Li Banfeng opened the crates and let all the children out. He hired a coal-hauling horse cart nearby and loaded them all into the back.
Pulling the brim of his hat low, he drove the cart forward. Luo Zhengnan also tugged down the brim of his flat cap, walking along behind the cart.
He was in high spirits, for his grudge had finally been avenged.
Though the mastermind, Xiao Zhenggong, was still alive, killing Xiao Zhenggong was not something that could be accomplished overnight. Having killed Pei Yikou, at least his immediate grievance had been settled.
Working alongside Li the Seventh was truly invigorating.
If it had been anyone else, getting revenge like this would drag out for half a year to a year at the very least—or even eight to ten years, until the whole matter fizzled out into nothing, which was considered entirely normal.
Still, driving a cart full of children through the streets like this... wasn't it a bit too conspicuous?
Luo Zhengnan lowered his voice and asked Li Banfeng, "Seventh Master, shouldn't we be leaving?"
"No hurry. Go bring that old man at the street corner over here."
An elderly man was standing at the street corner, looking anxiously in their direction.
His granddaughter was missing; how could he not be frantic? He had been searching for her all night.
He suspected his granddaughter was on the cart, but he did not dare come over to look.
In Qingyan City, the Jiangxiang Gang frequently snatched people right off the street. If the old man dared rush up, he would only be throwing his life away.
Luo Zhengnan brought the old man over. Li Banfeng pointed at the children in the cart. "Which one is yours?"
The old man trembled for a few moments, then stepped forward, lifted his granddaughter down, murmured his thanks, and turned to leave. Li Banfeng frowned. "Leaving just like that?"
The old man grew frightened and fished money out of his pocket—all eighty-some-odd dollars he had on him—and offered it to Li Banfeng.
Li Banfeng pushed the money back. "Who asked for your money? Do you know how to drive a cart?"
"I do."
"Is your voice loud?"
The old man stared blankly for a second, then nodded. "It's... decent."
"Shout for me. Drive the cart and shout as you go. Tell everyone who lost a child to come here and find them!"
The old man didn't understand.
Li Banfeng handed him two one-hundred-dollar bills. "Shout! Shout with all your might!"
Not understanding what was happening, the old man could only drive the cart forward, shouting as he went: "Whoever lost a child, come look here!"
Luo Zhengnan looked at Li Banfeng and lowered his voice. "Seventh Master, what are we..."
"Don't worry. Just follow along."
The two followed at a distance behind the horse cart. Before long, people came over to claim their children.
At first, they were terrified as well, but seeing their own flesh and blood on the cart, they couldn't care less about the danger. They rushed forward, scooped up their children, and hurried home, weeping as they ran.
As more and more people came to claim children, Luo Zhengnan pointed at one of the men. "That guy looks like he's from the Jiangxiang Gang."
Luo Zhengnan didn't recognize every member of the Jiangxiang Gang, but the man was wearing a flat cap and dressed just like one of them.
He scooped up two children and moved to leave, but Li Banfeng stepped forward and blocked his path. "Who are you?"
The man said, "I'm their father."
The two children were crying frantically, struggling nonstop. Luo Zhengnan looked at the man and said, "Which branch are you from? State your affiliation."
The man glanced around, then lowered his voice. "Branch Three of Qingyan Hall. I don't know what happened tonight..."
Whoosh—
Li Banfeng slit his throat.
You still dare come here looking for business?
Just as well that you came. Saves me the trouble of hunting you down one by one.
Before long, all the children had been reclaimed by their families. Li Banfeng asked Luo Zhengnan, "Where is the hall?"
"The main hall is right on the next street."
"Are you familiar with all the branches?"
Luo Zhengnan stared blankly for a moment. "Leave none alive?"
Li Banfeng nodded. "Not a single one."
Luo Zhengnan led Li Banfeng to the nearest branch. It was housed in a two-story building, where several Jiangxiang Gang members were packing two children into crates.
These two children had just been kidnapped, and they didn't want to keep them on hand, eager to hand them over to the Hall Master.
