novelraw Chapter 76: Boss Tang Has Powerful Backing
Chapter 76: Boss Tang Has Powerful Backing
Liu Da stood holding a pitchfork, a blade wound already cut into his shoulder, blood flowing freely, his face full of despair.
He had spent years running solo merchant routes outside, so he knew at least something of martial arts. With a weapon in hand, dealing with two bandits wasn't beyond him but he had no idea how many more were outside, how many bandits had poured into the town. No matter how capable he was, how many assaults could he hold off?
Just as it seemed his life was about to come to an end, he suddenly heard a chorus of wailing and howling from outside. Then Li Qiuchen came vaulting over the wall and landed squarely on top of one bandit, twisting his legs with force and snapping the man's neck on the spot. The remaining bandit hadn't even had time to react before Li Qiuchen kicked him straight toward Liu Da.
Liu Da thrust his pitchfork forward, and it drove clean through the bandit's chest. In the blink of an eye, both bandits had lost their lives in a muddled and unremarkable fashion.
"Third brother!"
Liu Da was overcome with emotion.
His own blood brothers were useless, probably hiding inside the house right now with their trousers soaked through. In a moment like this, the one he could truly count on was this newly sworn younger brother.
"Are Godmother and sister-in-law alright?"
Li Qiuchen reached out to catch Wulala as she dropped down from above, and asked urgently.
"They're fine. I had them hide in the cellar."Liu Da had already sunk into despair, but the moment he saw Li Qiuchen return, his courage surged back at once. Without even pausing to tend to his own wound, he kicked one of the fallen bandits' weapons across the ground to Li Qiuchen.
"These bastards came straight for our house! Someone tipped them off, damn it all!"
Someone had definitely tipped them off. Otherwise there was no way they could have cased the place this precisely but that wasn't what needed to be considered right now.
Li Qiuchen nudged one of the bodies on the ground with his foot and asked quietly, "Big brother, you run routes out there all the time. Can you tell which gang this is?"
Liu Da frowned and said, "A group with this many men and horses is most likely the Swarm Nest Stronghold from Eagle Claw Ridge to the west. They had a feud with the Zhao family before. When something happens to the Zhao family, outsiders might not know, but those people would definitely catch wind of it."
This gang was, to be honest, far more formidable than the group that Li Qiuchen had encountered at Crotch Mountain.
Those men, despite being called bandits, were mostly thugs and riffraff he had sprung from prison and brought up the mountain with him. They were doubly capable when it came to causing trouble, but utterly worthless in an actual fight.
The gang that had charged into Blue Stone Platform this time, however, were hardened criminals every one of them. Not only were they bold and ruthless in combat, they were also highly professional in their core operations, moving with clear purpose and heading straight for the wealthy households once inside the town.
That last point shouldn't be underestimated. Bandits without proper training simply couldn't achieve that level of organization.
Li Qiuchen felt no real pressure on his end, because he was long past being the helpless little kid who couldn't even tie up a chicken.
There was also a more important reason: the Zhao family and Boss Tang's side had drawn the majority of attention away.
"What's a gang?" asked Wulala, who had spent the evening flipping off who knows how many skull caps with her little pickaxe, and showed not the slightest sign of psychological trauma from killing with her own hands. Instead, she was asking questions with cheerful curiosity.
Liu Da was startled, only now noticing that Wulala had also come along.
"Third brother, why did you bring the young miss back here too? You should have taken her to the inn!"
"I was worried about you all, wasn't I?" Li Qiuchen said lightly, and those words were enough to make Liu Da's eyes go red.
That was true enough. If he hadn't been worried about the family, why would he have come back?
This brother had integrity, he was worth keeping close.
Wulala was still asking persistently, "You still haven't told me, what's a gang?"
Li Qiuchen patiently explained, "A gang is a group of bandits. We call individual bandits 'huzis,' and a bandit group that moves in formation is called a 'liuzi.' Keep this knowledge to yourself and don't go around telling people."
A wealthy young miss who was about to go study in the county seat after the New Year, talking about huzis and liuzis the moment she opened her mouth, what a thing to be laughed at for.
What he didn't know at that moment was that on a hillside not far outside Blue Stone Platform, two uninvited guests dressed in heavy furs with iron armor worn beneath were quietly observing the situation in the town.
