Early in the morning. Taowang Village.
Wang Sheng and Tao Xiaomei, who’d got up at a very early hour, were helping Mr. Tao clean the house.
A knock came to the front doors. Wang Sheng and Tao Xiaomei exchanged a glance as Mr. Tao walked up to open them.
“I’m coming. Who is it that’s making a visit at such an early hour?”
“It’s me, Tao Jiu. Brother Shou, I heard that your son-in-law and Xiaomei are here to look you up.”
After Mr. Tao opened the doors, someone entered. It was a male local villager about fifty or so, whose eyes started to rove around the house as soon as he walked inside. At the sight of Wang Sheng and Tao Xiaomei stacking firewood with their faces beaded with perspiration, his expression was wooden for an instant.
“Oh, Uncle Jiu. What brings you here? Is it because you have some good news for us that you’re dropping by so early?” Tao Xiaomei asked him with a smile, wiping her dirty hands on the lower hem of her coat.
Looking at Tao Xiaomei’s smiling face, Tao Jiu jerked out of his trance. “Well, what kind of good news could there possibly be in these trying times? I heard you and Wang Sheng came back here to visit your parents, so I decided to drop in on you. It’s said that you and Wang Sheng made a fortune in the county seat. You must’ve brought your parents some good stuff, I suppose?”
“Now you’re teasing me, Uncle Jiu. It’s just some rice and flour. Wang Sheng and I happen to have some free time, so we brought Stonie back here to spend a couple of days with my parents and, for good measure, help them with the cleaning and other household chores,” beamed Tao Xiaomei, a twinkle in her eyes.
Tao Jiu didn’t perceive anything out of the ordinary from Tao Xiaomei’s countenance, and Wang Sheng was up to his neck in odd jobs. Seeing Tao Jiu walking over, Wang Sheng raised his hand and greeted him, smiling, wiping the sweat off.
“Your parents are so lucky to have you and Wang Sheng who could come back here to give them a hand with domestic chores from time to time. How I wish my married daughters could do the same thing for me as you do for your parents,” sighed Tao Jiu.
Tao Xiaomei said, “Uncle Jiu, unlike me, your daughters’ husbands live far away. Even if they want to come here to help you, the journey would take them quite some time. Maybe they’ll show up in a couple of days. You never know.”
Mr. Tao backed her up, steering the conversation to Tao Jiu’s daughters and their husbands who resided in another prefecture.
“Don’t just stand there, Father. Lead Uncle Jiu to the living room. I’ll go and get the food Mother has prepared so we can have breakfast,” said Tao Xiaomei.
“You’re right. Come in here, Tao Jiu,” Mr. Tao said to Tao Jiu.
Smiling, Tao Jiu followed Mr. Tao into the courtyard and then the house, affectedly saying that he didn’t want to impose. Tao Jiu’s eyes were darting around the house all the time, mainly observing Wang Sheng and Tao Xiaomei, but the former was working his fingers to the bone, bare-chested, drenched with sweat. The latter was also fully occupied. Both the husband and the wife were acting normally.Read latest chapters at Listnovel.com
After walking into the house, he noticed that Stonie was present. The boy had just woken from sleep and was still somewhat drowsy as he saw Tao Jiu and Mr. Tao entering.
“Stonie, come here and greet Great-uncle Jiu.”
“Great-uncle.”
“Good boy,” beamed Tao Jiu. He looked at Stonie and then glanced around the house. Having found nothing suspicious whatsoever, he finally stopped casting searching looks in all directions.
Mr. Tao, who’d been pretending not to notice any of Tao Jiu’s appraising glances, poured him a cup of tea and said, “My wife is making steamed buns, using the flour Xiaomei brought back yesterday. She said that the flour was produced in a new mill in the county seat, that it’s finer than the flour made in any of the other mills. You should give it a try later.”
