Huang Jin reined in his horse, his face a ghastly shade as he looked at him askance and said with a forced smile, "Taking the lead is no guarantee of winning. The one who laughs last is the real winner!"
Shen Fa made a humble clasping gesture and said, "Your teaching is well taken, Huang. I will keep it in mind and strive to be the last one laughing."
Huang Jin let out a cold laugh and barked, "Lead the way!"
"Yes, sir!"
Ying Baili, whose face had been split open by Huang Jin’s whip, didn’t even dare wipe the blood from his face as he stepped forward to lead Huang Jin’s horse.
Shen Fa, with an easy-going smile, mounted his horse and followed leisurely behind Huang Jin towards the main gate of the upper right quarter, with Fang Ke quickly stepping forward to lead his horse.
As they passed Wei Heng, Shen Fa, beaming with self-satisfaction, said to Wei Heng, "Not bad for a move, eh?"
With a scowl, Wei Heng glanced at him and turned away with a snort.
Shen Fa: ???
...
Operatives from the Eastern Factory charged into Chaimen Street, setting up posts every three steps and watchpoints every five, sealing off the whole street.
The people of Chaimen Street hid in their homes, peering through the cracks of their doors with apprehension at the Eastern Factory operatives clad in black with black blades, wondering why so many officials and soldiers had come to such a destitute and out-of-the-way place...
Huang Jin, with an embroidered handkerchief over his mouth and nose, rode into Chaimen Street, also puzzled about why Yang Erlang, whose name was known throughout Jiangnan and beyond, would choose to reside in such a poor and broken-down place.
"That little bastard lives in a place like this?"
Wei Heng looked around with suspicion. It wasn’t that he didn’t know where Yang Ge lived, but this was indeed his first visit to Chaimen Street.
Shen Fa opened his mouth to respond but then closed it again, a feeling of heaviness suddenly dawning in his heart.
"Perhaps this is just the way of the true master who chooses to live hidden from the world."
Pei Jixun, the vice-minister of the Dali Temple, rode forward and picked up the conversation, "At the beginning of the year, I once had an encounter with Yang Erlang at the Shili Pavilion Station. He intervened on my behalf to break a siege from White Lotus Sect fiends. I offered him a thousand taels of silver as thanks. Any way you look at it, he should not be in need of silver coins..."
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Before Wei Heng could reply, Shen Fa already turned his head dissatisfied and said, "What? A thousand taels of silver is too much for saving the life of you, Pei Sanlang?"
Pei Jixun hastily waved his hands and said, "That’s not what I meant..."
Shen Fa: "Then what do you mean?"
Wei Heng quickly interjected, "Okay, okay, let’s all speak nicely to each other!"
Shen Fa: "Hmph!"
Pei Jixun, looking innocent, turned to whisper to Guo Zhongtang, the chief arrester of Six Fan Gate, "What did I say? Isn’t it true that I gave Yang Erlang a thousand silver coins, and he isn’t short of money?"
Guo Zhongtang, a burly man with a beard in his forties, particularly known for his huge hands, as big as fans and smooth as white jade, protected with steel armguards, made it clear to any martial artist that here was a master of external strength with fully honed skills.
While Pei Jixun spoke to Guo Zhongtang, the latter was reviewing a piece of paper that had just been delivered to him. On hearing Pei’s words, he grinned slightly but offered no response.
Then, riding forward, he handed the piece of paper to Shen Fa.
Shen Fa looked at him questioningly.
Guo Zhongtang still had that grin on his face.
Shen Fa took the paper, unfolded it, and saw written in bold characters: "On the 23rd of April, Yang Erlang appeared at Hua Peak on Tiantai Mountain, killed the Five Ghosts of Jiangdong, took down Black Wind Stronghold. Lin Zhao, the head arrester of Taizhou Prefecture, personally investigated but was exposed and returned in one piece."
’The Five Ghosts of Jiangdong, Black Wind Stronghold, returned in one piece...’
Mentally repeating the contents, Shen Fa turned the paper back to Guo Zhongtang, barely concealing his smirk as he whispered, "Brother Guo, you might have remembered wrong; Huang, the Steward of Eastern Factory, is the main person in charge here."
"Shen is right. When you get older, your memory isn’t what it used to be..."
Guo Zhongtang laughed as he took back the paper, rubbing it between his fingers, it turned into a powder as fine as sand, carried away by the wind.
He subtly tightened the reins and fell back a pace behind Shen Fa and Wei Heng.
Wei Heng glanced at Guo Zhongtang and asked in a low voice, "What’s going on?"
Shen Fa looked around and rapidly recounted the contents of the paper.
Wei Heng responded with surprise, "The intelligence of Six Fan Gate is so timely?"
Shen Fa shook his head slightly, "It’s that guy; he never intended to hide it in the first place."
