Chapter 47 Scaling the Wall to Enter the Courtyard

Unlike the others who went to sleep, Yang Yuan was gripped by an unusual agitation. A burning resentment choked his chest, making it impossible for him to calm down as the night deepened.

In the darkness, Liu Heng clutched his saber, as did the few men beside him, all holding their respective weapons tightly.

"The more crucial the moment, the steadier we must be," Liu Heng said in the gloom. "The weather is too hot, everyone turns in late. We will make our move later in the second half of the night when it cools down a bit. There is no rush right now."

One thousand taels of silver was of paramount importance to the wandering bandit camp. Purchasing matchlocks and weapons—every single item required a substantial amount of silver.

A single coin could defeat a hero, and Liu Heng himself had no idea where he could suddenly procure silver. Chen Daifu had cheated him out of his money, and he naturally could not swallow this grievance alone.

Coming to Lingqiu was, apart from the matter of the matchlocks, precisely to settle this score with Chen Daifu.

The main camp was short on silver, and Liu Heng had considered raising funds through pillaging, but the thought was dismissed the moment it arose.

The Great Ming was still relatively stable at present, and continuing to act as roving bandits was sheer suicide. A single garrison like Tiancheng could wipe them out, and the Ming Dynasty possessed far more than just the Tiancheng Garrison; there were much more formidable border armies out there. Any single division dispatched from the Nine Garrisons could obliterate him and the thousand-or-so bandits under his command.

Just look at someone as formidable as Chuangwang Gao Yingxiang, the leader of the Thirteen Houses and Seventy-Two Camps. His momentum and forces were vastly superior to this handful of men. Yet, after burning the ancestral tombs of the imperial Zhu family in Fengyang, wasn't he eventually captured and beheaded at Heishuiyu?

Liu Heng leaned his back against the wall, holding his saber in his arms and remaining completely motionless. After asking his single question, Yang Yuan also sat obediently on the stool inside the room, waiting patiently.

The third watch passed, and the temperature inside the room dropped slightly.

Around the Chou hour, Liu Heng, who had been sitting with his eyes closed in waiting, opened his eyes in the darkness and suddenly stood up.

The moment he moved, the few men in the room rose in succession.

"Let's go."

Liu Heng walked out into the courtyard, followed by Yang Yuan and the rest.

The wall between the two courtyards was higher than a man. Liu Heng took two steps back, broke into a forward sprint, leaped, hooked his fingers over the edge of the wall, and hoisted himself up.

Straddling the wall, he pulled the other men up one by one. Once everyone dropped into Chen Daifu's courtyard, he carefully jumped down from the wall himself, making as little sound as possible.

The figures of the several men materialized inside Chen Daifu's courtyard. Liu Heng turned back and made a silencing gesture toward Yang Yuan and the others, then crouched and crept across the courtyard toward the door of the main quarters.

Five men, including Liu Heng, pressed their bodies against the exterior wall of Chen Daifu's main room.

Liu Heng extracted a dagger, slid it into the gap between the door panels, and carefully pried at the wooden bolt inside.

After nudging the bolt a dozen times with the tip of the dagger, it finally slid to the side. With a gentle push of his hand, Liu Heng swung one panel of the main door open.

Liu Heng stepped inside on tiptoe, moving as silently as possible so as not to make the slightest sound.

Yang Yuan and the others followed him in one after another, leaving only Zheng Tie behind in the courtyard to keep watch.

Chen Daifu's main quarters consisted of three rooms. The middle was the outer hall, directly facing the entrance, flanked by an eastern and a western room on either side.

Liu Heng, having stepped in through the doorway, paused in the outer hall and strained his ears to listen. The sound of snoring drifted from the eastern room, while the western room remained dead silent.

At this juncture, Liu Heng dared not be careless. He turned back, exchanged a glance with Yang Yuan, and pointed his finger toward the western room.

Yang Yuan nodded, took one man with him, and crept toward the western room.

Before long, Yang Yuan emerged from the western room and gave Liu Heng a slight shake of his head.

The snoring in the eastern room rose and fell in rhythmic succession; the person inside was still fast asleep.

With it confirmed that no one was in the western room, the target had to be in the eastern room.

