If you don’t choke me, then I’ll choke you
Qingyang City
The full moon hung high in the ink-wash-like pitch-black sky. There were no stars dotting the firmament; only the lunar halo was obscured by moving clouds, making it look dim and obscure.
Dong!
The night watchman was filled with cold wind, shrunk his neck, and fiercely struck the bamboo clapper in his hand again, shouting at the top of his lungs: “The weather is dry and things are parched, beware of fire!”
Dong!
“The midnight hour of Zi!”
Just as he finished shouting, another gust of cold wind rushed straight into his mouth, choking the watchman so that he doubled over and coughed violently several times. When he finally managed to catch his breath with a red face and neck, he felt a wave of heat rolling over him. Looking up, he saw the Duan Manor, separated from him by only a single street, suddenly burst into flames right before his eyes.
The wind blew fiercely, and almost in the moment the watchman was stunned, the entire Duan Manor was engulfed in a sea of fire.
“Help! There’s a fire!”
“Come quickly!”
The night watchman hurriedly and vigorously beat the bamboo clapper in his hand. The peacefully sleeping neighbors nearby were awakened and successively carried their own pots, bowls, and basins filled with water to fight the fire.
Tonight’s wind was exceptionally strong. If they, the neighbors, ignored it, this huge fire would burn right to their own doorsteps.
The strange thing was that no matter how noisy it was outside the Duan Manor, not a single sound was heard from inside the estate. At first, everyone thought the noise inside was muffled, until the fire was extinguished and the crowd swarmed into the Duan Manor, which had been more than half burned down. Only then did they discover that all one hundred and eighty people, from the head of the Duan family down to the servants, had died of qi exhaustion. The bizarre thing was that even though these one hundred and eighty people were burned to charcoal, there were no traces of any painful struggle to be seen.
The fire, which burned for a whole night, for some unknown reason only destroyed the Duan Manor. The houses close to the Duan Manor were not affected by the tongues of flame by even a half.
Government soldiers in groups of two carried out corpses covered with white cloth one by one from the still-smoking Duan Manor. According to the number of people registered by the Duan Manor with the government office, a full one hundred and eighty people, ranging from the head of the household down to the servants, with not a single one spared.
This fire was far too strange, and the manner of death of all one hundred and eighty people up and down the Duan Manor was also extremely bizarre. The crowd who participated in firefighting successively felt that the Duan Manor must have done something so intolerable to heaven and earth that the heavens couldn’t bear it and sent down a great fire to burn it all clean.
This narrative quickly spread throughout the entire Qingyang City. The local government felt that if this kind of talk spread to other places, it would lose face, so they quickly suppressed it by force.
However, the common people and officials of Qingyang City did not know that the Duan Manor actually had a total of one hundred and eighty-one people from top to bottom.
It was just that this one hundred and eighty-first person had never stepped out of the Duan Manor, nor had their name been registered with the government office. They were a plaything that anyone could kick.
Another day arrived. Just as the horizon was breaking at dawn, the sound of doors being pushed open echoed one after another in the street, and before long, the street began to bustle with activity.
Old Man Du’s wontons could be said to be peerless in Qingyang City. The wrappers were thin, the fillings were generous, and the portions were plentiful; the key was that the price was not expensive either. As soon as Old Man Du’s shop opened its doors, several strong men walked in together. These strong men were presumably regular customers, and one of them walked into the shop and said: “Old man, serve four bowls of wontons!”
Old Man Du shook his hands, responded with a full face of ingratiating smiles, and nimbly started the pot to cook the wontons.
While waiting for the wontons to cook, those strong men also began to chat idly, and as they chatted, the topic inevitably turned to the fire on that night at the Duan Manor.
“That fire burned far too bizarrely. The wind was so strong, yet it only burned the Duan family’s house.”
“Who the hell is saying it isn’t?!” One of the men slammed his palm fiercely on the table, causing Old Man Du to glance sideways frequently, wanting to hear what kind of idle gossip these ruffians were talking about that could make them so excited.
