Xu Youde's eyelids drooped, his gaze lingering on the bright brass keys for a long time.
There was no sound around, the towering mahogany counter blocking the daylight outside the door, the iron abacus neatly displayed on the counter.
Qi Wanshan's raised hands remained frozen, the wide sleeves of his purple robe casting deep shadows.
"Someone come!"
A soldier strode over the high threshold, grabbed the brass objects with one hand, the objects clashing against each other.
Dozens of Tiqi carrying embroidered spring swords followed him around the screen in the hall, down the bluestone steps behind the hidden compartment to the third-level basement, the smell of burning fat from the torches rolling up from the hole.
The hall returned to quiet, and half a cup of tea's time passed.
The complex sound of footsteps and the muffled sound of hemp rope tightening around logs rose from the ground. Eight sturdy Tiqi, two in a group, used thick hemp rope through carrying poles to lift four large red pine wooden boxes to the flat ground.
"Bang—Bang—"
The bottom of the boxes smashed down one after another, shaking up the floating dust deep in the gaps of the floor tiles.
Following closely, the fifth, the tenth... a full sixty large boxes filled the council hall.
Xu Youde took the iron pry bar handed by his subordinate, roughly inserted it into the hole of the external copper lock, and forcefully pried it out.
Then the box lid flipped backward and smashed down.
The hall suddenly lit up with piercing silver light, the integrally cast official treasury silver ingots, each bottom engraved with a special wheat ear bottom mark, neatly stacked.
In another box on the side, old yellow hemp paper rolled into thick tubes and tied together—the special salt certificates for Lianghuai, emitting a very strong smell of anti-corrosion potion.
The wide hem of Xu Youde's official green robe swept over the gold bricks. He bypassed the wooden boxes and stopped three feet in front of Qi Wanshan. The contrasting green and purple official robes were extremely stark in this empty shop.
"Great Shopkeeper Qi has such a good bearing," Xu Youde lowered his voice, "Hundreds of thousands of taels of real gold and silver, sixty-three living human lives, plus a century of business foundation."
"Just push forward with both hands and offer it all?"
Xu Youde kept his hands in his sleeves, leaning his torso forward and pressing: "In our Jiangning area or Yuzhou Prefecture, even a street peddler who steals money, when seeing the official constables, still knows to hit the south wall with his head to fight for his life. Your Qi family is known to be as rich as an entire state."
"This pile of real gold in the silver vault is enough to smash open the twelve city gates of the capital and buy a way out. But you are so relaxed, not opening the back door bolt, not lifting the guards' sticks. Not even half a thought of running away? Where in the world is there a businessman who just waits to be slaughtered?"
Hearing this, Qi Wanshan slowly withdrew his hands. He smoothed the tassels of his crown on his temples, heavily bent his knees, and fell straight to the ground. He didn't face Xu Youde, but turned his whole body to the north—towards the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Imperial Palace.
His forehead hit the cold stone bricks, the echo deep.
"Run? The whole world is within the cage of the king's law, where can I run?" Qi Wanshan spoke, his voice dry. "When there's a deficit in this account, someone needs to fill it with their life. Sacrificing my collateral branch to preserve the century-old tree of the main family from falling, this is not called accepting fate, this is called the rules."
Qi Wanshan's torso lay flat on the ground: "The aristocratic families branch out, and the collateral branches rely on the main family's protection to enjoy glory and wealth. When encountering a heavenly thunderbolt, the collateral branch must stick out its neck to block the disaster and cut off the rear."
"How many people should die, how much money should be collected to fill the deficit, the people above have already calculated the weight on the chessboard. The century-old incense of the main family is preserved, so the deaths of my sixty-three people are worth it."
"The rules are set above our heads, no one dares to change them, and no one can escape."
Xu Youde listened, his back soaked in sweat.
What these people calculated in their minds was never individual life or death. They converted the business of living people into cold-blooded chips, trading the extinction of one branch for the everlasting prosperity of another. The foundation and structure of aristocratic families were far more bone-eating than swords and weapons.
Xu Youde withdrew his gaze, raised his right hand, and slashed horizontally towards the back.
