Li Banfeng found several more watermelon seeds on the other weapons. "Shopkeeper Yu, I wasn't wrong. You truly spent the entire day hacking watermelons."
Yu Nan carefully recalled the scene of the fight. Whether struck by bullets or cleaved by blades, the clerks from the Geng Family Medicine Shop had bled profusely, yet they simply refused to fall.
Throughout the entire ordeal, Yu Nan hadn't heard a single clerk utter a word—not even a cry of pain.
Could they all have been watermelons?
Could the blood they shed have been watermelon juice?
How could a watermelon take human form? How could it fight?
Zhang Shiquan, the oldest warehouse keeper in the cloth shop, took a drag from his dry pipe and ventured a guess. "'Tillage Cultivators endure bitter toil to come into their own; at the Fifth Tier, they reign like feudal lords.' I fear we've run into a Tillage Cultivator who's come into his own!"
A Tillage Cultivator?
Beyond knowing how arduous it was, Li Banfeng had no real concept of this pathway.
"What do you mean by 'come into their own'?" Li Banfeng asked directly.
The old warehouse keeper said, "It's a common saying in our line of work. The Tillage pathway is grueling, and few people practice it. But if one can hold out until the Fifth Tier, they're considered to have come into their own. What they can grow is bizarre and marvelous beyond belief. In all my years, I've never seen a watermelon that could wage war. My guess is it was grown from seeds specially bred by a Tillage Cultivator."
Yu Nan pondered for a moment, then gave a slight shake of her head. "Who does the Geng family think they are? How could they possibly afford a Fifth Tier Tillage Cultivator? Besides, I've never heard of any Fifth Tier Tillage Cultivator in Yaowanggou!"
The old warehouse keeper packed another bowl of tobacco. "Shopkeeper, Tillage Cultivators lead hard lives. They'll work for whoever pays. He didn't come out to fight a war himself; he merely sold a few watermelons. Besides, once a Tillage Cultivator runs out of land, they're bound to come out and clear new ground. Yaowanggou has plenty of newland. It's not out of the question that one arrived and crossed paths with the Geng family."
What did "newland" mean?
Every time he listened, there were always new terms to learn.
Li Banfeng didn't interject; he didn't want to disrupt everyone's train of thought.
Yet their train of thought was already broken. A Fifth Tier cultivator was an opponent far beyond what Yu Nan dared to face, and having crossed an established Tillage Cultivator, no one had any idea how to respond.
Yu Nan turned her gaze toward Li Banfeng.
Everyone turned to look at Li Banfeng.
Li Banfeng blinked. "Why are you looking at me? I've never seen a Tillage Cultivator either."
The old warehouse keeper took a drag from his pipe and sighed. "A master speaks three parts and leaves seven unsaid. It's up to us to comprehend the rest."
Hearing this, the crowd continued to look at Li Banfeng with eager eyes.
Li Banfeng said nothing.
He had deduced they were watermelons solely from the peculiar scent left on the blades. As for how to deal with a Tillage Cultivator, Li Banfeng had neither relevant experience nor a mature plan.
However, when it came to dealing with formidable foes he couldn't defeat in the short term, Li Banfeng had plenty of experience. Having grown up as an orphan in a welfare home, he had seen far too many enemies like that.
"Besides Baixiang Village, do you have anywhere else to stay?" The advice Li Banfeng offered was for them to flee immediately.
Yu Nan had just suffered a defeat and was saddled with a band of wounded men. Knowing nothing of Geng Zhiwei's methods, staying here was tantamount to throwing their lives away.
Worse still, even now, she and her Yu Family Gang were still clinging to underworld rules.
Given the mindset and awareness of this crowd, facing a ruthless man like Geng Zhiwei without running was simply waiting to die.
"Run?" Lao Ba's sister, Wang Xuejiao, stood up. "Things have already come to this—where else could we run? Are we supposed to throw away all our dignity?"
Li Banfeng found Yu Nan's logic contradictory. "When you fled Ligou for Baihua Village back then, you didn't seem to care this much about dignity."
Yu Nan shook her head. "That was different. That was guarding against hidden arrows. Now they've come out in the open with blades and guns."
"Can't you defend against open blades and guns?" Li Banfeng still couldn't comprehend it.
"Boss Li, you don't understand the jianghu," Wang Xuejiao said with a sneer. "When rivals come at you in the open with blades and guns, you can prepare beforehand and fight them. But if you run, the Yu family's banner falls for good!"
