Chapter 205: The Most Straightforward Expression
The underground base in Quanzhou was destroyed and all the forces of Eastern Darkness in this city were uprooted.
Long and s.h.i.+ resumed their journey.
Liu and Ouyang went with them, as well as a group of Shadow Guardians.
Qiu Ming’s troops were still following them not far behind.
They would only be useful under special circ.u.mstances.
If they encountered something serious like what happened in Quanzhou again, Qiu Ming and his army would be put to good use.
Long and s.h.i.+ were still travelling by carriage.
Three days later, they arrived in another city.
Before entering the city, s.h.i.+ said, “This is the last second place in this direction.”
“Oh?” Long raised his eyebrows. “So what?”
“General Qin Yuechun has begun to hara.s.s the enemy there. We have to speed up.”
Long was a little confused. “What do you mean?”
“Let’s split up,” s.h.i.+ said firmly.
After a short silence, Long asked, “What’s your suggestion?”
“Liu Suifeng goes with you and Ouyang Chuan joins me. When you enter this city, we will take a path and go to the city in the northwest. Five days later, we will meet at the junction of the two cities. Then we will go southeast to the imperial city and kill all the people on the list along the way. We’ll finish making the round of the whole nation then.”
Self-confidence and coldness coexisted on s.h.i.+’s face. He looked indifferent, but not bloodthirsty.
After pondering for a while, Long nodded. “Okay, we’ll do as what you said.”
The corners of s.h.i.+’s mouth turned upward. “Good.”
They told Liu and Ouyang about their plan. Both of them were slightly stunned, but they had no objection.
Liu opened his mouth and seemed to want to say something, but he said nothing in the end.
Later, the four of them split up.
Long and Liu entered the city. It seemed that Liu had something on his mind, so Long asked, “What are you thinking?”
Liu looked at Long. After a short silence, he said, “Don’t you worry?”
Long raised his eyebrows. “You mean Qingzhou?”
Liu nodded. “Don’t you worry about him?”
Long shook his head. “No, I don’t.”
Liu frowned. “Why don’t you let me follow him?”
Long smiled. “Since he has made such a decision, he must have his own reasons. Let’s just do it now and see what happens in five days when we meet again.”
Since Long was so calm, Liu no longer thought much about it.
Long partic.i.p.ated in the night operation for the first time.
Long were protected by Liu and Ying Feng. In their eyes, those remaining killers were nothing at all!
Long stood on the roof, watching the Shadow Guardians kill down there.
There were only three people on the list in this house.
It seemed that the three of them had known that they had been exposed, but they found some helpers instead of escaping.
However, so what if they had got helpers?
The Shadow Guardians attacked fiercely and more than ten killers failed to stop them.
This was just the first place.
This night, Long went to three places in this city.
After they finished their business at the last place, Long, Liu and the others returned to their temporary residence.
“There are still four hours before dawn,” Liu said, “Go to bed early.”
Long nodded. “Right.”
Lying in bed, Long thought of his previous life.
In that life, he was in poor health and spent a lot of time in the hospital.
At that time, what he cherished most was life.
However, he was taking so many people’s lives in this life… Sometimes, he also felt confused and scared.
But he never said it.
His current ident.i.ty didn’t allow him to be confused or scared, so he couldn’t say that.
The actions at night touched something in the deepest corner of his heart.
Long put his hand on his heart.
He felt strong beating. He didn’t have heart diseases and he was in good health, but… his hands had been stained with blood.
He had killed so many people…
Long slowly closed his eyes and decided not to think more.
Just as he said, if someone between him and his lover needed to kill, he wanted that person to be himself.
s.h.i.+ did everything just for him. How could he still be unsatisfied?
After a long time, Long finally fell asleep.
The next day, when Long woke up, it was already late morning.
Although he stayed up late the previous night, he did have a good sleep.
Long got up from the bed and yawned lazily.
That familiar person wasn’t lying beside him. They just separated one day, but Long missed his lover very much.
Long patted himself on the cheeks. “Oh, Qingzhou, what can I do? I’ve begun to miss you. Do you also miss me…”
Long talked to himself. Then, Long got dressed and walked out of the room.
