The standoff

Zhou Muzhi had not arrived by coincidence or timed his entrance. Without Zhou Buren buying time with those few words, things might have developed differently.

Still, a narrow miss was a miss by a wide margin. After arriving, he had even waited a little while, confirming that the Qian Family had no other contingencies nearby before striking down the enemies with thunderous force.

In the alley lined with low, flat-roofed black houses, the cold night wind blew past, carrying the smell of blood.

Everyone still standing was stained with blood. Even Zhou Buren's face was smeared with bloody streaks, and the flexible sword in his hand had become a red sword.

During the melee, he had inevitably needed to fight. Fortunately, Lao Xu had been watching from the shadows and had saved the second young master from danger several times.

After Zhou Muzhi killed Nineteen, only members of the Zhou Family remained there.

The guards had exhausted much of their strength. They panted heavily, staring around with bloodshot eyes, their thoughts unknown.

Zhou Buren, who was also badly worn out, spoke at the right moment, drawing all the guards' attention. "Everyone still standing gets twenty taels of silver and a night at Cui Garden, my treat. Just head over!"

At those words, the eyes of every guard except Lao Xu immediately lit up.

They risked their lives for no more than a few scraps of silver. With such a generous reward all at once, their hearts drew together.

In Zhou Buren's eyes, these men could count as a truly dependable foundation. At least they had risked their lives together, which naturally fostered trust.

Zhou Muzhi also strode over to his second brother then. Once he was close, he pointed at the corpses on the ground.

"There are so many of them, Second Brother. How should we handle them?"

His own inclination was simply to leave them where they lay or find somewhere to dump them, just as he had done with Hua Kai last time.

But he would hear his second brother's suggestion first.

Hearing this, Zhou Buren recalled what those men had done earlier. Anger simmered in his eyes, and "complicated" no longer sufficed to describe his gaze as he looked at the younger brother who had turned the raging tide.

He had seen firsthand how strong the man who could fight Lao Xu was. Yet such a Blood Gate Martial Artist had been crushed to death in his younger brother's hands as easily as a chicken.

Judging by his own martial foundation, which had failed to reach Body Tempering despite years of training, this martial realm had already reached a level beyond his understanding.

In a word.

His fourth brother's depths were unfathomable!

He could also glean something of this from the reverence in Lao Xu's eyes beside him.

"No, I'm reporting this to the authorities. Something like this has to be brought out into the open. If we drag this out any longer, we really will be forced onto the back foot.

"This counts as our first formal clash with Qian Zhen. Without a buffer, he'll likely gather all his strength and wipe out our Zhou Family!"

Zhou Buren had gradually asked people about Qian Zhen. He could be described as a thoroughgoing villain who avenged every grudge, never held back, and believed in keeping no useless people.

Once he sensed danger, what came next would inevitably be every force he could mobilize.

Faced with that situation, no matter how heaven-defying his fourth brother's martial prowess was, he could not cover every angle. A single oversight would lead to an irreparable outcome.

Zhou Muzhi felt that this was more thorough than his own considerations, so he deferred to his second brother.

"We'll do as you suggest, Second Brother, and report it. Don't come over here for a while. Just stay home. However overbearing the Qian Family may be, they wouldn't dare openly storm a private residence. We can also invite an officer to stay at the house."

Forcing entry into a wealthy household's private residence and continuing to commit violence was not merely tearing away all pretense. It escalated matters to contempt for the laws of the Song Kingdom.

That was entirely different from an ambush and assassination outside.

If someone was killed in their own home, as long as someone lodged a complaint, it could be reported up through the ranks, as high as the prefect. It counted as a serious case.

Of course.

Someone like Hua Kai, who had died earlier, had stormed another person's dwelling to kill. The nature of his actions was already vile, and he was the aggressor. Even after his death, probably no one would seek justice for him. Once Qian Zhen learned of it, he would merely call the man useless, then make a token effort to pursue the matter.

After that incident, Qian Zhen had probably already been noted at the county office. A second incident would mean openly confronting the laws of the Song Kingdom.

When Zhou Muzhi killed Brother Gui, the man had been a street thug with many enemies and an extremely low standing, only above that of refugees. Thus, even though he had died in his own room, no one had reported it, and the officials had not cared.

But the Zhou Family was different. Within the county town, they were a minor clan of some standing, whatever else might be said. If things truly reached the point of their household being massacred, the other minor clans and those outside the Qian Family would likely bristle on the spot.

Because however many schemes the Qian Family had used before, they had never done anything that crossed such a line.

Slaughtering an entire family had never happened.

Once something like that happened, the Qian Family would have no place left in Suming County.

With the matter settled, they split into two groups. Five guards stayed behind for the time being, while Zhou Muzhi and the other two headed straight to the county office in the middle of the night.

Of course, they did not go before the main hall to beat the grievance drum. Instead, they took a side path, met the clerk on night duty, spent some silver, and found the registrar who could handle the matter.

Then the entire county office sprang into action. A large number of constables were urgently summoned and set out carrying torches. There were twenty-six in all, practically everyone they could call in.

With so many people dead in an incident now brought into the open, it would have been a lie to say the registrar had not panicked upon hearing the news.

Moreover, the Zhou Family had reported it in person, so there was no concealing the matter. He first informed the county magistrate, then sent men to the scene.

Only at daybreak were the corpses and bloodstains in the alley finally cleared away.

During this time, all the officials at the county office fell utterly silent, and the atmosphere there had clearly grown strange.

Until a disguised figure slipped out through the rear of the county office and hurried toward the Qian Family.

Zhou Muzhi did not take part in any of this. Or rather, the subsequent developments no longer required him.

Before anyone knew it, daylight had fully broken.

Zhou Muzhi had long since left as well.

His main tasks had always been practicing martial arts, searching for the so-called "memories" of wronged souls, and harvesting Deduction Points from old objects.

Those were his greatest priorities. As for the various measures Qian Zhen sent against him, he could only say he dealt with them along the way.

Despite a sleepless night, Zhou Muzhi still felt full of energy. He simply walked to the Li Residence to continue learning leg techniques from his master.

There was no manual for the Cloud-Chasing Thunderclap Technique. This method, focused on martial skill, was Li Jingfei's specialty.

Thus, even if Zhou Muzhi wanted to deduce it using Deduction Points, he had no way to do so for now. He could not create something out of thin air.

By his reckoning, the panel needed a physical object on which to act. It was almost impossible to deduce anything from thoughts in his head.

For that reason, Zhou Muzhi hoped his master would write this method into a booklet. This put Li Jingfei in a difficult position, however. It was not that he could not write it, but that he did not know how to put pen to paper.

Only after a long while did he tell Zhou Muzhi to wait while he thought about how to write it into a booklet.

Half a day slipped leisurely by.

The county office also formally opened a case on yesterday's assassination attempt, assigning someone specifically to keep watch over it. Even the county magistrate had been alerted and was preparing to mediate the conflict between the Qian and Zhou Families.

For the time being, the Qian Family made no moves.

The sun gradually sank westward.

Near Liu Street, Zhou Muzhi walked alone along the little street, trying to find anything connected to that wronged soul.

A little while later, Third Master appeared at the corner ahead, a smoking pipe tucked at his waist, his face beneath his white hair looking fairly vigorous.

Upon seeing Zhou Muzhi, he ran over excitedly and spoke.

"Master Zhou, I've finally found some news!"