Wei Heng suddenly realized, "Black Wind Stronghold...is that the battlefield he chose?"
Shen Fa looked at the back of Huang Jin ahead, and with a mocking sigh said, "You’re still digging three feet into the ground searching for them, while they have long since found a good place, just waiting for you to go there..."
Wei Heng fell silent for a moment, then in a low voice said, "It would be best not to make too much of a fuss, otherwise..."
Just as Shen Fa was about to reply, he saw the guards from Eastern Factory scaling the walls and leaping into Yang Ge’s home, his eyes twitching almost to the point where he couldn’t open them, as if they had been struck by a heavy punch.
Wei Heng followed his gaze and asked in confusion, "What’s the matter?"
Shen Fa was silent for a moment, then answered, "The last ones to climb over the wall into his home were Yan Yun’s Five Ghosts’ boss, Lei Heng, and the youngest, Liu Meng."
Wei Heng didn’t understand, "And then?"
Shen Fa stated succinctly, "Liu Meng was almost beaten to death on the street, and he almost died on the street at Lei Heng’s hands...Back then, the fellow had just opened his Qi Sea."
Wei Heng was stunned and could no longer look straight at the guards from Eastern Factory who were eagerly scaling the wall.
Both were at a loss for words.
They wanted to stop the guards from Eastern Factory, who were courting death.
And yet it felt like there was no need to do so anymore...
"Sigh!"
Both of them sighed wearily in unison and slowly moved with the crowd to the front of Yang Ge’s house, dismounting from their horses without any master’s poise and entering Yang Ge’s courtyard.
Following behind them, Pei Jixun and Guo Zhongtang, although not understanding why the two great masters wanted to squeeze through the most crowded spot, still obediently trailed behind and entered Yang Ge’s home on foot.
When Shen Fa and Wei Heng entered the courtyard, the guards from Eastern Factory had already wreaked havoc.
The grape trellis had been knocked down, the artificial hill in the pond had also been toppled, and all the furniture like beds and cabinets from the inner rooms had been dragged into the courtyard...
A large group of guards was moving across the roof tiles of several rooms, lifting each tile one by one to search carefully, disturbing countless tiles and breaking many more.
"Supervisor, we’ve found something!"
A loud shout came from the back yard, and the guards from Eastern Factory who were searching in the front yard immediately swarmed towards the back yard.
Shen Fa and Wei Heng also hurriedly stepped quickly towards the back yard.
When the two squeezed to the forefront of the crowd in the back yard, they saw Huang Jin folding his arms, looking with interest at a gravestone, while several guards from Eastern Factory were digging up the grave mound with flying shovels around it.
Seeing Shen Fa approaching, Huang Jin inquired with a smile, "Commander Shen, didn’t you say... you couldn’t find any trace of Yang Erlang’s origin? Isn’t this it?"
He pointed at the gravestone with a finger, exuding the triumphant air of a strategist celebrating victory!
Shen Fa, puzzled, stared at the name "Yang" on the gravestone and read downwards... The characters were in simplified script, which he had never seen before in such a crisp format, but this did not hinder his ability to recognize them.
Finally, at the bottom row of the gravestone, Shen Fa found the name of Yang Ge—eldest son of the second house, with an older sister named Yang Yi above and a younger brother Yang Jian below.
The moment he found the name of Yang Ge, Shen Fa’s heartbeat sped up suddenly, and goosebumps covered his entire body.
This sense of unease completely exploded when several guards from the Eastern Factory reported, "Supervisor, the grave is empty!"
Empty?
Not even a cenotaph?
Shen Fa roughly pushed through the surrounding guards from the Eastern Factory, squeezed to the front of the dug-up grave mound, and looking inside, saw indeed there was nothing... not even a piece of clothing!
His scalp numb, he took two steps as one back to Huang Jin, who was still examining the gravestone, and bowed, "Supervisor, what a clever ploy, I am thoroughly convinced. Seeing as you have found a clue, I will not steal your thunder. From now on, our two agencies will conduct our own investigations. I wish you success and wealth!"
After speaking, he grabbed Wei Heng, who was also feeling a tingling scalp, and walked away, picking up pace as if dogs were chasing them from behind.
Huang Jin watched their hasty retreat and his right eyelid jumped involuntarily.
According to the law that the happier your opponents, the worse off you are, he also faintly felt that he might have done something foolish...
But past political struggles told him that this was the time to press his advantage!
"A bunch of useless cowards, scared of everything!"
He comforted himself by cursing, then turned and shouted, "Continue searching, dig three feet down for this supervisor!"
"Come on, take a rubbing of the epitaph, send it to the Ministry of Revenue’s Clean Administration in the fourteen provinces, and let’s dig out the entire Yang Family!"