At dawn, Xinyou Alley
The Bailang Gang’s minor leader, Miao Bai, entered the alley with a face full of bad luck.
Two burly men with sullen faces followed him.
“Still haven’t found that fisherman?” Miao Bai asked, his tone unfriendly.
“That guy is as slippery as a fish. In the blink of an eye, he’s gone. These past two days, we’ve scoured Qingshan County at least five times, yet haven’t caught a glimpse of him.”
“Useless!” Miao Bai’s face darkened.
He had told the gang leader before that he had found a way to make a fortune.
Yet, there were still no results.
Lately, the gang leader’s glances at him had turned sour.
“Boss Bai, it’s not like we’ve come back empty-handed.”
“Shun Liu, who mingles at the city gates, said the fisherman lives inside the city. He saw him leaving the city with an empty basket.”
Miao Bai’s expression softened.
If the man was a city dweller, it would be easy to handle.
The Bailang Gang had its ways; as long as he continued selling fish, they would surely catch him.
“Later, when we see the gang leader, explain everything in detail. We’ll ask the leader to send some more people. I refuse to believe we can’t find one single fisherman!” Miao Bai’s heart bled.
If the matter was escalated, even if they eventually succeeded, his credit would be shared.
It was supposed to be his achievement. But now…
Miao Bai glared fiercely at the two men behind him.
The trio headed down Xinyou Alley, a route they knew well.
“Boss Bai, why is it so quiet?” A brawny man behind him asked in surprise.
Miao Bai’s heart skipped a beat.
On any normal day, Xinyou Alley would be bustling with activity.
In the morning, various leaders and gang heads would gather here to receive their assignments; it was always bustling with noise. Why was it so quiet now?
They arrived at the entrance of the Bailang Gang’s base.
The gate stood wide open, but there was no gatekeeper to be seen.
The expressions on all three men’s faces changed in an instant.
“Could our base have been wiped out by another gang?”
Cautiously, they entered the gate.
“Boss Bai, should we run for it?” the other brawny man suggested quietly.
“What’s the panic? Let’s go in and see clearly!” Miao Bai mustered his courage and turned the corner to face the entrance wall.
He saw that the large courtyard was strayed with bodies lying askew everywhere!
Miao Bai’s heart gave a violent thud: “It’s over!”
Just as he thought about fleeing, something didn’t seem right.
The fellow lying not far away was a minor leader with whom he had conflicts.
That person was lying on the ground, with his mouth askew and eyes crossed, but his eyeballs were still moving.
Not dead?
Just as he moved forward to check, he suddenly felt dizzy and lightheaded.
All three of them thudded to the ground simultaneously.
Before Miao Bai hit the ground, he couldn’t help but glance towards the inner courtyard’s main hall.
He barely made out the sight of the gang leader and the three hall masters, all slumped in the main hall on their seats.
Their faces were flushed red, their eyes unfocused, looking like drunken cats who had imbibed too much.
The Bailang Gang had been caught in a trap, all at once!
…
Outside Xinyou Alley.
Chen Mu crouched on a tree branch.
He was dressed in gray with a hood and a thick mask covering his mouth and nose.
In his hand, he held a yellow gourd from which wisps of green smoke were emerging.
The smoke spread rapidly. Not long after leaving the gourd, it dissipated swiftly and was quickly carried by a whiff of wind into Xinyou Alley.
“That should be concentrated enough.” After estimating the amount of Mesmerizing Divine Incense, Chen Mu quickly stowed the gourd away.
“This should be enough to keep them intoxicated for a whole day,” Chen Mu jumped off the tree.
Looking toward the silent Xinyou Alley, he shook his head with a helpless expression: “It’s not easy for the common folk to do a bit of business.”
“The Bailang Gang is lawless, and with big shots covering for them, what else could I do?”
“To sell fish in peace, you have to entertain these thugs with a pot of drink.”
“The world is dangerous, people’s lives are hard,” he lamented.
…
East Market
The hooded, gray-clad Chen Mu with a half-masked face came striding in cheerfully.
He set down two heavy loads and shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Fresh live fish, thirty wen apiece, first come first served!”
“Seems like the fisherman is in a good mood today.”
“Buy or not? If not, buzz off!”
“Hey!”
…
Three days later, Xinyou Alley, Bailang Gang’s base.
A group of gang members was divided into several teams, leading guard dogs, continuously patrolling around the fortress wall.
In the great hall of the inner courtyard.
