Mass Taunt

Shen Qing casually tossed the bronze hammer aside, then turned to look at the Imperial Guards in the courtyard. They immediately understood. Fang Ming and several Lieutenant Officials swiftly stepped forward to look at Shen Qing.

"Have you recorded everyone in the Book of Impermanence? Within two hours, I want every last one of them sitting in the great prison."

"Yes!"

But immediately afterward, several of the Lieutenant Officials revealed troubled expressions. It was not that these people were particularly strong or difficult to capture.

The main issue was that there were too many of them, scattered all across Luoshui City, while they did not have enough manpower.

Shen Qing swept his gaze over the people around him.

"Not enough men, right? Go release those pieces of trash under Ma Kui from the great prison."

Ding Yi, standing nearby, twitched an ear. He seemed to have heard the echo of good fortune!

"Lord Shen! My two brothers and I should be able to help!"

"Fine. You will temporarily serve as a Lieutenant Official. Take ten men and follow Fang Ming's command."

Ding Yi imitated the Imperial Guards and gave a salute. "Yes!"

After arranging everything, Shen Qing lifted a foot and headed outside Huang Manor.

Fang Ming called out, "Where are you going, my lord?"

Shen Qing did not turn back.

"White Cherry Villa."

Around noon.

White Cherry Villa.

At the villa's side gate, two men were lighting their pipes and loafing around.

One of them blew out a smoke ring, his voice leisurely and content.

"Miyamoto, this truly is a fertile land. When do you think it will become our territory?"

The other replied, "As long as our plan succeeds, one day we will slowly gnaw this dynasty to the bone."

"That day will definitely come."

Yet after saying that, Miyamoto did not respond for a long time. He turned to look at Miyamoto, but the sight before him made his pupils suddenly constrict.

Miyamoto had already fallen to the ground as a headless corpse, while his head was held in the hand of a man wearing a Flying Fish Robe.

Shen Qing tossed Miyamoto's head aside, then moved with blinding speed and seized the man by the throat. With a slight squeeze, cracking sounds rang from the man's neck.

"That day probably will never come."

"Tell me, where is your leader?"

The man struggled madly in Shen Qing's grip, his face twisted with madness, showing no intention of speaking.

Shen Qing could not be bothered to waste words on him. Tyrannical true qi surged from his hand, and the man's head exploded into fragments.

He raised his head and looked at White Cherry Villa. Though it was called a villa, its scale rivaled a village of two thousand people.

At a glance, one could see swathes upon swathes of fertile farmland within the villa, planted with every sort of crop.

Shen Qing guessed they were all crops similar to that batch of soybeans.

The Wu Dynasty had been far too indulgent toward martial sects. Too much darkness had festered beneath the surface; they had even raised so many demons without anyone discovering them.

Shen Qing leaped onto a treetop, his gaze continuously sweeping across the villa. Very quickly, he fixed on a red-roofed building. It was the tallest structure, and several Japanese pirates were discussing something at its entrance.

One of them was richly dressed and appeared to be a leader.

Shen Qing raised an eyebrow, and his figure vanished from the treetop.

Outside the red building, all four men stopped what they were doing, their eyes filled with terror as Shen Qing, clad in a silver Flying Fish Robe, slowly approached them.

One of the Japanese pirates might have been a newborn calf unafraid of tigers, or perhaps simply too ignorant to recognize a Hundred-Household Officer's uniform. He actually drew his blade and strode forward.

"Hey! Where did this thief come from? How dare you come to White Cherry Villa?"

Shen Qing flashed forward and smashed a fist into the crown of his head, driving his entire head into his chest.

Blood splattered everywhere. His "headless" corpse staggered forward a few steps, feebly swung its blade twice, then finally collapsed to the ground.

"You are the leader of the Japanese pirates?"

Shen Qing looked at the richly dressed man with contempt.

The richly dressed man's face turned livid.

"A Hundred-Household Officer of the Imperial Guards? How did you find this place?"