Tao Jiu said, “Brother Shou, Xiaomei got herself a good husband. Just now I saw that Wang Sheng was sweating buckets from the effort of doing household chores, but there’s no reluctance on his face. Young men with such filial affection are quite rare these days. None of my sons-in-law compares with him in this regard. They barely visit me, and even if they come, they never lift a hand to help around the house.”
“Wang Sheng is indeed a good man, and he lives close by, so he comes here to help me out pretty often. The couple of sons-in-law of yours are too far away. It’s inconvenient for them to visit you on a frequent basis, not that they’re unwilling to share your burden.” Mr. Tao started making chit-chat with Tao Jiu, catering to his interest, not mentioning anything about other issues.
Having looked all around the house, Tao Jiu believed that he had got the lay of the land. After a while, he asked Mr. Tao in a hushed voice, “Brother Shou, have you disclosed that matter to Xiaomei and Wang Sheng?”
Mr. Tao replied with a cautious shake of his head, “Not yet, but they insist on staying here to help with the chores. I have no idea how much longer I’ll be able to conceal it from them.”
Tao Jiu immediately said, “Just keep it secret from them. It’ll be over in a couple of days anyway. I’ll tell the others in this village to be careful not to let slip anything when they’re talking with Xiaomei or Wang Sheng. Now that they’ve entered this village, it won’t be easy for them to get out, so we should keep them in the dark about it lest they get scared.”
The last remark of Tao Jiu’s contained an undertone of threat. Mr. Tao, who sensed it distinctly, said, “I know. That’s why I didn’t tell them anything.”
Tao Jiu didn’t dare offend Mr. Tao further, because apart from anything else, Mr. Tao’s son was now working for the village head and very much in his good graces. “Did you tell Xiaomei about your son?”
“I just said that the village head sent him somewhere to attend to something for him,” answered Mr. Tao.
Tao Jiu inclined his head. “I’ll talk to your son and caution him to avoid being seen by Xiaomei or Wang Sheng.”
Mr. Tao snorted coldly, “I doubt he’d have the guts to show his face in this house again.”
Tao Jiu placed a consoling hand on Mr. Tao’s shoulder and said, “Brother Shou, you should be more open-minded. After all, things have already come to this and there’s nothing either of us could do to make a difference, so we might as well dismiss the misgivings and go the whole hog. Don’t you think so? You see, both your daughter and your son-in-law are here. Even if the consideration of your and your wife’s interests is not enough to have you change your mind, you at least should think about the two of them, right?”
Mr. Tao kept silent for quite a while before he said, “Whatever. Let’s do it your way.”
Tao Jiu immediately grinned, “I always know you’re a sensible man, Brother Shou.”
After a while, Mrs. Tao and Tao Xiaomei brought the food outside. Tao Jiu made no more remarks on that matter, helped himself with a steamed bun and then took his leave.
The moment he left, Mr. Tao gave Wang Sheng and Tao Xiaomei a significant look, and with that the latter two both sighed in relief, feeling that they’d finally got themselves a respite.
Tao Jiu, after leaving Mr. Tao’s home, went to the village head’s residence and told him about his observation. The village head was an old man in his thirties, who was richly dressed and looked like a moneybags. When Tao Jiu had finished speaking, he said, “Tao Shou is lucky to have enough sense to listen to reason. Otherwise we’d have no choice but to dispose of his daughter’s whole family.”
“Should I continue to keep watch on them?” asked Tao Jiu.
The village head snorted, “It’s pointless to waste any time on them. Just have someone stake out that house and make sure they don’t walk to other areas of the village. Tao Shou is only human. There’s no doubt he’s afraid of death and values his life as much as the next person. I doubt he dares to risk the lives of her daughter’s whole family.”
“I know what to do. I’ll have a word with his son and tell him not to go back home,” said Tao Jiu.
