The rain had stopped, but the sky remained overcast.
The Tongzhou docks were a scene of utter chaos.
By the pier, Lu Wenzhao still sat slumped in the filthy puddle of mud and rainwater. His straw rain cape had long been torn to shreds.
Xu Wuyou stood on the high steps, glancing down dismissively at the disgraced accountant. Then he found the whole affair rather boring.
He had thought the old fellow might stir up some real trouble, but after a little probing, this was all the fight he had left.
He turned his head and nodded toward Lao Zhou, who was holding an umbrella at his side. "The river wind carries a chill. Go to the back hall, warm up that jug of aged Shaoxing wine, and slice two plates of smoked meat. Our Accountant Lu is cornered now—he’ll surely thrash about a bit longer. Let’s sit and wait for his move."
Lao Zhou, upon hearing this, couldn’t stop his hand holding the umbrella from trembling three times, nearly spilling the leftover rainwater onto Xu Wuyou’s shoulder.
He kept his head low, his eyes darting wildly in their sockets.
What did the hall master mean by this? He had even predicted the desperate, cornered-beast tactics Lu Wenzhao might resort to!
He was turning this pier full of over a hundred men into a stage, and Lu Wenzhao into a monkey for his amusement!
A chill ran through Lao Zhou. He dared not utter a word, bowed deeply, and scurried off to warm the wine.
At the other end of the pier, Lei Zhen had long stopped spinning the pair of century-old, dimpled lion-head walnuts in his hands.
He, the grand guild chief, had been exposed as an empty shell in front of his own men by this brat. His aged face flushed a deep, liver-spotted red.
"Xu Wuyou!" Lei Zhen ground his molars. "I have led Tongji for thirty years. This guild’s foundation was laid by the old generation with blood and blades!
Your Xu family may have connections that reach the heavens, but you can’t sever my guild’s roots with just a few words! I will stake my old life on this, even if I have to—"
"Stake what, exactly?"
Xu Wuyou didn’t even look at him. He flipped the hem of his brocade robe and sat firmly in the carved armchair behind him.
"With your adopted sons, who can barely lift a blade? Or with your council hall that leaks every time it rains?
Guild Chief Lei, times have changed.
That code of brotherhood you cling to means less than a fart in the face of cold, hard silver and imperial law. Take your men and back off. Don’t get splattered with blood."
Lei Zhen, choked by these words, could only roll his eyes, unable to spit out a single retort.
He had wanted to use his seniority as a veteran of the jianghu to pressure this Xu whelp, but instead, he had been stripped bare, his flaws laid out for all to see.
In the mud, Lu Wenzhao listened to the exchange from the high steps, glaring hatefully at Xu Wuyou’s lazy, indifferent face.
His mind was a tangled mess as he retraced Xu Wuyou’s every move over the past half month in Tongzhou, piecing it together backward.
The further he traced, the more bone-chilling his realization became.
Not long ago, Xu Wuyou had just taken over the Water Transport Hall. He spent his days either listening to music or sleeping, paying no mind to affairs on the river.
Lu Wenzhao had dismissed it as the behavior of a spoiled noble son from the capital. But now he understood—it wasn’t neglect; it was a baited hook, cast out and waiting!
Xu Wuyou had been waiting!
Waiting for him, Lu Wenzhao, to gather all the secret agents of the Minister’s Office, waiting for him to load all hundred thousand taels of annual tribute onto the Zhenhai!
Deliberately shutting down the waterway and producing the account books from the Huitong Bank in public—it was all to force him to reveal every last card on this pier, then catch him and the stolen funds in one net!
"What a ruthless scheme... such venomous methods!"
Lu Wenzhao ground his teeth until they creaked, his eyes bloodshot.
No! It wasn’t over yet!
Lu Wenzhao bit down hard on the tip of his tongue. The sharp, coppery pain sobered him slightly.
He still had one last card to play—a hidden move he’d kept in reserve to defend against river bandits along the way.
If he could cause chaos, he might slip into the Tongzhou River and find a way to escape.