After slamming the table, the man also felt that he was a bit impulsive, but he was unwilling to lose face, so he still stiffened his neck and said: “The fire is bizarre, and the deaths are bizarre too. People are burned to charcoal and yet still lying straight. Can being burned by fire not hurt like hell?”
The four men eating wontons together fell silent for a transient moment, suddenly feeling a chill slithering straight from the soles of their feet up to their crowns. They remained silent until four bowls of steaming hot wontons were served on the table. Only after gobbling down the greater part of the food did they successively feel the coldness recede.
“In my opinion, those wealthy families look benevolent on the surface, but behind the scenes, who knows what kind of unsightly, disgraceful deeds they do,” one of the men wiped his greasy mouth and said in a rough voice. “I think this is just retribution. Otherwise, why would it happen to be his Duan family’s house that caught fire? The wind was so strong, and the neighbors to the left and right were all fine while only the Duan family burned?”
“If this really is retribution, when can brothers like us scoop up such a huge sum of money and then get our retribution?” A man with a long scar on his face raised his hand to gesture a number, and laughed out loud. “By then, after enjoying ourselves to the fullest, who the hell cares about retribution or no retribution?!”
Duan Wangyue had just walked into this wonton shop when he heard these words. There was no particular reaction on his face; he pulled down the black hood draped over his head, his whole body enveloped in a black cloak, revealing only his slender and fair chin. His speech was slightly broken, sounding like a child who had just learned to imitate human speech.
“Grandpa, one bowl of wontons.”
With that, a small hand reached out from under the cloak, slightly tiptoeing to place a fingertip-sized piece of crushed silver on the counter. His pitch-black, ink-like eyes swept across this small shop, and he found a secluded corner to sit down.
He wanted to taste what that group of people talked about regarding those heavenly wontons that tasted so good they reached the heavens.
The wontons were quickly served to the table, and served along with the wontons was that piece of crushed silver he had just put down. “?” Duan Wangyue looked at that piece of crushed silver and raised his head vigilantly, his body enveloped in the black cloak slightly hunched. This was a cautious posture.
Old Man Du seemed to perceive the vigilance and tension of the child before him, and turning his back slightly, he pushed the piece of crushed silver back toward the child’s front, whispering: “Little one, grandpa won’t take your copper coins. This bowl of wontons will be treated as a treat from grandpa.”
This little kid probably ran out from home behind his family’s back. He couldn’t even speak fluently yet, but as soon as he made a move, it was a piece of crushed silver, meaning his family background should look quite affluent. He had also looked around everywhere just now and didn’t find any servant-dressed people following him. For such a small kid to bring silver out without anyone watching him made him an easy target for malicious people.
Copper coins?
The tail curled around his waist under the cloak, reaching barely to his navel, gently swayed. Duan Wangyue blinked, and just as he was about to reach out to take the crushed silver, a rough, large hand slapped fiercely on the back of his hand, which quickly turned red and swollen.
Yet Duan Wangyue did not feel any pain. He lifted his gaze to look at the tall, scarred-faced man who had appeared before him at some point, grabbing the wonton grandpa by the collar,
And watched him casually push the wonton grandpa aside, causing him to crash into the sharp corner of the table so that a large patch of skin on his forehead was scraped open, and the smell of rust instantly filled his nasal cavity.
And watched the pedestrians outside the shop who heard the commotion, didn’t even dare to raise their heads, and hurried past.
And watched him pinch that piece of crushed silver with his thick, coarse fingers, playing with it back and forth, staring at the silver with eyes full of greed.
He spoke abruptly: “You want silver.”
Duan Wangyue’s voice did not have the childishness of a five-year-old child; on the contrary, it was somewhat hoarse, but it had the merit of clear articulation. Because he did not speak often, his phrasing had some slight issues.
Upon hearing this, the scarred-faced man was stunned, then laughed muffledly a few times, stuffed the crushed silver into his lapel, grabbed the little brat’s back collar with his cattail-fan-like large hand, and effortlessly lifted him up to eye level:
“Little young master came out to play all by himself without bringing any attendants, so you are going to suffer a big loss. Today your lord grandpa is in a good mood, so I will teach you a lesson on behalf of your father and mother.”