Liu wasn’t in sight, so Long said, “Ying Feng.”
As soon as he said that, Ying Feng appeared. “Master.”
“Where is the Liu Suifeng? Where is he?”
“He went out to investigate. He wants to see if he can find someone off the list,” Ying Feng said.
Long nodded. “I see. I’ll have breakfast.”
“Yes,” Ying Feng said.
Long went back and decided to have breakfast first.
Ying Feng soon sent the food over and Long went out after breakfast.
He was going to walk around the city.
Long didn’t have a specific destination in mind, so he decided to stroll on the street or go to the teahouse. He wanted to listen to stories and what the common people were talking about.
Then, he went to Donglai tea house.
Long went upstairs and sat down at the window on the second floor.
Ying Feng followed him silently as a guard.
The reason why he followed Long so closely was to prevent any unexpected accidents. It would be hard for him to protect Long if he was too far away.
Long sat down and waited for the tea to be delivered.
Soon, a waiter came.
“Waiter, did anything novel happen in this city? Can you tell me about it?”
Long took out some silver coins and said smilingly when the waiter filled the cup.
The waiter was very happy to see the silver coins, so he waited on Long hand and foot.
“Thank you for your money.” The waiter put the silver into his pocket. Then, he said, “What do you want to know, sir?”
“Anything will be fine. Just tell me what you know.”
“Well.” The waiter thought for a moment and said, “The most novel thing is that the Lord Zhong in our city is going to have the ninth concubine. Lord Zhong is really blessed by heaven. He’s already more than 80 years old…”
The waiter began to gossip, from Lord Zhong who was going to have the ninth concubine to the county magistrate who had lost two sheep. He told everything that he thought was interesting in the city.
Long did not interrupt while the waiter was speaking. Long did not say that he was not interested in that and just listened to the waiter with a faint smile on his face.
After finis.h.i.+ng saying that, that waiter suddenly lowered his voice.
“There’s one more thing that is novel… Sir, you’re not local. Let me tell you, last night, people died at three places here.” The waiter said that in a very low voice.
Long was stunned. “People died?”
“Yes.” The waiter looked around. “And I’m sure that more people will die in the next few days.”
“Why? The government will certainly deal with this, right?” Long said.
“No!” The waiter said firmly.
Long raised his eyebrows. “Why not?”
“There’s a group of executioners. Starting from the imperial city, every time they pa.s.s through a place, dozens of people die. However, the government never cares about that. Those people were sent by the imperial court to kill bad people.”
Long was stunned. He narrowed his eyes and said, “To kill bad people? Were the dead all bad guys?”
After thinking a moment, the waiter said, “I don’t know if they were all bad people. But I have a few friends and relatives from other cities. The people who were killed in those places were all bad people. Although some seemed to be civilians, they were very mysterious. In our city… people at three places were killed last night, but do you see anyone discuss that on the street? No! As early as more than half a month ago, our magistrate has said that we should not talk about that. Why can’t we? I think it must be because they were all sent by the imperial court!”
Long fell silent.
The waiter said, “Sir, please listen to me. I can see that you are a good person. I suggest you leave our city soon. If those people want to kill you, you’ll be so unlucky. But if you don’t think you have done anything inappropriate before and are not afraid of being killed, you can just stay here and look what will happen next.”
“People were killed at so many places. Aren’t you afraid?” Asked Long.
“Haha, only bad guys were killed. What’s there to be afraid of? Anyway, my family and friends were not killed. It can be seen that the dead were not good people.” The waiter laughed.
Long also smiled. “It’s really a novel thing. It’s worth the money.”
“I’m glad to hear that, sir.”
Long smiled. “Here comes the storyteller.”
“Oh, I won’t disturb you, sir. Please call me if you need anything.”
After the waiter left, Long looked out.
It was true that a lot of people had died because of their operations.
Perhaps, everyone in the nation had known about that.
Long thought that it was also a good thing to have known what ordinary people were thinking about…
Were all the dead bad people?
Although the word “bad” was a little superficial, that was the most straightforward expression of the common people.
It was good that it didn’t cause a panic or make people hate them. The corners of Long’s mouth slowly turned upward.