The crisp autumn air is the time when river crabs are fat.
After entering Xuzhou City, Shuanghehe and Lei Buji first went to the inn to put down their luggage and carriage, and then decided to go out to eat crabs.
This is the second time that Sun and Huang have come to Xuzhou. The last time they came here, they watched a competition between the "Kaifeng Three-Armed Sword" and the "Scorpion Tail Spear", and even opened a handicap next to it.
, but as a result, a masked man came to disrupt the situation, and the situation ended in failure, leaving the two of them working in vain for a long time.
Now after attending the Young Heroes Association and returning to their old place, recalling the competition, Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai couldn't help but feel that Zheng Mukai and Ge Shi were too good.
What about the three-armed sword and the scorpion-tail gun? It may not be as powerful as Liu Yikong. Among the top four in this Heroes Association, except for Brother Sun... there is a bit of that, right... The other three, none of them are beating Zheng Ge.
These two things?
So, when they sat down to eat, the first thing they did was to brag to Lei Buji about the fight.
Huang Donglai is a very talkative person. If there is Sun Yixie next to him making jokes and talking nonsense, then the two of them are equivalent to talking about cross talk, and when Huang Ge speaks alone, it is similar to stand-up.
Lei Buji listened to Huang Donglai's vivid description with great interest, and from time to time he would interject with complimentary questions, which made Huang Donglai talk more and more energetically.
Once this person drinks a little bit of wine, his voice will get louder, and when he gets more interested, his voice will get louder.
When he came back to his senses, Huang Donglai was already sitting on a railing, with one foot on a stool, a wine glass in one hand, and chopsticks in the other, talking and gesticulating.
And his performance also unknowingly attracted a group of onlookers...
The restaurant they went to was neither good nor bad. It was the kind of restaurant with a relatively high occupancy rate, but it was not so cheap that anyone could sit down and eat. This restaurant was undoubtedly chosen by Sun Yihe, as it was a fish market like his.
He knows exactly which restaurant offers the most cost-effective river crabs.
Some of the people who came around to watch Huang Donglai's "storytelling" were still sitting in their original positions, just turning their heads to look at it, and some were almost done eating, so they simply brought their own stools and sat closer to listen. Some even did so at first.
The good guys who had seen the competition in the ring sat on the sidelines and chatted with Huang Donglai, singing and singing together, not to mention how lively it was.
It's obviously a competition that can be explained in a few words, but Huang Donglai talked a lot about it, and the content was quite interesting. There were many things that people in the world know about, but ordinary people don't know much about it. Listen.
I felt very novel.
But... as the saying goes, misfortune comes from the mouth.
Some people like to hear Huang Donglai's words, but some don't.
Who doesn’t like to hear it?
party……
When Sun Huang and Lei Buji walked into the restaurant, they didn't notice that Zheng Mukai, the "Kaifeng Three-Armed Sword", was sitting in a corner on the second floor with two young men who were younger than him.
Drink and dine together.
Coincidence?
Coincident, but also normal.
Zheng Mukai is the head escort of the Guangxing Escort Bureau in Kaifeng Prefecture. Kaifeng is not far from Xuzhou. When he goes out as an escort, he must pass by Xuzhou whenever he goes south. At the moment, he has just finished his trip.
The escort is on his way back with two escorts from the escort agency.
When Huang Donglai started to tell Lei Buji about the martial arts competition in the ring, Zheng Mukai heard it immediately, and his two followers soon heard it too... Even if they were not martial arts practitioners, they heard what someone nearby said
Words like "Guangxing Escort Agency" and "Zheng Mukai" will also attract attention. What's more, they are all martial arts practitioners and their hearing is more sensitive than ordinary people.
Originally, Zheng Mukai didn't really want to recall this incident. After all, the incident was not very honorable to him, regardless of the cause and effect or the process of being stopped. Now in front of two juniors, Huang Donglai's words were ambiguous.
He has almost been reduced to nothing, can he not be impatient?
Objectively speaking, Zheng Mukai can be considered a second-rate master and a well-known figure in the world. It is inappropriate for you, a junior of 17 or 18, to publicly comment on your seniors; you said that he could not defeat the masked man.
That's fine, because that's a fact that everyone has seen, but as you keep saying... you actually say that he can't even beat the chicks who just came out of the Young Heroes Association like you. He can't bear it.
Snapped--
Just when Huang Donglai was about to get excited, a violent table slam suddenly sounded from the corner of the second floor of the restaurant.
When everyone heard the sound and turned around to look, they saw that the legs of the table were broken and the food and wine on the table were spilled. The three men stood up from their chairs and walked towards them menacingly.
This came out... the common people in this universe are so familiar. When the folks around "listening to books" saw this, they immediately dispersed and retreated a few feet away. The waiter in the store also hurriedly ran down to inform the shopkeeper.
, let the shopkeeper do something.
At the same time, the three men from Guangxing Escort Agency had already arrived at the table where Sun Yixie, Huang Donglai and Lei Buji were sitting.
Zheng Mukai stood at the front, his face full of anger, and he shouted: "Where did you come from, a child with a yellow mouth! Dare you talk nonsense here?"
