Unparalleled Double Harmony

Chapter 463: Leaving a Way Out

Sun and Huang, together with the abbot and Hai Cangfeng, had been eating, drinking and chatting in the pavilion on the top of the mountain for more than an hour.

Before I knew it, it was the hour of Xu, which was around eight o'clock in the evening.

At this time, the few people felt that they had almost finished eating, so they cleaned up a little, extinguished the candles in the pavilion (it was already the afternoon when Huang Donglai went up the mountain, so in addition to food, he naturally brought a lot of lighting equipment to prevent himself from having to draw lots in the dark halfway through his meal), and each of them picked up a lantern and prepared to go down the mountain.

If it were ordinary people, they would think twice before watching the sunset and eating supper in the mountains, or even walking in the city at night. But for these people, going down the mountain at night with lights on was not a big deal, even if they encountered a tiger, so what? It was nothing more than an after-meal exercise.

However, what they didn't expect was that on this trip down the mountain today, there was something more troublesome than a tiger.

what?

Of course it's a human.

You should all still remember the group of porters Huang Donglai hired before, right?

Although these people were all thanking us profusely and looking humble when they were leaving, when they were halfway down the mountain, four "old masters" among them... started to have evil intentions.

Of course, the "old" here only refers to their qualifications. In fact, these people are only in their thirties.

Since the average life expectancy of ordinary people was not high at that time and there was no such thing as compulsory education, many young boys started working at the age of twelve or thirteen. By the time they were thirty, wouldn't they have been experienced workers who had worked for more than ten years?
These four "old porters" are, without exception, the kind of people who like to spend money and visit brothels on weekdays.

What about people who have these two hobbies? Needless to say, everyone understands that no matter how much money they have, they cannot hold on to it.

In addition, these men either have no one willing to marry them or their wives have been sold by themselves, so they are all single.

Such people...will easily go down the path of crime.

If you didn't give them temptation or opportunity, it would be fine. At most, they would do some petty thefts. But today, this huge temptation came out of nowhere.

When Huang Donglai hired them to buy things together in the town in the afternoon, they were thinking: This customer today really opened everyone's eyes. He bought so many things without blinking an eye, as if the money he spent was not his own.

Later, when Huang Donglai told them that they had to carry all those things up the mountain, they were confused again, thinking, what's going on? A banquet on the mountain? There must be at least 20 people to eat all these delicious food and wine, right?

As a result, when they went up the mountain, they found that there were only four people. Huang Donglai quickly gave them about 70% of the things as rewards and let them go down the mountain.

Their first reaction at that time, apart from surprise, was indeed only gratitude and joy. However, as they walked down the mountain and came to their senses... some other thoughts, or rather evil ideas, began to emerge.

Being able to spend money like this, he must have more money left than what he spent that afternoon, right?
Although they seemed to be carrying weapons and looked like wandering gangsters, there were only four of them, and one of them was crippled... Even if they were made of iron, how many nails could they hammer?
It's almost dark now, and no one will go into the mountain later. So even if the four of them die in the mountain, who will take care of them?

The more I think about it, the more I can do it.

After this job, you won't have to be a porter anymore. We can divide the spoils and run away, each going our own way. It will be enough to start a small business in another place and marry two wives.

By then, the mountains are high and the roads are long, who can track him down?

This vote is a once-and-for-all solution, like wealth sent by God. Wouldn’t it be stupid not to take it?
The four people who had similar ideas returned to the town at the foot of the mountain. At first, they acted as if nothing had happened. They shared their things with their colleagues and went their separate ways.

The other porters took the good wine and food, and either went out in groups of three or five to eat and drink, or took them home to share with their families. We won’t go into details about this.

Take these four people who have the same hobby and no family. Not long after they took the things home, they all appeared near the gambling house in the town...

Then the four of them gathered together tacitly, just like a turtle looking at a mung bean, eagerly shared their similar ideas with each other, and hit it off, deciding to go to this "rich" event together.

Of course, they were also self-aware - the deal couldn't be done by just the four of them.