Li Banfeng swept his eyes across the crowd. "If you all die here, does the Yu family's banner not fall?"
Wang Xuejiao puffed out her ample chest. "Of course not! We'll have used our very lives to hold the Yu family's banner high!"
Li Banfeng asked, "If Geng Zhiwei presses the Yu family banner into the dirt and takes a piss on it, what can you do?"
Wang Xuejiao flared up. "He wouldn't dare!"
"And if he does, what can you do about it? Once you're dead, can you jump back up and hit him?" Li Banfeng continued to survey everyone.
The logic in this world was simple, yet there were always people who failed to grasp it.
Wang Xuejiao lowered her head and muttered in a small voice, "That's just the rule of the jianghu..."
"Can a dead person talk rules with him?" Li Banfeng pressed again. Wang Xuejiao remained defiant, as did the others, but none could offer an answer.
The old warehouse keeper tapped his pipe bowl and looked at Yu Nan.
He understood Li Banfeng's words; he grasped the reasoning behind them. "Shopkeeper, let's leave. We can hide in the Mount Jiangyue newland for a while before deciding what to do."
Yu Nan gave a slight nod, and the others said nothing more.
As the others went to pack their bags, Yu Nan asked Li Banfeng, "Seventh Master, come with us. Life in the newland may be rough, but Geng Zhiwei won't dare pursue us there."
"What exactly is this newland?" If he didn't know, he asked; Li Banfeng wasn't afraid of showing ignorance.
Yu Nan had grown used to it. She couldn't tell whether Li Banfeng genuinely didn't understand or was merely testing her.
"Newland is newborn land. Every year, Yaowanggou sees three to five patches of newborn land appear, each the size of two or three villages."
Newborn land appeared every year?
Li Banfeng shook his head; he still didn't comprehend.
Yu Nan continued her explanation. "It's like two mountains that originally sat side by side. A year passes, and suddenly the two mountains are farther apart, with a vast expanse of open ground between them. That is newland. Most newlands are flat plains, but there are exceptions—some are rolling hills, some are canyons, some are quagmires, and some are even lakes..."
Li Banfeng's eyes widened. "Yaowanggou grows land on its own?"
Yu Nan nodded. "Not just Yaowanggou. It happens everywhere, every single year."
Li Banfeng pulled up a chair, sat down, and took a sip of water to steady his repeatedly battered worldview.
Yu Nan reminded him, "Seventh Master, pack your things. It's time for us to depart."
"No rush," Li Banfeng waved his hand. "You go on ahead and take Xiaopang with you. I still have some business to take care of here."
***
At two in the morning, Yu Nan led the group away from Baixiang Village.
By half past three, Geng Zhiwei stormed into Yu Nan's compound with around a hundred men.
They were split into two groups. One consisted of living men; some stood behind Geng Zhiwei, shouting and screaming with ferocious expressions, while others formed a tight cordon outside the compound, sealing it off completely.
The other group was eerily quiet. They didn't speak, their expressions blank. These were the "watermelon men" Geng Zhiwei had purchased from the Tillage Cultivator.
These watermelon men also held blades and axes, but for the moment, their function was limited to walking.
A servant reached into a cloth pouch, pulled out a handful of brown pellets, and shoved them into a watermelon man's mouth.
The pellets carried a pungent, fishy stench—they were fertilizer for the watermelon men.
Having eaten the fertilizer, the watermelon man raised his blade, ready for battle.
Before long, more than twenty watermelon men had all consumed their fertilizer.
Two servants walked over carrying a dozen sliced watermelons.
These watermelons were peculiar—intensely sweet and heavily fishy, distinctly different from ordinary watermelons.
Geng Zhiwei picked up two slices and crunched through them.
Shortly after, his face flushed red, and he broke into a sweat.
Jia Quansheng and a crowd of servants were also eating watermelon.
Hidden inside the house, Li Banfeng saw everything clearly through a crack in the window.
Why were they eating watermelon?
Li Banfeng didn't understand.
Yet he understood soon enough.
Geng Zhiwei barked, "Kill!"
The watermelon men possessed little wit. When Geng Zhiwei ordered them to walk, they simply followed him; when he ordered them to kill, to them it meant butchering every human in sight.
However, watermelon men only killed humans—they would not harm a watermelon. By eating the fruit, Geng Zhiwei and his men radiated the scent of watermelon from the inside out. Thus, the watermelon men would not attack them, but would instead obey their commands.
This was their method for distinguishing friend from foe.
