Liang Qu gritted his teeth with rage.
Zheng Xiang, Scabby Zhang, none of them are good!
Zheng Xiang left so decisively last night without even taking the yellow croaker he had promised. Liang Qu had actually believed that the man simply wanted to make a deal, even though it involved personal freedom. Dashun was not a place where everyone was equal and harmonious. In the end, the last straw was placed by that damn servant.
"Brother Shui, Big Brother Shui, I've told you everything I know, and I'll definitely pay back the silver I owe. Please, I beg you, just let me go like a fart."
Zhang Tieniu, who was tortured to the brink of death, finally mustered enough strength to utter a coherent sentence. Seeing Liang Qu look over, he quickly raised his head and squeezed out a smile.
Liang Qu's face showed hesitation, an appearance of someone who couldn't bear to go on.
Zhang Tieniu felt a surge of relief in his heart. Just as he was about to stoke the fires further with more pleading, he suddenly realized that the shadow beside him had disappeared, and instead, a dark silhouette loomed above his head.
He looked up bewilderedly and suddenly let out a scream. He saw an upside-down face rushing towards him, those pitch-black pupils staring straight at him. Amidst the tousled hair, the face opened its mouth with a silent laugh, the chillingly white teeth brushing against his face as if to bite through his neck!
"Brother Shui, Brother Shui! What are you doing? Don't scare me!"
Zhang Tieniu's heart skipped a beat. He scooted backward in terror and stepped into the water.
Liang Qu stared intently at the battered and bloody Scabby Zhang, his smile retreating, "You just saw... me controlling water, didn't you?"
"Controlling water, what controlling water, I don't know, I didn't see anything!"
"Whether you saw it or not, it doesn't matter."
Liang Qu stood up, the setting sun casting a long shadow on the sampan.
The breeze swept through, the seeding reeds swayed, and fluffs of reed flowers scattered.
Zhang Tieniu saw the dreadful face move away, his tense heart slightly relaxed. But as time passed, he grew more and more uneasy under the shadow. He strained his neck to look up, only to see the dark figure rimmed with gold.
He shifted again, trying to get a better angle to look up. But in a daze, he saw a mocking face and, above that, a stone held high!
Zhang Tieniu's pupils shrank suddenly, his throat trembled, but before the fishy-smelling breath could surge up:
Thump!
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Splash!
Huge splashes arose in the reed marsh, the white froth occasionally mixed with a hint of dark red.
A shadow moved under the boat; the Zhupo Dragon shook its body and tail, dragging the corpse tied with the murder weapon stone into the deeper waters.
After dealing with everything, Liang Qu collapsed on the sampan, his heart beating wildly, saliva thick as glue. He lifted his hand and saw it trembling, his fingernails filled with blood froth.
For the first time in his life, a series of killings were as smooth as flowing water in his hands.
Fearing that Scabby Zhang's struggles would be too fierce and he wouldn't be able to control him, Liang Qu didn't dare to drown him and instead had to smash his skull with a stone.
"Zhang Tieniu's bullying was excessive—if I didn't take his life while he was vulnerable, even if I managed to save enough money from fishing, he would still come after me once his wounds healed, ugh."
Liang Qu leaned over the side of the boat and retched, only acidic stomach juices coming up.
Even with all the reasons and decisions made beforehand, his mind went blank when he actually did it, not stopping until the back of the head was completely caved in, a mess of flesh and blood.
The Jianghuai Zeye is teeming with ferocious carnivorous fish, attracted by the scent of blood. It wouldn't take long for all traces of Zhang Tieniu to vanish completely from this world.
After retching, Liang Qu sat back on the boat.
Now, not only had the Wupeng Boat been replaced by a small sampan, but for no reason at all, Zhao Manor had started watching him, and he didn't know if Old Master Zhao was involved.
The whole affair seemed to be solely Zheng Xiang and Zhang Daniu's idea, but it was all one-sided from Scabby Zhang. Whether Zheng Xiang acted to please Old Master Zhao or upon Zhao's direct instructions was unknown. A steward wouldn't share such details with a scabby man.