“Um,” answered the village head in a quite nonchalant tone. Taowang Village was large. Every year some caravans came here to purchase pottery, and the village head always acted as go-between for them, getting a certain amount of commission on everything the villagers sold, which was why he was the wealthiest man in the whole village. Presently most villagers were frantic with worry because their pottery was not selling, but the village head was totally unconcerned, for he still had a lot of money in hand. Theoretically, he was not supposed to accept those people’s terms, but they’d offered him a large sum of money, and nobody could have too much money, so he’d agreed with barely any hesitation.
Tao Jiu could tell from the village head’s attitude that the latter was running out of patience with the matter of Tao Shou’s family. Knowing that he’d definitely get himself in trouble if he stayed any longer, he hastened to take his leave.
No sooner had Tao Jiu left than a man dressed like a bodyguard entered the house to talk with the village head. Tao Jiu glanced over his shoulder at them and gave a shudder. The sight of any of the musclemen of the caravan still gave him the willies, and the faces of the couple of people who’d been beaten to death that day were still vivid in his memory.
…
Yao Yi took some men, sneaked into the village and secretly stayed in the Tao family. Wang Sheng informed him that someone had come to sound them out in the morning.
“At this point in time they don’t want to raise any new issues either. As long as you lay low, they won’t do anything to you,” Yao Yi consoled him.
Wang Sheng bobbed his head, feeling greatly relieved.
Earlier this day Wang Sheng had conferred with Mr. Tao about how to make contact with those who were doing the village head’s and the caravan’s bidding under duress, and how to caution them to take cover when a fight broke out, so that they wouldn’t fall victim to the imminent conflict. However, after what had happened in the morning, Wang Sheng still felt under pressure. Currently the villagers’ every move was being kept under observation, which made how to get in touch with the villagers and convince them a problem. To make things worse, they really didn’t have much time left.
It would happen in merely a day or two…
Outside the village, Ling Zhang and the General Zhongwu (AKA the General of Loyalty and Valor) had finalized their plan. After arranging for some men to continue staking out Taowang Village, he and the general covertly returned to the military encampment. Deployment of troops in Jiangzhou was getting increasingly frequent, and messages from Taowang Village also suggested that the enemy would take action in the next few days. Barring accidents, they would make their move the next night.
They needed to make preparations for the execution of the plan as soon as possible. Ling Zhang’s twenty-four bodyguards were adept at martial formations, so they were assigned the task of stalling Shan Congyi and his men. The General Zhongwu would lure the rebel forces deep into this county and inflict as many casualties on them as he could. On top of that, this time around it was very likely that Wang Xiangxin would direct the rebel army personally. If they could find Wang Xiangxin, it would be perfect.
As Ling Zhang and his bodyguards were supposed to stall Shan Congyi’s men, they had to find a spot suitable for carrying out the plan lest Shan Congyi escape.
Ling Zhang and Yao Yi carefully studied the routes between Taowang Village and the checkpoint. Eventually they selected a location and decided to do it there. Thus they had to go there to make some preparations. At the same time, the two caravans, which had previously left the county seat on the pretext of going to nearby villages to purchase goods, were slowly approaching Taowang Village. A guard on sentry duty spotted them and immediately sent Ling Zhang a message.
Ling Zhang, on receiving the message, quickly returned. At this time the two caravans were very close to Taowang Village. Guards outside the village could vaguely see those people’s figures in the distance. The two caravans had ten vehicles in total, including carriages and handcarts. Given the watchful expressions on their faces, there was undoubtedly something else among their goods.
The caravans were stopped at the entrance of the village, but soon someone came out. Distantly, Ling Zhang looked at that man who’d gone to the entrance to meet the caravans. It struck him that the man seemed somewhat familiar, but he couldn’t remember where he’d seen that person before.
“He’s that envoy serving Shan Congyi. I think he’s Shan Congyi’s henchman. He lives in the Abode of Prince Yi. Like Shan Congyi, he’s on diplomatic missions quite often. When Shan Congyi went to the capital city, this man was accompanying him. Right now he’s in disguise, but his figure and gait remain unchanged,” said a bodyguard.
The light dawned on Ling Zhang at these words. No matter that man looked so familiar.