In the late night, Ning Que lied on bed, opened up his eyes widely and looked at the ceiling. Naturally he thought that, if Little Black was still alive, then he did not need Sang Sang to take the risk of delivering the message to Zhang’s mansion.
There weren’t much noteworthy things to conclude about today’s a.s.sa.s.sination. To him, after preparing for many days, it was very easy to kill an old censor who did not even have a guardian. After the nail was punched into Zhang Yi Qi’s head, the man was already dead. It definitely wouldn’t leave any useful information behind that could potentially reveal Ning Que. The actions he made later were just extra, like what he explained to Sang Sang, a censor dying from traffic incident was at least more proper than dying on a prost.i.tute’s bed to the government.
As for the feeling of killing a man? He did not have much feeling towards it. His life in Tang began with a murder, he grew from infinitive cases of murders, he killed many people, he used many ways to kill people, he knew more methods of killing that were more b.l.o.o.d.y and violent than the one he used today. After killing, would he get scared nausea or be afraid of the darkness? Such conditions would only appear on the scholars who were reading poems and essays all day, but for him, although he was about to partic.i.p.ate in the entrance exam to the Academy, deep into his bone, he wasn’t a scholar at all.
— He was a hunter who killed an old hunter. He was a horse gangster who killed little horse gangsters. He was an inborn killer.
But today, the person killed, after all, was a high official of Tang. Chen Cheng Shang had this goal for years. In his eyes, he saw blood flow in the general mansion when he was four — the old butler and the little kid’s surprised yet lifeless eyes. Ning Que smiled happily as he felt that a slight part of the gloom between his chest and belly finally left.
At the other side of the bed, Sang Sang’s little face was also filled with a smile. She knew that he definitely felt really happy today and therefore, she decided to wait until master killed all of his foes including General Xia Hou before taking out the little box under her bed and showing it to him. She believed that at that time, after she saw the paper, he would definitely feel different than he did now.
Inside the box was writing that Ning Que randomly discarded over the years. In Sang Sang’s eyes, they were very good. Among them, the newest was the piece that Ning Que wrote on the night Zhuo Er died. Ning Que thought that he already mixed that paper with garbage long time ago, how could he imagine that her little maid secretly hid it.
After remained quiet for a long time, Ning Que suddenly sighed and said a bit unfortunately, “Last night hearing the poem you wrote, I didn’t feel that anything was improper, but today after I spoke in front of that kid, I felt somewhere was not right. And after thinking closely about it, I feel that it was kind of stupid.”
He was obviously talking about the poem “I come from somewhere, come to take your life,” simple repet.i.tion, intentional emphasis, and awkward words. It’s even worse than a doggerel. Yet the master and maid couple obviously lacked intelligence in the literary aspect, so on the night they were making the poem, they both liked it.
“Then let me change it more.” Sang Sang answered extremely seriously, “Master when do you plan to kill the second person? Tell me the time. I promise I will make it better before that day.”
Finish revising before the deadline? Why did it feel like writing a glorious masterpiece? Ning Qie thought, then laughed and answer, “If so, then you don’t have to rush. The second name on the paper is a little troublesome, I am not planning to kill him soon. Wait for the Zhang Yi Qi’s thing to settle down a bit. I also have to prepare for the entrance exam.
“At the Wei City, master, you often worried that before you even began the revenge, the old people would die from disease and aging.”
“Yet since I have already waited for more than ten years, I believe that Heaven will definitely give me several dozens more days.”
Revenge is a composite project, especially when you are only an insignificant person and your goal was to kill a high cla.s.s person in the empire. The project would be complicated and huge to an unimaginable extent. Ning Que did not have the luck of an earl and also did not have the patience of an eunuch. He had to be extremely careful. (the earl and eunuch are references to people in history)
He stayed on forty-seventh street for days. He inquired if some interesting things happened recently in Chang An and he discovered that Zhang Yi Qi’s death, as expected, did not have much of an impact. The only thing it accomplished was triggering the Chang An residents’ countless comments and laughs. There appeared to be many different versions of the thing that happened in the side door of the brothel but most of them connected the censor’s death with the bad luck of his scary wife.
As Ning Que predicted, the madam in the censor’s mansion was still trying to make this thing a big deal in the police office of Chang An, but the Red Sleeves reopened after closing for a day. It seems like, although the government did not completely conclude this incident, they basically thought the censor’s death was not special.
Until the third day, Ning Que knew that he should go to the Red Sleeves again. Otherwise if they appeared to be so much different than before, the girls and the maid Little Gra.s.s would definitely feel strange.
This time, he decided to take Sang Sang with him. Sang Sang piled up her hair high and hide it inside a hat. She also wore the simple clothes that Ning Que was wearing before. She no longer needed any extra decorations, with her dark face and extremely common look, no matter who was looking from which perspective, she was just a common little servant.
“It’s not raining today. Why would you bring that with you to grab others’ attention.” He pointed to the big black umbrella behind Sang Sang’s back and said.
Sang Sang shook her head and insisted her opinion. Ning Que then stopped caring about her. He knew that she was worried about the impact of censor Zhang Yi Qi’s death. After all, it was safer for them to bring the black umbrella.
They did not expect that right after they closed the door of their store, they were surrounded by a crowd.
The crowd was made up of strong men. In the sunny spring, they revealed their chest, showed their muscular pectoralis and two or three black chest hairs to declare their power and courage. Also, under the tree far away from here, there were two police officers looking indifferently at the crowd which indicated that their power and courage were permitted by the police.
Sang Sang looked cautiously. Her right hand subconsciously extended to her back and tightly grabbed the middle portion of the big black umbrella. Yet Ning Que was not nervous at all. He looked at the two policemen under the tree and noticed that they did not even have a handicap in their hands. He guessed the origin of this crowd of strong men.
The leader of the crowd was about thirty, unlike how Ning Que imagined, he didn’t immediately come over, scold and shout at him and then order his subordinates to rush into the store and rob everything, instead he politely made a salute and using a deep voice, he said, “Are you the little boss? Several days ago I came here before and unfortunately you weren’t here, so I couldn’t talk about something to you.”
Ning Que took an eye at Sang Sang. He was about to ask, but suddenly he remembered that she did mention it to him before, so he turned around and looked at the man and answered softly, “Hi, is there anything I can help you with?”
“I believe that little boss, by now you should know why there’s only one store opening on forty-seventh street.” That man said his terms directly, “I will use 200 silver coins to purchase your rent contract. You will go seek another place. If there’s any loss, you can tell me. If it’s proper, we are willing to pay, but we have one request of you, that is…..move out right now.”
These terms sounded really good, Ning Que looked at this crowd, thinking that Chang An was no doubt the most gentle place, even a dismantlement was generous.