Even though they had a very limited understanding of the people in the martial arts world (the number of martial arts masters also follows a pyramid system, and the ones ordinary people see most often are definitely third-rate or even inferior characters, and even if a first-rate master has fought in front of them, they wouldn't understand the tricks, on the contrary, the fights between third-rate masters are more exciting to watch), they wouldn't think that the four of them alone could kill four "wandering martial artists."

Therefore, these porters prepared to seek "external help".

For people like them who hang out in casinos all year round, isn't it easy for them to find a few accomplices in their social circles who are willing to rob?
But to be honest, the person they picked this time is really something.

Not many, just two people.

One is called Ma Jin and the other is called Ma Yin.

You may not know these two names I mentioned, but you should be familiar with their other two names - "Golden-footed King" has gold in his cow, and "Silver-footed King" has silver in his cow.

A few years ago, in the area from Xinyang to Wuchang, these two brothers were very famous and dominated the area.

At that time, when "Jinyinzhai" was mentioned, everyone nearby knew it. It was a breath of fresh air in the bandit world.

During those years, the Niu brothers managed the bandits under their command so that they had a strong army and clear discipline; they "deeply cooperated" with the local government and, on the premise of not killing or raping, they established a wide-ranging "toll" system.

The general pattern of this system is that the government provides intelligence to Jinyinzhai to help them avoid making mistakes in the course of their business. Jinyinzhai will then regularly pick out the bad apples in the village who do not abide by the "big premise" and report them to the government as performance... and then the money received will be shared among everyone.

This business is booming.

However, the good times did not last long.

Because the two brothers ran the cottage a little too well, they finally alarmed the department they could not afford to offend.

About a year ago, Shui Hanyi, one of the four great masters of the imperial court and a member of the Imperial Guard who was specifically responsible for combating "organized crime,"...had set his sights on them.

Although Niu Youjin and Niu Youyin are almost invincible in the bandit world thanks to the powerful diamond kick they secretly learned back then (Xiao Wuji is an extreme example of a bandit), they are still no match for Shui Hanyi's level of master. What's more, Lord Shui also came with a team, and they are the real regular army of the imperial court...

Therefore, Shui Hanyi quickly selected the Jinyin Camp and arrested the two brothers Niu Youjin and Niu Youyin. Other bandit leaders were also arrested or killed. Some small fish and shrimps, seeing that the situation was not good, fled in all directions.

The Niu brothers, who had become prisoners, would not sit and wait for death. They immediately thought of asking someone to ask the local authorities to plead for them. After all, the two sides had been "cooperating" for so many years and they had a good relationship.

But at this time, none of the officials, big and small, who usually treated them as brothers, dared to speak.

After all, those people themselves were not clean, so who would dare to run to the Jinyiwei to beg for mercy? Lord Shui didn't come to trouble them, which was already a blind eye... If you ask them one more question, they would be so weak that they would piss a few drops.

Just when the Niu brothers were lamenting the fickleness of the world and were ready to accept their fate, they did not expect that one night, Shui Hanyi actually came to them, chatted with them for a while, and then let them go.

Shui Hanyi naturally had his reasons. He felt that although the Niu brothers had become bandits, they still behaved like human beings. It could even be said that their "gray industry" practices had prevented many deaths in the local area over the years. If the higher-ups had not felt that the Jinyinzhai had the potential to develop into Liangshanpo, Shui Hanyi would not have bothered to deal with them.

I am responsible for combating "organized crime". Now, the organization of the Niu brothers has been destroyed, and they will certainly not dare to set up any organization in the future. So why not go with the flow and give them a way out? Maybe one day, these two people will be of use.

In this way, Niu Youjin and Niu Youyin survived, changed their names and surnames... and left Wuchang under the pseudonyms "Ma Jin" and "Ma Yin".

After experiencing all this, the two felt that they had to keep a low profile for at least a year or two, so they headed east and came to the Huainan area, where they found a job as a "gambling house keeper" and lived in seclusion in the city.

With their martial arts skills, it would be a waste of their talents to serve as two watchmen.

