Chapter 43: Everyone Like a Dragon
Not only Cai Fu, but Cai Qing, Lu Junyi, Yang Xiong, Shi Xiu, Bao Xu, and Jiao Ting all followed suit in the exact same manner.
There were also the five or six hundred minor outlaws whom Bao Xu had brought down from Wushu Mountain, who similarly took advantage of the chaos for their own ends.
Following Cai Fu’s instructions, they dressed in Jurchen attire, blended into the ranks of the Jurchen people, and slashed left and right.
With a loud cry of gibberish and nonsense, they would simply complete the deed, wipe their hands, and leave without revealing their names or seeking credit.
The entire Zengtou Village was engulfed in a sea of fire, and the sounds of fierce slaughter echoed across the entire settlement.
On this night, no one slept.
Aside from Cai Fu and the Zeng family estate, there was actually another neutral faction present: the horse merchants who had come to sell horses and the Jianghu heroes who had come to buy them.
The horse merchants who maintained long-term cooperation with Zengtou Village even owned residences here.
Those horse merchants without residences and the Jianghu heroes who came to buy horses all stayed at the local inns.
Cai Fu had specifically given orders not to set fire to the inns, so these horse merchants and Jianghu heroes managed to escape the catastrophe.
Cowering inside the inns, they trembled as they peered through the gaps in the windows, stealing glances at the bloodshed and carnage outside.
With the slaughter continuing outside all night long, they remained awake throughout the entire night as well...
Inside a certain guest room, two robust men stripped to the waist squeezed together, pressing their faces against a window crack to spy outside.
The man on top possessed phoenix-like eyes, silkworm-crescent eyebrows, a dark charcoal face, and a full beard of curly whiskers.
The man underneath had eyes like bright stars, a broad flat face, and a purplish complexion.
The dark-faced man patted the purple-faced man on the shoulder:
"Brother, take a look at that place over there with the biggest fire. Could that be the Zengtou Village estate?"
The purple-faced man replied with great dissatisfaction:
"Brother, the reason we disguised ourselves, personally courted danger, and ventured deep into the tiger's den to gather military intelligence this time was precisely to break Zengtou Village!
"Now that we’ve finally managed to gather the intelligence, Zengtou Village has already been destroyed by someone else!
"Didn't we make this trip for nothing?"
"If our skills are inferior to others, what can we do?"
The dark-faced man sighed:
"This person is well-versed in military strategy and deeply understands human psychology. We didn't lose unjustly.
"I just wonder what sacred deity this person actually is..."
The purple-faced man was startled: "Weren't they saying it was the Liangshan rebels?"
"You believe whatever they say?"
The dark-faced man was utterly speechless:
"Don't forget, the last time the Liangshan rebels attacked Zengtou Village, they suffered a disastrous defeat and retreated in failure!
"How could there be such a capable person among the Liangshan rebels?"
The purple-faced man widened his eyes:
"If it’s not the Liangshan rebels, then who else could it be?
"Could it be... the imperial army as well?"
"Would the imperial army ever dare to attack Zengtou Village?"
The dark-faced man fell into deep thought:
"Unless it's Zhang Shuye...
"No, that's impossible either. Zengtou Village is within our Lingzhou territory.
"Aside from us, who would be so idle as to cross state boundaries just to kill bandits?"
The purple-faced man had a restless and fiery temperament, and he couldn't help proposing:
"Brother, let's go out and join the fray! Let's go test these heroes ourselves!"
"That won't do!"
The dark-faced man rejected the idea without a moment's hesitation:
"Leaving aside whether they are on the same side as us or not...
"If we go down there right now, we'll simply become the target of public criticism!"
"Ah—"
The purple-faced man felt an itch in his heart that he couldn't scratch, yet he couldn't override the dark-faced man. He rubbed his large hands together until they practically sparked!
As he rubbed, dawn finally broke.
When it was dark, they hadn't been able to see clearly; they could only catch glimpses of raging fires and flashing blade lights.
This had given their imaginations boundless room to roam, filling them with boiling blood while blinding them to fear.
Once daylight came, they were finally able to see clearly.
