FH Chapter 49:拳头才是硬道理！
[Fist is the absolute principle! ]
The oil lamp was dim, the rain slapped on the wall of the carriage, making a clear melodious and rhythmic sound.
Inside the carriage, the oil lamp was dim, so dark that Li Haitang could only see Xiao Lingchuan’s deep outline, his eyebrows and eyes, all hidden in the dark shadows that the light could not illuminate.
In the mountains and fields, there are no pedestrians, the cold wind drills in along the gap of the carriage window, the atmosphere is silent and eerie, very much like the setting in the ghost film.
Not long after, Li Jin Hu’s upper and lower eyelids fought and he let out an even breathing sound.
“Brother Xiao, if you can’t sleep, let’s talk ba.”
Li Haitang covered the quilt and sighed quietly, after showing her medical skills last night, although he was surprised, he didn’t ask anything, which made her a bit guilty and always wanted to explain a few things.
Two of them are going to get married, in the future they will become one family. He has always been reluctant to show his thoughts, most of the time, very silent, but has a strong aura, and you could not ignore his presence.
“Okay.”
Xiao Lingchuan leaned against the door of the carriage, he took the copper pot with a thin spout from the small red clay stove, brewed a cup of ginger tea and handed it to Li Haitang.
The rainy day was humid, so drinking some ginger tea warmed the stomach and drove away the cold. He had never been in close contact with a woman before, and for a while he didn’t know how to start a conversation.
“Border City is the farthest place I’ve been so far.”
Li Haitang took a sip of ginger tea, resting her cheeks, her eyes rounded as it widened, “It’s best to talk about the local customs of each place, and what strange encounters you had while traveling on the dart.”
“Every time we go on the road, there is a team of twenty to thirty armed escort men.”
Dart traveling was even more toilsome than cargo traveling, almost every trip would meet cunning thieves and robbers, escorting more valuable items, often sleeping in the open in the mountains and fields, and when there was rustle of leaves in the wind on the night, one would have to wake up, and basically couldn’t have a good night’s sleep.
At that time, Xiao Lingchuan was still a newcomer, coupled with the fact that he was just bored with his work, some people felt that he was easy to bully, and had a bad intention to steal what is entrusted to one’s care; embezzlement. After that person was discovered, he planted evidence against him.
“Too shameless, right, so how did you explain it?”
Li Haitang was really helpless, it was no wonder that the people of the Li Family Village called Xiao Lingchuan a savage, he lived on the mountain by himself for years and years, dealing with wild beasts, and his face was not pleasing to the eye, the people of the village always had a threefold fear of him.
He is habitually silent, awkward in speech and must feel that the cleaner, but if you do not defend yourself, how will others know that you are innocent? Just assume that you have been exposed, so tacitly approve.
“I have no explanation.”
Xiao Lingchuan didn’t bother to defend what he hadn’t done, anyway, later that person explained himself.
“Huh? How is that possible?”
Li Haitang had a black line on her face.
In the business of armed escort, character is quite important, if you have a bad reputation. You might not be able to continue this business in the future, since businessmen only look at how much benefit they can gain, they won’t suddenly be kind and give you a chance to start over.
Li Haitang pondered, more than half of the dart masters ganged up to exclude outsiders. They saw Xiao Lingchuan alone on the road, with no brother to help, plant stolen or banned goods on someone, proceed with the plan and share the extra profits.
“Relying on fists, in the end, he admitted it.”
That part of the past, already years ago, Xiao Lingchuan mentioned it lightly, and then for a long time, he did not go to the dart. Himself hunting in the mountains, silver enough to spend, and did not intend to marry a wife and have children, a person to live a life, leisurely and carefreely, nothing bad.
“Pfft…”
Li Haitang laughed lightly, the fist is the absolute principle. That’s right those groups of fools have bad luck, try to deceive yet stumble upon a hard target, she laughed and said, “This is called, try to steal a chicken only to end up losing the rice used to lure it.” (try to gain an advantage only to end up worse off)
Earning silver, in order to live happy days, in the conditions of not having to worry about clothes and food,so the most important thing in life is to enjoy life.