"Hurry it up!" the Branch Master shouted from the stairs. "The Hall Master is leaving soon. He won't make the train in time at this rate!"
Li Banfeng said, "If he misses this train, we can always catch the next."
"What do you know? This is the last train tonight..." The Branch Master stared blankly at Li Banfeng, having no idea when an extra person had appeared beside him.
"Not tonight—it's the last train of your life, and you'll definitely catch it." Li Banfeng grabbed the Branch Master's head and smashed it to pieces against the stair railing.
Had he not worried about hurting the two children, Li Banfeng would have stomped with Treading Ten Thousand Rivers and cleaned out the entire room of people in one go.
Every member in the branch froze. Luo Zhengnan entered, picked up the two children, and carried them out the door. He knew what to do and when to do it.
All the Jiangxiang Gang members stared at Luo Zhengnan.
Luo Zhengnan even greeted them: "Go on with your business. Don't mind me."
He pulled the door shut behind him, and before he had carried the children very far, the branch's two-story building collapsed.
Li Banfeng patted off the dust and walked over to Luo Zhengnan. "Take these two children back, and then we'll head to the next branch."
Qingyan City truly had quite a few branches.
Luo Zhengnan said, "Pei Yuzeng handled a great deal of business for Xiao Zhenggong and was deeply trusted by him. On top of that, with Jianrengang looking out for him, his hall grew larger and larger over the years, with ten branches under his command."
Li Banfeng said, "A hall that big still relies on human trafficking to get by?"
Luo Zhengnan shook his head. "Human trafficking couldn't support so many mouths. Pei Yuzeng had plenty of businesses over by the mines. He abducted children not just for money."
Li Banfeng understood the reason. "It was probably to please Jianrengang. Don't you think that makes sense?"
Just as Luo Zhengnan was about to answer, he saw Li Banfeng pat the cheek of the Branch Four Master. "I'm asking you. Does what I just said make sense?"
The Branch Master nodded frantically.
Li Banfeng put him out of his misery and slit his throat.
Near daybreak, Li Banfeng and Luo Zhengnan arrived at the main hall. The people of Qingyan Hall already knew something had happened to their Hall Master; they had heard that a heap of mangled corpses lay in the warehouse and had seen the abducted children being returned.
Yet what had actually caused it all, they still did not know.
They tried contacting each branch, only to find that aside from ruins, there were only corpses.
They wanted to reach Xiao Zhenggong, but everyone in the gang who knew how to use the hooks was dead.
When they saw Luo Zhengnan, they seemed to realize something.
Several people in the hall who knew the inside story looked at Luo Zhengnan and pleaded, "Hall Master Luo, this has nothing to do with us! This is between our Hall Master and the Gang Master. Debts belong to those who owe them—you can't make things difficult for us!"
Luo Zhengnan chuckled. "Brothers, what are you saying? Pei Yuzeng is already dead, so why would I make things difficult for you?
"I didn't come here for you. I just came over to help you shut the front door."
With that, Luo Zhengnan closed the front doors.
The crowd turned on their heels and bolted toward the back door.
Luo Zhengnan offered a word of caution: "Don't go to the back door."
The bodies of those who charged out the back door rushed outside, while their heads all stayed behind in the yard.
The remaining few rushed up the stairs. Luo Zhengnan called out another warning: "Don't go upstairs either."
The bodies of the disciples who charged up the stairs ended up upstairs, while their heads remained below.
The Jiangxiang Gang was only a second-rate gang. Its hall master was merely at the fifth tier of cultivation, so how skilled could his underlings possibly be?
They couldn't even catch a glimpse of Li Banfeng's face before being sent on their way in the blink of an eye.
Layers of blood seeped beneath the crack of the door. Luo Zhengnan sat in the hall's courtyard, covering a child's eyes.
This child had been found inside the main hall, evidently newly captured and not yet sent to the warehouse.
Li Banfeng walked out of the building, wiping his hands with a handkerchief. Looking at the child, he asked Luo Zhengnan, "Ask him where he lives."
"I just did. The child is too young to explain clearly."
