The more furious Yan Liqiang was, the calmer he became.
After careful consideration, he didn't barge in there hastily. Instead, he retreated away from the window of the room and observed his surroundings before he made a dash towards the front of the yard.
Two rooms were still brightly lit in the yard. Yan Liqiang took a look around but found out that there was no one in both rooms. One of the rooms seemed to be the bedroom of the two servants from earlier, while the other room was a sewing workroom.
Various clothes were hung inside the sewing workroom and there were also a variety of fabric cutouts in the room. The shop owner had come out from this room earlier.
Yan Liqiang was the type to go all the way once he started something. He immediately went inside the room, picked up the candle in the room and set a few dresses and long gowns ablaze. He then tossed the candle into a pile of fabric and dashed out of the room. He quickly went back to the outside of the other room and waited at the door then pulled out the kukri knife he had on him.
Lately, Yan Liqiang always carried a weapon on him whenever he visited the Military Governor's Office, in case the Shatu people decided to take a revenge on him. As they say, preparation can avert peril. His kukri knife wasn't that long, and he kept it sheathed in a cow leather scabbard and hung it on his belt. The scabbard pressed against the side of his thigh, completely hidden as long as he didn't lift his clothes up.
Holding the kukri knife, Yan Liqiang slowed his breathing and calmly waited.
The room door was locked from the inside. He would cause a big commotion if he went in by breaking either the door or window. Moreover, he didn't have a clue on the shop owner's strength, therefore, the best method he could think of was to lure the shop owner out and finish him. The fire he started was also to notify everyone in the surroundings that there was a problem here. The more people that gathered here later, the safer he would be, and the scandal of that person here could be exposed easily.
The workroom, which was not too far from here, was filled with piles of very flammable clothes and fabrics. Hence, the flames in the room grew intense in just less than two minutes.
The light of the flames reached to the other room through the windows. When the shop owner in the other room sensed something was wrong, he hurried to the door and opened it, then cautiously poked his head out to observe the situation outside.
Unfortunately, what awaited the shop owner was the kukri knife in Yan Liqiang's hands.
According to the laws of the Great Han Empire, human trafficking was considered thievery. Anyone had the right to kill such criminals without being charged by the law. Yan Liqiang had no mercy towards these wicked scoundrels and bastards who colluded with foreigners to devastate the lives of innocent Chinese girls.
His kukri knife came down sharply upon the neck of the shop owner. Before he could even react, his head had tumbled to the floor before his entire body followed suit. Blood from the severed neck flowed like a river, staining the floor crimson.
When Yan Liqiang saw chickens or pigs being butchered at the market, perhaps he might have felt sorry for them. Yet to people like this, he had not even an ounce of sympathy.
Ever since the time he eliminated the Hong Clan, Yan Liqiang realized that darkness and ruthlessness existed deep down in his heart. He didn't feel fear at all decapitating someone with his own hands. Instead, he only took an icy glance at the corpse lying on the floor, before he stepped over it to open the door, and went inside the room.
The moment he arrived at the entrance of the underground tunnel inside the room, the footsteps of the two servants rang out from below.
Yan Liqiang didn't rush downstairs but instead moved somewhere else. He waited at the spot behind the tunnel entrance on the ground. When the two people came up from below, the back of their heads would be facing him.
Soon enough, the footsteps drew nearer and as expected, the two servants emerged from below.
When the second person came out from the underground tunnel, the person in front of him had already noticed that the room door was open and had spotted the corpse of the shop owner lying on the floor outside the entrance.
However, Yan Liqiang didn't give both of them any time to react. He instantly pounced on them from behind and plunged his knife into the back of the servant behind, piercing it through his heart. Before the first servant could even turn around, Yan Liqiang pounced on him like a leopard and slit his throat.
As the saying goes, 'It is easier to dodge a spear out in the open than to avoid a stab in the dark'. In this situation where he was prepared to ambush them and his targets were unwary, even if those two servants had some skills, Yan Liqiang didn't give them a chance to show it to him. In just the blink of an eye, the two servants collapsed at the underground tunnel entrance.
Yan Liqiang just had murdered three people in a row. The kukri knife in his hand was already fully coated with fresh blood by now. However, the hand he held the knife with didn't tremble in the slightest.
He wiped the blood away from his knife on one of the servants' clothes. Without a second thought, he entered the underground tunnel and followed the stairs to wherever it led.
The underground tunnel reached five meters below the ground and was very well constructed, with bricks lining up both sides. The tunnel was about a meter wide and two meters in height. An oil lamp hung seven or eight meters apart from each other on either side of the tunnel wall.
The entire underground tunnel was linear and deep. Two hundred meters ahead in Yan Liqiang's line of sight, there was a turn which led somewhere.
Yan Liqiang clenched his jaws and made a dash to the other end of the tunnel. He ran for about two hundred meters and reached the turn. In another ten meters ahead after the turn, he saw an iron door which had just been shut.
An idea flashed through his mind. Without a second thought, Yan Liqiang banged against the iron door with force.
"What's with you all? Didn't you guys tell me there are only two chicks? They're already here! Is there a third one?" An impatient voice rang out from the other side of the iron door. Right after this voice spoke, the iron door which had just been shut, subsequently opened in an instant.
A man in his thirties, fully dressed in black with an indolent look, stared in shock at Yan Liqiang's unfamiliar and bloodthirsty face.
Before the man could reach towards the longsword that hung at his waist, Yan Liqiang had violently plunged his kukri knife into his chest.
Yan Liqiang's other hand covered the man's mouth, preventing him from making any noise and pushed him back towards the inside of the door.
The man's eyes widened like saucers. One of his hands had already touched the sword's hilt while his other hand grabbed onto Yan Liqiang's wrist tightly, trying to push away the hand that covered his mouth.
Yan Liqiang gave him a death stare and pulled out the kukri knife from his chest before he forcefully plunged it into him again. Almost every time the man took a step back, he felt Yan Liqiang's kukri knife sinking in and coming out of him between his chest and lower abdomen.
The man stumbled five consecutive steps backward. He didn't manage to even pull the longsword at his waist by a foot when blood gushed out from his mouth, all over Yan Liqiang's hand. The hand he grabbed Yan Liqiang's wrist with gradually ran out of strength and the eyes he stared at Yan Liqiang with slowly turned glassy before he collapsed on the floor in a heap. Half of his body was already soaked in the blood that flowed out from between his chest and abdomen...