Free Web NovelChapter 1211: Chapter 1193: Sacrifice
Knowing that he didn’t have the strength to even truss a chicken, the man holding the knife had the urge to toy with him. He wasn’t in a hurry to take him down, so he chuckled and said, "As long as you kneel and kowtow to me three times, I’ll let you live."
Zhao Bingzhong looked at him and slowly bent his knees...
The one toying with him saw this and couldn’t help but burst into loud laughter. The man at the door in the Ministry of Justice uniform frowned at the sight and reminded him, "Wang Qun, you’d best hurry. If Governor Wang comes, I won’t be able to stop him."
Wang Qun had just opened his mouth when Zhao Bingzhong had already squatted down; his hand darted into his boot, and in an instant he pulled out a short dagger.
Wang Qun was startled and took a step back, fury flaring in his heart. Already a lamb on the chopping block, and he still dared to resist?
He was just about to raise his hand to chop off the dagger in Zhao Bingzhong’s grasp when he saw Zhao Bingzhong flip the blade upward and drive it savagely into his own neck...
Wang Qun’s eyes bulged. He rushed forward at once, trying to stop him. The General had said to leave a live one!
Zhao Bingzhong collapsed to the ground. He stared wide‑eyed at Wang Qun and the others, blood gushing out of his mouth in great mouthfuls, yet his eyes were full of starlight. There was no fear in them, only boundless regret and attachment.
He couldn’t bear to leave this world. He hadn’t yet stood before the Great General to tell her how well he was living now.
But he knew too much. The secrets in his head far outstripped the words in this room. That was why, aside from Yuan Li, he was the most important man in the entire Jiangnan covert network.
Only if he died would those secrets truly be safe.
Wang Qun clamped a hand over his neck, trying to staunch the blood. Feeling his body grow colder and colder, he flew into a rage out of shame, stood up, and kicked him several times. "Lowborn cur, you dare seek death in front of me? Lowborn cur, lowborn cur!"
Because of Zhao Bingzhong’s death, Wang Qun had no choice but to give the order: "Hurry and inform the men tailing Yuan Li. They must leave a live one." The General had said, they must seize a living captive.
King Langya was truly incompetent. Jiangbei’s spies had already penetrated deep into Jiangnan; the head of them was even on quite intimate terms with the Inspector Mansion. If Wang Dao weren’t the General’s cousin, the General would long since have made a scandal of this and left him unable to eat or walk away from it.
Furious, Wang Qun kicked Zhao Bingzhong’s body aside and strode into the house.
Han Fu already lay dead in a pool of blood, eyes staring. The Death Warriors were putting out the flames and snatching charred sheets of writing from the fire.
He yanked up a sheet and glanced at it, saw all numbers, then picked up another. This one had not only numbers but words written beneath the numbers.
Wang Qun frowned slightly. "Have you eaten?"
"A bowl of cow’s milk, a plate of cabbage stewed with pork, and a big basin of white‑flour steamed buns? What kind of nonsense is this?"
Wang Qun tossed the paper aside, swept his gaze around, and said, "Keep searching. The General said there’s a great treasure hidden in this private house. You must find it."
Someone opened a side door, and the apparatus inside made them gasp. "Assistant General, look."
Wang Qun stepped forward at once. He saw that most of the room was filled with strange and curious objects. He reached out and touched one, frowning. "All made of copper and iron... what are these things?"
No one could answer him. Wang Qun wanted to move them out, only to find that though manpower could shift them, they could not be taken out of this room.
He couldn’t help but frown, pacing around the room. "Something’s wrong. This can’t be taken away, and they hid in here for so long—there’s no way it was just to burn paper. Keep looking. Dig three feet into the ground if you have to and bring it out."
One of the Death Warriors remembered that when they charged in, he’d seemed to see Zhao Bingzhong kneeling on the floor with his back to them, and at once went to knock on the ground.
At that moment, a boom sounded in the sky outside. Wang Qun twisted his head and saw fireworks blooming in midair. His heart tightened. He shouted, "Find it, quickly!"
The Death Warriors began prying up the floorboards. They didn’t care whether the bricks and boards were loose; they simply drove their blades in and levered up. Before long, they had pried up a loose board, and beneath it was a greenish‑yellow machine.
