Chapter 246: Beauty in White
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Two days later, in Baywater Town in the southwest of Wu Province…
At noon, the gloomy sky cast shadows on the buildings in the old town, turning the town gray. It looked like dawn or dusk.
Baywater Town was located along the Wu River and was not very big. But because the Wuxi Canal intersected with the Wu River upstream, there were many ships coming and going on the river. There were often small pharmaceutical merchants and people of Jianghu docking here.
There was only one old street from the west to the east in the town. Along the two sides of the street were inns and wine shops, and the streets were full of herb farmers with stalls.
Compared to the bustle of other places, an inn in the center of the town was very quiet. The lobby was silent. After a few tables of diners hurriedly finished eating, they threw down their silver and left quickly.
Occasionally, hungry Jianghu guests would walk to the entrance. After taking a quick look, they would turn around and leave.
A few people entered and ate silently.
This situation happened because there was a woman sitting by the window of the inn.
To be precise, she was a very eye-catching woman.
The woman was wearing snow-white clothes. A few red plums dotted the hem of her dress and white shoes, which were spotlessly clean.
The woman had a slender waist and a full chest. Although her face was covered by a white veiled hat and couldn’t be seen, just by looking at her figure, people could tell that she was a one-in-a-million beauty.
Such a woman was sitting alone in an old inn, surrounded by wolf-like Jianghu men. She looked like she was in danger of being consigned to eternal damnation at any time.
But the reality was the exact opposite.
Women were very common in Jianghu, but beautiful women were rare, and it was even rarer for them to travel alone.
Anyone in Jianghu would know that a woman who dared to dress up beautifully and appear alone in a place where people from all walks of life gathered definitely had unique skills.
The woman in front of the window was dressed in a way that was incompatible with Jianghu. In the eyes of the people of Jianghu, she wasn’t a beauty but a piece of fresh and juicy bait. Anyone who dared to come into contact with her was waiting for an iron hook to pierce their jaws and their stomachs to be disemboweled until not even bones were left.
Although the woman only looked out of the window calmly and didn’t reveal any dangerous aura from beginning to end, all the Jianghu people in the restaurant consciously stayed away from her and didn’t even look at her.
Even after she sat there for a long time without ordering, the shopkeeper and waiters turned a blind eye to her. They only prayed in their hearts that this female fiend who had mysteriously arrived would leave as soon as possible.
After the silence in the inn lasted for a long time, some commotion came from the street outside.
“Catch him!”
“You’re courting death!”
The customers in the inn and the woman in white at the window all turned their gazes to look at an alley in the distance.
A young man of fifteen or sixteen years old ran out of the alley. He was wearing rough linen clothes and holding an oxtail saber. The snow-white blade was dyed a gorgeous blood-red color. In the gray town, he looked as dazzling as the woman in white.
Behind the young man were six men. The thugs in front were holding swords, spears, and clubs. Behind them was a man in a brocade robe, holding a saber in his right hand and the saber wound in his abdomen with his left hand while chasing after the young man.
Such a scene was too common in Jianghu. After the Jianghu people in the inn looked at the situation from afar, they continued eating.
The woman in white looked over for a moment and saw that the
saber-wielding youth was rather valiant. The five men blocking him in the corner still couldn’t approach him. She asked, “What’s going on over there?”
The voice was ethereal but natural. It was difficult for others not to pay attention to this voice, but the waiter standing at the door immediately understood that she was talking to him. He hurriedly turned around and explained politely, “It’s Second Master Xu from the Baywater Gang. He runs a gambling den in the alley. The kid he’s after is a foreigner. Two days ago, he came here and said that he was looking for his father. He even asked here…”
“Did he find him?”
“No. Nearby here is the thousand-kilometer-long Wu Mountains. There are often Jianghu people going to the mountains to dig for medicine. They get lost or are eaten by tigers and bears, and their corpses are never found.”
“What’s the conflict with the gambling den?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe he ran out of money, gambled a few times, and became angry after losing…”
As they chatted, the weak saber-wielding young man was pinned to the ground by two men with spears and clubs.
Covering his wound, Second A^aster Xu went forward, his eyes filled with anger. He raised his saber to cut off the young man’s right arm.