Yet it felt as though a basin of icy water had been dumped straight over their heads, sending a chill running from the crowns of their skulls all the way down to their heels!
Everywhere they looked met ruins and corpses!
Billowing smoke hung over Zengtou Village like a light veil, while the omnipresent crimson blood turned the village into a veritable hell!
Corpses littered the streets and alleys. In some places, the bodies had piled up on top of one another, resembling heaps of harvested grain...
The survivors wandered about aimlessly like walking corpses, their eyes bloodshot and carrying swords and spears in their hands.
Whenever two groups of survivors crossed paths and the leaders didn't recognize each other, a bloody battle would immediately ensue.
They would slaughter one another until the other group of survivors had all fallen, and then the victorious group would resume their wandering.
"They're mad! Every last one of them is mad!"
The purple-faced man swallowed hard. Even he had never witnessed so many dead bodies in all his life.
Furthermore, even he could tell that both groups of survivors were Jurchens, yet they behaved as if they had lost their minds...
"They truly have gone mad, except..."
The dark-faced man shook his head, just about to offer an explanation when he suddenly found himself gripping his hands tightly:
"They're coming!"
"Hiss—"
The purple-faced man sucked in a sharp breath of pain and hurriedly slapped the dark-faced man's hands away.
The dark-faced man let go apologetically, brushed away a few hairs caught between his fingers, and pointed forward, whispering:
"The heroes you wanted to meet have arrived!"
Really?
The purple-faced man forgot his lingering pain. Looking out, he indeed saw another group of "survivors" walking out into the open.
Though they were dressed like "survivors," every single one of them was full of high spirits and bursting with vitality!
The leading men looked imposing and majestic, worthy of the description that every single one of them possessed the bearing of dragons!
"Are those the Five Tigers of the Zeng Family?"
The dark-faced man once again tightened his grip unconsciously:
"Could they really have been killed?"
Originally, the dark-faced man had assumed that the rumor "the Five Tigers of the Zeng Family have been slain" was merely enemy propaganda designed to shake morale, but he never expected that the notoriously formidable "Five Tigers of the Zeng Family" had genuinely been killed!
Their heads had even been severed by those "survivors," hoisted up on spears, and paraded through the streets in a display of triumphant arrogance!
When the genuine survivors of Zengtou Village spotted the heads of the Zeng Family Five Tigers, they swarmed forward like flies upon filth!
With a low hum, they all rushed up.
Originally, Zengtou Village had boasted a force of five to six thousand men, but after a night of slaughtering one another, fewer than one-tenth of the survivors remained.
Charging forward like a pack of madmen, they were instantly routed by that group of "survivors" in the blink of an eye.
Those actual survivors shrieked as they scattered in all directions, only to be run down one by one and executed on the spot.
The purple-faced man watched with his jaw dropped in utter astonishment:
"Where on earth did a group of heroes like this crawl out from?"
The dark-faced man quietly relaxed his grip and asked him:
"Do you still want to go and meet these heroes?"
The purple-faced man hesitated.
Right at that moment, an enormous giant standing over a zhang tall hoisted a large megaphone and began shouting at the top of his lungs all the way down the street:
"All Song people, come out and show yourselves!
"Song people do not deceive Song people!
"Today we only kill Jurchens, not Song people!
"In the time it takes for one stick of incense to burn, we will enter the inns to search for Jurchens!
"Anyone who has not come out within the time of one stick of incense will be treated as a Jurchen!"
At the same time, a burly man with a flower tucked behind his ear smiled cheerfully as he lit a stick of incense and thrust it into the ground.
The dark-faced man and the purple-faced man exchanged miserable looks. It seemed they had no choice left but to meet these people...
With no other options available, they hastily dressed themselves, pulled up their trousers, and followed the flow of people out of the inn.
"Offended you all!
"Please, everyone stand in a single file line and cooperate with our inspection!
"As long as you are Song people, we guarantee you will be safe and sound!"
Cai Fu held a ghost-head saber in his hand, smiling as benignly as possible, yet in the eyes of the others, he looked far more terrifying than the King of Hell!