Revenge

Revenge. Liang Qu gritted his teeth.

Zheng Xiang, LaiTou Zhang—there wasn't a good man among them! Zheng Xiang had left so decisively last night, not even taking the Yellow Croaker. Liang Qu had truly thought the man simply wanted to make a deal. Even if it involved personal freedom, Da Shun was not some harmonious society where everyone was equal. In the end, it was that dog of a servant who had placed the final straw on the camel's back.

"Water Bro, Brother Water, I've told you everything I should. I'll definitely repay the silver I owe in the future. Please show mercy—just treat me like a fart and let me go."

Zhang TieNiu, tortured until he was on his last breath, finally gathered enough strength to speak a coherent sentence. Seeing Liang Qu look over, he hurriedly Looked Up and forced out a smile.

Liang Qu showed hesitation, looking as though he could not bear it.

Secretly delighted, Zhang TieNiu had just wanted to fan the flames and beg some more when he discovered that the figure beside him had suddenly vanished. Instead, a shadow had appeared above his head.

He Looked Up blankly, then suddenly cried out. He saw an upside-down face abruptly lean toward him. Those pitch-black eyes stared straight at him. Amid the disheveled hair, the face split into a silent grin, two rows of ghastly white teeth pressing against his face as if they were about to bite through his Neck!

"Water Bro, Water Bro! What are you doing? Don't scare me!"

Zhang TieNiu's heart nearly stopped. He scooted backward in terror, one foot stepping into the water.

Liang Qu fixed his eyes on LaiTou Zhang, whose head was split and bleeding, and wiped the smile from his face. "You saw me use Water Control just now, didn't you?"

"Water Control? What Water Control? I Don't Know! I didn't see anything!"

"It doesn't matter whether you saw it or not."

Liang Qu rose to his feet. The setting sun slanted down, casting a long shadow across the sampan.

The River Wind brushed past them. Seed-laden reeds swayed, and reed floss drifted through the air.

Seeing that terrifying face leave, Zhang TieNiu's tightly clenched heart eased slightly. Yet as time passed, he grew increasingly uneasy beneath the shadow. He strained to Look Up, but could only see a black silhouette rimmed in gold.

He shifted farther down, trying to Look Up at a wider angle. In a daze, he saw a teasing face—and above it, a Stone raised high overhead!

Zhang TieNiu's pupils shrank sharply. His throat Trembled, but before the fishy smell could rise in his throat—

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Splash!

Enormous sprays of water erupted in the Reed Marsh. Amid the white foam, threads of dark red appeared from time to time.

A Black Shadow swam beneath the boat. Zhu Po Long swished its tail, dragging the corpse with the murder weapon Stone tied to it toward deeper waters.

Having dealt with everything, Liang Qu collapsed onto the sampan. His heart pounded violently, his saliva sticky as glue. He raised his hand and saw it shaking, his nails filled with bloody pulp.

For the first time in his life, a whole string of killings had flowed from his hands as smoothly as drifting clouds and running water.

Afraid LaiTou Zhang would struggle too fiercely and that he would not be able to hold him down, Liang Qu did not even dare drown him. He could only smash his skull apart with a Stone.

"Zhang TieNiu went too far. If I didn't take his life while he was sick, then even if I saved up money through Fishing, he'd still keep his eye on me once he recovered. Ugh—"

Liang Qu leaned over the side of the boat and dry-heaved, bringing up only a little stomach acid.

No matter how many reasons he had prepared, no matter how firmly he had made up his mind, when he truly acted, his mind had still gone blank. He had kept smashing until the back of the man's head had completely caved in, a blur of blood and flesh.

There were countless ferocious carnivorous fish in the Jianghuai Marshlands. Drawn by the scent of blood, they would not take long to erase Zhang TieNiu's traces from this world completely.

After he finished dry-heaving, Liang Qu sat back down in the boat.

Things had come to this: not only had his Black Awning Boat become a Small Sampan, but he had also somehow drawn the attention of the Zhao Residence. He Didn't Know whether Master Zhao himself had been involved.

The whole matter sounded like it had merely been Zheng Xiang and Zhang TieNiu's idea, but that was all one-sided testimony. Whether Zheng Xiang had acted to curry favor with Master Zhao of his own accord, or had acted on Master Zhao's orders, was impossible to know. A steward would not explain such crucial details to a rascal.

The former would be fine. The latter would be troublesome.

