Chapter 16: The Banquet of Annihilation
Inside the banquet hall, the air seemed to be sucked dry by Cao Xun’s hysterical roar.
Hundreds of house guards, the last bastion of the Cao family’s confidence, gripped their sharp blades, their throats emitting threatening growls as they steadily tightened the encirclement.
Yet before them stood a group of monsters fresh from a bloody slaughter, their stomachs growling with hunger.
“Hmph.” Fan Tong let out a light chuckle, as if seeing through the master’s last desperate bluff.
Without even looking back, he leisurely strode toward the main table draped in brocade, where Cao Xun, Wang Chengyu, and other business magnates sat.
Behind him, Bao Nianfeng and the others paid no heed to the flashing swords and blades around them.
Their eyes were already fixed on the sumptuous feast laid out before them, their pupils shimmering with a fervor surpassing even the lust for gold.
A bold head guard, seeing these black-armored creatures acting so arrogantly, flashed a fierce light in his eyes and lunged with his blade toward the back of the nearest soldier’s neck.
The soldier, just grabbing a roasted chicken, didn’t even glance over. With a casual flick of his hand—
“Clang!”
—he parried the tempered steel knife with ease.
The head guard’s wrist jolted violently, his hand numb; he was dumbfounded.
Before he could recover, the soldier turned impatiently, wielding his spiked club with a gust of malevolence, casually striking upward.
“Thunk!”
With a dull sound, the head guard’s skull shattered like a crushed watermelon, red and white fragments splattered everywhere.
“Don’t fucking block my meal!”
That roar ignited the soldiers’ appetite completely.
No longer restrained, like a pack of ravenous beasts, they lunged at the banquet, pushing aside trembling beauties, kicking away obstructive servants, grabbing braised pork knuckles to gnaw on, and gulping down jars of wine.
The storm swept through like the wind, devouring everything voraciously.
As they ate, their minor wounds visibly writhed and healed before their eyes, their strength rapidly restored. The fierce aura radiating from them was even more intense than when they first entered.
Seduction? There was no such thing.
In the face of true food lovers, no woman, however beautiful, could compete with a freshly roasted goose.
This scene shattered the psychological defenses of Cao Xun and all his servants completely.
Fan Tong ignored the disgraceful gluttons behind him.
Carrying his blade, he took slow, deliberate steps toward the main seat where the ashen-faced Cao Xun sat.
His footsteps were light, but each landed like a hammer blow upon Cao Xun’s heart.
“Now, let’s have a talk,” Fan Tong said, slamming the still blood-dripping cleaver deep into the table before Cao Xun, the blade biting into the wood, “About that ‘final banquet’—which family do we start with?”
Cao Xun trembled all over, utterly devoid of any will to resist, slumping limply in his chair.
That night, Datong Prefecture was sleepless.
Under Qiao Juren’s guidance, Fan Tong went door to door, making his “visits” one by one with marked fame.
Zhang He and his garrison soldiers had completely become mere porters and accountants.
They followed Fan Tong and his twenty monsters, watching as they kicked open the doors of mansion after mansion in the most straightforward and brutal way, dragging those once high-and-mighty merchants and tycoons from their beds like dead dogs.
Resistance?
Simply did not exist.
The fate of the Cao family’s elite hundreds of guards had already spread throughout the entire city.
Mountains of gold and silver were hauled out from hidden cellars, dazzling the eyes.
Silks and brocades, precious antiques, piled sky-high—each item enough for an ordinary person to live comfortably for a lifetime.
But what truly darkened Fan Tong’s gaze were the ledgers and contracts seized from the studies.
“March, Year Two of Hongwu: Five hundred catties of inferior iron secretly smuggled out of the pass, exchanged for two hundred fine horse pelts with Yuan General Aha.”
“May, Year Two of Hongwu: On behalf of Wang Baobao (Kuo Kuo Tiemuer)’s forces, purchased one thousand dan of military grain, receiving three thousand taels of silver.”
Each shocking entry recorded their collusion with the Yuan invaders, betraying Ming military secrets.
Another pile, thick as a mountain, was composed of contracts of indentured servitude and blood-written high-interest loans from common folk.
Fan Tong casually picked up one, marked with a crooked blood handprint.
“...Borrowed three dou of grain, pledged my little daughter Chunhua, only seven years old, never to be redeemed...”
His hand clenched tightly.
That thin piece of paper felt as heavy as a thousand pounds in his grasp.
A mere cook who had traveled through time, wanting only to dabble in cuisine and study eighteen ways to braise pork, hoping to survive this chaotic era.
