Small Tidings at the Banquet

After a minor interruption, the banquet continued.

Any one of the Four Treasures Feast's main dishes was enough to leave one dumbstruck, and each cost a fortune.

Zhou You felt as though he was not eating food, but mouthful after mouthful of gold leaf and jade dust.

Yet such costly dishes were merely embellishments to the feast, meant to accompany the wine and fill the stomach.

The true centerpiece was thirty-year-aged wine, amber-yellow as amber. Picked up with chopsticks, it could draw out threads—it was a peerless vintage.

"..."

The music drifting from behind the beaded curtain reminded him that the private room also had musicians hired at great expense.

The musicians were not alone; they came with accompanying instrumentalists and instruments. Hiring a full troupe cost at least thirty taels.

Zhou You made a rough calculation. Between hosting the meal and giving gifts, Shen Sijing would have to spend at least five hundred taels tonight.

This was precisely the compensation for emotional damages that Zhou You had demanded from Tu Laosan of the Wild Fox Gang with the appetite of a lion.

As Vice Gang Leader, Tu Laosan still had not sent any reply. Clearly, paying this sum was difficult for him.

Yet in a second-floor private room of Golden Harvest Tower, Shen Sijing spent five hundred taels on a single meal.

"No wonder everyone looks down on gang members. Their fists can't compare to martial arts schools, and their wealth can't compare to rich merchants. All they have left is bullying ordinary folk."

Zhou You shook his head, feeling even greater contempt for those gang members.

"Zhou You, I only learned of your conflict with the Wild Fox Gang after I returned."

At that moment, Shen Sijing suddenly spoke.

"The five hundred taels you demanded is not excessive. I consider it perfectly reasonable."

"If Tu Lao Er refuses to pay, I'll personally go to his door and demand it for you. We can't let one of our own suffer injustice."

Shen Sijing said boldly, "If you need money urgently, I'll write you a five-hundred-tael note first. We can demand the rest from Tu Lao Er afterward."

From the sound of it, he intended to pay the five hundred taels out of his own pocket first.

Zhou You had seen his grand gestures before and did not doubt that a mere five hundred taels was no more than a side dish to this senior disciple.

"Senior Disciple Shen, absolutely not. One matter is one matter. What I want is not money, but the Wild Fox Gang's attitude."

The five hundred taels had to be presented by the Wild Fox Gang themselves to demonstrate their attitude.

Shen Sijing nodded after hearing this. "Very well. With me stepping in, within three to five days, just wait to collect your money!"

"Then let me offer Senior Disciple Shen another cup. Thank you for standing up for me."

"As I should. We're fellow disciples. If I don't stand up for you, who else would I stand up for?"

After they drank several more cups, clamor rose from outside the window. They initially thought it would die down after a while.

Unexpectedly, not only did it not subside, it grew increasingly noisy, drowning out the music from behind the beaded curtain.

"Stop. Go downstairs and collect your reward."

Shen Sijing immediately lost all appetite and waved away the musicians and their troupe.

Before long, the restaurant manager hurried over to apologize.

"Young Master Shen, the City Gate Guards are pursuing violent criminals outside. They've started fighting."

The surroundings of Golden Harvest Tower were usually quiet, and it was rare for anything to happen. Yet tonight, they had run into a major incident.

Xu Ying walked to the window and pushed open the wooden shutters. Through the pitch-black night came flickering firelight and curses.

Seven or eight constables stood along both sides of the street, maintaining order and preventing pedestrians from going forward, afraid they might disrupt the battle.

The night breeze was faintly cool and carried a trace of blood. Not far away, lives had likely already been lost.

"Constable Liu."

Zhou You spotted a familiar face among the crowd. "Call him up and ask about the situation."

A moment later, Constable Liu was summoned to the private room, his heart uneasy as he entered.

When he saw Zhou You, his face filled with shock, which swiftly turned into respect.

Naturally, he recognized Shen Sijing. He also knew that everyone present was a student of Jianxiong Martial Arts School, and that the entire room was filled with Internal Force Martial Artists.