One glance and Wang Qun could tell the thing was made of copper—or at least its casing was.
He carefully lifted the machine out like a treasure and was just about to examine it when he heard the sound of carriages and horses. Sensing something, he glanced toward the main gate and said, "Take all the papers and pull out!"
They spread their clothes out and, without bothering to distinguish, piled anything with writing onto them. They didn’t even spare the half‑burned pages. Once everything was on the cloth, they bundled it up and left.
Wang Qun cradled the radio set and didn’t spare a single glance for the things in the next room they couldn’t take.
The moment they left, Wang Dao’s men arrived. Seeing the private house hacked and slashed by blades, blood spattered everywhere, their hearts gave a violent jolt.
Entering the house, the first thing they saw was Han Fu half‑kneeling on the floor, eyes wide. Only then did they see Shi Yan lying in the corner.
Both lay in pools of blood, apparently dead, but they still went forward to feel their bodies, then spread out to search.
Before long, a shout came from the back courtyard. "There’s another one here, also dead!"
The men examining Han Fu said, "He’s dead too. A lot of things in the house were destroyed by the fire. A few pages fell here."
The men checking Shi Yan, however, said, "This one seems to still be alive. Come listen—isn’t there still a heartbeat?"
They pressed their ears to his chest, then felt his neck. They kept feeling as though there was still a pulse, and at once decided to stop the bleeding and send him back to the Inspector Mansion for treatment.
When Wang Dao saw Shi Yan covered in blood, then heard that the private house had been broken into, with one room bearing marks of fire and pried‑up flooring, his vision went dark. "He’s forcing me, forcing the Great King, and threatening Zhao Hanzhang besides. But how could she be someone to threaten? He’s probably brought down a great calamity."
Wang Dao was so anxious he paced in circles on the spot, and finally decided to enter the palace to plead guilty.
Si Bo hurried to stop him. "Family Head, why take the initiative to shoulder this? It was Second Son who smashed the house, and he will never inform on the General. No one knows the private house was lodging Jiangbei spies, so no one will link it back to the Family Head."
Wang Dao said, "You underestimate Liu Kui and Diao Xie. By now Liu Kui must already know. For Chuzhong to hide from me and do this sort of thing in the city, it shows that he not only has people from the Mrs. Wang clan helping him, but outside helpers as well. I suspect they are from the Ministry of Justice."
"Right now he can’t wait for me to break with the Great King at once. Even if he doesn’t say so openly, he’ll hand Liu Kui the handle, forcing me to make a choice." When it came to playing games of stratagem, Wang Dun was still no match for Wang Dao.
He could already guess what Wang Dun was going to do next. Once Liu Kui was drawn to the private house, he would surely discover that the resident’s identity was suspicious and would soon infer they were Jiangbei spies.
And Yuan Li’s identity in Jiankang City was already half an open secret. In private, quite a few great clans had dealings with him. The only ones kept in the dark were King Langya, Liu Kui, and the like.
Letting Liu Kui dig deeper would only drag everyone into it. When that happened, what would King Langya think?
He believed he was governing Jiangnan jointly with the great clans of Jiangnan, yet in fact everyone was secretly in contact with Jiangbei behind his back—even Wang Dao.
King Langya was already displeased with Wang Dao and suspicious of the Mrs. Wang clan. After this, he would trust Wang Dao even less.
And Wang Dao still wanted to persuade King Langya to return north. What Wang Dun was doing was completely severing him and King Langya, trying to force either him or King Langya to strike at the other.
Wang Dao said, "Send men at once to rescue Yuan Li. I’ll write a letter and have someone deliver it to Luoyang and hand it to Zhao Hanzhang. I fear that once I enter the palace this time, I won’t be coming out again. Pass on my order: the youths of the Mrs. Wang clan are not to make trouble, nor are they to follow Wang Dun. If there are any of the Mrs. Wang clan’s sons who harbor ambitions like Wang Dun’s, I won’t stop them, but they must petition to leave the clan of their own accord. After that, whatever they choose to do, I will no longer concern myself."