Two accompanying Tiqi strode forward, carrying an iron-clad wooden cangue weighing over thirty catties.
Qi Wanshan supported himself on the floor tiles and stood up. He lowered his head and looked at the texture of the wooden groove of the cangue, stretched his arms straight forward, and tightly closed his ten fingers. The two pieces of heavy wood pressed down and closed, the "click" sound of locking extremely crisp.
The iron clamped tightly around his neck, Qi Wanshan's breathing didn't quicken, and his footsteps didn't stagger. His whole demeanor was exactly like a rigid opera that had been practiced hundreds of times according to the script.
Submission was far more scalp-numbing than desperate resistance.
For the next seven days.
Iron hooves successively smashed the thresholds of the Wang family's layout in the south of the city, the Li family's pawnshop in the east street, and the Guo family's fur shop in the west market.
These century-old prominent families all made completely identical responses.
Every vermilion gate was opened in advance. Stepping into the courtyard, one could see the land deeds and gold and silver objects listed in the account books all displayed in the center of the bluestone patio. Even the three taels and seven mace of scattered silver recorded on the last page of the account book were not short by half a point in the wooden tray.
The matriarch in charge sat in the inner hall, her hair neatly combed, her fingers twisting a handkerchief, tears held in her eyes but absolutely daring not to fall.
The head of the family, fully dressed, waited with bound hands before the ancestral tablets in the ancestral hall.
Putting on the cangue, sealing the door of the house, there was no sound of clashing swords, let alone the crying and howling of family members.
Half of the capital's business world was stripped bare in a silent sacrifice.
The flowing light of the setting sun was swallowed by the evening glow, and the wine banners on both sides of Vermilion Bird Street drooped.
At the end of the long street, a full sixty iron-clad heavy carts were connected head to tail, stretching over two miles. The heavy draft horses pulling the carts puffed white mist from their noses and mouths, and the terrifying weight of three million taels of cash silver pressed entirely on the axles, the wooden axles emitting creaking moans of breaking at any time.
The wheels rolled over the bluestone paved road, forcibly carving out two deep, white rut marks. The barking of dogs running through the streets and alleys had completely disappeared from the entire avenue.
Only the many three-story taverns and teahouses on both sides of the road held hidden mysteries.
The carved wooden windows were more than half closed. Inside the finely woven bamboo curtains, someone pinched a celadon teacup, the tea splashing onto the table and spreading wet marks.
Someone sat upright in a grand armchair, closed their eyes and listened to the wheels turning on the street, their dry, tree-like fingers tapping the rhythm lightly on their knees.
The high-ranking officials of the Six Ministries and Nine Ministries, and the other unscathed heads of aristocratic families, all hid within this shadow.
They were counting this blood money bought with the lives of their companions. Once the three million taels were smoothly transported into the national treasury, the sharp blade hanging over their heads by the emperor would be temporarily sheathed.
And all the notorious reputation of bloody storms would be borne entirely by the nouveau riche merchant riding on horseback below.
A silent tacit understanding filled the long street, and the power transactions were completed in a peaceful atmosphere.
Xu Youde sat straddling the back of the tall, mixed-color horse.
The cold wind of late autumn poured into his body through the rough collar. His close-fitting inner clothes were soaked in the sour and bitter smell of sweat, sticking tightly to his back. A bone-chilling cold passed through him.
Xu Youde forcefully pulled the thick hemp reins, turned the horse's head, and looked back.
The heavy carts transporting silver, bending the axles, were endless. In the distance, the door panels of those luxurious mansions that had once been painted with red oil and vermilion lacquer were cross-pasted with pale white seals stamped with the red mud seals of the Ministry of Revenue and the Supreme Court.
The chessboard of the aristocratic families used him as the sickle for clearing the board. Once the sickle finished cutting the wheat and rusted, it would surely be discarded as a useless pawn and thrown into the furnace to melt in the future.
Xu Youde spat heavily onto the blue bricks of the street.
"The noble families are forged of iron, but their lackeys flow away like water!
"In our past lives they were the creditors, in this life they are the house, and in the next..."
"In the next life, we will even have to borrow the copper coins for reincarnation from them."