Slowly, he raised his trembling right hand. Pretending to wipe the mud from his face, he brought his sleeve close to his lips.
Hidden in the fabric was a bone-white whistle.
Summoning every ounce of strength, Lu Wenzhao bit down on the whistle and blew hard.
A piercing, shrill sound cut through the oppressive river wind, racing toward the river’s heart.
The Zhenhai, anchored in the thick fog at the river’s center, shuddered violently.
Then came a crash.
A section of the hull in the ship’s lower hold was shattered from the inside. Wood splinters flew in every direction.
Over twenty dark figures burst through the breach and plunged into the muddy waves of the Tongzhou River.
These men were wrapped head to toe in oil-soaked black cloth, leaving only their murderous eyes exposed. Each carried a short, foot-long steel blade held low.
They were superb swimmers, riding the heaving currents like a pack of wolves catching scent of blood, closing in on the pier with terrifying speed.
Before the nearest dockhands from the Water Transport Hall could react, several shadows had already climbed the stone embankment on the crest of a wave.
There were no shouts, no exchanged blows.
Three workers’ necks were slashed open, spewing a mix of red and white. Their bodies crumpled into the mud, dead without even a struggle.
Assassins! That pennyless accountant had actually bred assassins!
The remaining guild members on the pier screamed in terror and scrambled backward.
Even Lei Zhen stumbled back three steps in fear.
The black-clad assassins ignored everyone else, stepping over the bodies of their fallen allies and the laborers, their blades aimed solely at Xu Wuyou, still seated high on the steps.
Lao Zhou, seeing the carnage of blood and torn flesh, felt his legs tremble uncontrollably.
"Hall Master! Retreat quickly!"
Xu Wuyou sat in his armchair, not even bothering to shift his weight.
He watched the black-clad assassins charging toward him, even shook his head with a hint of disappointment.
"Is this all the fanfare you could muster, to warrant Accountant Lu blowing his whistle?"
"Scholar Lu! A whistle—I have one too!"
Xu Wuyou reached into his robe and pulled out a slender bamboo whistle, casually pressing it to his lips.
A breath of air set it off.
The whistle pierced through the roaring wind like a needle, carrying far and wide.
From the nearby stretch of dead-end fog, untouched by sunlight all year round, the sudden smack of oars against water erupted.
The mist was brutally parted by several sharp prows.
Five shallow-draft centipede boats burst through the waves, charging forward.
No guild banners flew aboard, only a suffocating sea of crimson.
Ranks of flying-fish uniforms packed the decks.
Shen Lian stood at the bow of the lead vessel, hand resting on the brocade knife at his waist.
Chilly river water slid down his angular face, his eyes radiating a coldness that dismissed life and death alike.
Before the boats even touched shore, Shen Lian’s icy voice cut through the river wind: "Imperial Embroidered Uniform Guard—official business. Release the arrows."
No wasted words, no battle cries before the charge.
Along the gunwales of the centipede boats, a row of iron-plated shields, half a man’s height, rose into position.
From the gaps behind the shields, dozens of military-grade repeating crossbows gleamed in the light.
The harshest tactic of the Great Qian army—three-stage volley fire—unfolded on that narrow dock, displaying a crushing efficiency of slaughter.
Those black-clad elite fighters, who were top-tier masters in the jianghu, proved as fragile as paper in the face of such armor-piercing bolts.
The foremost seven or eight were still mid-leap when the dense volley pierced clean through them.
They tried to parry with their fine steel blades, only to have the weapons torn from their hands on impact.
The fighters behind attempted to dodge with bizarre footwork, but the second and third waves of arrows had already sealed every escape route.
In less than ten breaths, all twenty-some assassins lay dead without a survivor.
Torn corpses piled up at the dock’s entrance, dyeing the turbid waves of Tongzhou River into a glaring red ribbon.
Shen Lian stepped off the gangplank onto the shore, wading through pools of blood, and walked straight to Xu Wuyou.