Leveraging his advantages as a Dwelling Cultivator, Li Banfeng slipped soundlessly into the rear courtyard and hid inside the woodshed.
A man pushed open the door and stepped into the woodshed. Li Banfeng twitched his nose and caught that distinctive, sweet watermelon aroma.
This was a watermelon man.
Both the front and rear courtyards were swarming with watermelon men.
The task of clearing traps and facing danger was left entirely to these watermelon men.
Had Yu Nan stayed behind, no matter how many ambushes she prepared, she would have ended up in a desperate bloodbath against this horde of watermelon men, unable to touch a single hair on Geng Zhiwei's head.
Once Yu Nan's side was slaughtered to the last, Geng Zhiwei would order the men outside to tighten the net. Not a single person from Yu Nan's gang would have escaped.
Geng Zhiwei intended to wipe them out completely.
He had no intention of sparing Yu Nan, nor would he spare Li Banfeng. That was the only thing Yu Nan had gotten right.
That was why Li Banfeng had stayed behind.
With Yu Nan defeated by Geng Zhiwei, it would soon be Li Banfeng's turn.
What should Li Banfeng do?
The principle was simple: fight if you can win; run if you cannot.
Could Li Banfeng defeat Geng Zhiwei?
Before, he couldn't. Now, it was hard to say.
Li Banfeng had observed the nature of these watermelon men and already saw through Geng Zhiwei's methods.
He had a shot at victory, but the key lay in how he fought.
Eat a watermelon every day and constantly be on guard against Geng Zhiwei?
Would that work?
It wouldn't.
There were three reasons.
First, Li Banfeng couldn't be certain whether what Geng Zhiwei ate was ordinary watermelon.
Second, Li Banfeng had no way of knowing when Geng Zhiwei would strike; he couldn't eat watermelon around the clock.
Third, Geng Zhiwei knew a Fifth Tier Tillage Cultivator. If the man switched to carrot men tomorrow, what would Li Banfeng do then?
Therefore, simply eating watermelon could not solve the problem at its root.
Waging an outright war against Geng Zhiwei right here?
That was far too difficult. Geng Zhiwei had prepared too thoroughly; relying solely on surprise offered a slim chance of victory.
Underworld matters still had to be settled with underworld rules.
Underworld rules placed great store on coming and going.
First, I come to his house as a guest—uninvited, perhaps, but that's still a "coming."
Then, I send him on his way to a fine place—a one-way journey, perhaps, but that's still a "going."
Isn't that coming and going?
Isn't that the very rule of the underworld?
As for the rules about open blades and hidden arrows, Li Banfeng didn't understand them for now.
The watermelon man inside the woodshed spotted Li Banfeng and raised his blade to slash down.
Li Banfeng grabbed a shovel, punched a hole straight through the watermelon man's belly, thrust his hand into the wound, and pulled out a handful of watermelon pulp.
Indeed, it was watermelon pulp—bright red and studded with seeds.
The watermelon man felt no pain, swinging his blade for another strike.
Li Banfeng smeared the watermelon pulp across his face, letting the scent waft out.
The watermelon man raised his blade and slashed again.
It didn't work!
Indeed, it was useless. During the day, Yu Nan and her men had clashed with the watermelon men and gotten plenty of juice on themselves, yet the watermelon men hadn't shown them any mercy.
Smearing it on the face was pointless. The pulp had to be eaten; the scent of watermelon had to radiate from the inside out.
Fortunately, while this watermelon man was tough, he wasn't particularly skilled at combat. With Li Banfeng's agility, he had no trouble maneuvering around him.
Mid-clash, Li Banfeng scooped out another handful of watermelon pulp and gulped it down.
The watermelon was sweet, but horribly astringent. Li Banfeng forced it down his throat.
The watermelon man swung his blade once more. Li Banfeng was startled. He had already swallowed it—why wasn't it working?
Had he not eaten enough?
Dodging the watermelon man's blade, Li Banfeng grabbed another large handful of pulp from the wound and stuffed it into his mouth.
It tasted dreadful—so intensely astringent that cold sweat broke out across Li Banfeng's body.
The watermelon man twitched his nose. He detected the watermelon scent on Li Banfeng, radiating from the inside out. His raised blade froze in midair, motionless.
Watermelon men did not harm watermelons.
Li Banfeng unlocked the Portable Abode, reached behind him, and shoved the key deep into the watermelon man's belly, driving it far inside.
Li Banfeng vanished, and the watermelon man, carrying his cleaver, quietly stepped out of the woodshed.
Chapter 64