-tier cultivation. In Lüshuiwan, that wasn't exceptionally high.
However, Liu Liangyi belonged to a peculiar pathway. His clan was a lineage of Nightmare Cultivators. Nightmare Cultivators excelled at manipulating ghost servants, giving them the upper hand in clashes against most other pathways.
Moreover, Liu Liangyi had a specialized combat technique: he could have his ghost servants possess paper figures. A fourth-tier Nightmare Cultivator could control sixty ghost servants, and sixty ghost servants could command three hundred paper figures in battle. That effectively gave him a small army.
Liu Liangyi had started out as an outlaw. Relying on the Liu family's paper figures, he had ruled the mountains as a bandit lord for over two decades, rarely meeting a match.
Although he had since laundered his reputation and no longer engaged in banditry and plunder, whenever the Liu family was mentioned across Taiming Town, the various mountain bandits still held them in awe and dread.
Upon arriving at the paper horse shop, Song Zhigang did not see Liu Liangyi; instead, he met Liu Changyu. Tears streaming down his face, he choked out, "Young Master Liu, please tell the venerable elder that our family has met with disaster!"
Liu Changyu was the young master of the paper horse shop and Liu Liangyi's youngest son. Twenty-one this year, he was roughly of the same generation as Song Zhigang. Seeing Song Zhigang about to drop to his knees, he quickly stepped forward to support him. "Brother Zhigang, what is this? What happened?"
Song Zhigang gave a selective account of the events.
He mentioned that Ma the Fifth had been selling goods behind their backs, but left out that they had planned to beat Ma the Fifth half to death.
He recounted the duel in the ruins and how Ma the Fifth had set a trap, but said nothing of the trap his father had prepared.
Liu Changyu frowned upon hearing this. "Ma Junyang has crossed the line! There's no need to trouble my father with this; I'll handle it for you. Regardless of whether he's a fallen young master or whoever else, he can't be allowed to turn Lanyang Village upside down!"
The young master grabbed two shop hands and prepared to head straight for Lanyang Village. Song Zhigang's spirits soared; he told his men to fetch several servants to bolster their presence. But before the group could even leave town, Hu Juncai, the paper horse shop's accountant, came chasing after them.
"Young Master, the master wants you to return." Liu Changyu had no choice but to follow the accountant back. Song Zhigang's hopes were dashed, leaving him no option but to return to his compound and wait for word.
Returning to the shop, Liu Changyu found his father, Liu Liangyi, sitting in the back hall. Just as he was about to explain what had happened, Liu Liangyi waved his pipe, telling him not to bother.
"Changyu, I put you in charge of watching the shop so you could gain experience and learn how people work, not so you could go out showing off and picking fights."
Liu Changyu didn't understand. "Father, the Song family belongs to us. Their business is our business. Shouldn't we intervene?"
Liu Liangyi sighed, somewhat disappointed by his son's lack of foresight. "You only see the Song family and their side of things. What about the Ma family and theirs?
"Why didn't Song Jiasen come to us himself? Why has he vanished without a trace? Why would Ma the Fifth, a fallen scion trying to scrape a living in Lanyang Village, push things with the Songs until one of them ended up dead? Have you thought about any of this?"
Liu Changyu truly hadn't thought about it.
Liu Liangyi tapped his pipe against the table. "Since you didn't think about it, I'll think about it for you. Song Jiasen was a third-tier Martial Cultivator. If there's been no word of him up to now, the man is most likely dead.
"If even he is gone, do you honestly believe you could take a couple of men to Lanyang Village and come back alive?
"Ma the Fifth was just trying to earn a bite to eat in Lanyang Village. If he hadn't been cornered with no way out, he wouldn't have risked his neck against Song Jiasen.
"They've already fought to the death, and you still want to go over there and talk rules with him?
"If you can't beat Ma the Fifth, going there is just throwing your life away. And even if you could beat him, would you dare kill him? Do you think the Ma family would let you off?"
Liu Changyu fell silent. He had indeed acted without thinking things through.
"Father, so we're just going to ignore it?"
"The Song family brought this upon themselves, so there's no need for us to care about that.
"However, Lanyang Village is our turf, so that part we must manage. In three days, it'll be time to collect our dues. Have Old Hu go collect the usual amount and see whether Ma the Fifth pays.
"As long as he pays, the rules remain intact, and there's no harm in Lanyang Village having a new master.
"If he refuses, then the rules are broken. When we go confront him then, we'll have a justified cause."
Grasping the reasoning behind it, Liu Changyu quickly apologized to his father and went back to minding the shop in earnest.
The next day, Song Zhigang came to Liu Changyu weeping and pleading again. Liu Changyu sighed and said, "Zhigang, go home and wait for news. Over the years, your family has made plenty in Lanyang Village. If you ask me, living an honest, quiet life wouldn't be so bad either."
Chapter 126