They paid no attention to the commotion at the Liu family home. All of their focus was fixed on the entrance to the inn.
A group of armed guards had surrounded the inn completely, holding it without a gap, and even had the capacity to launch counterattacks.
Aye swung his twin swords in broad, sweeping arcs, moving like a humanoid harvesting machine made of flesh and blood. Wherever he went, the bandits scattered. Those who were even slightly too slow to flee were caught by him, and a single sword stroke left nothing of them behind.
Four Rakshasa ghosts stood on the inn's rooftop. They hadn't even brought out the Black Tiger Cannons they carried with them. Using nothing but ordinary bows and arrows, they picked off the bandits roaming the streets one by one.
The bandits who had charged into the Zhao family compound hoping to loot and pillage fared no better. For reasons no one had anticipated, a unit of well-equipped soldiers had been hidden inside the Zhao family estate, and they launched an immediate counterattack, routing the bandits and sending them fleeing in disarray, helmets and armor scattered behind them.
"An ancient clan from the Border Wilds, the Rakshasa Sea Guard..."
The speaker murmured with quiet admiration, "This Boss Tang has some serious backing. An ordinary person couldn't have connections like that."
The person beside him said quietly, "He has a daughter. Mixed blood."
"Ohh."
That explained it.
"I'm honestly envious."
"What's there to envy? If you've got what it takes, go do it yourself."
"No thanks. I've heard that the Rakshasa ghost mother is a master of the Art of the Tiger Crouching Dragon Coiling Night Battle of the Eight Directions, something no ordinary man can handle. For this Boss Tang to have gotten into the Rakshasa ghost mother's bed and even fathered a child, he must have some truly exceptional qualities."
"So you're saying you don't have what it takes?"
"Nonsense, I just don't have a taste for that sort of thing."
Watching the bandits who had charged into Blue Stone Platform fall into complete disarray and cease to be a threat, the two men let the tension ease from their nerves and fell into casual conversation.
"Looks like there truly are no remnants of the Medicine Master cult left behind."
"You can't determine something like that just by watching with your eyes."
"If you ask me, we shouldn't have had those soldiers ambushed inside the Zhao family estate. Swarm Nest Stronghold collapsed too quickly. They never even got a chance to apply real pressure."
"They probably didn't expect there to be outsiders in town. I noticed their chief never made a move the whole time. My guess is he smelled something wrong and ran early. True to their name, Swarm Nest Stronghold, their ability to rob households is fairly average, but their ability to run away is something else entirely."
Events unfolded exactly as the two men had anticipated. Seeing setbacks at both the Zhao compound and the inn, the bandits, facing opponents who were either too powerful or too well-prepared, watched their morale collapse at a visible rate.
No one could tell who started it, but someone called out at the top of their lungs, "Where's the chief?"
"Haven't seen him!"
"That bastard didn't sell us out, did he?"
The bandits had a thorough understanding of their chief's character. The moment those words were spoken, the already barely-holding formation collapsed entirely, and without another word they turned and ran.
This great bandit raid before the New Year lasted less than one hour before it was over.
The townspeople were stunned both by the fighting power of Boss Tang's merchant caravan guards and by the hidden cards the Zhao family had held in reserve.
Where had those soldiers come from? Had they been conjured out of thin air?
As a matter of fact, essentially yes.
Once everything had settled and the story spread from the Zhao estate, everyone finally understood what had happened.
The authorities had long harbored plans to suppress the bandits, but a gang like Swarm Nest Stronghold normally hid up in the mountains and was difficult to deal with.
It just so happened that Blue Stone Platform had experienced this whole situation, so the county magistrate decided to use the opportunity to set a trap.
Originally, Squire Zhao and his family could have returned much earlier, but they had been deliberately kept away for an extended period, stoking unease and uncertainty in the town, allowing Swarm Nest Stronghold to believe an opportunity had opened up for them to make their move.
Then, using the occasion of escorting Squire Zhao and his family back home, the Sheriff Ma Tiancheng personally led a unit of soldiers hidden overnight inside the Zhao estate, waiting for Swarm Nest Stronghold to come knocking so they could deliver them a decisive blow.
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