Chapter 57: Chapter 57
“Heh heh.”
A cold sneer escaped Ji Xiangxiang’s lips, and with a single leap she landed on the deck.
The Canal Gang men aboard the great ship blanched, bracing as though for a formidable enemy.
Against a fifth-rank expert, no amount of caution was excessive.
“The Nanyang Branch killed my son. Today I’ll start by using your blood as an offering to his spirit in heaven!”
Ji Xiangxiang did not look at all like a woman with a twenty-nine-year-old son. She was in fact forty-nine, yet looked no more than a little past thirty.
“I’ve heard of this matter as well. Once I take office, I’ll surely give Elder Ji a proper account,” Ye Mingchu said evenly.
“I’m none too pleased with Li Suifeng’s conduct at the Nanyang Branch either. Rest assured, Elder Ji—or, if you’d rather not rest easy, why not come to Nanyang Prefecture together with me?”
“Heh heh.”
Ji Xiangxiang laughed:
“If even a spineless coward like you can become a branch Helmsman, then it seems we were right to move against the Canal Gang!”
“Before many days are out, the Canal Gang may be no more—and you’ll have no post to take up at all!”
What?
Everyone aboard was stunned. There had long been rumors that the Valley of Ten Thousand Flowers and the Righteous Manor had allied—but surely things hadn’t gone this far?
“What does Elder Ji mean by that?”
Ye Mingchu’s expression shifted slightly.
“Fool!”
“Though I’ve come this time for the wretch who killed my son, wiping out a Canal Gang branch along the way counts as doing my part toward the Canal Gang’s destruction.”
SHRRK!
A pink saber appeared in Ji Xiangxiang’s hand, and she slashed it out.
Several streams of blade qi tore through the air toward Ye Mingchu. Where the blade qi passed, splinters flew across the deck.
“Kill!”
Now that blows had been struck, Ye Mingchu knew there would be no peaceful end to this day. His long sword left its sheath, and he struck with all his might.
With lightning speed he thrust out seventy-two sword strikes, sword qi surging, crashing into the oncoming blade qi.
BANG!
In but an instant.
The sky-filling sword qi was crushed, and Ye Mingchu himself was sent flying by a stream of blade qi.
PFFT!
Ye Mingchu spat a mouthful of blood.
A wound stretched across his chest, from shoulder all the way to his waist; every rib in his chest was shattered.
Under that single stroke, his internal organs had all been ground to a pulp.
THUD!
Ye Mingchu’s corpse toppled to the deck, his eyes full of bitter unwillingness.
“Kill!”
“Avenge the Helmsman!”
A few of Ye Mingchu’s die-hard loyalists cried out and threw themselves at Ji Xiangxiang.
But most of the Canal Gang disciples aboard shrank back.
If even a peak-sixth-rank Helmsman couldn’t withstand a single stroke, then to charge in was nothing but courting death.
Better to keep themselves alive and serve the Canal Gang another day.
SPLASH!
SPLASH!
Dozens of Canal Gang disciples leaped into the river, Yuan Hai among them—jumping into the river was now their only sliver of a chance to live.
BANG!
Ji Xiangxiang struck out with a palm, and the dozen-odd men who had lunged at her were sent flying, spitting blood, to slam down across the deck, motionless.
On the riverbank.
An odd figure in a crow mask stood atop a tree, watching the scene unfold aboard the great Canal Gang ship midstream, a strange look on his face.
“The rare time I take a contract myself, and now this Ye Mingchu’s been killed by Ji Xiangxiang—what’s the meaning of this?”
“Never mind, never mind.”
“Worst case, I’ll just refund the silver to that lad.”
“Still—Ji Xiangxiang ought to be an even bigger piece of business!”
With that, he leaped down from the tree and hurried off toward Nanyang Prefecture.
…
An hour later.
In Li Suifeng’s courtyard at the Canal Gang branch.
A figure in a crow mask dropped down into the yard.
“Crow?”
Li Suifeng eyed the oddly-garbed expert and asked, puzzled.
