SHOCK Chapter 31

I was so focused on killing that I didn’t notice which one of these guys added so many days to my life.

Turning his head and looking through the broken checkered window, everything outside was still very quiet.

Zhou Wu thought to himself, he hadn’t heard anyone running away just now.

Maybe he hadn’t noticed, or maybe these sacrifices were too afraid to make a sound when they ran.

He had to go check first to see if any clues were left behind; he should leave here before dawn.

He took a piece of firewood, wrapped it with coarse linen, and poured oil from the oil lamp onto the linen, then lit it.

The corpse of the gatekeeper was still slumped against the wall behind the door, the broken wooden door ajar.

The room was quiet.

Zhou Wu nodded, seeing that they had all run away, even Liáng nǚ had run away with her child silently.

Because the room stank, Zhou Wu didn’t go in. He was about to turn around and leave when suddenly, someone stumbled out from outside the broken wooden door.

Zhou Wu held up the torch for a closer look. It was actually Liáng nǚ, with her hands tied, struggling to get up.

She didn’t run?

Was she waiting for him?

Liáng nǚ finally managed to stand up, panting, her face covered in white ash, and approached Zhou Wu.

“Sir, why didn’t you run?”

“Why didn’t I run?”

The two stared at each other, unsure where to begin.

Liáng nǚ reacted a bit slower: “I finished counting to one hundred, and then told them to run for their lives, saying that those people were all sound asleep and that if they escaped, they could flee for their lives.”

Zhou Wu nodded.

“But, none of them ran.”

“Not one of them ran?”

“No.”

Zhou Wu was bewildered. What was this all about?

They clearly knew that staying here meant they were destined to be sacrifices, but when given a chance, they didn’t even try to escape.

“What did they say?”

Liáng nǚ shook her head awkwardly, “No one paid attention to me.”

Liáng nǚ paused for a moment, then said, “I… I wouldn’t pay attention to them either.”

Zhou Wu understood. These people had been abused into a state of numbness. They relied entirely on the arrangements of fate and didn’t dare to resist in the slightest.

What a troublesome bunch. Liáng nǚ had been exposed to the others.

If investigated later, everyone would say there was such a woman who had once encouraged everyone to escape.

It was too late for regrets now; he could only take things one step at a time.

Zhou Wu untied Liáng nǚ’s ropes and told her to bring Dog Paw out.

The two of them hid in the courtyard.

Zhou Wu looked at the Eastern Horizon and calculated the time.

Then, using the torch in his hand, he set the thatched roof on fire.

So you don’t want to run? If a fire starts, will you still obediently stay inside and willingly be burned to death?

The people inside were all commoners who had been captured from villages or the wilderness. They were honest, yes, but not stupid.

When light smoke began to billow from the house, they all knew the house was on fire.

Some even tried to smash their way out through the windows, creating complete chaos.

Zhou Wu didn’t bother to watch the outcome. He returned to the courtyard, told Liáng nǚ to pack their things, and prepared to flee.

But Liáng nǚ had fallen into a kind of madness. She couldn’t bear to throw anything away, wanting to pack everything.

When Zhou Wu finished packing inside the house, Liáng nǚ was still stripping clothes off the corpses.

She had already stripped four bodies, because there were four naked corpses lying in front of her.

Zhou Wu stepped forward, grabbed her dark hand, and looked at her very firmly.

“You can’t take anything except food.”

Zhou Wu lowered his head and looked at the knife in his hand, feeling very reluctant.

But he gritted his teeth and threw it far away.

“What about clothes?”

“Put them back on, find the ox cart, and let’s go.”

Then, the skinny old ox pulled the broken cart, carrying the three figures, two small and one large, ragged and tattered, braving the cold wind, and moving forward on the desolate road.

Different from before, the three of them and the ox were full, well-fed, and full of energy.

A little over a hundred *lǐ* from here was the capital of Jiang Country, a fiefdom of the Great Zhou Dynasty’s royal family, belonging to an Earl named Jiang Jinian.

The territory, excluding the capital, covered nearly a million hectares, making it one of the larger vassal states of the Zhou Dynasty.

West Liang Township in Middle Liang County of Jiang Country was Zhou Wu’s destination, also his nominal home.

Middle Liang County was divided into three townships: East Liang, West Liang, and North Liang.

At this time, Zhou Wu and the others were traveling on the boundary of East Liang Township. Further west, they would enter his hometown, West Liang Township.

In the Middle Liang County government office, County Magistrate Chen Chu was frowning deeply, staring at a *zàoyī* man in front of his desk.

“Say it again.”

The man bowed and said, “Yes, sir. When I went to Hexi Village, I saw that Lord Zhong had already been killed, stabbed in the lower abdomen, which should be a fatal wound. The remaining twelve attendants were all killed, with varying wounds.”

“Anything else?”

“Besides the two burned-down thatched houses, there were no other clues.”

“What do you think?”

“Judging from the manpower Lord Zhong brought, the murderer should be no less than fifty people.”

“Why?”

“Because Lord Zhong and his twelve attendants were killed without any resistance at all, and the footprints on the ground are scattered.”

Chen Chu immediately gasped. Such a large-scale force, could it be someone from a certain prince’s domain?

To randomly break into the territory of Jiang Country, kill people, and then disappear without a trace, what are they trying to do?

“Is it robbery?”

“The clothes, belongings, and weapons on their bodies were all untouched, not even the only warhorse was spared, it was also killed.”

The *zàoyī* man immediately looked worried.

This man was Li Guanyu, the constable of Middle Liang County, in charge of the county government’s fifteen constables and quick-catchers.

Returning to his own office, he gathered a few constables and quick-catchers to discuss how to handle this case.

An older constable, stroking his half-foot-long beard, looked calm and composed.

“Head, what’s so difficult about this? Just handle it according to the old rules.”

Li Guanyu shook his head and said, “In the past, it was only one or two people, at most three or five, but now it’s fifty people or more, how can we do it?”

Li Guanyu grimaced as if he had a toothache, holding his cheek and only sucking in air.

“This matter is a bit too big; if it gets exposed, it’s a death sentence.”

The middle-aged constable looked calm, “Head, if we don’t do anything, what will the outcome be?”

Li Guanyu suddenly shuddered.

Download Chapter as TXT