The leader of the Bailang Gang, Zhang Ye, sat at the head of the table with a full beard on his face, looking utterly composed.
A Ghost Head Greatknife leaned against the table on his right hand, and a brown medicine chest rested on the tabletop.
“Did you bring the Detoxification Pills?” Zhang Ye asked.
“They’re all on me,” the hall master Jia Da said with a fist salute.
“Are the men properly ambushed?” Zhang Ye continued.
“The person should be using the wind to deliver the poison. We’ve stationed masters of hidden weapons at every upwind position,” hall master Yi Si’an said gravely.
“What about the Black Tiger Gang?” Zhang Ye pressed on.
“I’ve arranged for our brothers to watch them. They’ve been very quiet these last two days,” the last hall master Zhen Fan spoke respectfully.
“Everything is prepared; we’re just waiting for that thief to fall into our net,” Zhang Ye’s eyes flashed with a cold light.
He had no idea who that person could be.
The entire gang had been knocked out by the poison and then ignored.
If there was a grudge, wouldn’t it have been better for the assailant to appear and kill them at the time?
They had absolutely no power to resist back then.
The reason behind it all eluded him.
But it wasn’t a big problem.
“Once we catch the person, we’ll know everything,” Zhang Ye reached for the handle of the Ghost Head Knife.
Since he had set up his base in Qingshan County, he had never felt such humiliation.
Anyone who dared to oppose him had their heads chopped off by his Ghost Head Greatknife.
This time would be no exception!
As he was thinking this, he suddenly realized that his right hand had grasped at thin air.
Turning his head, his vision blurred, and the knife handle appeared to have doubled.
He instinctively reached out again and once more grabbed at nothing.
His head heated up, his eyes bloodshot, tears unconsciously flowed out, as if he were drunk.
A bad feeling swept over him.
He looked up hazily.
The three hall masters, who had moments before been so sure of themselves, were now slumped in their chairs, their mouths askew and their eyes crooked, on the verge of sliding under the table.
Hall master Jia Da’s right hand fumbled towards his chest, but his trembling hand couldn’t even grasp the vial of antidote.
As he watched the small porcelain bottle roll to the center of the hall, he was utterly helpless to stop it.
Zhang Ye: “…”
Fuck!
We’ve been fucking tricked again!
…
Outside the great hall, beneath the window, Chen Mu stood silently in the shadows, putting away his yellow gourd.
“This bunch is really hard to please. To invite you all for a drink of the gourd, I had to personally come over.”
“Ah, what can we do? Isn’t asking for a favor always about humbling oneself?”
“Even though I’m just a humble fisherman?”
Chen Mu tucked the gourd into his waistband and stealthily followed behind a patrol pair.
Everywhere he passed, gang members collapsed like drunkards, thudding to the ground, motionless.
In no time at all, the entire Xin You Alley fell silent once more.
…
Behind Tianyi Studio in the west of the city.
Chen Mu hummed a tune as he stir-fried noisily in the kitchen.
Today he made a good sale of two baskets of fish, netting him an extra two taels of silver.
On his way, he stopped by Zheng Tu’s place, surprisingly finding it open.
Chen Mu couldn’t help but buy two elbow joints to take home, one of which had been stewing in the clay pot for half an hour.
Before long, a fragrant braised pork elbow was served at the table.
Next to the stone table under the grapevine.
Jie Jia was rolling silver balls.
Next to him lay a pile of at least two hundred Silver Pieces.
“Is the assassination business really that lucrative?” Chen Mu asked enviously.
“It depends on the market,” Jie Jia said, focused on rolling the balls.
“Looks like the market’s been good lately,” Chen Mu commented sourly.
Jie Jia glanced at Chen Mu and said, “I picked these up.”
Chen Mu’s eyes widened in disbelief.
Where can you just pick up so much silver? Why didn’t I ever come across such good fortune?
Seeming to know Chen Mu’s question, Jie Jia put away the silver ball he had rolled and packed the Silver Pieces into a cloth bag, tucking it into his waist.
Then with an indifferent expression, he said, “I picked it up in Xin You Alley.”
Why does that place sound so familiar?
“In that alley, there was a large house with money bags lying all over the floor, unclaimed, so I simply picked them up,” Jie Jia said as he used his chopstick to pinch a bit of tender pigskin and slowly chewed with an air of pleasure.
Chen Mu: “…”
That should have all been mine!
“I’m also curious, you put them all down, why didn’t you go through their pockets?” Jie Jia asked sincerely.
“I fucking forgot!”