As I said in my previous article, with the powerful Vajra Kick that they secretly learned back then and years of hard training, their leg skills are already considered second-rate masters in the martial arts world. Wouldn't it be easy for them to beat up a few hooligans who came to the casino to cause trouble? Even if there were occasionally some hooligans who had practiced some martial arts and caused trouble in the casino, the two brothers could easily deal with them.

And their "style" at work was undoubtedly seen by those who often hang out in casinos.

Therefore, in the perception of these porters with evil intentions, the two brothers "Ma Jin and Ma Yin" in the gambling house are the most powerful masters they know; anyway, in the past, when they saw them fighting those martial artists who carried weapons and claimed to be very powerful, they usually defeated them in three or five moves. The four people on the top of the mountain today were probably the same kind of people, right?

As long as we can get these two brothers to take action, and add our four strong porters, and take advantage of the darkness and ambush them, wouldn't it be easy to capture those four wanderers?
And there is another advantage of looking for them, that is... there are two brothers, few in number, but they are united in mind.

In cases like murder and robbery, there can be trouble if there are too many people involved, because in the end each person will get less money, and internal strife is likely to occur when dividing the spoils, and it can even develop into a case of gangs robbing each other.

But these "Ma brothers" are not ordinary minions, judging from their words and deeds on a daily basis. At least they are more trustworthy and decent than us gamblers... Therefore, as long as we can convince them, it would be worth it even if we give them a bigger share.

This group of porters did what they said. After the discussion, they immediately went to find Niu Youjin and Niu Youyin.

As for the two men from the Niu family, they had been staying in the dark gambling house since morning because of work. They waited until the porters went up the mountain before they heard the people entering the casino talking about Huang Donglai's "shopping spree" in the town, so they had no idea who was causing such a big commotion.

It was not until the end of the afternoon, when the two were about to get off work, that the porters came to their door.

After hearing this, the Niu brothers thought...they had to go.

It’s not that they also wanted to rob, but they knew that since the four porters had already gone to the stage of looking for accomplices, there was no room for maneuver.

Even if the two of them said they would not do it today, the four would not stop, but would look for other foreign aid candidates, and would even consider silencing the two of them who already knew about it.

Although the Niu brothers were not afraid of these four people, how to deal with this matter was still a difficult problem.

After all, these four porters are only in the planning stage and have not taken any action yet. If the Niu brothers hand them over to the government, the latter can easily make excuses; besides, the Niu brothers themselves have criminal records and their names are fake, so it is not easy for them to deal with the government.

Why not... just pretend to agree first, and then act accordingly when we get to the mountain.

The best scenario is that the four "wandering gangsters" on the mountain have good martial arts skills and kill the four porters in self-defense, and then the Niu brothers won't have to do anything more.

But if the situation is not right, the Niu brothers will have no choice but to take action themselves to make the four porters "stay on the mountain forever."

Seeing this, some people may ask: Why don’t they just kill these four porters on the way up the mountain when there is no one around?
In fact, this is also a plan, but the specific situation still depends on what happens at that time. What if one of the four people has a change of heart and backs down at the critical moment?

Anyway, if we follow them, the initiative will be in the hands of the Niu brothers, and they can deal with it according to the circumstances.

This is what the Ox Has Gold and Ox Has Silver think...

The four porters' thoughts were much simpler: It would be great if everyone else died in the fight today, leaving me alone to take all the money.

In this way, the six people, each with their own ulterior motives, hurried into the mountain.

It was at this hour of Xu that they had just arrived at the only way down the mountain, and above the mountain road there were a few lights of lanterns faintly visible.

"Quick! Put out the lanterns and hide!" Seeing this, the leading porter immediately shouted and hid in the bushes by the roadside.

Upon hearing this, the others followed suit.

The Niu brothers squatted side by side in the bushes and discussed quietly: "It looks like they won't stop. How about we just sneak attack them now?"

Before the two of them had finished discussing it, the four people on the top of the mountain had already come down talking and laughing.