Although he had long expected Zhou You to have boundless prospects, seeing him here in this private room dealt a powerful blow to his heart.

"Tell us. What happened?"

Xu Ying did not stand on ceremony and immediately asked.

Constable Liu stood respectfully and explained the entire sequence of events, from beginning to end.

It turned out that a great many refugees from Su City had recently flooded into the city, and quite a few martial artists were among them.

These martial artists were a mixed bag. Some were content with poverty and kept themselves in line, while others, driven beyond endurance by hunger, had taken desperate risks.

The incident had begun with a group of martial artists from elsewhere who had gathered together.

There were originally two families in Gongliang City who had been hereditary enemies. Both were modestly wealthy households with some property.

Over the years, the two families had suffered constant clashes and frictions, gradually accumulating a blood feud spanning generations. Each side bore lives owed in blood to the other.

One of the families had hired a group of Internal Force Martial Artists from out of town as assassins to annihilate their enemy's family.

They would never have dared do such a thing in the past. But as the number of refugees increased, order within the city had gradually fallen into chaos, and the authorities could no longer manage everything.

This family had also calculated matters nicely: after killing, the refugee outsiders would flee, and the murderers could never be found. Naturally, there would be no way to pursue the case.

However, things never quite went as one wished.

This group of Internal Force Martial Artists was ruthless and vicious. Since they had risked everything to become assassins, they were naturally no good-hearted people.

In the first half of the story, they killed their enemies' entire household, letting not a single person slip through the net. Their mission could be considered perfectly completed.

But when it came to the second half...

The employer did keep his promise and took out gold and silver to settle the payment, but he never expected that exposing his wealth would bring disaster upon himself.

Having just finished killing, the out-of-town martial artists were suddenly seized by evil thoughts. They figured that killing one family was killing, and killing two families was also killing. They might as well rake in the grass and catch the rabbit, wiping them all out in one sweep. On the spot, they turned against their employer, annihilated his entire family, and looted every last coin.

The family annihilation blood cases involving the two households shocked all of Gongliang City once they came to light.

Those outside martial artists had still underestimated Gongliang City's level of security.

Both victimized families were modestly wealthy households, far beyond ordinary poor folk. After the crime, the matter drew immense attention.

Once the city constables traced the case to the Internal Force Martial Artists, the City Gate Guards swiftly took over this major case.

The City Gate Guards cast a net that covered heaven and earth, pursuing the criminals who had not escaped in time all the way to the nearby area. The matter had already entered its final stage.

After Constable Liu finished speaking, Shen Sijing rewarded him with half a pot of wine and two pieces of beef.

Constable Liu thanked him profusely and hurried away.

He still had to maintain order and could not leave his post for too long.

"Weren't they simply fools beyond doubt?"

For something as high-risk as hiring assassins, shouldn't you find people whose backgrounds you knew inside out? Did you think you were hiring laborers, that you could just pull anyone off the street?

Why did people always seek out fellow townsmen? Because shared hometown ties imposed restraints, and there was at least some scruple involved. No matter what, they would not play so dirty.

It was true enough that martial artists from elsewhere could kill someone and hide outside the city, with no worries holding them back.

But the employer's family had not considered that those people had no attachments in the area, and thus no scruples either. They could slaughter their enemies' family without mercy, then turn around and destroy your whole family in a black-eats-black scheme. They would have no psychological barrier to killing for wealth.

The martial arts school students in the private room sighed endlessly. Dignified Internal Force Martial Artists had fallen into becoming assassins without any bottom line.

The City Gate Guards were packed with experts and held the advantage of knowing the terrain. With the local-savvy constables helping them as well, destroying that band of murderers was only a matter of time.

Sure enough, the uproar did not cease until the latter half of the night.

The City Gate Guards wiped out the band of violent criminals, leaving not a single survivor. They chopped off the heads and hung them in wooden cages around the city walls, intimidating the refugees.

The wind spun and swayed the wooden cages, making them lightly knock against the flagpoles. One head after another shriveled and blackened as it weathered.

"This world is about to descend into chaos."

From some corner of the city wall came a frail sigh, scattered away by the wind.