Seeing this, the woman in white raised her right sleeve and slid out her fair fingers that seemed to have no bones. She was holding a copper coin in her fingertips.
But just as she was about to flick it out, a sound came from the street half a street away.
Swoosh!
A robe rustled in the wind.
The entire street was paying attention to the battle from afar. Seeing that Second Master Xu was holding someone down and preparing to cut off his arm, some chivalrous Jianghu people also made some movements.
But before anyone could say anything, a figure suddenly appeared in front of Second Master Xu.
The bystanders didn’t even see where the figure came from. When the figure stood still, they saw that he was quite tall. He was wearing a black robe and had a long saber wrapped in black cloth at his waist.
The man was wearing a bamboo hat. Under the bamboo hat, his handsome face looked gentle, elegant, and not ferocious at all. But his eyes were as sharp as two sharp knives. The moment he appeared, all the Jianghu people on the street sat back down.
Second Master Xu’s saber slashed down. Halfway through, the black-robed man’s slender fingers grabbed the back of the saber and held it firmly in midair. It was unable to move down any farther.
Second Master Xu was stopped by someone, and the anger from his wound completely transferred to the person who came. “Who are you? I low dare you stop me…”
Creak!
Before he could finish speaking, everyone saw the black-robed man, who was holding the back of the saber with his bare hand, exert strength with his left hand.
Then the iron saber in his hand was bent and deformed visibly. The sound was not loud, but it frightened all the people on the street.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The curved iron saber fell to the ground, and the old street fell into dead silence.
The thugs beside him quickly threw away their weapons and retreated. Second Master Xu’s anger was completely gone, and there was a hint of surprise in his eyes as he forced himself to say, “My sect is the Grasping Moon Tower…”
Halfway through his sentence, he saw the black-robed man in front of him slide out a waist token with the word ‘arrest’ on it.
Judging from the style, he was either a reaper of the Six Gates or a King of Hell of the Black Office.
As soon as the token appeared, there were immediately abnormal movements in the small town that was mixed with good and bad people. Many people left quietly through the back doors and windows.
The people of Jianghu were unruly and usually didn’t take officials and soldiers seriously. There were many people who dared to fight with officials, but the premise was that they could defeat them.
In the event that they couldn’t win, the tokens on the officials’ waists was a death sentence to the people of Jianghu!
When Second Master Xu saw that it was someone from the government, his face turned green. He didn’t even care about his abdomen injury as he hurriedly cupped his hands and bowed with an apologetic smile. “Sir, please calm down. I was blind and didn’t recognize your identity. I was chopped up by someone, and anger blinded me. I was just trying to scare the perpetrator. 1 definitely didn’t have the intention of committing murder on the streets…”
“You’re from the Grasping Moon Tower?”
“This matter has nothing to do with the Grasping Moon Tower. It’s a personal grudge. I’m just a disciple using the sect’s fame to scare people. The Grasping Moon Tower might not even know me…”
In the past two days, something had happened to the Prince of Wu, and the Imperial Court’s troops were rushing to Wu Province. Second Master Xu clearly knew what would happen if the Imperial Court targeted his sect because of his affairs, so he hurriedly cleared up the relationship.
The woman in white at the window looked at the situation from afar. She wanted to see how this handsome official would deal with this matter. But halfway through, her eyes moved slightly, and she turned to look at a figure quickly walking away from the side of the town. “Waiter, bill.”
“Alright… Huh?”
Hearing this, the waiter, who was looking at the situation, hurriedly turned around, only to see that the table by the window was empty. The woman in white had disappeared without a trace, leaving only a copper coin on the table.
The waiter’s eyes were blank. After looking around, he ran out of the door and looked all over. After a while, he scratched his head. “What the hell…”
The gray town was almost dead silent. Other than some abnormal movements, there were no other human sounds.
Ye Jingtang was standing on the street with his saber. In front of him was the brocade-robed man nodding and bowing. The yellow-clothed young man, who had been held down, got up, but he didn’t dare to run. He only stood on the spot with injuries all over his body and a pale face.
Over the past two days, Ye Jingtang had taken a fast ship and sped to Wu Province day and night, fie had only left the Wuxi Canal this morning.