He had originally thought of doing a good deed and collecting the wonton money on behalf of the old man, but he hadn’t expected that this little thing was actually a small lump of gold.
Duan Wangyue was lifted in mid-air by the collar without struggling at all, his pitch-black, impenetrable eyes filled with coldness.
He wanted to see what other unpalatable words could spew out of this man’s mouth, and then, he would cut out his tongue and make this man swallow it.
Coincidentally, a gust of cold wind carrying chilliness blew past. The man shivered, cursed a foul word under his breath, and then said viciously:
“Hand over all the silver on your body, and your daddies might still spare your little life.”
Upon seeing this, how could the other men in the group fail to understand that they had stumbled upon a big deal? Another man wiped away the grease from the corners of his mouth, grabbed Old Man Du by the collar, felt beneath his nose, and finding that he was still breathing, kicked the old man fiercely in the hollow of his knee, saying viciously:
“If you’re not dead, don’t play dead, otherwise I’ll make you a real dead old man.”
Kicked awake directly from unconsciousness by this blow, Old Man Du saw a blurry reddish expanse before his eyes that was too hazy to see clearly; he only vaguely saw this group of damned ruffians holding that young master and swinging him back and forth.
“You, you pack of thousand-slashers, aren’t you afraid of me reporting you to the officials?!”
“Reporting to the officials?” The scarred man clamped Duan Wangyue under his arm, grabbed Old Man Du by the lapel with one hand, and raised his hand as if to smash him against the table corner.
“I can give you silver.”
Hearing this, the scarred man withdrew his hand, hoisted the little brat up again to make eye contact with himself, and wanted to use his other hand to pull off the little brat’s hood. Duan Wangyue grabbed the hood tightly with both hands to prevent him from pulling it off, and seeing that he truly couldn’t overpower him, shouted loudly: “Besides the silver on my body, the silver hidden outside the city is also yours!”
The scarred man raised his eyebrows, said good several times in a row, clamped the little brat under one arm with one hand, and weighed the bulging money pouch given by the little brat up and down with the other hand,
Signaling his three brothers to bring Old Man Du along. Throughout this, the common people of Qingyang City watched, but not a single person spoke up to help; they merely silently yielded a path for the few of them to pass. The garrison soldiers at the city gate did not dare to stop them either, actually allowing this group to swagger out of the city in broad daylight.
This was because the leading scarred man was the younger brother of the favorite concubine of the grand master of the Qingyang government office.
With just a pillow-talk breeze from that concubine, did they still want their lives or not?
In this day and age, if you want to help people, you have to look at how much weight you are pulling; you must not end up dragging yourself into it and making life hard for no good reason.
Seeing that they had walked for nearly an hour without reaching the place where silver was hidden that the little brat had mentioned, the scarred man smacked his lips and dropped the little brat he had clamped along the way onto the ground. “Little punk, speak quickly, where did you bury the silver?”
“If you dare to fool your grandpa here, I’ll pinch you to death right now.”
Young Master, does Your Lordship need this subordinate to help you?
A flash of golden light rapidly swept across the pitch-black, ink-like eyes beneath the hood. Fall back.
But!
Duan Wangyue no longer communicated with that person. After crawling up from the ground, he patted the dirt clinging to his hood, and took the initiative to remove the hood he had protected all the way and stubbornly refused to let anyone take off. Exquisite and petite dragon horns protruded from his hair. Ignoring the looks of the crowd treating him as a monster, he slightly raised his head and lifted his sharp, slender chin, exposing a slender and fair neck that looked as though a gentle pinch would snap it. His eyes revealed a hint of morbid excitement:
“Come on, pinch me to death.”
He was full of zest, yet the scarred-faced man who had just vowed to snap his neck retreated in a panic as Duan Wangyue took step after step approaching him of his own accord. Probably frightened weak in the legs by the scene before him, he collapsed in a fluster on the ground, scrambling backward with hands and feet, while shouting: “Monster! It’s a monster!”
Duan Wangyue lowered his gaze with waning interest, stood in place for half a second, and then said:
“If you don’t choke me, then I’ll choke you.”
Having said that, he even curved his eyes and smiled, revealing a pair of cute, childish dimples.