blogombal Page 75
Page 75
This monster is indeed very troublesome. Li Xianrui, Qingnang Nu, the boy on Li Xianrui's back... if any one of them is missing, it will be impossible to deal with them, and in the end, they will all be hunted down by it.
But now, it clearly has no other means.
Even so, no one dares to be careless until the very last moment.
The pale-faced scholar surveyed his surroundings, still determined to find Peach Doll Mother, regardless of whether she was dead or alive.
Chapter 140 "This is all I can do!"
At the same time, in a quiet corner in the distance.
Tiger Master, Constable Lu Cheng'an, and the old man in brocade robes sitting in a wheelchair listened together to the sounds coming from afar.
Tiger Master said in a deep voice, "It sounds like Li Xianrui has joined forces with the White-Faced Young Master, the Green Girl, and the Dwarf Tiger Brothers. Although it's a last resort, if things continue like this, it will be difficult to keep Li Xianrui after it's all over."
Lu Cheng'an looked grave and remained silent.
Regardless of whether he succeeds or not, he will receive a substantial reward.
The problem is, if this gets exposed, he'll be betraying such a respectable young lady for a windfall. Not only will he lose his job as a constable, but he'll also be wanted by the authorities and forced to live on the run.
The old man in the brocade robe gripped the handles of his wheelchair tightly, without saying a word.
Tiger Third Master glanced at the old man in the brocade robe and said, "We just accidentally bumped into Li Xianrui."
"Since she is known as a talented woman from Jade City Mountain, she must be a wise person. Let alone whether we were able to deceive her just now, even if we succeeded temporarily, she will definitely become suspicious afterward."
The old man in the brocade robe slowly said, "I don't care. In the end, I am old and not a martial artist. Even if I am not targeted, I will not live for many more years."
"I feel very bad that I have dragged you into this and forced you to be enemies with Yucheng Mountain."
Tiger Master said, "I am a member of the underworld, and I am not on the same side as those prestigious sects, so it doesn't matter to me. If Brother Lu really can no longer stay in the public service, I will take care of him."
"However, I'd really like to know, sir, what grudge do you have against this Li Xianrui?"
The old man in the brocade robe shook his head: "I have no grudge against her." Tiger Master and Lu Cheng'an exchanged a glance.
Why would someone go to such great lengths to deal with her when there's no enmity or grudge between them? You have to understand, for a businessman like Mr. Zhao...
The price for hiring the White-Faced Scholar, Peach Maiden, and Green Bag Girl was, even if not bankrupt, certainly a considerable sum. He was not a member of the martial arts world.
If one is a martial arts practitioner, one can rely on some roundabout connections to ask them for help.
For a businessman with no background in the martial arts world to plot a scheme against a prestigious young lady from a righteous sect like Yucheng Mountain, the effort required is unimaginable.
I had initially assumed that the old man and Li Xianrui had some deep-seated, irreconcilable grudge. But this was the unexpected answer I received.
The old man in the brocade robe raised his head, his gaze distant: "I'm not from a truly wealthy family. Long ago, I was just a tenant farmer at the foot of Jade City Mountain. All the fertile land there belongs to Jade City Mountain. The outer disciples of Jade City Mountain assist the sect in managing these many fields; they have Jade City Mountain as their backing."
They were arrogant and domineering, and the tenants below had to be subservient to them.
"Everyone pays the same land rent. If a family has a beautiful wife, they can get a good plot of land. If not, they can only get some poor land. If the harvest is bad, they can't even afford to pay the land rent and have to sell their children to buy a new one."
Tiger Master said, "Even in peaceful times, such things are unavoidable, and I'm afraid they will only increase in the future." The old man in the brocade robe slowly said, "Initially, my family wasn't tenant farmers; we had our own piece of land."
"One year, there was a flood, and the land could hardly be cultivated anymore. After paying the land tax, we couldn't even afford to eat, so we had no choice but to sell the land to Yucheng Mountain, and the whole family became..."
The people of Yucheng Mountain.
Ten thousand
"They took my family's fertile land but gave us a poor plot, and we had to pay even more in land tax every year. That year, the harvest was extremely poor, and in order to make up for the land tax that was about to be paid, my father had to take me, who was still young, out to do hard labor."
"When we returned, two outer disciples from Jade City Mountain were bullying my mother. My father impulsively stepped forward, not daring to offend them, but still wanting to reason with them. They laughed and said that if my mother stayed with them for a few days, they would give her a better field next time, and then they really wanted to take my mother away."