Shen Qing kicked out, sending the man straight into the wall. In an instant, he blended perfectly into the wall's surface, blood continuously flowing from his nose and mouth.

"Do you have the right to question me? I am the one asking questions now. You only need to answer them. Otherwise, I will make you wish you were dead."

Without even turning his head, Shen Qing drew the Qing He Saber from his waist. A streak of azure light flashed, and the heads of the three Japanese pirates beside him shot into the sky, their blood painting a beautiful picture across the ground.

The richly dressed man embedded in the wall smiled.

"Imperial Guards? So what if you kill me? Our great nation will surely set foot upon this fertile land."

"And you will ultimately become our slaves, living beneath our crushing might..."

"Hm? What are you doing?"

"I'll talk! I'll talk! Stop..."

Shen Qing seized one of the man's thumbs and applied slight force, pulling out the entire finger bone along with it. The piercing pain made the man make a decision that followed his true heart.

Shen Qing's gaze was cold.

"You are the leader of these Japanese pirates? Where are the original soybean seeds from the batch sent to Luoshui City? Have you sent soybeans anywhere else?"

Matsushita Suke could no longer care about his ideals. Shen Qing's methods were too ruthless.

"My name is Matsushita Suke. I am the Third Master of White Cherry Villa. Our Second Master is Yamamoto Shinichi, and the First Master is Takeshita Ken. He went down the mountain and will return today. The original soybean seeds are in a rosewood chest in the eastern warehouse. We should have sent soybeans to several other places, but I do not know where..."

Shen Qing remained expressionless and merely gripped his finger again.

Matsushita Suke's face filled with terror.

"What are you doing? I already confessed!"

With a slight squeeze, the sound of flesh tearing rang out as another finger bone was pulled free.

"You do not know the locations, right? Then I will help you remember."

Without the slightest pause, Shen Qing suddenly exerted force and pulled out a third finger bone.

Then the fourth. The fifth.

"I remember! In the First Master's room! He has a habit of keeping a diary. He might have written the information in it."

"Where is the room?"

"On the third floor. There is only one room on the third floor. That is the First Master's."

Shen Qing turned to look toward the third floor.

"I confessed... can you spare my..."

Matsushita Suke's pleading voice abruptly stopped as Shen Qing shaped his palm into a blade and sliced off half his head.

Shen Qing arrived on the third floor. The decorations here were extremely Japanese in style, and there was even a pair of wooden clogs.

Shen Qing was somewhat irritated and kicked the wooden clogs straight out the window.

Fortunately, the room's layout was simple, and he easily found that diary.

He flipped through several pages. They were entirely recorded in the Japanese pirates' writing. Fortunately, their writing had evolved from Wu Dynasty characters, so he could still understand some of it.

Shen Qing quickly found words such as soybeans, Luoshui City, and Baiyun County on one page.

This should be the one. Shen Qing tucked the diary close against his body.

He came to the window, from where he could take in nearly all of White Cherry Villa at a glance.

What remained was to find the original soybean seeds and slaughter every Japanese pirate.

Looking into the distance, he could see twenty or thirty Japanese pirates scattered throughout the villa. That was only those in the open; some were inside the buildings, while others were outside the villa.

By rough estimate, there were probably more than a hundred of them.

Shen Qing had a bit of a headache.

Of course, the headache was not because there were too many enemies for him to defeat, but because there were too many enemies scattered too widely.

Friends who often played games knew that in some maps, fighting powerful monsters was not difficult, but clearing the entire map was troublesome. There would always be monsters hiding in some dark corner.

"I need to think of a way to draw them all over here."

Suddenly, Shen Qing turned toward the east. That was where the warehouse storing the original soybean seeds stood.

Shen Qing's eyes gradually lit up.

Then friends who often played games would also know that tanks had a skill called Taunt, and the most effective version of it was Mass Taunt.

So what could be more taunting than a burning warehouse?