Liu Heng raised a finger and pointed at the eastern room. Yang Yuan led the men toward it once more, but this time, Liu Heng followed them in.

By the faint moonlight, two pale bodies, a man and a woman, lay on the brick kang bed in the eastern room. The man was snoring intermittently, making him exceedingly easy to identify.

Yang Yuan crept close, carefully bypassing the man on the kang, and approached the woman. With one hand, he clamped it tightly over her mouth, while with the other, he drew his blade and slashed it straight across her throat.

The woman kicked her legs twice before going completely limp and still.

Witnessing this, the corner of Liu Heng's eye twitched, yet he said nothing.

He could have allowed Yang Yuan to spare the woman's life, but he could not afford to take that risk. If anyone was to be blamed, it was this woman for coming to see Chen Daifu tonight.

Following Yang Yuan's slash, a stream of the woman's blood spurted out, some of it splashing onto Chen Daifu, who was sleeping right beside her.

Chen Daifu, deep in slumber and entirely devoid of vigilance, instinctively wiped at the warm blood spattered on his body with his hand in his dream, and continued to snore heavily.

Seeing this, Yang Yuan didn't wait for Chen Daifu to wake up on his own. He retreated to the outer hall, scooped a ladle of cold water from the water vat, and splashed it directly onto Chen Daifu.

Stung by the cold water, Chen Daifu jolted upright, muttering incoherently, "It's... it's raining."

The moment he opened his eyes, he saw several unfamiliar, fierce-looking men standing right beside the edge of the kang. This terrified him immensely. Just as he was about to cry out, he caught sight of a gleaming, cold blade point aimed directly at him. Paralyzed with fear, he stammered, "Wh-who are you? What are you doing in my house?"

"Ah! Blood!"

Pressing his hand against the bedding, Chen Daifu felt a sticky sensation. Turning his head to look, he saw the head of the woman sleeping beside him slumped awkwardly, her throat still oozing blood. He could not help crying out in terror.

"Shut your mouth! One more sound and I'll kill you right now." Yang Yuan pressed his blade against Chen Daifu's neck.

"Y-y-you!" Chen Daifu still retained a shred of reason. Hearing Yang Yuan's voice, he found it somewhat familiar. Realization struck him instantly, and he began to stammer even worse.

"That's right, it's me. Did you really think you could steal my silver and get away with it so easily?" Yang Yuan stared at Chen Daifu with a ferocious glare.

Recognizing Yang Yuan's identity, Chen Daifu's body trembled even more violently as he contemplated the fate awaiting him.

"What's that smell?" Zhao Wu caught a whiff of a pungent, urine-like odor, and quickly realized it was emanating from Chen Daifu's direction.

Yang Yuan sneered, "With just this little bit of guts, you dared to swindle my silver."

Liu Heng spoke up, "Chen Daifu, whether you live or die depends entirely on your own choice. Hand over the silver, and perhaps I can spare your life."

"Y-yes, yes, yes," Chen Daifu stammered profusely. "I'll give it, I'll give the good heroes their silver."

Yang Yuan urged impatiently, "What are you dallying for? Where is the silver?"

Chen Daifu shivered as he tried to get down from the kang, but Yang Yuan blocked him with his blade.

Liu Heng instructed, "You don't need to move. Just tell us where it is kept."

Facing the gleaming weapon, Chen Daifu dared not move. Stammering, he said, "It's... it's in the chest. There is a cloth bundle on the very bottom layer, all the silver is in there."

Liu Heng motioned to Zhao Wu. Zhao Wu walked over to the chest by the wall, smashed the external iron lock with his saber, opened the chest, and rummaged through it, finally pulling out a cloth bundle from the bottom.

Opening the bundle to inspect its contents, Zhao Wu muttered in a low voice, "Big Boss, the amount is wrong. There are only a little over three hundred taels here."

Liu Heng frowned, looked at Chen Daifu, and said coldly, "I gave you a chance to live, but it seems you aren't willing to cherish it."

When Zhao Wu shouted out the title "Big Boss," Chen Daifu was completely stunned out of his wits. Anyone addressed by such a title could only be that faction of mountain-occupying bandits from outside the city.