Chapter 127: Battle of the Weird

 

Translated by Gumihou

Please read this at kitchennovel dot com

 

The three cowered back, but when Top Dog ordered them to follow him, they drew their knives out and proudly held their heads high as they entered the temple gates. Top Dog even let Strong Zhang kick in the door, that’s right, show those monks we’re not scared. Yeah.

The entire rear court was quiet. The moon had gone behind the clouds, leaving only a weak, dappled light for them to see with. They could barely make out the faint impressions of a large courtyard, filled with several large things. Top Dog guessed that those large things were probably just trees and shrubs. There was no way that those monks and women could have the time to make any pit traps or anything labour intensive. Horse tripping ropes wee easy to set up, but then, the bandits didn’t come in with horses.

Several thoughts went through his mind as he led Strong Zhang and the rest further into the courtyard. From their position, they could see campfires and oil lamps burning within the monastery. A large group of people were sitting or standing around, talking and laughing together. It looked like they were having a fun camping trip instead of a siege. Anyone looking in would never believe that this bunch of crazies were in a life and death situation.

Even Top Dog himself could not believe his eyes, which made him doubt himself even more.

Why were they like this? What could be the reason for their utter calmness? They should only have about 20 over martial monks at most, but surely this isn’t enough to give them such courage? Was there some other hidden reason? What could this hidden reason be? Have we stumbled into a trap? Was it possible that a whole army had surrounded us and was just waiting for the signal to strike? That can’t be right, even if the army was deployed, they would have used special ops to take us out through guerilla tactics than an outright fight. After all, if an army were to appear from the outside, they should know that the Slaughter Dog Gang will kill or take everyone in here hostage out of desperation, especially the heir’s wife and that brothel woman.

No matter how he tried to make sense of the situation, Top Dog still ended up causing himself a headache. Suddenly, he heard a faint ‘omm…’ sound, his heart trembled and all the hairs on his body stood up. A sudden light appeared before them and when they squinted their eyes, they saw the fierce, sinister face of a giant leering down at them.

“Ah! Mummy! A… a ghost!”

Never before in Top Dog’s life had he ever produced such a high pitched scream. He was not the only one. His companions, too, screamed like little girls. In fact, Strong Zhang, Daring Zhou and Pockmark Wong were crying now. Back when they killed that corrupt landlord, Pockmark Wong never even blink, but today his legs were so weak that they couldn’t hold him up, and he ended up flat on his bottom.

The three of them were so stricken with fear that the only thing they want to do now was flee, but their limbs refused to obey them. The only fortunate thing was that their fear did not last long, martial monks sneaked up behind them and with a knife strike to the neck, all four frightened men ended up as a pile of fainted men. The monks quickly trussed them up, and carried them off like fowls to the slaughter,

“To think they’d actually pick up a career as bandits with only this much guts.” Qiu Ling looked over the four fowls, ahem, men, the martial monks had brought in. The men were put away in the side room along with the other two bandits. She couldn’t help but feel slightly gleeful. When she was left behind, the only thing she could feel at that time was terror and despair. Now, well, how lucky was she to be able to see such a show? If she had left with the carriage group, she would have missed this amazing performance that was a hundred, a thousand times better than any professional opera.

[Gumihou: Lol, wut, Qiu Ling?]

“Their courage is not bad really, considering that they didn’t faint dead away, or pee in their pants. Or do you think you can see a giant spectre coming at you in the dark and not scream?” Su Nuan Nuan grinned. She was very satisfied with the pitch these four had reached, that should keep those bandits still hanging about outside guessing. Daybreak will arrive another 10 hours, they all have to hang on until then. Well, who knows whether Duan Tingxuan will actually appear on time.

Su Nuan Nuan did not guess wrong. When the rest of the Slaughter Dog Gang heard the screams of the scouting party led by their unflappable military advisor, followed by that ominous silence. The scalps of all these murderous bandits grew numb. Liu Er Niu was shocked for a good long moment. Then he grabbed his knife and roared, “Top Dog has been ambushed! Boss, I must rescue them, I can’t stand it anymore!”

“You stupid thing, do you want to be ambushed too?” Chen Jing was pissed off. Just what kind of situation were they in now? To think that his foolish, reckless brothers still want to charge in blindly. He stormed about in place furiously, then lashed a kick at Liu Er Niu’s backside and growled, “Fine. You go in. Don’t go into the building, just shout at those people from outside. Tell them that we’re hungry and cold, and are prepared to pay them money for whatever it is they’re eating. Oh, and some blankets too.”

Liu Er Niu staggered, nearly falling on his face before this comrade of his. He rubbed his ears, not quite believing what he had heard. Finally, he stammered, “B-boss, you… you’re not saying… what I think you’re saying… right? Are we… buying dinner?”

“Stupid thing, are you trying to say I’m greedy? We must know what’s going on, this is just another way of investigating, understand?” Chen Jing was really angry now: Was he such an unreliable person in his brother’s eyes?

“S- surely there are other methods of investigation, ah.” Liu Er Niu scratched his head but did not say it too loudly. Even if his brother was not ashamed, he still wants his face, ah! How could he face his other brothers next time? What was he supposed to say about this mission? Oh, that time we went to Pushan Temple, we bought bread from the An Ping heir’s wife. I manage to eat 100 pieces and did not belch even once, wouldn’t this kind of stupid boast shame him back to his ancestor’s home?

“What do you know? Unusual situations should be dealt with using unusual methods.” Chen Jing said coldly. “It may seem ridiculous to you, but have you consider the situation we’re in right now? Clearly we can’t investigate them using normal means, therefore we must fight fire with fire, poison with poison. Humph! Dare to use weird methods with me? I shall be 10 times weirder than you. At the very least, even if we didn’t find out anything, we can still make them scratch their heads a bit.”

“Boss, you… you really want to do this?”

No matter what, Liu Er Niu still felt that there was something wrong with this plan, however, as a rough, uneducated person, he couldn’t come up with anything better… So, whatever, he grudgingly made his way towards the monastery gate and called out loudly, “Hey… uh, Baldies…”

He hadn’t finished speaking when Chen Jing appeared behind him and launched a kick at him. In a low voice, Chen Jing growled, “You idiot, we’re buying stuff from them, not robbing them.”

“Oh, alright. Um, g-great master, Mr. Monk person? That is… have mercy on us sinners, in this, uh, cold and windy night… that is, we are very cold and hungry. May we venture to ask great master monk, sir, if you would sell us something to eat? We have money. If… if it’s not too much trouble, a few blankets will be nice too… We can’t thank you enough.”

Once Liu Er Niu stammered through his request, he looked back at Chen Jing. “Boss, is this alright?”

“En, good.” Chen Jing nodded. He actually didn’t hold out much hope for anything. If he was the one under siege, he would not have bothered with people trying to negotiate things from him. However, since everyone had to wait around in the cold like this, time will pass very slowly indeed. They’ve already lost men and morale was at its lowest. If he couldn’t find a way to increase morale, they would really fail this mission, and possibly offend the Mingyu House.

If that were to happen, the Slaughter Dog Gang would have no leg to stand on in the whole of six provinces.

 

[Gumihou: Aww, I’m starting to feel sorry for these puppies.]

 

 

  ^_^

Translated by Gumihou from kitchennovel dot com.

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