Li Banfeng suggested going to the Garrison Commissioner, but Luo Zhengnan shook his head. "Seventh Master, the Garrison Commissioner won't bother with this."
"Why wouldn't he? Does he take so much money every year for nothing? Carry him over and give it a try first."
Luo Zhengnan put on a light disguise and carried the child to the Garrison Office. He waited in the main hall for an hour and asked several dozen people, but not a soul paid him any mind.
At long last, someone finally spoke a few words to him—and every single one felt like a dagger to the heart.
"Is this child yours?"
Luo Zhengnan shook his head. "No."
"If it isn't your child, why are you carrying him? Are you a human trafficker?"
"I saw the child was lost, so I brought him here."
"How do you know the child was lost? How do you know the child wasn't just out playing? You look like a trafficker to me!"
"Officer, have you ever seen a child this young out playing in the middle of the night?"
"What haven't I seen? Maybe the kid just likes to do that! What proof do you have that he was lost? If you can't produce proof, I say you're a trafficker!"
This bastard was a Contrarian Cultivator.
Carrying the child, Luo Zhengnan exited the Garrison Office and said to Li Banfeng, "Seventh Master, just now I..."
Li Banfeng waved his hand. "No need to explain. I heard it all."
Luo Zhengnan wasn't angry; he had seen this sort of thing far too often.
Li Banfeng's hat brim was pulled very low, making it impossible to tell whether he was angry or not.
Taking the child into his arms, he found a rickshaw puller and shoved two hundred Huan Country notes into his hand. "My family name is En, and my given name is Gong—call me Engong, the Benefactor. I found a lost child by the roadside. Could you figure out a way to return him home for me?"
The rickshaw puller listened to the child mumble a few indistinct words, grasped the gist of it, and managed to find the child's parents in under an hour.
The child's parents showered the puller with endless gratitude. The puller waved his hand. "Don't thank me. If you want to thank someone, thank those two gentlemen."
Which two gentlemen?
Li Banfeng and Luo Zhengnan had long since vanished.
The puller said to the couple, "That gentleman said his name was Engong—the Benefactor. Who knows whether that's his real name or not."
...
"The Benefactor?" Xiao Zhenggong's cheek twitched. "The Benefactor wiped out Qingyan Hall?"
"According to my investigation, the man called himself the Benefactor." The messenger was Song Yuwei, the Hall Master of the Haichiling branch. He had gone to pay Pei Yuzeng a visit, only to find the ground strewn with corpses and ruins.
Xiao Zhenggong gritted his teeth. "Isn't the Benefactor none other than He Jiaqing?"
Earlier, when Li Banfeng called himself the Benefactor in Jianrengang, the Sage had already determined that the Benefactor was He Jiaqing.
Having dismissed Song Yuwei, the white garment hanging on the coat rack spoke to Xiao Zhenggong: "Senior Brother Xiao, this trouble has landed right on your head now. Are you going to deal with it or not?"
Xiao Zhenggong clenched a cigarette between his teeth, pondered for a moment, and said, "Is He Jiaqing in the Outer States, or in Puluo Province?"
The white garment was also somewhat bewildered. "Perhaps Qingyan Hall wasn't done by him in person, but carried out by subordinates at his command."
Xiao Zhenggong took the white garment down from the coat rack, tossed it into the back seat of his car, and drove off toward Yuezhou Third Hospital.
...
Dressed in a suit and disguised as He Haisheng, He Jiaqing was in the hospital ward feeding He Haisheng a cigarette. "Third Uncle, just this one. When the doctor comes on his rounds in a bit, we can't be smoking right in front of him."
He Haisheng exhaled a plume of smoke. Curling and swirling, the smoke drifted rapidly out of the ward toward the elevator.
He Jiaqing froze, then scratched his scalp.
His perception had declined recently; he needed to show proper moderation when borrowing popular favor.
"Third Uncle, lie still and don't move." He Jiaqing felt around He Haisheng, then took the remaining half of the cigarette and clamped it between his own lips.
Chapter 356