Chapter 275: Greedy People Are Easy To Trick
Cao Kun offered a very high bounty, ten taels of gold per head, of course, the heads must be from the Tiger Guards, and when claiming the reward money, they still had to split open the head to check the steel needle inside, which immediately extinguished the thoughts of those with ulterior motives wanting to kill innocents and claim merits.
Yun Ce knew that Cao Kun was very wealthy now, but he didn’t expect him to be this wealthy; six thousand Tiger Guards would cost sixty thousand taels of gold, which was a massive sum.
It even made Yun Ce want to go earn that money himself.
Unfortunately, the Tiger Guards always acted collectively, leaving no opportunity for the wandering knights eager for the bounty.
To disperse the Tiger Guards and draw them out of the barracks, South City had already been set ablaze three times, and those were major fires; the countless small fires that caused no harm were not even counted.
In those three major fires, the Tiger Guards lost eleven men, while the knights-errant, assassins, and even scholars like Yun Ce who frequently raided homes and robbed numbered a full one hundred sixty-eight killed by the Tiger Guards.
Why did Yun Ce know this so clearly? Because right at the entrance to the Tiger Guards’ camp hung one hundred eighty-six corpses; it was said that when they were first hung up, the people were still alive, and only after two days did they all die; now they were stiff and dangling from ropes, swaying randomly in the west wind like strings of wind chimes.
The houses that were burned down had now been rebuilt, though very crudely; the logs weren’t even debarked, just piled up into houses arranged very closely together, as if tempting people to burn them again.
Yun Ce looked around and realized that in this environment, with Liang City’s perennial west winds, not setting a fire would almost be an insult to the camp’s layout.
As he thought this, naturally others thought the same; just as Yun Ce was pondering where to set the fire to cause maximum harm to the camp, he spotted Chu Xiong with his face covered.
1 Chu Xiong truly lived up to being the Great Han’s Eagle Soaring General; he led a group of masked knights-errant on horseback, breaking through the Tiger Guards’ camp gate with thunderous speed, catching them off guard. After entering the camp, they didn’t rush to fight the charging Tiger Guards but instead threw jars of fire oil onto the wooden houses from their bosoms; when they reached the camp’s perimeter walls, they even poured oil on the warhorses, lit them, and under Chu Xiong’s fierce assault climbed the walls, then flipped over and fled with the help of those outside.
1 Yun Ce calculated that from the initial raid to the escape, Chu Xiong took less than five minutes, and from the start, their goals were clear, division of labor reasonable, especially that final touch of igniting the warhorses, which was the finishing stroke.
1 Those warhorses went mad the moment they were lit; they bucked and thrashed wildly, charging left and right like frenzied tigers, and in a short time, they thoroughly set the Tiger Guards’ camp ablaze.
1 Yun Ce was certain that these fire oils contained some special material, for as soon as the great fire started, the flames soared over ten feet high, instantly turning the Tiger Guards’ camp into a hellscape.
1 Yun Ce grabbed the last wandering knight, too rushed to ask this brother’s name, snapped his neck, took his arrogant White Cloak and draped it over himself, tied a handkerchief over his face, and quickly caught up to the fleeing group, vanishing into the spiderweb of alleyways.
1 When they followed Chu Xiong into a stifling, foul-smelling leather workshop, Chu Xiong finally stopped; he seemed in a great hurry, jumped onto a scraping table, and said to the fifty-six people who followed him: “The rat nest is lit; the rats will come out soon. The rest is up to you brothers and sisters.”
1 “This foolish brother takes his leave here.”
1 Just as Chu Xiong was about to run, someone below said: “General Chu Xiong, I still want to follow you.”
1 The moment “General Chu Xiong” was uttered, Chu Xiong’s leopard eyes widened as he glared toward the source of the voice, but the speaker was quick and clear; by the time he tried to pinpoint the source, the person had stopped talking.
1 Looking closely, the fifty-odd people under the scraping table were all glancing around left and right, each putting on an innocent expression as if it had nothing to do with them.
2 Exposed by name, Chu Xiong instead calmed down and said: “As we agreed beforehand, I led you in the raid to set fire and burn the Tiger Guards’ camp, forcing them out of the barracks; the rest is up to individual skill. Brother, why did you call out my name?”
2 Yun Ce naturally wouldn’t stand out, and though the others were shocked and trembling upon learning Chu Xiong’s name, none of them stood up to speak either.
2 Chu Xiong scanned the crowd again coldly and said: “We part here; anyone who follows will be killed without mercy.”
2 Leaving behind that icy, murderous threat, Chu Xiong left alone.
2 Yun Ce wanted to follow but saw three people already chasing ahead; it seemed they weren’t that interested in capturing Tiger Guards for gold.
2 Yun Ce jumped onto the high wall and was about to leap down when someone behind him said: “Bai Chengfeng, don’t think covering your face means I won’t recognize you.”