He originally wanted to go straight to Rising Sun City, which was dozens of kilometers away. But when he passed by this town just now, he noticed that there was something unusual in the town, so he came over to take a look. He didn’t expect that this gangster who wanted to kill someone on the street was related to the Grasping Moon Tower, a large sect in Wu Province.
Since he was here and had encountered something, Ye Jingtang investigated the situation. After putting away the token, he looked at the yellow-clothed young man standing at the side. “Why did you fight privately?”
Second Master Xu covered his stomach with his hand and hurriedly said, “This kid just drew his saber when he had a disagreement…”
“I didn’t ask you.”
The yellow-clothed youth stood where he was, clearly a little afraid. “A few days ago, my father came to Baywater Town to dig for medicine and never returned. I came here to look for him. After searching for a few days, I heard that my father had taken a job from him and went to the mountains to dig for medicine with others… But he didn’t come back. 1 asked him, but he said he didn’t know, so I took action.”
Ye Jingtang turned to look at Second Master Xu.
Second Master Xu gritted his teeth. “Sir, I can’t make the decision on this matter… Sir, wait, ahhh—”
A scream resounded.
Ye Jingtang had hooked his toes to pick up the oxtail saber that had fallen on the ground and stabbed it into Second Master Xu’s right foot, nailing it into the limestone. He stared into Second Master Xu’s eyes. “You think I’m asking you for information?”
Second Master Xu sat on the ground and covered his right foot with a pale face. He didn’t dare to struggle and hurriedly said, “It’s a steward of the Prince of Wu Estate. He often finds people from Jianghu who are good at martial arts to dig medicine in the mountains. There are many tigers and wolves in the mountains. Accidents and deaths are too common. His father was unlucky and didn’t come back. You can’t blame me.”
Ye Jingtang knew that the Prince of Wu Estate was testing the medicine on living people, so he wasn’t surprised. He asked, “Since he was working for the King of Wu Estate, why didn’t you tell him the truth?”
Second Master Xu opened his mouth and hesitated for a moment. The saber inserted into his foot rotated, and his expression immediately twisted. He hurriedly gritted his teeth and said, “The Prince of Wu Estate gave a hundred taels of silver as compensation. Two days ago, something big happened to the Prince of Wu, and he had already escaped from Rising Sun City. When I saw that no one was pursuing the matter, I was obsessed and wanted to take the silver… I will immediately give him some more silver as compensation.”
After Ye Jingtang asked about the situation, he felt that this person was useless. He let go of the hilt of his saber and looked at the thugs beside him. “In public, you injured someone with weapons for money. You will be punished by the law for three years. Take him with you to the government office for trial. If he doesn’t arrive by tomorrow, he will be beheaded in public, and all of you will join him. If you think you can escape, you can try.”
Sir?!” Second Master Xu’s face turned pale. “I’ll compensate him with silver. I guarantee that I will never do it again… Sir!”
After the few thugs carried Second Master Xu away, Ye Jingtang looked at the pale-faced young man in yellow. “You injured someone with a weapon first, so you should be guilty of the same crime. However, on account of the reason for the incident, I won’t pursue the matter. Go home and face the wall for three months to reflect. From now on, remember not to draw your saber if you don’t have the ability. I can’t save you a second time.”
The yellow-clothed young man heaved a sigh of relief and quickly cupped his hands. “Sir, thank you for saving my life… Sir, my father’s martial arts skills are very good. It’s impossible for him to be harmed by a tiger or bear. I hope you can help me investigate the murderer…”
Ye Jingtang knew that his father had most likely died at the hands of the Prince of Wu. He had given him some compensation money because he didn’t want any trouble and let the news reach the ears of the Imperial Court. He thought for a moment and said, “Wait in the town. If your father is still alive, he will come back to reunite with you. If he’s dead, I will send someone to give you an explanation. What is your father’s name?”
“My father is Zhang Wenyuan. He’s from Yellow Court County in Ze Province. He often comes to Wu Province to search for herbs. There are a few scars on the left side of his face. He was injured by a mountain tiger while digging for medicine when he was young… He left home in the middle of last month and has yet to return…”
Ye Jingtang took out a small black booklet from under his clothes at his chest..
After recording the information, he turned around and left the town…
