Four Birds with One Arrow

Pedestrians filled the streets, all converging in the same direction.

Yang Ge and Wang Dali threaded through the increasingly crowded stream of people and, before they knew it, arrived back at the Welcome Inn.

From far away, Yang Ge spotted Shopkeeper Liu standing inside the inn's half-open doors, surrounded by a circle of neighboring shop owners.

Seeing Yang Ge return, Shopkeeper Liu came out to greet him, overjoyed. "You're finally here!"

Yang Ge approached, utterly bewildered. "Shopkeeper, what's going on?"

When it came to gossip, Wang Dali's tongue rattled away as briskly as clapper boards, but the moment serious business came up, it became as tangled as the crotch of padded trousers. He stammered this and that forever without getting anything straight.

Yang Ge had listened to him the whole way and still had no idea what had happened.

Shopkeeper Liu first sent away the neighbors gathered outside the inn. Only once the three of them were alone did he say, "They've caught the villain who robbed our inn the night before last. The authorities told us all to wait here. They'll bring him over shortly for us to identify."

Were the Embroidered Uniform Guard really that efficient?

Understanding dawned on Yang Ge. Then he pointed at the stream of people outside. "Then all those people in the street are..."

"Watching the spectacle," Shopkeeper Liu said. "The authorities are parading the villain through the streets!"

"Parading him?"

Yang Ge froze for two seconds before realization suddenly struck. Admiration rose in his heart. As expected of someone who handles great affairs-he sees the bigger picture!

He had initially thought Shen Fa would have someone spread the word, pinning "the martial arts manual Jiang Kui left behind" firmly on the black-clad man from the night before last.

He had never expected Shen Fa to publicize the matter with such fanfare, even elevating it into a political display of killing a chicken to warn the monkeys.

This way...

It would settle his problem once and for all.

It would also kill a chicken to warn the monkeys, strengthening public order during the martial trials.

And indirectly, it would display the court's majesty and the Embroidered Uniform Guard's might before those lawless martial artists.

Three birds with one stone!

Compared with Shen Fa's approach, his own had been passive and petty, and would not even have solved the problem at its root.

Shopkeeper Liu seemed to have reached the same conclusion. Brimming with hope, he asked, "Young man, does this mean that business is finally behind us?"

Yang Ge nodded firmly. "It definitely is. The authorities have stepped in. Anyone who keeps making trouble for us would be slapping them in the face, wouldn't they? It's not worth it!"

Hearing Yang Ge's ironclad assurance, the great stone hanging over Shopkeeper Liu's heart finally dropped to the ground.

Rubbing his chest, he said with profound relief, "Good that it's over. Good that it's over... These past two nights, I haven't slept a wink. I was afraid this business would get you hurt. If that happened, I'd never know peace for the rest of my life!"

Only now that the matter was settled did he finally voice the worry buried in his heart.

Touched, Yang Ge forced a smile and reassured him. "You were just overthinking it. Didn't I tell you yesterday it was nothing serious? You still don't trust me!"

Shopkeeper Liu dragged over a chair and slowly sat down. Hearing this, he smiled and waved a hand. "I've got a set of scales in my heart. I know what's what."

Yang Ge smiled without saying more, then turned to Wang Dali. "Wang, come boil some water with me and brew a few pots of hot tea. When the officers arrive, we can't even fail to offer them something hot to drink. That would be terribly rude."

That got Shopkeeper Liu out of his seat again. Slapping his forehead, he stood up. "An oversight, an oversight! Hurry and boil the water. I'll fetch the good tea I've been saving..."

As luck would have it, the three had only just finished frantically preparing the tea when they heard the loud clang of a bronze gong.

They hurried out to meet the visitors.

In the middle of the street, amid a sea of bobbing heads, more than twenty imposing officers approached with gongs and drums. They wore fitted, cuffed black uniforms embroidered with Yazi and carried silver-threaded ox-tail sabers at their waists. Between them marched a middle-aged man covered in blood, with shackles on both his wrists and ankles.

Yang Ge was prepared. After scanning the Embroidered Uniform Guards in their Yazi uniforms, he turned his gaze to the shackled middle-aged man. His build did indeed resemble that of the black-clad man who had crept into the inn the night before last.

Shopkeeper Liu was not prepared. The instant he recognized their uniforms, his knees went weak with fright. "Mother of mercy, the Embroidered Uniform Guard!"