“My father was a fierce man. He charged forward with a woodcutter’s knife. Although they were just outer disciples of Jade City Mountain, or as you would say in the martial arts world, they were all second-rate, they were still martial artists. How could my father be a match for them? He was killed by them just like that.”
His voice was calm and even, probably because so many years had passed and he could now calmly face the anger he felt back then.
Tiger Master and Lu Cheng'an remained silent, because this was really nothing unusual. These kinds of things happen all the time; they occurred every year before, and they will continue to do so in the future.
In particular, judging from the age, it happened even before the Empress unified the world.
Nowadays, even if a wealthy landowner beats a tenant to death, at least there's a nominal legal basis for intervention, although in the end it usually just involves paying a sum of money. As for those lackeys, things are much more difficult.
But in those days, death was often the end of the story.
The old man continued, "At that time, my mother held me, who was still a child, and went from house to house crying and pleading, hoping that someone would stand up for us."
"Many people had long resented those people's evil deeds and gathered together to take this opportunity to go to Yucheng Mountain to file a complaint. The outer disciples were afraid that they would report to the authorities before they even reached the gate of Yucheng Mountain."
The government sent troops to arrest all the people; more than two hundred were imprisoned and left without food. By the time they were released, almost all of them were dead.
As more and more people died, people were sent from Yucheng Mountain to investigate the matter. Those outsiders colluded with the government and tortured my mother and some unrelated people into confessing that they had all been misled into gathering a crowd to rebel, and that my father was the mastermind.
"Later, there was an official notice, and the authorities stopped intervening in Yucheng Mountain. My mother was sentenced to exile, and when I saw her, she was covered in wounds."
He died before the next day.
Lu Cheng'an sighed, "The government back then... ugh!"
He knew that it was better to be a dog in times of peace than a human in times of chaos. In this day and age, although injustices were still unavoidable, the overall situation was relatively peaceful. Compared to those days, it was like heaven and earth.
At least for now, it's impossible for something like hundreds of people to starve to death in prison and then live in peace without anyone being punished. Tiger Master San pondered, "That happened before the Empress unified the world. Li Xianrui was not only unaware of it, she wasn't even born yet. Blaming her..."
It's meaningless.
"I know!" the old man said calmly. "Therefore, I don't really want to do anything to her, nor do I intend to take revenge."
He raised his head: "I was lucky. I went to sea to wander back then, and later engaged in the business of the sea, where you either died at sea or became rich overnight. I was fortunate enough to survive."
Now, decades have passed, and he has never married or had a family. A few years ago, he returned to his old home. The more than two hundred people who died in prison back then were labeled as rioters and were mass-buried by the government. They had no graves, their families' land was confiscated, and their wives and children were separated.
I also tried to clear the names of those people, at least to ensure that the more than two hundred wrongly accused, including my father, could be properly buried and rest in peace.
But now that the dynasty has changed, why would the current government care about the past?
As for the inner sect of Jade City Mountain, no one cared about this matter. In fact, whether they even knew about what happened to their outer sect back then was another matter entirely.
Tiger Master said, "When a sect becomes large, the good and the bad are mixed. Even though Jade City Mountain is a famous sect, it cannot avoid such things happening under its own nose. It is said that the sect has thousands of acres of fertile land, but most of the time, it is just that the outer disciples regularly hand it over."
“Hmm!” the old man said, “I am already nearing the end of my life, and my death is not a pity. The only thing I can’t get over is that wrongful imprisonment from back then. If I can’t do something for those who died unjustly in prison, I will die with regrets.”
Lu Cheng'an said, "So, sir, your purpose is..."
The old man said calmly, "Capture Li Xianrui and force Yucheng Mountain to confront the injustice of that year. Even if we fail, it doesn't matter. If I am arrested by the authorities tonight, they will interrogate me. In front of the authorities and everyone else, I will tell them what happened back then."
Such cases must be reported to the authorities. Perhaps this will prompt the imperial court to re-investigate the case from years ago and bring justice to the innocent who died unjustly.
Tiger Master was moved.
That's why he said it wouldn't matter if he failed. Whether it succeeded or failed, it would be an opportunity to reopen the case from back then.
Lu Cheng'an sighed and said, "Old sir, if you can really catch Li Xianrui and make a big fuss about it, Yucheng Mountain, which considers itself a prestigious and righteous sect, might investigate what happened back then."
