Chapter 56: Encountering a Ghost on a Night Walk!

After winding around the muddy mountain path, skirting the makeshift official road and another small hill, Li Yuanjing and his companions finally reached the muddy banks of the Yi River—a stretch of marshland two to three miles long, where every step sank alternately deep and shallow. By then, it was already the end of the Hai hour, nearly eleven o’clock at night.

Despite their exhaustion, the thought of the wages Li Yuanjing would pay them as soon as they returned, and the sumptuous food their wives had surely prepared, filled everyone with a secret, inexpressible excitement. They whispered and laughed among themselves.

Seeing Yang Da and Yang Er rowing across from the far bank, Li Yuanjing could not help but let out a long breath and smile. This silver, he thought, is earned fast and in large sums. Yet who could know the risks hidden within? Moreover, for reasons he could not quite explain, a sense of unease gnawed at him tonight, despite everything going smoothly—as if he were being watched, somehow.

This unsettling feeling prompted Li Yuanjing to change his original plan as Yang Da and Yang Er approached with the boat. Instead of letting the strongest men board first, he kept his trusted men—Zhang Kun, Zhao Zengjin, Kui Zi, Zhu Zi, and even Wang Liu-shi—close by, sending the old village headman and the weaker men on ahead. The boat was small, after all, carrying just over twenty people per trip; their group would need two crossings.

Watching the boat safely reach midstream and head for the far bank without incident, Li Yuanjing relaxed a little, thinking perhaps the past days’ high tension had left his nerves frayed.

But before that thought was finished, a hoarse, beast-like male voice suddenly thundered from behind:

“Don’t move! Stand still, and drop your knives! Anyone moves, and I’ll gut you like a donkey!”

Li Yuanjing spun around, stunned as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over his head.

Surrounding them on three sides were seven or eight burly men in thick cotton coats, armed with sharp, regulation sabers, exuding menace and ruthless intent. Worse still, two men behind the stocky, scar-faced leader were aiming black, loaded firearms at them, their matches already lit and exposed for all to see. Another man stood further back, bow drawn and arrow nocked.

Even Li Yuanjing, accustomed to storms in his former life, had never faced anything so terrifying—after all, that world had been one of law and order. Zhang Kun, who had fought Tatars on the battlefield, was equally dumbstruck, frozen in place. Zhu Zi, the simple-minded youth, had already wet himself and collapsed to the ground.

“Damn it! Do you take my words for nothing? Drop your knives or I’ll shoot you right now!” barked the scarred leader, his face twisted with a mocking confidence. He shouted again, pressing them with a threat as tangible as a blade.

“Drop your knives. All of you, drop them,” Li Yuanjing ordered.

By now, Li Yuanjing had regained some composure, though his hands and legs shook uncontrollably. He was the first to toss his hatchet to the ground, stammering a plea to the scarred leader:

“Good sirs, we’re just honest workers from the Zhang’s Rice Shop in Fengcheng. We’re law-abiding folk, truly. What is it you want from us?”

Seeing Li Yuanjing surrender, Zhang Kun and the others, unwilling as they were, dared not defy his command and dropped their own hatchets. The bandits roared with laughter.

“If you weren’t law-abiding, I wouldn’t bother robbing you!” sneered the scarred leader. “Now hurry up and hand over everything of value, or I’ll send you all to meet your ancestors!”

Zhang Kun and the others looked utterly wretched. Who could have foreseen this? It was worse than death itself. And now, thanks to Li Yuanjing’s miscalculation, they were unarmed and powerless against these clearly well-trained bandits.

As everyone reluctantly began handing over their valuables, Li Yuanjing fumbled for his money as well, eyelids twitching with calculation.

By now, he was nearly certain: these were no ordinary bandits, but likely regular soldiers under Prince Qi—elite troops at that. Ordinary highwaymen would never possess military firearms and regulation sabers. From what he could see, there were only seven or eight of them, with no signs of reinforcements.

“Good sirs, this is all I have. Take it, please! I have an eighty-year-old mother and a three-year-old child—spare me, I beg you!” pleaded one of the men, Xiangzi, who, unable to bear the intimidation, threw his coins onto the snow and kowtowed desperately.

As soon as he did, others followed suit, kneeling and begging for mercy. Li Yuanjing shot Zhang Kun a meaningful glance; understanding instantly, Zhang Kun shielded Li Yuanjing with his body as he threw out his own coins and knelt slowly.

Meanwhile, as the bandits laughed and scrambled for the loot, Li Yuanjing quietly took out his “low-grade” lighter—a small iron tube, thumb-thick, with a sealed base filled with tinder. Once lit, it could be capped and hung from the waist without burning the wearer, and with a sharp blow, it would glow hot and ready to ignite anything necessary—a survival trick from the modern world, inspired by wilderness experts. He had commissioned this device from Mao Fugui just for emergencies, a means to light his hand grenades if the worst happened.

Never did he expect to reveal this trump card so soon. But with danger upon them and only seconds to act, Li Yuanjing checked the position of the two gunners behind once more, then swiftly lit the fuse of a grenade, shouting,

“Down! Everyone get down!”

In the stunned confusion that followed, he hurled the grenade high between the two gunners.

With a thunderous bang, before anyone could react, the grenade exploded fiercely between the two gunmen—its fuse already burning for a while in Li Yuanjing’s hand. One unlucky gunner, knowing nothing of what had struck him, was hit in the eyes by searing sand and stone, writhing and screaming in agony.

“Brothers!” Li Yuanjing roared, snatching up a hatchet, his eyes blazing with the hunger of a wolf. “Anyone still willing to eat with me, pick up your blades and fight these bastards!”

Zhang Kun, understanding at once, seized his own hatchet and charged the scarred leader at the front, while Zhao Zengjin followed, attacking another bandit with his blade.

Emboldened by their example, several more men, blood boiling, shouted and rushed the attackers.

Chaos erupted in an instant.

Li Yuanjing saw Zhang Kun falling behind in his struggle with the scar-faced leader and darted forward, crouching low as he growled,

“Soldiers—they’re here!”

“What?” The scarred man, startled, slashed violently at Zhang Kun, then spun to look behind.

That was the moment Li Yuanjing had waited for.

With a sudden motion, he flung a pouch of blinding white powder straight into the scarred man’s face.

“Aaah—my eyes! I can’t see!” The man had no time to react, struck full on with lime—the most vicious “chemical weapon” imaginable. He collapsed to his knees, dropped his saber, and clutched at his eyes, howling in pain.

Li Yuanjing, having noticed the man’s armored body but unprotected neck, wasted no time. Gripping his blade with both hands, he gathered all his strength, bellowed, and brought it down upon the man’s throat.

A sickening sound—a sound that made every scalp tingle—rang out as Li Yuanjing’s blade severed most of the man’s neck. His head sagged, and a fountain of blood sprayed forth.

Soaked in blood, Li Yuanjing howled like a wolf,

“Kill! Wipe them out—leave not a single one! If anyone lets one escape, his family will never taste my food again!”