Yang Ge caught him swiftly. "Don't be afraid. We're law-abiding citizens. These officers are here to see justice done for us. What are you scared of?"

"Yes, yes, yes..."

Shopkeeper Liu nodded like a pestle pounding garlic. "We're all law-abiding citizens... Eight generations of our ancestors were law-abiding citizens!"

Despite his words, the old man's legs still shook like a little prince of electronic dance music.

Seeing Shopkeeper Liu like this, Yang Ge finally gained a firsthand understanding of the terror the Embroidered Uniform Guard inspired.

The guards escorted the middle-aged man to the Welcome Inn's entrance. Their commanding officer raised a hand, and the entire procession stopped.

"Are you the victims from the Welcome Inn?"

The officer rested a hand on his saber and swept the three standing outside the inn with a gaze as biting as a winter wind.

Shopkeeper Liu tottered forward, bowing with clasped hands as relentlessly as a pestle pounding garlic. "O-o-officer, w-we, we..."

Seeing that Shopkeeper Liu was too nervous even to straighten out his tongue, Yang Ge stepped forward and bowed with clasped hands. "Reporting to you, sir, we run the Welcome Inn. A villain did creep inside to attack us the night before last. I was the one who discovered him."

"Good!"

The officer turned sideways and pointed to the middle-aged man behind him. "Take a close look. Is this wretch the villain who attacked you that night?"

"Yes, sir!"

Yang Ge answered and, under countless watching eyes, steeled himself and stepped forward to examine the middle-aged man.

The middle-aged man had a ball gag stuffed in his mouth and could not speak. As Yang Ge approached and stared intently at him, he let out frightened, muffled cries.

With his hair disheveled and tears and snot streaming down his face, he looked both hideous and pitiful.

"Behave yourself!"

Whether afraid the man would frighten Yang Ge or concerned that Yang Ge might have other reservations, the officer turned and kicked him to his knees.

Unexpectedly, the middle-aged man used the momentum to collapse onto the ground, wailing and rolling about as though he had suffered some monstrous injustice.

A faint stir ran through the watching crowd...

Though no one spoke, the air seemed filled with countless buzzing flies and mosquitoes.

Yang Ge looked up at the officer.

He discovered that the officer was watching him too... staring straight at him.

He lowered his head, planted a foot on the middle-aged man's neck, and bent down to pull open his clothes. A bandage was wrapped around his left shoulder, near his chest.

He lifted the bandage, revealing a savage, half-foot-long scab running from left to right, its torn flesh curling outward on either side. Despite a thick coating of blood-staunching medicine, dark blood continued to seep from it.

Seeing that wound, Yang Ge finally confirmed the identity of the man beneath his foot.

The night before last, the black-clad man had overturned the table and extinguished the oil lamp as soon as he attacked.

Thus, Yang Ge's only means of verifying his identity was that first axe blow he had struck as he plunged into the darkness... a swing guided by his last memory before the light went out and the direction of the black-clad man's shout.

He clearly remembered that blow striking the black-clad man's chest.

The struggle afterward had been nothing but blind fucking chopping. Though he felt that several more blows had connected, he had no idea where they had landed.

"Reporting to you, sir, this is indeed the villain who crept into our Welcome Inn and attacked us the night before last. Forced to fight him that night, I struck his chest with the axe we use to split firewood... Please look, sir. This wound is the proof!"

Everyone's gaze followed Yang Ge's words to the middle-aged man's chest.

The crowd gradually stilled, and the almost imperceptible buzzing of flies and mosquitoes in the air slowly faded.

The officer glanced at the wound and raised his head. "Do you have physical evidence?"

Yang Ge bowed with clasped hands. "Yes... Wang, the Firewood Axe is hidden on the privy roof. Sorry for the trouble, but please fetch it."

Wang Dali, who had been shaking like chaff in a sieve, felt as though he had been granted a pardon. "I'll get it right away!" he blurted, then bolted into the inn.

The officer waved a hand, and two guards immediately followed at a brisk pace, hands resting on their sabers.

Before long, the two guards returned with Wang Dali between them, bringing a rusty axe with traces of blood on its blade and presenting it to the officer.

The officer took the Firewood Axe, crouched before the middle-aged man, and compared its blade to the wound on his chest.

Soon, without looking back, he waved a hand at Yang Ge.

Understanding, Yang Ge lifted his foot from the man's neck and bowed as he stepped back.