By his reckoning, the Green Robe Tower’s assassin should be moving against Ye Mingchu today, so he had sent everyone away and waited alone in the courtyard for the outcome.
If the Green Robe Tower’s assassin proved unreliable, then he would have to act himself.
Crow took the mask from his face:
“Ye Mingchu is dead.”
“Mm.” Li Suifeng nodded.
Crow was a fifth-rank expert; had he acted himself this time, killing a Ye Mingchu would have been no trouble at all.
Crow held out a stack of silver notes to Li Suifeng:
“It wasn’t my doing.”
“The one who killed Ye Mingchu was Ji Xiangxiang!”
“And Ji Xiangxiang is already on her way here—coming to kill you!”
“If you want her dead, the price won’t be the same. It’ll cost extra!”
A strange look crossed Li Suifeng’s face. What a coincidence!
He had originally hired Crow to kill Ye Mingchu; had Ye Mingchu died at an assassin’s hand, suspicion would surely have fallen on him. But now that he’d died at Ji Xiangxiang’s hand, no one would suspect Li Suifeng at all.
Li Suifeng did not take the silver notes, but asked:
“How much silver?”
“Fifty thousand taels!”
Hsss—
Even Li Suifeng sucked in a breath of cold air.
He had some silver, but his expenses were not small either. Of the silver he’d taken from the Yang family, he’d had Yuan Hai carry fifty thousand taels off to headquarters. With various other outlays on top of that, he now had only a little over fifty thousand taels on hand.
Still, the branch’s accounts seemed to hold another few tens of thousands of taels.
“How far has Ji Xiangxiang’s martial arts come?” Li Suifeng asked.
It wasn’t that he wanted to save money—he was weighing whether to go along with Crow, so as to make certain Ji Xiangxiang was put down for good.
“Mid-fifth-rank!”
“Not especially strong—I can kill her!”
Crow said evenly, “Decide quickly. Half an hour at most, and Ji Xiangxiang may well be here.”
“We’re old acquaintances—you can put it on credit for now!”
Thud, thud—
Just then.
A flurry of hurried footsteps came.
“Lord Feng, Lord Feng!”
“There’s fighting outside the city!”
A moment later, Wen Bubao’s voice carried in from beyond the courtyard.
Crow flickered aside and slipped into the room.
Li Suifeng opened the courtyard door and asked with a frown:
“Who’s fighting?”
These past days, so many jianghu folk had come from Mingzhou that—perhaps already harboring grudges among themselves—they’d come to blows over the slightest disagreement more than once. So long as they didn’t run riot, the prefectural yamen and the Canal Gang both turned a blind eye.
“Elder Ji of the Valley of Ten Thousand Flowers has come to blows with an old man!”
Wen Bubao caught his breath:
“They say he’s from the Shen family of Dongzhou!”
Wen Bubao looked at Li Suifeng thoughtfully. No wonder Lord Feng had risen so suddenly—so Lord Feng was a man of the Shen family! Even though they weren’t from the same province, he’d heard of the Shen family’s great name; theirs was a power that surpassed even the Canal Gang.
With the Shen family backing him, no wonder Lord Feng paid the Righteous Manor no mind.
“How are things now?”
Li Suifeng asked.
Wen Bubao said in a low voice, “It seems Ji Xiangxiang has been driven back.”
“There should be more word coming shortly!”
Li Suifeng nodded: “Go and find out more—see exactly what’s going on.”
“Yes!”
Only once Wen Bubao had left the courtyard did Crow emerge from the room, and the look in his eyes as he regarded Li Suifeng had changed somewhat.
“I never imagined the Shen family stood behind you.”
Li Suifeng shook his head:
“I don’t know anyone from the Shen family!”
“Tell me about Ji Xiangxiang—until she’s dead, I won’t sleep easy!”
Only Li Suifeng himself knew that he had no connection whatsoever to the Shen family. If this Shen expert left and Ji Xiangxiang came to kill him again, it might cost him dearly. As the saying went, a man may play the thief for a thousand days, but none can guard against a thief for a thousand days.
A threat like this was best strangled in its cradle, before it could grow.