Master Zhao was already over sixty. Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting!

Across both his past and present lives, Liang Qu had been a virgin for nearly forty years, while some old bastard had already grown tired of playing around and wanted to try something perverse.

The only comfort was the two taels of broken silver in his pouch.

He could not afford to offend the Zhao Residence, so he could only save up seven taels as quickly as possible, go to the Yang Family Martial Hall in Ping Yang Town to learn martial arts, and earn himself a respectable status.

But how was he supposed to use this sampan openly and aboveboard?

Time flew by.

Figures stirred on the wharf shrouded in thin mist.

In the middle of the night, fish came out in schools to move about and feed, making it the perfect time for Fishing. Experienced fishermen would all untie their boats and set out at such an hour.

Yet amid the marshlands, a youth poled his boat against the flow and returned to the wharf.

Just as a man untied his rope and prepared to pole his boat out, he spotted the newcomer. "A Shui? Didn't your family have a Black Awning Boat? How did it become a Small Sampan? And why are you coming back at this hour?"

Liang Qu looked up and smiled. "It's Uncle Chen Yi."

This Uncle Chen was not Chen Qingjiang, the one who had given him flatbread when he first arrived. There were many Chen families in Yi Xing City. This was another man, merely an acquaintance.

Seeing scattered fishermen nearby, Liang Qu knew the atmosphere was right. He put on a sorrowful expression, grief written across his face as though tears might fall at any moment. "Uncle Yi, you know that a month ago, my father—"

Mixing a few indignant words with one or two mournful sighs, Liang Qu haltingly told them all about how, after his "father" died, LaiTou Zhang had oppressed him.

He only made slight alterations in certain places. For instance, LaiTou Zhang had originally seized the Black Awning Boat outright, but Liang Qu turned it into LaiTou Zhang forcibly exchanging it for his own sampan.

After hearing the story, none of the fishermen present doubted it. They even found it perfectly reasonable.

Forcibly taking a fisherman's boat was like murdering his parents. LaiTou Zhang had not spread the matter far and wide, so not many people knew about it. And even those who did could not possibly know whether there had truly been an "exchange."

LaiTou Zhang bullied the weak and feared the strong. He rarely provoked people from prominent clans, much less dared take things too far. Only an orphan like Liang Qu, with no one to rely on and a fine boat besides, would tempt Zhang TieNiu so greatly. Wealth moved men's hearts, and that was why Zhang TieNiu had acted with such reckless impunity.

"That LaiTou Zhang has truly done every evil under heaven."

"That conscienceless bastard should have been dealt with long ago."

"Yeah, he steals fish from my basket every day. I really want to smack him to death with an oar!"

For a time, righteous indignation filled the wharf. But on closer listening, most of them were merely cursing and venting their resentment. Not one person suggested standing up for Liang Qu or going to LaiTou Zhang to demand the Black Awning Boat back.

LaiTou Zhang was tall and strong, and he was a bachelor. Barefoot men did not fear those with shoes. Everyone else had elders above and children below; no one wanted to invite trouble for the sake of an orphan.

Liang Qu sighed, lifted the Wooden Board, and revealed more than a dozen fish inside. "Without proper fishing gear, I've been catching fish all day and I'm truly exhausted. I only just got a little harvest, so I'm heading back to sleep."

The others glanced over and saw grass carp and silver carp, worth perhaps twenty or thirty coins. They all nodded. Then they stopped exchanging pleasantries and headed out in their boats.

The burden hanging over Liang Qu's heart finally lifted.

If he had cleanly separated himself from LaiTou Zhang, it would only have seemed deliberate.

If someone were to sort through the entire affair from beginning to end, they would certainly find suspicious points. For example, if it had been an exchange of boats, why would Zhang TieNiu choose to sell the Black Awning Boat? No matter how idle and lazy he was, he would not leave himself without any room to maneuver, would he?

It could be explained, but the chain of logic would inevitably be weak.

But people also needed to avoid excessive self-consciousness, thinking that others paid them so much attention.

The world did not revolve around anyone. When it came to unrelated matters and trivial affairs, other people's memories were actually vague. With the slightest guidance, they could be led down an entirely different path.

No One would imagine that a youth could be so audacious—and possess the ability to intercept and kill a strong grown man.

As long as he planted a seed, and there were no obvious flaws, once that seed sprouted, it could grow into an "established fact."