At this moment, Huang Donglai had mostly sobered up from his drink. Although Sun Yixie and Lei Buji hadn't stood up yet, they both looked at Zheng Mukai and were wary.
"Oh~" Huang Donglai quickly recognized Zheng Mukai, "It turns out to be the head escort of Guangxing Escort Bureau Zheng. I'm disrespectful..."
He is so thick-skinned. One minute he was saying bad things about others, and the next minute he was smiling and saying "disrespectful".
"Huh." Zheng Mukai didn't answer his words and snorted coldly, meaning that he didn't want to be polite to you.
The waiter on his left also understood and answered: "Our escort is asking you who you are? Don't be so playful and tell your name quickly!"
Huang Donglai was not afraid of them, so he just smiled coldly: "It's easy to say, Huang Donglai is at Huangmen in Xia Shuzhong."
As soon as these words were spoken, Zheng Mukai and the other three were obviously startled.
Huang Donglai? Isn't that the young master of the Huang Clan who, together with Sun Yixie at the Young Heroes Meeting not long ago, broke the Tianqi gang's conspiracy and saved hundreds of righteous people in the martial arts?
A person's name, the shadow of a tree, a month ago, Huang Dong came from Baojiamen, and people were at most wary of the Huangmen behind him, but now... others have to think highly of him.
"Oh...it's Mr. Huang." Zheng Mukai's attitude changed a little quickly, and his tone softened a lot at once, but he was still angry. Besides, he couldn't save his face by giving in at this time, so he continued, "
Zheng and Huang Shaoxia had no grievances in the past and have no enmity in recent times. Why is Huang Shaoxia publicly slandering Zheng here today? Could it be that... he is having trouble with my Guangxing Escort Agency?"
His set of words is considered a standard routine.
"No grievances in the past, no grievances in the near future" means: now it is your fault and your responsibility; "slander and slander" is his own definition, and the implication is: he believes that what Huang Donglai just said is not true.
In fact, if Huang Donglai disagrees with this, he is provoking trouble; and the last sentence "I can't get along with my Guangxing Escort Agency" is more obvious. It is a threat, binding his personal reputation to the sect, which means that you have offended him.
I offended our entire escort agency.
Can Huang Donglai not taste these?
It's just that he doesn't want to tell the truth... Although he can also jump up and emphasize that what he said is true, and it is a bit artistic exaggeration at most, but people want face and trees want skin, and it is really not good for you to say that in front of Zheng Mukai.
, you have to give people a step down.
"Uh...hahahahaha..." When Huang Donglai said "uh", he glanced at Sun Yixie. The two looked at each other and the communication was completed. Then Huang Donglai burst into laughter.
"Hahahaha..." Sun Yixie also laughed.
Lei Buji was already very familiar with this process. When he saw the two eldest brothers starting to laugh, he understood what would happen next... so he also followed suit and laughed.
"Brother Zheng! Brother! I was wrong!" After laughing a few times, Huang Donglai suddenly acted like he was drunk again, and picked up a flask on the table with a swipe, "Brother, he made a mistake while drunk.
Nonsense! Brother, you have a lot, please spare me for once, but there is nothing else... I will punish myself first!"
After saying that, before Zheng Mukai could reply, he downed the entire bottle of wine. After drinking it... he turned his back to the sky, with his limbs spread wide, and lay down on the spot.
Zheng Mukai and the two gangsters beside him were also stunned when they saw this. They thought, is there such a thing that "self-destructs" as soon as he says two words?
However, Huang Donglai's move has already given Zheng Mu a step forward. As long as he says "forget it" now, it will be fine.
"Hmm..." Zheng Mukai thought for a while, and there was really no need to vent his anger on this shameless person. Besides, the other party apologized and fined him a drink, and most of his anger was gone. If he stared at a junior again,
If he refused to give in, he would appear to be petty, so he planned to open his mouth to reconcile.
unexpectedly……
"I'll also punish you with a pot!" Lei Buji probably felt that... it was time to apply the skills of pretending to be a grandson taught him by the two eldest brothers in the past, so when he saw Huang Ge blowing himself up, he also imitated it.
Pick up a pot and say "tons, tons, tons"...
Pour another one.
"Stop talking! Brother Zheng, I will also punish Brother Huang with a pot and a bowl of crab soup!" Sun Yixie watched as both of them fell. If he didn't follow up, he would have to top the tank.
Just... even eat and drink, and perform a stunt for Zheng Mukai and the others of eating a bowl of crab soup and drinking a bottle of wine in ten seconds, and then just lie there.
Zheng Mukai stood there, everyone was dumbfounded, thinking: "What's going on with these three grandsons? What kind of trick is this? How come I haven't seen them in all these years of traveling around the world?"
While he was still thinking about life there, the shopkeeper of the restaurant came over and said, "Uh... sir, have you solved the misunderstanding?"
This shopkeeper is so smart. He was watching from the side just now. When he saw this scene, he probably couldn't fight, so he stepped forward.
Hearing this, the shopkeeper glanced at the table that Zheng Mukai and the others had just destroyed and the food and wine there: "Then look...shall we change your seats and put the food and wine on the table again?"