2 Yun Ce angrily flung out a short spear in a double motion, straight at the speaker’s chest; the speaker swung a great axe to split the short spear and was about to speak again when he saw the man in the White Cloak jump off the high wall to chase Chu Xiong.
2 Following Doggy’s directions, Yun Ce chased down, and after turning a corner, he saw three people lying on the ground; just one glance told him they were beyond saving—they had been struck in the chest with heavy fists, shattering their heart and lungs with a single blow.
2 Yun Ce jumped onto the high wall and saw Chu Xiong sprinting at full speed toward the City Lord’s Mansion; Yun Ce stopped, turned, and ran back toward the camp—he felt that Chu Xiong’s hasty assault on the camp must have another purpose, and as for the City Lord’s Mansion, since Doggy was already tailing Chu Xiong, he couldn’t escape.
2 No matter what, Yun Ce never imagined that to chop off Tiger Guards’ heads for gold, someone used three tall horse carriages fully loaded with firewood to block the camp gate; here too flames blazed fiercely, preventing the Tiger Guards from coming out.
3 Not only that, he saw this group somehow obtain a simple trebuchet, continuously hurling fireballs into the camp.
3 Flanking the trebuchet, hundreds of knights-errant holding various weapons watched eagerly, waiting for the fire to wear down the Tiger Guards so they could pick up the bargains.
3 Yun Ce sidled up to a knight-errant, nudged him with his arm, and said: “If they’re all burned up, how do we get paid?”
3 The man turned to look at the masked Yun Ce and said: “Bai Chengfeng, you think covering your face fools Old Wu?”
3 Yun Ce said in shock: “I covered my face completely; how could you still recognize me?”
3 Old Wu sneered: “You didn’t change the White Cloak.”
3 Yun Ce glanced at the White Cloak on him by firelight and finally realized it was something special; the leather seemed to be from a fierce beast— he’d seen plenty of yellow, black, and yellow-black fierce beasts, but this was his first white one.
3 He hadn’t expected that made into a cloak, it was not only very light but also warm.
3 Yun Ce gave an awkward smile and continued: “Who gets credit for the burned ones?”
3 Old Wu laughed: “Old Bai, since you charged the formation earlier, you’ve got a share; even if the whole Tiger Guards are burned inside, their skulls won’t be too damaged—as long as the steel needle in the head is there, the Cao Clan’s Eldest Young Master will accept it.”
4 Yun Ce chuckled and said no more, focusing with Old Wu on the blazing Tiger Guards’ camp.
4 Just as everyone thought the matter was settled, a roar unlike any human sound suddenly erupted from the flames; then, the carriages blocking the camp gate were cleaved in two by a massive horse chopping saber, flames surging aside as a giant han over two meters tall in heavy armor stepped through the fire from the camp, slashing apart the blocking carriages with one stroke.
4 He took a few quick steps and with another slash, the makeshift trebuchet that had been lobbing fireballs into the camp was cut in half at the waist.
4 Behind him, more heavily armored Tiger Guards emerged; they were like mobile fortresses, lined up advancing from the flames, with the same horse chopping sabers and heavy armor, pressing forward like a forest, blood and flesh flying wherever the sabers passed.
4 Yun Ce quickly looked back and saw eleven heavily armored Tiger Guards appear less than a hundred paces away; they too wielded horse chopping sabers, ignoring the arrows and horse spears falling on them, methodically swinging their blades while advancing step by step, splitting men and horses wherever they went.
4 Old Wu stared dumbfounded, lips trembling: “Aren’t they afraid of being burned?”
4 Yun Ce patted Old Wu’s shoulder: “I’m running first; more are coming from behind.”
4 Old Wu looked back in horror and saw a team of heavily armored Tiger Guards emerging from the alleys behind, doing the same as those on the left and right.
4 Old Wu was just about to tell Yun Ce to run together when he saw Yun Ce already leaping off the rooftop toward the blazing camp; he thought Bai Chengfeng was a utter fool, seeking death at this point, and was about to flee along the rooftops when his feet gave way—the roof collapsed, and in patches; before the dust settled, ranks of heavily armored Tiger Guards stood up from the smoke.
4 Seeing knights-errant all around shredded by the forest of advancing horse chopping sabers, Old Wu was about to say he was just watching when a horse chopping saber severed his spear and conveniently bisected his body.
5 Yun Ce dodged the horse chopping saber, leapt monkey-like onto a heavily armored Tiger Guard’s shoulder, kicked down the armored soldier underfoot with both legs, and arrowed into the Tiger Guards’ camp.
5 Inside the camp, Yun Ce immediately understood why the fierce fire couldn’t kill these Tiger Guards’ armored soldiers: the log houses were empty of people; near the camp walls far from the wooden houses were countless pits—from these pits away from the burning areas, the soldiers must have emerged.
5 No wonder Chu Xiong ran; this guy meant to lure all those wanting to capture Tiger Guards for money into one place for the Tiger Guards to wipe them out.
5 After figuring this out, Yun Ce took out his Shehuo, strode straight through the flaming area, and ran toward the City Lord’s Mansion.