The porters were getting a little impatient at that time... They had evil intentions and had done a lot of petty thefts before, but this was the first time they had done murder and robbery, and this was a big deal that might change the rest of their lives... As soon as they saw the target approaching, nervousness, excitement, fear, anxiety and other emotions suddenly surged up along with adrenaline, making their hands holding the machetes tremble constantly.

Unlike Niu Youjin and Niu Youyin, the two were relatively calm at first, but when they heard the conversation between the newcomers, they suddenly felt something was wrong...

Among those four people, at least one of them had a familiar voice.

Although they had only dealt with that person once, he left a deep impression on them. If they were not mistaken about the person's identity, then the other voice they had a vague impression of seemed to match...

"kill!"

Just as the Niu brothers were hesitating because of this unexpected situation, one of the four porters could no longer hold back. With his blood boiling, he let out a loud shout and rushed out from the bushes by the roadside, chopping off the back of the abbot's head with a knife.

His choice was actually quite reasonable. Firstly, the abbot happened to be walking at the end of the four people. Secondly, in the eyes of outsiders, the abbot carrying a spear happened to be the most capable fighter among the four.

In the eyes of the porters, as long as they could deal with the strong man carrying the spear, the only ones left would be the two greenhorns and the old cripple.

"Kill--"

Almost at the same second, the other three porters, whose nerves were already stretched to the limit, were aroused by the first shout. They jumped out from the bushes where they were hiding and launched an attack while shouting.

Some people may think that their "shouting and killing" is a bit redundant, as there is no need for it except to expose their position two seconds in advance.

But if you put yourself in their shoes, you will understand... After all, you are killing people with cold weapons, and the people you kill are strangers who have no grudges against you. You have no hatred towards them, nor are you angry at them. You are simply trying to take their lives just to rob them of their money... At this time, people really have to shout out, and hear their accomplices shouting next to them, and know that they are not alone, before they can muster up the courage to swing the knife.

Puff puff--

Bang!
It happened so quickly that within a moment, four muffled sounds were heard.

Before three of the four porters could figure out what was happening, a bloody hole appeared on their chest.

The remaining one was hit across the chest by the spear, breaking several bones on the spot. He flew backwards and fell under a tree. It took him a long time to catch his breath.

"My money as a 'bodyguard' is really not in vain. I get the job so soon." The abbot handled the sudden attack of the four men with a nonchalant attitude, and he did not forget to mutter this sentence.

"The other two friends, won't you come out and help your accomplices?" Hai Cangfeng also spoke at this time, and said something to the Niu brothers who still had a fluke mentality and thought that they might not have been discovered.

When Niu Youjin and Niu Youyin heard this, they almost slid down from the bushes and knelt down, "Master, please spare us! We are not in the same group with them!"

The two of them bowed down and kowtowed a few times. Then Niu Youjin said to Sun and Huang, "Young Master Sun, Young Master Huang! If you still recognize us brothers, please say a good word for us!"

When Sun and Huang heard this, they were both stunned.

Two seconds later, Huang Donglai took a few steps forward and shone the lantern on the faces of the Niu brothers: "Eh? They look a little familiar."

It was normal that he couldn't remember, as he had only met him once a few years ago. Moreover, the Niu brothers were dressed like mountain kings at the time, looking very majestic. But now, not only were they dressed plainly, they were also kneeling on the ground with bitter looks on their faces. The contrast was quite big.

"Young Master Huang, do you still remember Guofengao and Jinyinzhai?" Seeing that the other party had a memory, Niu Youyin quickly followed up and said a few words, "I also exchanged martial arts with your brother Buji."

"Oh!" When the other party mentioned this, Sun Yixie, who was standing behind, remembered, "I was wondering who it was, that... Golden Feet and Silver Feet, right?" He laughed as he spoke, and jokingly said, "Heh... what? You've been a mountain king for too long, so you came down to the grassroots to recall the good old days, right?"

“No, no, no… Young Master Sun has misunderstood…” Niu Youjin quickly denied it and began to explain.

