The Second Volume of Water Margin

  Ximen Qing's words came out, and except for Zeng Kui, everyone present was slightly shocked in their hearts.

  That's right, people of Great Song.

  Even the soldiers in Zengtou City felt a resonance in their hearts, and as they looked at Zeng Kui, their eyes also changed gradually.

  If they are not of our kind, their hearts must be different!

  Zeng Kui felt the chill of this gaze, and was about to use some words to say that these soldiers were desperately resisting, and he himself would take advantage of the opportunity to escape from Zengtou City. Unexpectedly, in just a few words, Xi Menqing turned around and said that his own soldiers were almost on the verge of mutiny.

  With a cold laugh, Zeng Kui inserted the steel knife into the ground and took off his upper garment, revealing a large embroidered pattern on his chest. Wu Song looked at it and found that it was an angry wolf head.

  Zeng Kui gripped his knife again, his eyes now somewhat different, and shouted at Ximen Qing: "You want to borrow my man's head, come take it yourself!"

  Everyone thought that Zeng Kui, this dying beast, was going to make a last struggle, but Ximen Qing saw something different in Zeng Kui's eyes and movements.

  "This scoundrel is going to kill his own people!" Ximen Qing's expression changed slightly: "Second brother, Liu Daizi, you two quickly stop him!"

  This verdict was so unbelievable that even the soldiers from Zhenzhou on the opposite side suspected they had misheard it, let alone Wu Song and Liu Zheng.

  Zeng Kui suddenly let out a loud roar, swung his steel knife and struck at the soldiers beside him, not at Ximen Qing and others in front of him.

  The scene suddenly became chaotic. By the time Wu Song and Liu Zheng came to their senses, Zeng Kui had already cut down four soldiers standing nearby!

  These four soldiers may never understand until their death why Zeng Kui's steel knife was swung towards them.

  But Ximen Qing knew that Zeng Kui was just making an example of himself, and it wouldn't do any good to go after him alone, so he simply took out his anger on the people around him. Because in the eyes of this Jin national Zeng Kui, all the people of the Song Dynasty were the same, why not start with the easiest ones to kill?

  When Zeng Kui's steel knife cut open the fifth soldier's throat, the other three soldiers finally came to their senses and hastily raised their weapons to meet him. However, this gave Zeng Kui an opportunity, cunningly dodging between the three soldiers, making it impossible for Wu Song and Liu Renzhong outside the circle to intervene for a while.

  "Liu Renzhong hastily shouted: 'All of you move back! Retreat!' "

  The words came a little too late, Zeng Kui was already doomed to die, his moves were like a mad dog, advancing without retreating. Even with three steel knives stabbed into his chest and abdomen, Zeng Kui still killed the three soldiers one by one with the knife in his hand.

  Looking at Wu Song and Liu Erbao rushing towards him, Zeng Kui straightened his body with his last strength and shouted: "Da Jin! Da..."

  Zeng Kui's last sight was Wu Song's iron fist, heavily smashing into his own face.

  The last "gold" word reached his mouth and was ruthlessly knocked back by Wu Song!

  The head of Zeng Kui was cut off, and only then did the crowd discover that the big monk in the Fangzhang room was tied up with five flowers and had already stopped breathing.

  Looking at the woman who had been disembowelled beside him, two small monks, and the big monk with blood all over his lower body, all of whom were naked, Ximen Qing suddenly said: "Indeed it is retribution that has not been fulfilled. The monk should have a monk's appearance, but instead he is wrapped in women and holds an unobstructed meeting. Even Buddha cannot bear to look at this."

  "There's something fishy." Wu Song seemed to have seen through something, and kicked the knife on the ground: "These two little monks seem to have died under this big monk's knife."

  "So it seems that the woman and Xiaosha are having an affair, and Dajun found out?" Ximen Qing's gossiping heart became a bit more lively: "Tsk tsk tsk, this woman really has a heavy taste, three people in a relationship, and even messing around with a young monk..."

  "Is... Ximen... the great officer?" Suddenly a faint voice rose from underfoot, startling everyone. Upon closer inspection, Ximen Qing only then discovered that it was Dajun Monk whose mouth corners were twitching, presumably having fainted just now, with weak breathing, but this moment seemed to have some signs of recovery.

  Ximen Qing leaned down to listen, and the big monk Dajue panted for half a day before saying a few words: "That side... secret room... box... want..."

  "I say, Abbot, you're almost dead, say something important." Ximen Qing frowned and said: "What box do you want at this time?"

  "It's not that I want to... it's just that I want to... want to..." The big monk Da Yuan was sweating profusely, and yet he struggled to speak.

  "The four elements are empty for a monk, you'd better give up, let's talk seriously." Ximen Qing interrupted Da Yuan's continuous "wants", but unexpectedly the monk made a gurgling sound in his throat, glared and kicked his legs, and directly went to the Western Paradise.

  "Alas. Next life, remember to cultivate the Esoteric School and worship the Joyful Buddha." Ximen Qing felt the monk's pulse and shook his head: "For a lustful monk like you, the Joyful Buddha is just right. The Exoteric School's path doesn't match your temperament, it's easy to fall into demonic delusions."

  Liu Renzhong pointed at a hidden door on the opposite wall: "Boss, is this the secret room that the monk mentioned?"