The middle-aged man had heard the entire exchange between Yang Ge and the officer. As soon as he got up, he began kowtowing repeatedly to the officer, making muffled cries.

The officer removed his gag, stood, and barked down at him, "Ding Man, do you confess to violating the curfew the night before last, sneaking into the Welcome Inn, and breaking in to commit violence with malicious intent?"

With the evidence conclusive, the middle-aged man no longer dared defy the fearsome Embroidered Uniform Guard. He immediately burst into sobs and pleaded, "Sir, that night I only meant to rob..."

The officer cut his plea short in an icy voice. "So you confess!"

The middle-aged man froze, then abruptly straightened, about to shout...

But it was already too late.

Clang.

A dazzling flash of light swept past.

Standing behind the man, Yang Ge had not even grasped what had happened before a gush of warm liquid splashed over his face.

Instinctively, he wiped his cheek and looked: red and thick.

Then he lowered his head and saw the middle-aged man's severed head fall to the ground. It bounced twice with dull thumps like a ball, rolled all the way to his feet, and turned faceup. Its terrified, wide-open eyes stared straight at him...

Yang Ge shuddered violently. A tingling like an electric shock spread from his tailbone, shot up to his scalp in an instant, and erupted into gooseflesh all over his body.

Thud.

The headless corpse toppled heavily, crimson blood gushing out like water from an open tap and spreading across the ground in a scarlet pool.

Yang Ge finally snapped out of it. He staggered back seven or eight steps in rapid succession, landed on his backside, and frantically clawed and scratched all over his body.

He squeezed his eyes shut, not daring to look at the bloody scene before him.

Yet the image of the severed head and headless corpse adrift on that red carpet seemed etched into his mind.

Wave after wave of gooseflesh erupted over him, and no amount of scratching could stop the itch!

The officer glanced at him contemptuously, then turned to the assembled onlookers. Pointing his saber at the middle-aged man's headless corpse, he shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Ding Man, an escort of the Tiger Might Escort Agency in Taiyuan Prefecture, flouted the law with outrageous audacity! During preparations for the Martial Examination, he committed the capital crimes of breaking into an inn to assault its occupants and seeking wealth through murder, dishonoring His Majesty's grace and undermining the integrity of the Martial Examination! His crimes warrant death, and his evil admits no pardon! He has hereby been publicly executed as a warning to others!"

The crowd remained silent for a moment before someone suddenly shouted, "A wise judgment, sir!"

"An upright and just lord!"

"Now that you're here, Luting County finally has a clear sky of justice..."

The crowd erupted. Cheers and praise rose one after another, boiling over as though it were a festival.

Only Yang Ge remained sitting where he was, frantically scratching his ears and cheeks. "A nightmare, a nightmare..."

At that moment, on the second floor of a house a short distance diagonally opposite the Welcome Inn.

Shen Fa sat upright by the window, watching intently as the grand performance outside the Welcome Inn approached its conclusion.

Behind him, more than a dozen figures dressed in the mismatched clothes of street hawkers and laborers hurried back and forth.

"Painter, the guest is sitting on the ground scratching his ears and cheeks, eyes shut, unable to look directly at the beheaded corpse. He's muttering curses: 'A nightmare, a nightmare, you bastards,' and 'Lunatics, they're all fucking lunatics'... Uh, latest update: the guest has vomited."

"Bookkeeper, on the eighteenth of the sixth month, the guest purchased six dou of millet, two dou of wheat, two jin of pork, and three liang of illicit salt at Luting's eastern market, spending one hundred and twenty-seven coins."

"Village head, Vegetable Head Gu of the eastern market owns land and is comfortably off. His only daughter, Gu Yingchun, is somewhat pretty. He intends to take the guest as a live-in son-in-law and has asked the shopkeeper three times to act as matchmaker. All three offers were politely declined, with the guest saying he has no plans to marry and establish himself for now. Gu Yingchun was furious and once went privately to the inn to see the guest, but he avoided her..."

"Teacher, three months ago, a merchant from the Eastern Isles stopped at the inn for a meal. Wang received three coins as a tip and was overjoyed. He told the guest to come ask for a tip too. The guest said, 'Those Eastern Isles devils observe petty courtesies but know nothing of greater righteousness. They wear human faces but have no human hearts.' He advised Wang not to be deceived by appearances. Wang suspected the guest was jealous of his tip and told the neighbors..."

As Shen Fa listened to the reports behind him, the image of Yang Ge in his mind grew ever clearer.