Committing Murder in the Street

The morning sun spilled over the ancient archway at the entrance of Ox-Horn Town, casting the lines of text upon it into clear, striking relief:

Sharpen the blade to pierce the sky, let soaring ambition shatter the dust. Through a thousand trials and ten thousand strikes, the spirit remains unyielding; the brave take hold and charge ever forward.

This poem was left behind by the founder and first mayor of Ox-Horn Town.

Back then, there was no Zhou Family Fort, only the destitute and barren Ox-Horn Town and a scattering of small, sparse villages nearby, far from the prosperity seen today.

Yet, in those days, hearts were simple and people helped one another; though poor, they were content with their lot, and everyone wore a smile.

But today, while Ox-Horn Town appears prosperous, no one knows when it began, but vengeful spirits and weeping sounds have started to emerge.

Who gained and who lost? It is hard to say in a single word.

After a glance at the archway, Li Hai walked beneath it, following the flow of the crowd onto a wide, grey-stone thoroughfare.

On both sides of the road stood rows of shops, gatehouses, and low-rise buildings.

Hanging from the sides of these shops, houses, and buildings were wooden signs of all shapes and sizes.

These signs bore inscriptions for silver jewelry, fabrics, pharmacies, pawnshops, shoe stores, teahouses, taverns, hotpot restaurants, meat shops, rouge and powder... and so on.

In short, it was a motley collection of everything one could imagine.

Beyond these, the grey-stone road was filled with numerous street vendors and peddlers, constantly hawking their wares to passersby.

Thus, the clamor of the crowd, the noise of children, and the cries of the peddlers all reached the ears, converging before Li Hai into a scene of bustling marketplace chaos.

However, as soon as this atmosphere neared him, it was forcibly diminished by a third, suppressed by his towering, exaggeratedly muscular physique.

For whether man or woman, young or old, anyone who saw Li Hai up close could not help but be intimidated and shaken by his "heroic" stature, to the point where they couldn't even speak loudly, wanting only to lower their heads and stay away.

Li Hai himself, however, was oblivious to this, or perhaps he simply did not care.

Right now, he only wanted to know where the Zhou Family Mansion was.

I need to find someone to ask.

Muttering to himself, Li Hai scanned his surroundings.

After a quick sweep, his eyes lit up as he locked onto a target.

"Hey!"

Li Hai walked up to a militia guard standing by the roadside, dressed in rattan armor and holding a spear, and asked in a low, muffled voice, "Where is the Zhou Family Mansion?"

"Uh..."

The guard, standing only a little over 1.7 meters tall, tilted his head to look at the expressionless Li Hai. Overwhelmed by his presence, he asked with panicked vigilance, "W-w-what do you want?"

As he spoke, he raised his spear, trembling as he pointed it at Li Hai.

Whoosh—

In an instant, the spear was snatched from his hands by Li Hai and casually flicked into the sky.

Chirp~~~

The guard craned his neck, mouth agape, watching the spear fly higher and further away with a series of sonic booms, vanishing from his sight beyond the borders of Ox-Horn Town in the blink of an eye.

"Did you not hear me speaking?"

This shout brought the guard back to his senses, and he hurriedly turned to bow and scrape before Li Hai: "Yes, yes, please speak, please speak."

"I'm asking you."

Li Hai suppressed his impatience and asked again, "Where is the Zhou Family Mansion?"

"You just follow this road for two miles, then turn right and go another mile and a half, and you'll be there." The terrified guard blurted out the entire answer in one breath.

"Hmm."

Li Hai nodded in satisfaction, patted him on the shoulder, and said, "Very good, your tongue is nimble, you have a bright future. Now, let me ask you one more thing."

"Please, go ahead," the guard said with a forced smile.

"Among the various militia captains you know..."

Li Hai asked indifferently, "Is there anyone who is in poor health, someone who has been stabbed in the kidney?"

"Stabbed in the kidney... poor health..."

The guard frowned in thought, then hesitated, "I heard people say... our vice-captain Chi Daxiao seems to have suffered a back injury about three years ago. He rested for a long time before recovering, and it never healed properly. Even in the hottest weather, he has to wear a thick robe, otherwise, he shivers, feels cold, and breaks out in cold sweats."

"Sounds like the one."

Li Hai nodded, "Good. Go and call this Chi Daxiao over for me."

"Sir, there's no need to call him."

The guard pointed to a tea stall at the bend of the road on the right, "Unless someone from above comes to inspect, Captain Chi spends his time drinking tea there every day."

"That convenient?"

Li Hai swept his gaze over and grinned, "Heh~ that works out well."

Immediately, he strode toward the tea stall.

The seven or eight zhang distance was covered in a flash.

Upon entering the tea stall, Li Hai immediately spotted the Captain Chi mentioned by the guards earlier.

He was so certain because, among the sparse five or six people in the stall, only one man was wearing a thick robe in this sweltering heat; who else could it be?

"Chi Daxiao."

Chi Daxiao, who was resting and drinking tea, heard someone call his name from behind and slowly turned around to look.

He then saw a giant of a man, with skin unnaturally pale yet built like an ox, staring at him coldly from ten feet away.

"Who are you?" Chi Daxiao asked with a mix of confusion and vigilance. "I don't know you."

"Then do you know Zheng Dashan?" Li Hai said coldly.

"Zheng Dashan?!"

Upon hearing that name, Chi Daxiao's expression changed drastically, and he barked, "Who are you?"

"Heh heh heh, quite the temper you have."

Listening to the sheer hatred in his voice, Li Hai grinned. "But it looks like the last three years haven't been easy for you. How is it? Does your kidney still hurt? Are you still capable of being a man?"

"Enough talk!" Chi Daxiao gritted his teeth and snarled, "Where is that bastard surnamed Zheng hiding? Tell him to come to me—"

Before he could finish, Li Hai suddenly reached out, grabbed Chi Daxiao by the hair, and slammed him hard onto the ground, dragging him face-first all the way out of the tea stall.

This sudden turn of events and Chi Daxiao's shrill, miserable screams sent all the customers and the owner fleeing in terror.

In that short span of time, Li Hai had already dragged Chi Daxiao some seventeen or eighteen meters, leaving a trail of blood and mangled flesh that made the surrounding onlookers scramble backward.

When he reached exactly twenty meters, Li Hai stopped and released the dying Chi Daxiao.

By now, his entire face was a bloody mess, his features completely unrecognizable, with only a single bloody hole in his face opening and closing as he struggled to breathe.

Looking at Chi Daxiao's wretched state, Li Hai couldn't help but laugh.

"Had a bit of swill and thought you were a real tough guy, didn't you? Seeing the wives of common folk and feeling the urge to humiliate them, right? Since you don't want your face, I'll just help you take it off."

After saying this, he stopped smiling, looked at Chi Daxiao's blood-smeared face, and said coldly:

"Zheng Dashan is not dead, so I won't kill you either. As for how much longer you live, that's entirely up to you."

With that, he turned and strode away, leaving Chi Daxiao alone to moan in agony on the street corner.

After wailing for a while, he spat out a large pool of blood from the hole in his face and, amidst the screams and stares of the onlookers, breathed his last.