The Great Song Dynasty's Soul-Forging in Progress

Yu Jiaoniang burst into tears at the opportune moment, weakly hugging his leg: "Master, please listen to Young Master Wang... As long as the green hills remain, there will always be firewood. Jiaoniang... Jiaoniang is still waiting for Master to take me far away..."

Her cries sounded like a cat in heat, irritating Qian Ba ​​yet stirring a twisted pity within him. He lowered his head, looking at the woman he had redeemed at great expense, and suddenly realized that perhaps Wang Zhonghua was right—what did he have left in this life besides money and lust?

"Go and tell Wang Zhonghua," Qian Ba's voice was hoarse as if it had been rubbed with sandpaper, "say that Qian Ba... admits defeat."

That night, an inconspicuous carriage drove out of the back door of Baixianglou. Qianba didn't even dare to bring a concubine, only a few silver notes and the forged list of officials—the real one had long been stolen by his trusted subordinates and sent to Wangjiagang. He dared not take the main roads, choosing only the alleys, like a stray dog.

But as soon as he reached the city gate, he was stopped by a figure.

Qin Tiedan stood with his arms crossed in the middle of the road. In the moonlight, his burly figure resembled an insurmountable mountain. He carried no weapons, his hands empty, yet his menacing aura prevented Qian Ba ​​and his two guards from even drawing their swords.

"Young Master Wang said that if you know what's good for you, he won't make things difficult for you." Qin Tiedan's voice was terrifyingly calm. "But rules must be established. From now on, the properties under your name belong to the Wang family. Your people belong to the Wang family. You can only get out."

He pulled a contract from his pocket and threw it at Qian Ba's feet: "Sign this, put your fingerprint on it. Then get on that cargo ship to Jinling and never come back to Chenzhou. If you dare to come back, I'll tear you and your scar off together."

Qianba trembled as he picked up the deed, which was a document transferring all his properties. He gave a bitter laugh, bit his finger, and pressed his fingerprint on it. He understood that Wang Zhonghua wanted to eliminate him completely, but had spared his life—not out of mercy, but to send him out as a "living example" to show everyone the consequences of opposing the "Brotherhood."

Qin Tiedan stepped aside and watched the carriage disappear into the distance. He grinned and said to Du Ziteng, who was hiding in the shadows, "That lecherous fellow, he actually knows what's good for him."

Du Ziteng walked out laughing: "Brother Tiedan, when you stood there just now, I thought you were going to smash the carriage to pieces with your punch."

"Young Master Wang said, 'It's better to destroy someone's spirit than to kill them.'" Qin Tiedan scratched his head, a simple smile appearing on his fierce face. "I'll listen to Young Master Wang. Fists are weapons, but the brain is the knife."

Meanwhile, at Wang Zhonghua's home in Wangjiagang, Wang Zhonghua was playing chess with Du Ziteng. He placed a piece and said calmly, "Qian Ba ​​is gone. His businesses will be taken over tomorrow. Establish rules: anyone who dares to force women into prostitution or lend money at exorbitant interest rates will be handed over to the authorities. Tell the new managers that we're doing business, not dead-end dealings."

Du Ziteng asked, "What about the girls and thugs Qian Ba ​​left behind...?"

"For girls who want to leave their profession, we'll give them money to redeem themselves and send them to learn a trade. For thugs who want to stay, we'll assess their character and recruit them into the brotherhood. For those who don't want to stay, we'll give them severance pay and let them part ways amicably." Wang Zhonghua picked up his teacup, blew away the foam, and said, "What we're destroying is Qiu Laohu's evil, not these people's livelihoods. If their livelihoods are gone, their hearts will crumble."

He looked out the window at the city of Chenzhou, its lights twinkling in the night. He knew the real battle was yet to come. But at least for now, two of the three villains were gone; the remaining "mad dog," Sun Kui, was the real trouble.

However, Wang Zhonghua's plan had already been laid out.

He only needs to wait for that mad dog to jump into the trap on its own.

Everyone in Chenzhou City knows that Sun Kui, the "mad dog" of Dengcheng Village, is not human; he is a demon who crawled out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood.

His face was unscarred, but his skin was taut and a deathly gray, as if he had never seen sunlight in years. His eyes were always bloodshot, the whites of his eyes bulging when he glared, his pupils shrinking to two pinpoints, making everyone he looked at appear like livestock to be slaughtered. He never smiled; the corners of his mouth were always turned down, forming two deep nasolabial folds, like the marks left by a guillotine. Qiu Laohu once spat as he commented on him: "That bastard Sun Kui, his brain is completely devoid of anything but killing people, all he thinks about is how to kill people more efficiently. Give him a knife, and he can hack his way from the south of Chenzhou City to the north without even blinking an eye."