If it falls into the hands of the authorities, even if it's mentioned in court, it's useless. Although it might be reported, it will ultimately be suppressed. Today's officials...
Naturally, they wouldn't cover up the shortcomings of the government offices in the past, but in the end, it all happened decades ago.
"At most, the higher-ups will just make a note of it. They won't bother to find fault with a prestigious sect like Jade City Mountain because of what happened back then. Besides, there were countless similar cases in the world at that time. If they were to investigate this case, would they even care about the other cases?"
The old man slowly lowered his head and said helplessly, "Is that so? But this is all I can do." Tiger Master was about to speak when he suddenly stepped forward, squinted his eyes, and asked, "What is that?"
The old man and Lu Chengan looked together. They saw bubbles rising from the ground ahead, and someone was struggling to tear through the membrane.
Lu Cheng'an exclaimed, "Third Sister?" He rushed forward to help the woman who had emerged from the ground sit up. The woman was none other than Tao Ou Niang.
Even more strangely, the child she had been holding was gone.
"Third Sister!" Lu Cheng'an helped her out. "Where is your child?"
Peach Girl touched her chest and back, but still looked nonchalant: "You're asking me?"
Mr. Zhao, Third Master Hu, and Lu Cheng'an: "If we don't ask you, who should we ask?"
Meanwhile, in the distance on the other side, Fu Hai, who was perched on Xianrui's back, rubbed his eyes and looked closely. He saw a baby!
Chapter 141 Oh no! It's silver poison!
If we rewind a little further, we find that three people in a distant corner have just begun to talk about the past.
While Li Xianrui was peeling away the monster's flesh piece by piece, Fu Hai was also working hard.
He was trying very hard to suppress his urges as a man. You really can't blame him!
Although he was in a dangerous and critical situation, there was nothing else he could do.
All I could do was lie on the back of this young lady from the Jade City Mountain Painting Fairy Pavilion, and reach my hands down from her shoulders to touch her incessantly.
What normal man would start having all sorts of fantasies after touching a beautiful woman's breasts like that for a while? The main thing is, besides constantly touching and having wild thoughts, he really has nothing else to do, right?
It was Miss Xianrui who dealt with the monster; the pale-faced scholar, Chen Ai Hu, and the others in the distance were unable to enter the poisonous nitrogen and naturally couldn't help. The Green Bag Woman, however, continued to play a vital role, absorbing every piece of flesh that was peeled off from the corpse through the evil spirits she controlled.
Although everyone has ended up in this state, it's all her fault. The monster, though furious, is indeed at its last gasp.
It roared and screamed, but it could no longer utter that strange laugh it had before.
It releases various kinds of toxins, which constantly change, so much so that the xenon and argon surrounding them also change color. But for Fu Hai, the "female psychiatrist," these various toxins are insignificant.
That's right, his hands are really that skilled. If his hands weren't currently occupied, he really wanted to put them on his hips for a while. The only problem is that his hands are wandering around aimlessly.
His body was pressed so tightly against Fairy Rui's back that his private parts were rubbing against her buttocks. Control, control... he was about to lose control!
"You better hold back!" Li Xianrui couldn't help but complain as she retreated.
She noticed the physical changes in the boy on her back... How could you still have such thoughts at a time like this? Although Fu Hai felt very ashamed, how could he easily suppress the changes that had already taken place?
As Li Xianrui retreated, her sword flashed repeatedly, and she single-handedly suppressed the monster's desperate attacks.
The monster is no longer as fast or strong as before. If they persevere, victory will ultimately be theirs.
She felt helpless. This young man was so infatuated with her, touching her all over the place. He must have endured so much hardship to last this long. She looked at the monsters that had burrowed everywhere, but there was hardly any reproach in her tone.
Without turning his head, he said, "Just bear with it for now. As long as you get through tonight, I can accompany you to the Lantern Festival tomorrow night, just the two of us. So, you must get back safely tonight no matter what."
She knew that without this young man, all three of them, her fellow disciples, would have met with misfortune. But this was still a critical moment, and they absolutely could not let their guard down at the last hurdle.
Besides, he had already touched her and looked at her, and things had come to this point, so she figured she might as well let him rub against her from behind a few times. She couldn't bear to scold such a devoted lover.
Just let him hold on a little longer; now is not the time to relax.