Chapter 4 – An Old Man Playing a Sanxian (1/2)

Chapter 4 – An Old Man Playing a Sanxian

Part 1 [1]

April 16th. Night.

A clandestine search expanded underneath the curtain of night. The number of people carrying out the investigation exceeded that which might have been mustered by the Governor of Jinan Prefecture himself. They included Sun Jicheng’s bodyguard retainer, the employees of his many businesses, and their friends and family. Each person was intimately familiar with Jinan; every tea house, wine shop, inn and brothel lay within their realm of their influence.

As of now, Wu Tao, as drunk as mud, had already been taken back into a small resting room by one of the waiters.

Ingot hadn’t left either, because he was drunk, definitely drunk. The two of them were unconscious and covered with vomit.

The person in charge of inspecting this area was the Assistant Manager of Sun Jicheng’s “Open Source Money Lending” business, Yang Kedong.

Able and efficient, as well as eloquent, he found himself at a loss when he encountered the drunk Wu Tao. He couldn’t even think of a single thing to say.

A drunk like Wu Tao was of little importance; a truly important person would never allow themselves to get into such a state, especially with a young beggar.

So Yang Kedong chose to ignore them.

And yet, he had to continue his investigation. It seemed that he would have no opportunity to go back and sleep this night; his new bride would have to wait alone in bed all night for him.

He grumbled a bit in his heart. He didn’t understand; Big Boss Sun’s death was obviously a crime of passion, and the perpetrator had taken his own life. Whoever had organized this investigation wanted him to come and claim responsibility again?

What Yang Kedong found even more confusing was, what did strangers who had arrived in Jinan this day have anything to do with Big Boss Sun’s death?

Part 2

No one could figure out the answer to the question posed by the man in bluish-green, so even though it hit the nail on the head, it had actually been asked in vain.

Frogboy stood up patted the coffins. “Are there really bodies inside?” he asked.

“There are.”

“Are they friends of yours?”

“No.”

“Then who are they?”

“I don’t recognize them,” said the man in bluish-green. “Not even one of them.”

Frogboy looked shocked.

“You don’t recognize them?” he asked. “Then what were you doing with them?”

“Bringing them to you.”

Frogboy looked at him in amazement. It seemed his eyes might fall out of his head, so shocked was he.

“You went out of your way to buy five coffins for people you didn’t even recognize, to give to me?”

“Yes.”

Frogboy looked like he might faint at any moment. He rushed over and downed a bowl of alcohol; he drank so quickly that the last mouthful almost poured out of his nose.

And then, he let out a loud laugh. “If I didn’t know you, I would definitely kick you out.”

That was his usual method of dealing with crazies.

But the man in bluish-green was no crazy, nor was he drunk.

He seemed much more sober than the average person of the world, and seeing him this way, Frogboy couldn’t laugh any more. “Why are you giving them to me?”

Looking very serious, the man in bluish-green said, “I want you to take a look at them and see who they are, and how they died.”

The coffins had not been sealed.

Frogboy’s expression changed after he took a look the bodies inside, and their fatal wounds. He looked both solemn and astonished.

“What did you see?” asked the man in bluish-green.

Frogboy shook his head, continuously. After quite some time had passed, he softly murmured, “I can’t quite tell, not for sure.”

He suddenly clapped his hands loudly, summoning a well-groomed young man, to whom he asked, “Where is my father?”

“This morning, Master was in a poor mood,” said the young man. “He went out alone, and refused to allow anyone to accompany him. No one knows where he went.”

The current leader of the Flowered Flag Sect, Old Master Tian Yonghua, one of the few remaining of the elder generation of the martial world, would usually hide away in an unknown location when in a bad mood.

Nobody knew where he hid himself, except for Frogboy. The man in bluish-green immediately asked him, “Can you take me with you?”

“No, nobody can. Although, this time…” Frogboy looked at the bodies in the coffin and then let out a long sigh. “It seems this time I must make an exception.”

The man in bluish-green slowly stood up and turned his head to face Old Condor Wang, who had been staring at the back of his head the entire time. “You picked the wrong place,” he said coolly.

“What do you mean?”

He pointed at the back of his own head. “This place is bad. Really bad.”

The Condor’s expression changed, his pupils constricted.

Just now he’d flown out of the window for no reason. He was already angry with this pale-faced one-armed man, and the “Three Kings of Huainan” had poor tempers to being with.

Clenching his fist, he asked, “What’s so bad about it?”

“Judging from your posture just now as you gathered your Qi, you were preparing a stance from your Eagle Claw Sect’s ‘Divine Thirteen Eagle Claws’ to attack me, namely ‘Tiger Contending Form.’”

Old Condor Wang laughed coldly. “Using that stance to attack is already showing you a lot of respect.”

“Fortunately, you didn’t actually attack, otherwise…”

“Otherwise what?”

His face expressionless, his eyes again settling off into the distance, his body suddenly spun agilely. A single arm shot out lightly, from an angle no one could ever have predicted. In the middle of the attack, his hand’s form suddenly changed.

He didn’t touch Old Condor Wang, and yet the old man acted as though he had actually been struck. His swarthy, emaciated face turned as pale as death. Some time passed before he finally asked, “Who are you?”

“I’m surnamed Xiao,” said the man in bluish-green. “As in the expression, ‘Desolate Whistling Sword Qi.’” [3]

Old Wang impulsively took a step backwards. “Are you the Beggar Sect’s new Torture Chamber Lord, Xiao Jun?” [3]

“Yes, that’s me.”

Part 3

By this time, Wu Tao and the young beggar called “Ingot” were fast asleep in the little room behind the wine shop. Dead asleep.

Part 4

Behind the wine shop lay a short street. Short, narrow, stinky and dirty — When summer came, it seemed as if all the flies and mosquitos in all of Jinan congregated there.

Other than the flies and mosquitos, people would congregate there too.

People who others looked down upon in the same way they did flies and mosquitos.