The two brothers talked back and forth, and roughly recounted what I had just mentioned, that is, their experiences during that period of time; these things could not be told in a few sentences by a storyteller like me, but when they told the story themselves, they actually finished it quite quickly.

Not only that, they went on to explain why they came here today and their intention to deal with those porters.

After Sun, Huang, the abbot and Hai Cangfeng heard this, Hai Cangfeng was the first to express doubt: "Brother Sun, Brother Huang, can these two people's words... be trusted?"

Sun and Huang both understood that the life and death of the Niu brothers now depended on how they expressed their next stance, so they did not give a clear answer immediately.

"Hmm... it's hard to say." Huang Donglai stroked his chin and recited in a pretentious manner, "Back in Guofengao, Brother Sun, Bu Ji and I were forcibly 'invited' by these two 'kings' to return to the village as guests using trip ropes and arrow arrays. Fortunately, nothing happened later. We just had a 'friendly exchange', and then they gave us a few more horses and let us go."

"If they do things as meticulously as they did back then, then I can believe it." Sun Yixie also pondered, "But seeing how miserable they are..."

"We are very particular! We are absolutely particular!" Niu Youyin quickly replied in a loud voice, "If you don't believe me, you can go to the town and ask around. We brothers have been very well behaved these days... There are several families in the town who have come to us to propose marriage! If we were not afraid of delaying the marriage of the girls, we would have already become sons-in-law."

"Hey, are they telling the truth?" At this time, the abbot, who had not spoken for a long time, slowly walked to the last surviving porter, lifted the man's chin with his gun, and asked.

Obviously, the reason why this man is still alive at this moment is not because the abbot cannot kill four people in an instant, but because the abbot wants to keep one alive for questioning.

"Great... Great hero, please understand..." The porter had recovered after this period of time. Although he had broken several ribs, he could still speak. "It was... it was all those two who ordered it... otherwise, how could we, the porters, have the guts to come after you guys? It was all them... those two brothers who forced me to do it! Great hero, please spare my life!"

"Humph..." The abbot was amused when he heard this. "If you hadn't said that, I might have spared your life." He paused. "Even if you said that... you were bragging to others in the town about how you met some rich guys today, and then those two happened to hear it, so they were tempted by the money and tried to get you guys to join them, and you couldn't resist the temptation and followed them... that would be somewhat reasonable, but you insisted on clearing yourself of all blame."

puff--

The next second, the gun tip had already stabbed into the porter's heart.

"Then I will give you a warning today - even the innkeepers and clerks can be killed even if they are innocent! You can keep them as a pastime on your way to the underworld." As the abbot finished speaking, he shook his wrist and drew back the spear.

Instantly, blood splattered everywhere and the porter died.

But this is not the end. The abbot's murderous aura did not subside. He immediately walked towards Niu Youjin and Niu Youyin.

"Wait a minute!" Huang Donglai saw that something was wrong and quickly stepped in.

"What? Do you really believe them?" The abbot looked at Huang Donglai and said coldly, "I've made it clear to you. Even if they are telling the truth, they will have no choice but to accept their fate if I kill them today."

The abbot was telling the truth. With his strength and character... he would always kill people like the Niu brothers who were wavering in the "gray area" whenever he wanted.

But Shuangxie and the abbot are different, they have more things to consider.

At this point, after a moment of thought, Sun Huang realized: at least in the matter of Shui Hanyi taking down the Jinyin Village and letting the two village chiefs go, the probability that the Niu brothers lied was very small, because this matter could be verified through multiple parties, and it was not difficult to verify.

That is to say, Shui Hanyi hopes that these two are alive.

Shuangxie and Lord Shui have some friendship, and when they were in Jinyinzhai, Shuangxie and the Niu brothers... they always gave each other a way out when they spoke and did things.

Now it's time to "see you again in the future". It would be not very polite to kill everyone.

"Brother Fang, don't worry." Sun Yixie also came to the abbot at this time and said with a smile, "Maybe we can really use them when we go to Cangzhou..."

(End of this chapter)