The commander of the Imperial Embroidered Uniform Guard, a man who made civil and military officials alike tremble in fear, unusually raised his hands in a salute: "Hall Master Xu, the hidden agents outside the city have been completely cleansed. I, Shen, am half a beat late."
Xu Wuyou rose to his feet, brushing the dust from his sleeves: "Lord Shen arrives just in time—this play has reached its finale."
To Xu Wuyou, these words were mere politeness. But to the ears of others, they struck like thunder.
Off in the distance, Third Master Tie was already terrified out of his wits.
Staring at the heap of black-clad swordsmen slaughtered on the ground, then at Shen Lian’s grim face, his knees gave way, and he dropped straight into the water.
"Your Excellency! Great Lord of Justice!" Third Master Tie scrambled on all fours toward Shen Lian, wailing continuously.
"I was tricked by this Lu Wenzhao! This Lu embezzled military funds and plotted rebellion! I’m willing to testify—please let me live, my lord!"
Shen Lian didn’t even glance his way. Two of his escort riders rushed forward, shattered Third Master Tie’s jaw with their scabbards, and dragged him away like a dead dog.
Lu Wenzhao was pinned by two riders beside the bodies of the slain assassins.
He strained to lift his head, looking up at Xu Wuyou on the raised platform.
Xu Wuyou still wore that carefree expression, his eyes carrying that same look of "is that all there is?" as before.
But in Lu Wenzhao’s eyes, that demeanor was a hundred times more terrifying than any demon of death.
He understood everything now.
Xu Wuyou had already read all his cards, and even the elite fighters he’d saved for a last stand had been part of Xu’s scheme.
The Imperial Embroidered Uniform Guard had been pre-deployed downstream, ready to use absolute violence to shatter Lu’s final hope.
Flawless calculations—truly flawless!
Lu Wenzhao suddenly burst into a bitter laugh amid the blood-soaked water.
"Hahaha… Xu Wuyou… the Xu family… I lost without a shred of injustice! To fall into the hands of a monster like you, I have no right to complain!"
In the corner, Lei Zhen stood drenched in cold sweat.
He stared blankly at Xu Wuyou chatting and laughing with Shen Lian, feeling dizzy and dazed.
The Tongji Canal Guild? The rules of the jianghu?
Before such overwhelming power, they were nothing but childish jokes.
The Xu family could even summon the imperial secret police at will—the sky over Tongzhou River had truly changed.
But Lu Wenzhao was still lost in his own defeat and despair. He laughed until his shoulders shook, laughed until tears streamed down again.
"Hall Master Xu… how… how did you figure it all out?"
Xu Wuyou stood up, flicking a speck of mud from his hem.
He was about to launch into a moving speech.
But then he paused, as if something struck him, and let out a soft laugh instead.
"Figure it out? I never bothered to figure anything out," he said. "Accountant Lu, you overestimated yourself. That bit of silver, that handful of men—to the Xu family, they’re not even chips on the table."
He shook his head, a hint of genuine feeling creeping into his voice for once.
"You just happened to be… standing in the way."
Lu Wenzhao’s laughter stopped abruptly.
He stared at Xu Wuyou, as if seeing this man for the very first time.
Not scheming, not plotting—not even directed at him, Lu Wenzhao...
Just happened to be in the way?
Then what was all this—a lifetime of maneuvering, these tens of thousands of silver taels of stolen funds, this intricately woven network of connections? All for nothing.
A joke.
Lu Wenzhao lowered his head, staring at his hands caked with mud.
Those hands had once worked an abacus, kept ledgers, and fumbled out stacks of banknotes from secret compartments.
“Hall Master Xu,” he rasped, his voice hoarse. “Could you... make it quick?”
Xu Wuyou did not reply. Instead, he turned to look behind him.
Footsteps sounded from that direction.
It was Shen Lian.
He approached, swept his gaze over the corpses on the plank bridge, then glanced at Lu Wenzhao wallowing in the mud, and finally let his eyes rest on Xu Wuyou.
“Hall Master Xu,” Shen Lian said. “His Majesty wants him alive. This man is to be taken away by the Imperial City Department.”