But these things before him were like a basin of ice water, dousing all his illusions.
This was no business—it was cannibalism!
They were devouring Ming soldiers, devouring Ming people!
A wild thought gradually took shape in his mind.
He looked up and said to Zhang He beside him, “Send out orders. Tomorrow morning, build me a stage in the city center square, the higher the better!”
“Also, gather everyone in the city who can read!”
At dawn the next day,
The people of Datong Prefecture were roused by a rapid clanging of gongs.
They stepped outside their homes, bewildered to see companies of armored soldiers dragging Cao Xun, Wang Chengyu, and a dozen other merciless merchants, bound hand and foot, toward the city’s central square.
The news spread like wildfire across the city.
“Have you heard? Cao and the others have been arrested by the soldiers!”
“No way! They’re the gods of our Datong Prefecture!”
Countless citizens, filled with doubt, curiosity, and a barely contained sense of satisfaction, surged like a tide toward the square.
In the center, a temporary high platform rose abruptly.
Fan Tong, clad in heavy armor and wielding his signature massive cleaver, stood like an iron tower before the crowd.
He spoke no long speech, only bellowed to the dense mass below:
“Bring all the evidence up here!”
Boxes upon boxes of ledgers and stacks of contracts were carried onto the platform by the soldiers, piled into several small mountains.
“Read!” Fan Tong commanded succinctly.
Dozens of recruited literati trembled as they began loudly proclaiming the incriminating records.
One by one, charges of treasonous collusion and exploitation of the people were laid bare.
“...Conspiring with Yuan invaders, betraying our military grain supply, causing thousands of our soldiers to almost perish!”
“...Seizing hundreds of acres of farmland, forcing old Zhang and his family of three to die!”
“...Setting up high-interest loan traps, seizing wives and daughters, destroying countless households!”
Initially, whispers rippled through the square, gradually swelling into angry growls.
When an old man heard his daughter’s name and let out a heart-wrenching scream, collapsing to his knees, the fury of the people ignited completely!
“Kill them!”
“These bloodsucking beasts!”
“Return my daughter’s life to me!”
The deafening shouts seemed to shake the very stone slabs of the square.
On the platform, Cao Xun and the others were already pale as death, trembling uncontrollably.
They couldn’t understand why this fat man defied all reason.
Wasn’t this supposed to be handled quietly and reported to the court?
How dare he... how dare he expose everything in broad daylight?!
But this was exactly the effect Fan Tong sought.
He strode to the mountain of blood contracts, grabbed a thick stack, and raised it high.
Scanning the crowd, he roared with all his might:
“These are the blood debts these treacherous merchants have piled on your heads!”
“Today, I, Fan Tong, will act on behalf of Heaven to bring justice—let them all turn to ash!”
He threw all the contracts into a fire pit already prepared.
“Whoosh—!”
The roaring flames shot skyward, swiftly consuming the wicked papers.
Black ashes, mingled with the tears of the people, flew through the air.
Watching the towering flames and swirling ashes, countless oppressed folk, some bearing decades or even generations of suffering, could no longer contain their emotions.
They fell to their knees, crying out loud, their sobs a mixture of grief, release, and above all, ecstatic rebirth.
No one knew who first shouted hoarsely:
“Lord Fan, our righteous and just magistrate!”
“Lord Fan, our righteous and just magistrate!!”
“Lord Fan, our righteous and just magistrate!!!”
The thunderous cheers rolled like waves, echoing to the heavens.
At that moment, Fan Tong was already deified in the hearts of Datong’s people.
He ignored the cheers below, instead pulling the terrified Qiao Juren onto the platform.
“From today forward, the Qiao family, together with other merchants oppressed by these scoundrels, will jointly take over their stolen estates!”
“All confiscated granaries shall be opened and the grain sold to the city’s people at thirty percent of market price!”
Qiao Juren trembled with excitement, bowing deeply to Fan Tong.
He knew that from this day on, the heavens over Datong had changed.
And the Qiao family would shine brightest beneath this new sky.
Night fell once more.
Thanks to Fan Tong’s iron fist and the Qiao family’s cooperation, order in Datong quickly stabilized.
The city treasury was already filled to bursting with chests of gold and silver and carts laden with grain.
Fan Tong gazed upon this fortune that would drive any emperor mad, yet his face bore no trace of joy.
He merely patted his belly, his mind turning to another matter.
Marshal, I have delivered the report you requested.
I just wonder—will your small military command tent have room for such a hefty gift?