If it were the former, it would still be okay; the latter would be troublesome.
Old Master Zhao was over sixty years old, disgusting, truly disgusting!
Liang Qu, adding both his past and present lives together, was still a virgin at almost forty—some old timers had grown tired of their usual dalliances and were looking for something more perverse.
The only thing worth consoling himself with was the two broken pieces of silver in his pocket.
He couldn't afford to offend Zhao Manor, so he had to quickly save up seven pieces of silver to go to Yang Family Martial Arts School in Pingyang Town for training and earn a decent status.
But how was he to legitimately make use of this sampan?
...
Time flew by swiftly.
The wharf was shrouded in a light mist, and shadows stirred upon it.
At midnight, when fish gathered to feed, was the best time to catch them, and experienced fishermen would take the opportunity to head out to fish.
In the marshland, however, a young man was poling against the current, returning to the wharf.
A man who was untying the mooring ropes to set out saw the newcomer and said, "Ashui? Doesn't your family have a wupeng boat? How did it turn into a little sampan? And why are you coming back at this time?"
Liang Qu looked up and smiled, "It's Uncle Chen Yi."
This Uncle Chen was not the same Chen Qingjiang who had offered him pastries when he first arrived. Yixing City had many families with the surname Chen; this was another Chen he merely knew of.
Liang Qu looked around and saw a handful of fishermen, sensing it was time to set the mood. He put on a distressed and sorrowful expression, looking as though he might cry, "Uncle Yi, as you know, my father..."
With a few indignant remarks mixed with one or two sighs, Liang Qu sporadically revealed how Scabby Zhang had bullied him after his "father" died.
He only made slight tweaks to certain parts of the story, like instead of Scabby Zhang directly snatching the wupeng boat, he made it sound as if Scabby Zhang had forcibly traded his own sampan for it.
Upon hearing the story, the gathered fishermen had no doubts and even found it completely plausible.
Snatching away a fisherman's boat was akin to murder, and since Scabby Zhang never bragged about it, few knew of it, and those who did weren't fully aware of whether there was an "exchange" or not.
Scabby Zhang was a bully who feared the tough; he rarely messed with people of notable surnames and never dared to be utterly ruthless. It was only because Liang Qu was an orphan with no one to rely on while owning a fine boat—a temptation hard to resist—that Zhang Tieniu acted so brazenly.
"That Scabby Zhang, he's done nothing but evil."
"He should've been taken care of a long time ago, that heartless brute."
"Right, he comes to my basket every day to steal fish. I really wish to smack him dead with an oar!"
For a moment, the wharf was filled with righteous indignation. However, a closer listen would reveal that most were just curses and grievances; nobody proposed to stand up for Liang Qu and confront Scabby Zhang to reclaim the wupeng boat.
Scabby Zhang was tall and strong, a bachelor with nothing to lose. Everyone else had their own families to worry about and didn't want to bring trouble upon themselves for the sake of one orphan.
Liang Qu sighed, lifted the wooden board, and revealed about ten fish: "Without proper fishing gear, I've been catching fish all day, and I'm simply exhausted. Just as I had some success, I had to come back home to sleep."
The others glanced over, saw common carp and silver carp worth roughly twenty or thirty copper coins, nodded, and then went out to sea without further small talk.
Liang Qu let out the breath he had been holding.
Completely severing ties with Scabby Zhang would seem too deliberate.
If someone were to go over the entire incident from start to finish, they could surely notice something amiss, such as why Zhang Tieniu would choose to sell the wupeng boat if it had been an exchange?
Even a lazy person wouldn't leave themselves with no recourse, right?
The logic might hold, but it would inevitably be fragile.
But people are also wary of being too self-conscious, assuming others are deeply interested in their affairs.
The world doesn't revolve around anybody, and when it comes to matters that don't concern them, people's memories are actually quite vague – a slight nudge can easily steer them towards a completely different conclusion.
No one would imagine that a young man could be bold enough to take the life of a strong adult.
As long as he planted a small seed without obvious flaws, that seed could sprout and grow into an "established fact."