Xiao LingChuan frowned, was this analogy appropriate? Even if he himself was that chicken, he didn’t get to eat the rice.
After tearing his face off (scratching each other’s face—quarrel openly; shed all pretense of cordiality) with that group of people, everyone was indifferent to him, he didn’t care anyway since he wasn’t good at dealing with others.
“To say that there are strange encounters, I say yes.”
Xiao Lingchuan recalled that three years ago, in a late autumn, around the same time, the dart board he was working for received a single business, transporting the casket of a rich lady, back to her ancestral home for burial.
After all, it is escorting the body of a dead person, this kind of thing, the head of the bodyguard, at first he didn’t want to take the job, bad luck, but hopelessly, since the other party is their old patron, the family’s jewelry business is doing a big business, there are a few shops in Capital, Da Qi. Besides that, the other party gave a generous remuneration, transporting corpses that everyone on the road avoids, there is no risk, silver money easily gets, the head of the dart thought, this business is pure profit, finally nodded his head and agreed.
“Before going on the road, the coffin containing a corpse was parked in the dartboard (a professional organization which provided armed escorts or bodyguards) the night watchman said, late at night once heard the woman’s cry.”
Moreover, the financial backer made an odd request; to send the coffin containing a corpse, a wealthy lady who suddenly died. Her grievances are deep, so they must find someone who can keep her down; this advice came from a monk in the temple.
As the rainy night continued the eerie topic, Li Haitang couldn’t help but shake the goosebumps on her body and pretended to be relaxed: “Then why do we need an unmarried man to deliver the hearse? To have a period of human-ghost love?”
For Xiao Lingchuan, it is not good to say it too directly, in fact, the requirement of the bodyguard is virgin boys, so that the yang energy (the masculine or positive principle in nature) of the man is strong, ghosts and monsters can not be close to his body. Folklore says that the unmarried woman who died with a violent death, her grievances are extremely heavy. The ghost will be out in the middle of the night, looking for a man to match her with an underworld marriage.
The head of the bodyguard was in a state of anxiety after receiving the customer’s order. Whenever he asks, everyone’s head swings like a drum-shaped rattle; they all say that even if they are not married but they have been to the red light district when they’re traveling, they are no longer virgins therefore no one dares to take the risk of transporting the coffin.
“Take a trip, give a thousand taels of silver, I promise.”
Thousand taels of silver, round trip for about a month, some armed escorts, for a lifetime probably they could not earn so much.
Even though it was late autumn, the weather was still hot in the south. This way they had to go to several cities, in order to prevent the body from rotting. That young lady was sealed in an ice coffin. The good thing is that they don’t need to stop on the way, however every seven or eight hours, they need add ice to the ice coffin.
“Then what, what did you guys meet?”
Li Haitang anxious, half of the story, suspended in midair; indicating Xiao LingChuan don’t keep people guessing, hurry up to continue. The wild man is full of ominous spirits, even the female ghosts are afraid of him, right?
Furthermore, his appearance is extremely ugly in the eyes of the people of Da Qi, everyone loves beauty, I believe that the ghosts are also so, female ghosts looking for someone to get married aka ghost marriage (in which at least one of the bride and groom is dead), have to pick the good-looking ones.
This trip to escort the casket, a total of only four people, originally it can be only Xiao Lingchuan alone, the head of the escord didn’t agree no matter what, if only one person to go, too much silver, he alone earn a lot of money, so the head escort scrape together, from the family relatives, even with the coaxing and cheating (sweet talk sb into doing sth),to get three unmarried boy.
“Those three people, completely inexperienced in dart walking, the head of the escort in order to raise some black hearted silver (greedy silver) for themselves, also did not say that this trip is to transport the casket.”
The three were not yet crowned (come of age) two or three years younger than him, seventeen or eighteen, curious about everything. The head of the bodyguard drew a big pancake for them, went out for a month, came back with a hundred taels of silver each, plus a house in town.
The requirements are interesting, the three of them did not know the truth, they thought that they were just delivering an empty coffin, so they joyfully agreed.