"No need." How could Zheng Mukai continue to stay here to eat and drink? He said, then reached into his pocket to take out the money, "pay the bill, and I'll pay for anything broken."
"Hey! Okay, I'm so generous!" The shopkeeper smiled happily when he saw the money, and quickly praised him to prevent the other party from changing his mind.
After paying the money, Zheng Mukai and his two followers left with a pained look on their faces. They didn't even have a full meal or a full drink. They had no choice but to find another place to go, and it was best to stay away from here.
But before they could even walk out of the street, Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai, who had just been lying on the ground like two dead dogs, got up.
In those days, it was really not that easy to get drunk.
They just used this method to send Zheng Mukai away. Anyway, they were thick-skinned, so they still had the nerve to sit there and eat and drink after the performance.
"Hey, Buji, wake up, it's okay." Sun Yixie stood up and sat down, then reached out and pushed Lei Buji.
Unexpectedly, he was answered by a cry.
"Damn, are you really drunk?" Sun Yixie said, "He is a child after all, so he can't drink well."
In fact, he took it for granted when he said this. In this universe, he is only one or two years older than Lei Buji physically. The reason why Lei Buji really fell down is simply because he had less opportunities to drink since he was a child.
He lacked experience and training, so the impact of drinking a bottle of wine this time was too big. Unlike him and Huang Donglai, they had a well-off family since childhood and had more opportunities to drink.
"Hey~ Ignore him, let's eat." Huang Donglai also patted the dust on his clothes and sat down again, "Waiter, some more steamed ones, and two more bowls of ginger vinegar."
Seeing how shameless these two were, the guest officers and waiters around them also laughed bitterly, but seeing that the three of them were young men of seventeen or eighteen years old, no one said anything.
The matter of today's restaurant was not a big deal to begin with. It stands to reason that it would have been brought to light and no one would mention it again.
Who would have thought...that something happened that night, less than three hours later.
At the end of Haishi, the person in charge of the watch on East Street discovered a corpse - Zheng Mukai's corpse.
His body was lying in the back alley of an inn in the east of the city. Almost his whole body was covered with injuries, and his face was beaten out of shape.
There is a hint in the book here that this inn is the one where Sun Yixie, Huang Donglai and Lei Buji stayed.
If you think that ancient watchmen would panic and yell when they found a corpse, you are totally wrong - anyone who has been doing this for a long time will have seen more corpses than you have ever talked about.
There is still more love.
In a society based on an agricultural economy, no matter how peaceful the year is, people will die of starvation or disease on the roadside all year round. In winter, more people die of cold and starvation; therefore, during that season, people will die of hunger or disease.
It is very common to see lifeless dead people lying in the streets while walking down the street.
When a veteran sees the person, they usually go up and check it out to see how the person died and whether he had an infectious disease. Then he calmly informs the local security guard, who then decides whether to alert the Yamen.
Zheng Mukai's death was in such a way that anyone could tell it was murder. Therefore, the Yamenmen must be dispatched, and arrests could be made. Even the more perfunctory and incompetent arrests must at least come and go.
Transitions.
The head catcher in Xuzhou City is called Dong Wan, and he is a very typical Dazu head catcher.
He knows some martial arts, but he can only defeat local gangsters and restrain his agents. He cannot beat the masters of the martial arts and green forest. He also has some brains, but it is only at the level of ordinary people, just average.
Please note that the "ordinary people" I am talking about here are based on modern people's standards. Because of the backward education level and natural science knowledge of the people of that era, most of them are considered stupid in the eyes of today's people. Although they are different from us
Physiologically speaking, there is almost no difference, but the era we live in has allowed us to stand on the shoulders of giants since our birth, so it is true that people today are generally more "smart".
Dong Wan ran to the crime scene to check, and found out Zheng Mukai's identity from the "Guangxing Escort Bureau" badge on his body. After asking someone about it, he found out that Zheng Mukai had stayed in another hotel in the west of the city.
In the inn.
So he led his people to the inn again, and found that the two waiters who were traveling with him were also dead. They died in the guest room, and they were also covered with injuries. They looked like they had been beaten alive by punches.
dead.
Three lives were lost in one night, and all died unexpectedly. It is impossible for the government to ignore this.
Since none of the belongings of the three deceased persons were taken away, this matter obviously looks more like a vendetta rather than a murder for money. In this case, in accordance with the rules agreed between the Jianghu and the government,
Then the victims of the Guangxing Escort Bureau should be notified as quickly as possible and let them investigate on their own. As for the government, apart from preserving the bodies for them and providing some information on the scene, they don't care about anything else - if you want revenge, go there yourself.
.
Flying pigeons deliver messages very quickly, and the death of the head escort is also a big deal.
Therefore, the head of the Guangxing Escort Bureau, who was also Zheng Mukai's master, Zhu Jiaduan, the "Through-Arm Divine Sword", personally brought a group of escort leaders and escorts, a total of more than 20 people, to Xuzhou overnight to kill them.
This leads to the story - Lei Buji was wronged and imprisoned, and Sun Yi laughed and explored the secluded corridor of Qiliu.