Yinshan Record

Chapter 284 The Chang Family of Licheng, Living in Seclusion in the City (Part 1)

White clouds shroud the mountains, lush and verdant.

The place where the armored giant moved himself and Su Che could be described as a beautiful place with clear waters and lush mountains.

The Canglang River, meandering eastward, constantly crashes against the layers of pebbles to the south. Beneath the lush aquatic plants, several fish can be seen swimming, wagging their tails and enjoying their freedom.

Mole crickets know not the seasons, and drift about without regard to day or night.

For a particular place, and for cultivators, their happiness is but a fleeting moment, but for these living beings, it is almost eternal.

Su Che stood on a large blue rock on the shore, his feet slippery with moss.

Don't stay here for long.

Not knowing when the Rakshasa Sea people would approach, Su Che looked around, realizing there were still many loose ends to deal with.

The most urgent task is to avoid the eyes and ears of the Rakshasa's henchmen and see what their next move will be.

Su Che turned his head and looked upstream, where he could faintly hear the sound of drums and music.

It appears that a large ship is drifting down from above.

It really comes to whatever you want.

Su Che looked around and suddenly had an idea. He plunged straight into the icy Canglang water.

The river flowed swiftly, and Su Che bobbed up and down in the water, struggling as if in distress.

Before long, a three-masted ship appeared at the end of the solitary gorge, with a flag hanging at the end of the mast, painted with the Big Dipper.

"Help, help!"

Su Che shouted loudly and pounded the river water with both hands.

His acting was certainly exaggerated, but it did attract the attention of those in power.

"There's someone down there!"

"Go and report to the master immediately."

"A cable, quick, get a cable."

After a series of calls, a thick hemp rope was soon lowered down from above.

Several heads peeked out from the side of the tall ship deck, asking questions incessantly.

"Hey bro, you better hold on tight."

"He's out of strength."

"Get out of the way, I'm going to save him."

A muscular man with bronze skin, shirtless and down to just a pair of shorts, plunged into the water with a splash.

The man was not tall, but once he entered the water, he seemed like a water monster reincarnated. He first picked up the thick hemp rope in the water, then swam over and asked Su Che in a loud voice.

"Brother, do you still have the strength?"

"Yes, yes."

Su Che glanced at him and could tell that this person had probably practiced some martial arts; his bones and muscles were solid, but he was still quite far from being a true martial arts practitioner.

He splashed water on himself while quickly replying.

"It's good that you have the strength. Don't struggle, or we'll both sink to the bottom of the river and be eaten by turtles. I'll use this rope to lasso you and let them pull you up."

Su Che's face turned pale and he quickly replied, "I understand, thank you very much, brother."

The man didn't say much and plunged into the water. Su Che soon felt a rope wrapped around his waist.

"Hey up there, pull this guy up."

The burly man shouted, and the sailors on the ship all worked together to pull Su Che little by little toward the ship.

At the same time, another cable was thrown down from the ship, and the strong man grabbed it and swam toward the hull of the large ship.

"A hermit lives in the city," Su Che thought, "it's best to remain calm and observe how the other side makes its moves."

The man on the boat in front of you is clearly someone who makes a living on the water.

The Canglang River flows eastward into the sea, and many merchants from Daliang make a living by trading goods in the East China Sea.

"Good brother, have a bowl of wine to warm yourself up."

As soon as Su Che was pulled up, the dark-skinned sailors hurriedly untied the ropes for him, and someone brought him a large white porcelain bowl with a chip in it, filled with half a bowl of turbid wine.

Su Che took the large white porcelain bowl with both hands and drank the wine inside in one gulp.

It tasted a bit sour at first, and the flavor was just average, but there weren't any unclean "ingredients" added.

"Thank you."

Su Che returned the porcelain bowl.

"Seventh Brother is up."

"Quickly, pour a bowl of wine for Seventh Brother."

With a whooshing sound, the man who had bravely jumped into the water to rescue Su Che also climbed up from below, holding onto the rope.

