C60 (1/2)
Chapter 60 - Granary
There were four to five villas full of land that belonged to him. At the peak of the mountain, there were more than two thousand tenants farming land for him. Not only that, Huang Juren even owned entire street's storefronts on Tanggu Street, and outside the city, there were even warehouses that were owned by the young and the old.
In Tanggu, an open port city filled with foreign merchants, there were many more wealthy than the High Scholar Huang. However, the foreign merchants who rode the ship and the local merchants all belonged to the God of Fortune. Although there was a lot of money, none of them were willing to mess with Huang Juren.
Forget about everything else, just this defecation incident alone was taboo to all Chinese merchants. Everyone went out to seek for money, so there was no need to provoke these shameless local gangsters.
It was precisely because of this mentality that the High Scholar Huang had gotten ahead of himself in the Tanggu. Whether it was the black and white, or the government and business, he walked very smoothly and normally did some business. Everyone would take care of him for the sake of the local tyrant, and gradually, he didn't know where North was.
The frog at the bottom of the well would never know how big the outside world was. Otherwise, he would not have let the people in the capital charge up so easily. How dare he set a fire in front of Xiao Letian? He did not know that this second monster dared to burn the grave of Yongzheng Lord.
When the flames in the granary at the head of the village rose into the air, it was just past two in the morning. At this time, everyone was sleeping soundly, even the dogs in High Scholar Huang's big house had their tongues hanging out, not a trace of life left in them.
All of a sudden, all the watchdogs in the village seemed to have seen a ghost. They all jumped up and barked at the same time. The entire manor was thrown into chaos.
”What's going on? A thief had come … This was the villa of the Yellow Lord, who would dare be rash here? and so on... Listen to this sound... ”Crap, it's on fire …”
What whistled in the night sky was not a natural wind, but a whirlwind that was engulfed in flames. The granary at the entrance of the village contained a total of 50,000 stones worth of grain, including rice, wheat, sorghum, and corn … They were all new grain from the year before, and this amount of grain was at least fifty to sixty thousand taels of silver.
High Scholar Huang was awoken by the sound of dogs barking and a gong. This guy was sleeping soundly, half the sky in the south was red, yet he was still snoring.
”What's going on? Where was the water... This group of lowly commoners, yet they play with fire in the middle of the night? ”Wait, wait …” At this time, High Scholar Huang suddenly had a bad premonition. When he put on his clothes and pushed open the window, he realized that the direction where the flames shot to the sky was towards his grain depot.
”Aiya, f * ck …” Did something happen to my granary? ”Housekeeper …” High Scholar Huang, who did not even wear shoes in this chaos, led a group of servants to stumble and run in the direction of the firelight.
Just as they walked out of the village, a huge bonfire that looked like Old Lord Taishang's Eight Trigrams Cauldron appeared in front of everyone, causing them to be unable to get close to it due to the strong heat wave. Before he could say anything, an old woman who was fatter than a pig suddenly jumped out from behind him and sat on the ground, wailing.
”I can't live anymore. My food, my money …” The one crying was the official wife of the High Scholar Huang, the infamous evil woman of the Tanggu City.
High Scholar Huang's heart was about to break as he gritted his teeth and said, ”What's going on? ”Just how did you do that …” Just as he was speaking, someone ran around the fire in front of him, causing him to sweat profusely.
”Yellow Lord, come quickly to the locust forest. All of Xiao Pi Sun's subordinates are tied up in the forest. Their hands and feet were all broken …” The hair on High Scholar Huang's back stood up, he suddenly thought of an unbelievable possibility. When he rounded the fire and found the seven hoodlums tied up, he understood that he had provoked a real dragon.
”Alright, I'm not a fierce dragon, but a river. Are you trying to step on my head? The Tanggu Merchant Shop is more than three hundred years old, but not a single person has ever dared to step on my head … ” Just as he was shouting, the servant beside him tugged his sleeve and pointed towards the depths of the forest. ”Yellow Lord, look at what happened at that time …”
When he looked closely, he nearly peed his pants in fright. He saw that there were at least seventy to eighty shadows in the locust forest. Each of them had a black veil covering their faces and the shiny steel blade in their hands reflected the light. These people stared at Huang Juren with their cold eyes, releasing a burst of killing intent.
Yellow Lord was so frightened that he retreated three steps, and hid behind the servants to catch his breath. Right now, the two groups were in a stalemate. Although there were a lot of people around him, they were all ordinary manor guests and servants. The two hundred plus people were actually suppressed by the momentum of dozens of people.
Time passed second by second, both sides did not say a word, neither side moved, until the villagers started to prepare the buckets of water with their food, Xiao Letian's men in the forest finally made their move. With a few popping sounds, the wooden bucket shot out from the hands of the villager who was leading the way to save the fire.
”Aiya, my …” The cowardly villagers quickly threw away the buckets and ran backwards in fright. The surrounding villagers also didn't dare to act rashly, and they just held onto their water and didn't dare to splash it into the fire.