Chapter 42: The Mastermind

Su Tang walked into the courtyard supported by Mo Xiaobai, and Long Qi followed behind. Piercing sounds of collisions, roars, and screams already drifted from the main hall. Clearly, the battle had already erupted.

“Do you know what the consequences of doing this will be?” Long Qi asked slowly.

“Consequences?”

“Loyalty is a very important part of the rules. A Martial Artist with a family must be loyal to his family; a Martial Artist with a team must be loyal to his team. People of the Miaodao Pavilion, of course, must be loyal to the Miaodao Pavilion! The Great Master was, after all, the Great Master of the Miaodao Pavilion. You even dared to kill him. Your heart has no restraints. How could such a person be welcomed by others?” Long Qi said, “You will be excluded! Everyone will be on guard against you. They will no longer trust you, and they certainly will not cooperate with you again.”

Su Tang smiled.

“I know you look down on them, but if you can never blend into this group, your path will be very difficult.”

“Look down on them? Do I?”

“I noticed it back at the Victory Terrace,” Long Qi said in a low voice. “In their conversations, they were either bragging about their power or talking about all kinds of women. You refused to join in and looked at the sky several times, which proved that you were very impatient and wanted to leave. But do you really think Miaodao Pavilion can handle everything with its own strength alone? No! You need their help!”

“I know Wen Ping was untalented and repeatedly caused trouble for the Miaodao Pavilion. If I could have gotten rid of him, I would have done it long ago,” Long Qi continued. “Why did I leave him until today? As long as Wen Ping lived, they would sympathize with me and feel sorry for my grievances. They might even suggest that I simply kill Wen Ping and become the Great Master myself. But if I really took action, they would definitely distance themselves from me and think I had no bottom line. Then the Miaodao Pavilion would never have achieved its current influence!”

“Brother Long, who said I was the one who killed the Great Master?” Su Tang smiled.

Long Qi was instantly stunned.

“Zhao Bocheng first ordered people to assassinate me, and then Zhao Liangdong sent people to sneak into the Miaodao Pavilion to kill the Great Master,” Su Tang said. “This is a blood feud of irreconcilable hatred…”

Long Qi’s expression became extremely complex. He could not say a single word and stared blankly at the side gate ahead.

Right then, with a loud boom, a wall of the rear building was cracked by someone. Looking through the crack, they saw Tong Fei leap up and slam his round hammer hard onto the back of Great Master Wen’s head. The sounds of fighting stopped immediately, and the atmosphere became exceptionally quiet.

“Brother Long, go get some rest early. Tomorrow should be very busy,” Su Tang said. “Xiaobai, you don’t need to see me out. Just tidy up this place.” After speaking, Su Tang shook off Mo Xiaobai’s hand and walked slowly toward the side gate alone.

When Wen Xiang and the others walked out of the building, they only saw Su Tang’s back. Wen Xiang frowned and asked, “He left?”

“The man was killed, but there should be some plan for the aftermath, right?” Xiao Buhui was also somewhat dissatisfied. Any power that wanted to grow and expand had to be accepted by its surrounding environment. In the words of another world, it needed a certain level of legitimacy. The previous Miaodao Pavilion was, of course, legitimate, but they had already killed the legitimate master of the Miaodao Pavilion. Whether they could continue to be accepted by the surrounding environment was still unknown. Some people or forces who were hostile toward the Miaodao Pavilion would not miss this chance to kick them while they were down.

“Mr. Su said that Zhao Liangdong’s people assassinated the Great Master,” Long Qi said.

Wen Xiang, Xiao Buhui, and the others looked at each other in shock. If it had been a long-planned rebellion, it would be normal for Su Tang to come up with such a method. But this had been entirely impulsive. They understood that Great Master Wen had tried to protect Zhao Liangdong, which had completely enraged Su Tang. Everything had happened in a panic, yet in the blink of an eye, he thought of framing someone else. How sinister!

“Wen Xiang, go and capture that Zhao Liangdong,” Long Qi said softly. “We must not let him fall into the hands of others.”

“Will anyone believe it?” Wen Xiang asked.

“Zhao Bocheng is cowardly. By himself, he would absolutely not dare to send people to assassinate Mr. Su. There must be something fishy behind this,” Long Qi said. “The death of the Great Master gave us a reason and an opportunity to increase our leverage. Once we drag out the person behind the Zhao Family, people will naturally believe it.”

…

The news of Great Master Wen’s death spread quickly through Changshan County. Some gloated, while others worried in secret. The assassination attempt on Su Tang had already made the atmosphere in Changshan County extremely tense. Now that Great Master Wen had also been assassinated, it would not be surprising no matter how crazily the Miaodao Pavilion reacted.

The next morning, the Martial Artists of the Miaodao Pavilion blocked the entire street in front of the pavilion, allowing no one to enter or leave. Furthermore, they temporarily stopped accepting commissions from other parties. However, those Wandering Martial Artists who hung around the Miaodao Pavilion year-round were not idle. They were all hired by the Miaodao Pavilion and wandered around in small groups, filling all of Changshan County with an atmosphere that suggested a great storm was coming.

At noon on the third day, Mo Xiaobai entered the secret room with a stack of documents and said respectfully to Su Tang, “Mr. Su, everything is here.”

Since Great Master Wen was dead, Su Tang should have been promoted to Great Master to rightfully manage everything in the Miaodao Pavilion. However, Su Tang requested that the people of the Miaodao Pavilion continue to call him “Mr.” Changing it too quickly would certainly arouse suspicion.

“Could that Zhao Liangdong be hiding something?” Su Tang asked while taking the documents.

“Impossible,” Mo Xiaobai said. “Regardless of whether the questions we asked were useful or not, he would ramble on for a long time, fearing that he hadn’t explained enough. Hehe… he was almost scared crazy.”

Su Tang flipped through a few pages, his gaze landing on a long list of names. As his brain domain became pure and clear, his memory and analytical abilities were greatly improved. In just a few minutes, he found something interesting.

“Did you find something?” Su Tang asked.

“It might be the Cheng Family,” Mo Xiaobai nodded. Then he walked to the table, flipped the documents back to the front, and pointed while saying, “Mr. Su, look here. Three days before you were assassinated, Cheng Siyuan of the Cheng Family hosted a dinner at the Victory Terrace. He only invited two people: Tie Canghai of the Tie Family and Zhao Bocheng. Zhao Liangdong confessed that he remembered his father, Zhao Bocheng, was very happy when he left, but became depressed when he returned. He even complained that Great Master Wen was incompetent and always stepped on by his subordinates.”

“Anything else?” Su Tang asked.

“Mr. Su, look here again.” Mo Xiaobai flipped a page. “The day before you were assassinated, Zhao Liangdong went outside the city to clear his head and happened to meet Cheng Mudi. Cheng Mudi is the eldest son of Cheng Siyuan. Zhao Liangdong recalled that at the time, Cheng Mudi asked him why he looked so miserable, so he talked about his troubles. Cheng Mudi kept encouraging him, saying that if one could endure a moment of anger, they would have no regrets for a lifetime. He said that men sometimes have to act like turtles; if they cannot win a fight, they should not go looking for trouble, and so on. There were some words that Zhao Liangdong really couldn’t remember, but anyway, when he returned home, he felt like his chest was about to explode from frustration.”