With a grin on his face, he picked up a bowl of wine and drank it all in one gulp.

"Don't just think about me, bring this young master a bowl too." "Seventh Brother, don't rush, we've already served this brother some wine."

"That's right, Brother Seven is a hero, and we all understand what the rules of the underworld are."

The man known as "Seventh Brother" shoved the broken porcelain bowl toward the chest of the sailor who was laughing the loudest, causing him to stumble slightly.

"A bunch of water monkeys, they have no manners whatsoever."

He turned to look at Su Che, clasped his hands in a fist and asked.

"May I ask your honorable name, brother? How did you end up in such a state?"

"My name is Ouyang Ke. Alas, it was just bad luck. I heard that Cizhou had suffered a great disaster, so I bought some grain from Jiangzhou to sell in Cizhou. Who would have thought that I would run into starving people who robbed me of my boat and the grain and threw me into the Canglang River."

Su Che sighed softly.

"If it weren't for my slight ability to swim, I'm afraid I would have been swallowed by fish before my benefactor came to my rescue."

After Su Che finished speaking, the atmosphere on the deck became somewhat awkward.

"Turns out he's just someone who makes money off his own family's infertility."

"I should have known better than to save him."

"Let's throw him down again."

Even the leader known as "Seventh Brother" had a cold look flash across his face.

Su Che had already formed a judgment in his mind.

These people are probably not businessmen; they are likely from some powerful family or gang.

Because if you're a businessman, you'll only talk business, and even if you look down on yourself as a "shady businessman," you won't say much.

They could even be "colleagues" making money together through shady means; at the very least, they should inquire about the number of starving people in that group.

But the sailors immediately criticized themselves, since they didn't usually earn this kind of money.

At the same time, they didn't ask where those starving people came from.

It is evident that they were quite confident in their military strength and did not take the starving people seriously.

“If Cizhou is hit by a disaster, it would be good if even a single grain of food could be delivered.”

Seventh Brother said, his eyes sweeping over the sailors around him: "Now that we've seen them, there's no reason not to help. The river wind is damp and cold, this isn't the place to talk. Brother Ou, let's go inside."

This person doesn't seem to have much formal education.

Su Che thought so.

I've already said before that my name is Ouyang Ke, but this Seventh Brother calls me Brother Ou.

Either he was pretending to be naive and acting vulgar, or he genuinely didn't know that the surname Ouyang existed.

But since everyone around him is his own man, is it really necessary to act tough?

"Seventh Brother, wait a minute. Although the Chang family of Licheng is not as powerful as it used to be, we don't just let any Tom, Dick, or Harry into our family."

A voice, sharp and sarcastic like aged vinegar dried in the sun, spoke out.

"Don't you think so, Mr. Ouyang?"

Su Che turned his head and saw a young man in white robes, wearing a crane feather cloak and holding a birch wood folding fan, slowly tapping his own tiger's mouth.

It turns out that my flamboyant outfits used to look like this in other people's eyes.

A thought flashed through Su Che's mind, and he silently made up his mind that it would be better to be more simple in the future.

However, I feel like I've heard the name Chang from Licheng somewhere before.

"Second son."

The man nicknamed "Seventh Brother" clasped his hands in a salute.

"I was indeed reckless this time."

"No, we can't accept that."

The second young master closed his folding fan with both hands and returned the greeting to his seventh brother.

"Brother, if you say that, I'll be in an awkward position."

This seventh brother is the elder brother, and the second brother is the younger brother.

The older brother looked like a working-class person, while the younger brother was a spoiled and pretentious playboy.

The situation on the three-masted warship of the Chang family of Licheng became increasingly unclear to Su Che.

Wait, the Chang family of Licheng.

Su Che finally remembered which restaurant this was.

What a coincidence.

Back when I was in Shanyin County, I witnessed a massacre at the City God Temple. An old man claimed to be from the Chang family of Licheng and even took a page of a golden book from them.

Unexpectedly, we ran into each other here again after all this time.

"What's the noise about?"

(End of this chapter)