But this mad dog, on the first and fifteenth of every month, would always put on that faded, clean blue shirt, shave his stubble, and scrub his hands—the hands that had killed—until not a trace of blood could be seen under his fingernails. He would carry osmanthus cakes from Li's shop in the south of the city, crossing most of Chenzhou City, back to that narrow, shabby alley in Dengcheng to visit his blind old mother.

The old folks sunbathing at the alley entrance all recognized him, but none dared to speak to him. The man who whispered, "Mother, your son has come to see you," was completely different from the mad dog of rumors who had killed without hesitation.

Grandma Sun could no longer see; she only knew that her son was doing "big business" outside. She would often stroke his face with worry and ask in a trembling voice, "Kui'er, have you... gotten another new injury on your hand?"

Sun Kui knelt before her, bowing his head low, and replied in a muffled voice, "Mother, I bumped my head while working, it's nothing serious. Don't overthink it."

He never talked about how many people he had killed. He only remembered that every time he left, he would stand at the alley entrance for a long time, hiding his blood-stained hands in his sleeves, afraid that the neighbors would smell the stench and it would reach his mother's ears.

This secret was extracted from an old night watchman in Blacksmith Lane by Du Ziteng after much effort. The old watchman had received favors from Sun Kui in his youth, and was initially reluctant to speak. However, after Du Ziteng offered him three bowls of wine, the old man sighed, "That mad dog... he only has this one weakness left. If anyone dares to touch a hair on his head, he can really turn Chenzhou City upside down."

Upon hearing this, Wang Zhonghua remained silent for a long time before gently setting down his teacup.

"This line," he said, "is something we should keep to ourselves, and nobody should touch it."

The scheme he devised was more ingenious and deadly than the one he used against the "Red-banded Serpent." But in that scheme, there was no blind old mother.

Mad Dog's thirty-odd core henchmen were all either handpicked from piles of corpses or were desperate criminals he had beaten into submission. Each of them had a blue mark on their face to ward off disaster, and tattoos of vengeful ghosts on their bodies. They would smash a wine bowl and draw their swords without batting an eye, even if blood splattered everywhere. They were based in "Blacksmith's Alley" in the northwest corner of the city, where the sound of blacksmithing had long since disappeared, replaced only by the incessant cursing, screams, and the ear-piercing clang of blades. The heavy smell of rust mingled with the ever-present stench of blood, making even wild dogs afraid to approach.

When news of Qiu Laohu's unknown fate reached them, Sun Kui was the first to fly into a rage. He brandished his blood-soaked, blood-soaked dagger, kicked over the incense burner at the entrance of the blacksmith's alley, and stood on the dilapidated stage, his voice hoarse as if ground by sand: "Wang Zhonghua? Which bastard jumped out of his pants without a proper zipper! I'll chop him up and feed him to the dogs, kick his head around like a ball!" He swore, spitting as he spoke, that he would burn down the Wang family shop, slaughter Wang Zhonghua's entire family, and tear Qin Tiedan's bones apart one by one to beat the drum. These words reached back to the steaming "Wang Family Spicy Soup" shop, where Qin Tiedan was gulping down a large bowl of spicy soup. Hearing this, he wiped his mouth, grinned, and said, "He's a real man! I like his recklessness!"

Wang Zhonghua gently blew away the foam in his teacup and shook his head: "This isn't recklessness, it's madness. A mad dog doesn't understand human language; the only truth it can understand is a stick that's fiercer and more ruthless than itself."

The aged original liquor of "Drunken Eight Immortals" is a treasure that can drive any drinker crazy. Wang Zhonghua had Du Ziteng pretend to be a penniless man who had lost his family fortune gambling and was eager to find a way to win back his losses. In the gambling den at the entrance of Blacksmith Alley, Du Ziteng "inadvertently" revealed a "secret" to one of Sun Kui's underlings: three days later at midnight, a batch of peerless fine liquor worth five thousand taels of silver would be secretly transported out of Hulu Bay.

The underling's eyes widened instantly, becoming rounder than dice, and he scrambled back to report the news.

Upon hearing this, Sun Kui's bloodshot eyes flashed with a strange light, a mixture of greed and violence for the first time. He didn't care about the wine; what he cared about was the huge sum of money that would allow him to live a carefree life for a while. Even more important was that robbing this shipment would make his fearsome reputation resound throughout the five hundred miles around Chenzhou.

"Tell the brothers."

He made a hoarse, bellows-like sound in his throat, kicked over the charcoal brazier at his feet, and sparks flew all over half the room, burning holes in his sleeves without him noticing.

"Three days later, at Hulu Bay, I'll kill anyone who gets in my way! I'll take all the fine wine, the secret recipe, the beauties, and the money. Anyone who chickens out, I'll make them my sacrificial lamb!"