  "Secret room? This lustful monk must have used it to hide women. And probably some money too, right? And wasn't there something about a trunk?" Ximen Qing stood up and thought for a moment: "You two go down and take a look if there's a trunk, bring it over and let's see."

  The house was filled with corpses, and the ground was covered in blood. Ximen Qing simply took his men and ran to the courtyard to wait, looking around everywhere. This ancient temple of a thousand years was destroyed, and over a thousand bodies were disposed of - would there be many vengeful spirits? From now on, wouldn't it be renamed Lanruo Temple?

  Ximen Qing was thinking wildly when Liu Renzhong had already brought a personal soldier down and carried the box over.

  The box wasn't too big, but boxes of this era were all made of solid wood. This one was probably sandalwood or some other type of wood. Anyway, when the box hit the stone floor with a dull thud, Ximen Qing knew that it was quite heavy.

  "This box isn't big, but it's heavy to carry." Liu Renzhong shook his hands and complained: "If it were all strings of copper coins inside, it wouldn't be in vain for me to exert myself moving it once."

  The box was locked and hung on top, but it wasn't locked. Ximen Qing raised his hand to open the box and took a look: "Nothing, not even a single copper coin."

  Liu Renzhong cried with a sad face: "Boss, what's inside? Don't tell me there's another dead body in there?"

  "There's no copper coins, but there is a large pile of weapons." Ximen Qing was also very surprised: "Is this big round monk really a monk or not? Why is he so abnormal, hiding a large pile of weapons in the box?"

  "Never mind, it's just right for my brothers to use." Liu Renzhong came over with some interest and took a look. Indeed, there were knives, swords, axes, and even a pair of iron hammers inside, no wonder it was so heavy.

  "This big monk is not a good person, if he were a peaceful monk, he wouldn't have made so many weapons." Wu Song looked thoughtful: "However, these seem to be ordinary weapons, could this monk be planning a rebellion?"

  Ximen Qing burst out laughing: "The monk is rebelling? If he really wanted to rebel, the entire temple of monks wouldn't have been killed by Zeng Tou Shi. Let's take a closer look, that bald donkey insisted on taking this box with him before he died, it must be more than just weapons."

  Ximen Qing's eyes scanned the trunk back and forth, and he really found a small package in one corner of the trunk.

  There weren't many things in the package, but it explained why Da Yuan and Shang were so eager to get this box before they died.

  A pile of silver ingots. According to Ximen Qing's estimate, there were more than three thousand taels, and Liu Ren's mouth was almost watering on the side.

  A small booklet, densely filled with words, Ximen Qing flipped through a few pages, seeing that they were all accounts of flowing water, some dizzying, so he had to put it away for now and wait for an opportunity to slowly flip through it.

  At the very bottom of the package was a small waist card, which Ximen Qing glanced at and felt that the pattern on it was extremely familiar.

  "Brother, this is similar to the waist token we have." Wu Song took a glance and pulled out his own for comparison: "They're both blank, although the patterns are different in detail, they look like they're from the same mold."

  "Imperial City Guard?"

  Ximen Qing and Wu Song said in unison, looking at each other.

  What is the Imperial City Guard after all, and a Fangzhang of Fahua Temple also has an Imperial City Guard token in his hand. Is he also a member of the Imperial City Guard? What is Dahuang's purpose or mission here? Is it to monitor Zengtou City?

  Ximen Qing suddenly felt that the small booklet had become extremely important. If Dajun and Shang discovered Zeng's suspicious behavior in Zhenping City, they would definitely record it.

  Zengtou City must have had an unspoken background, and the sudden settlement of Zeng Chang, a ginseng seller, was already a suspicious behavior. The Jurchen tribe became the Jin Dynasty in just one or two years, but the Zeng family had been here for over ten years.

  As expected, from the very beginning, the Jurchen, now known as the Jin Dynasty, infiltrated the Song Dynasty. Zhenjiang can be said to be a bridgehead, a thorn in the side of the Jin Dynasty in the Song Dynasty.

  It's no wonder that Zeng Guofan had to set up a camp, recruit soldiers, and not only did he have five sons of his own, but also hired two teachers, Shi Wencong and Su Ding, with high salaries, as if they were already in the midst of a national crisis.

  Ximen Qing can imagine that the intelligence from nearby areas was sent directly to the Jin State through Zengtou City, and even Lingzhou had an intelligence station. It can be inferred that in many places of the Song Dynasty, especially in Dongjing, there were similar intelligence stations, which sent all kinds of intelligence about the Song Dynasty back to the Jin State through merchants.

  The Imperial City Patrol was also likely a similar secret agency, secretly monitoring these suspicious places.

  "This place has people from the Imperial City, so what about Liangshan?" Ximen Qing almost immediately confirmed his own idea: "Liangshan is a mixed bag, eight or nine out of ten chances that the Imperial City has already planted their men. It's possible that some of the leaders have been bought off by the Imperial City."

  "What's next after all the soldiers in Zengtou City have been killed?" Liu Ma Zi couldn't help but ask, seeing Ximen Qing staring at his waist card with a thoughtful expression.

  Ximen Qing looked at the sky and saw that the sun was slowly setting below the western horizon, so he ordered: "All personnel withdraw from Zengtou City and escort our families back to the stockade."

  "The surviving women were also taken away. They temporarily stayed in the village for now and would talk about it again tomorrow."