Chapter Sixteen: The Cao Brothers

  The little servant saw that his face was not red and he was not panting, but rather had an air of having energy to spare, and couldn't help but secretly click his tongue.

  Xiao Ziyang loosened the bowstring, and with a loud "twang", the intense vibration of the bowstring caused Xiao Er's chest to feel stifled.

  Xiao Ziyang was very satisfied, took down the bowstring, folded it and put it in a brocade box, also asked Xiao Er for two quivers of arrows, wrapped them together with the brocade box in black cloth, paid the silver, and left Xiao Feng Building.

  The backyard of the Fu Rui Inn.

  A merchant dressed, but with a ferocious face, a scar exposed in his collar, a sturdy and short man hastily ran towards the largest courtyard of the Folei Inn.

  As he approached the yard, the gate was pulled open from inside, and a bald-headed man like an iron tower welcomed him in, slightly bowing to say: "Li Tou, you're back."

  The merchant didn't even give the bald man a glance and hastily entered the courtyard.

  The bald man had a smile on his face, but as soon as the merchant walked away, he spat a mouthful of thick phlegm onto the ground and muttered softly: "What kind of thing!"

  He walked through the courtyard and came to the door of the guest room, where he slightly bowed his head and respectfully said: "Master of the house, it's me, Li Xiong."

  "Come in." The voice from inside was low and hoarse.

  Li Xiong pushed open the door and slipped inside, then gently closed it behind him.

  There were five people in the house. Three of them sat around a square table, on which several dishes of food were placed. The other two were tied up and thrown into a corner of the wall.

  Sitting directly opposite the door was a man of thirty-seven or eight years old, with a face as pale as gold paper, eagle eyes and tiger lips, and when paired with a hooked nose, his appearance was extremely ferocious.

  Two men who looked similar to him sat on either side, one was about thirty years old and the other twenty-five or six.

  The same eyebrows on different people's faces give a completely different feeling.

  The man in his thirties sat sideways, with one foot on the stool and a chicken leg in his hand, tearing it apart.

  His face had the same wide mouth and small eyes, but paired with a waxen complexion, a collapsed nose bridge, charred teeth, and a limp, lazy gaze, completely devoid of ferocity and menace, leaving only ugliness and baseness.

  That twenty-five or six-year-old young man had a high nose and wide mouth, with a pair of big eyes and thick eyebrows, looking dignified in appearance. However, he was young but his eye bags were drooping, his eyes were dull, and he looked like someone who had indulged excessively in wine and lust.

  Li Xiong gently closed the door, bowed his head and waist, took a few steps forward, and saluted the fierce-looking man with a hooked nose: "Big master." He also asked after the other two: "Second master, third master."

  These three men were none other than the Cao brothers of the Iron Cavalry.

  Cao Tianhao raised a pair of eagle eyes shining with cold light and glanced at Li Xiong, "Speak."

  Li Xiong bowed again and said, "Master, the brothers on watch have discovered that several suspicious practitioners have arrived at the inn. I'm afraid our whereabouts have been exposed."

  Cao Tianhao sneered, "The people from Hanzhang Castle and Magu Temple were led by us into the mountains of Tai'an for half a month. They probably haven't come out yet, and it's impossible for them to catch up with us so quickly in Shuoan. It's likely that these are local White Way cultivators in Shuoan who want our brothers' heads to curry favor with Hanzhang Castle."

  Having said that, he flung the wine jug in his hand to the ground with a loud crash, shattering it into pieces. With a fierce cry, he exclaimed: "Fine! I'll just have to unleash a bloodbath in this very city of Shuoan, so those cats and dogs won't dare try to ride roughshod over me, Cao Mou!"

  "Li Xiong, take a few skilled brothers and sneak out of the city. Intercept a fast ship at the dock and wait for me."

  Li Xiong responded with a "yes" and was about to turn around and leave.

  "Halt!" Second master Cao Tianjie, that ugly and sordid yellow-faced man suddenly spoke up: "Li Xiong, have someone bring the manager of Fu Rui Inn here. Hmph! He must be the one who leaked our brothers' information. How can I spare him?"

  The two people who were tied up with their hands and feet bound, and had cloth stuffed into their mouths, heard his words and both struggled violently.

  "Yes, Second Master." Cao Tianjie turned and left.

  The two people bound at the corner of the wall struggled more and more violently, Cao Tianyu, the master of the house, threw away the wine cup in his hand with impatience, got up, kicked away the stool, walked forward, and kicked the two people randomly.

  Those two bound men were only sixteen or seventeen years old, wearing brocade clothes, with delicate skin and tender flesh, obviously not martial artists. How could they withstand Cao Tianyu's kicks? In an instant, they spat out blood and fainted.

  These two young men were the sons of the owner of the Fu Rui Inn, who had been captured and held as hostages to force their father to surrender and provide them with a safe haven.

  Before long, a bald-headed big man who was guarding the gate threw in a forty-year-old fat man.

  That fatty was the boss of this inn, he had been pampered and spoiled, and after being slammed by that man, it took him half a day to come back to his senses.

  He scrambled to his feet, saw that his two sons were bleeding from the nose and mouth, and fainted on the ground. He let out a tragic cry and was about to rush forward when Cao Tianyu slapped him with one palm, sending him flying backward.

  The shopkeeper was slapped so hard that his vision went black and stars appeared before his eyes, but he couldn't care about the pain. He sat up, pointing at Cao Tianyu with his mouth open in shock, unable to speak clearly as his jawbone had been dislocated by the slap.

  Cao Tianyu was too lazy to listen to what he had to say, pulled out a sharp knife and said: "My brothers' hiding place has been exposed, it must be you old dog who leaked the information. Do you think Cao San's knife is not sharp enough?"

  He then went forward and stabbed the two young men on the ground, and they immediately splattered blood all over the floor.

  Cao Tianyu stabbed the two young men dozens of times, and at first they were still twitching, but later they gradually fell silent. The shopkeeper watched as his son died, and in a fit of rage he fainted dead away.

  Cao Tianyu's eyes turned red as he pounced on the unconscious shopkeeper, his face filled with excitement at the sound of the dagger entering flesh.

  Tielong Wuguan.

  Zheng Xiaoyang sat upright in his armchair, fiddling with two iron pellets in his hand as he listened to his disciple's report.

  "Master, that Fu Rui Inn indeed has quite a few suspicious Golden State men staying there. They all checked in under different identities and seem not to know each other. Each of them is robust and has impressive martial arts skills."

  After listening to his disciple's report, Zheng Xiaoyang opened his eyes and gently placed a pair of iron balls on the table, saying in a deep voice: "Bring me my sword!"

  Before long, two disciples brought a golden-inlaid jade-handled giant knife with a ghost head and tied it to his back.

  Zheng Xiao Yang stood up and said in a deep voice: "The Iron Riders have been burning, killing, looting and plundering on the Jinzhou Road, doing all sorts of evil. Now they are so bold as to rob the daughter-in-law of the protector of Hanmo Fortress. In the past, the Iron Riders were rampant in Jinzhou, but we couldn't reach them with our whips. Now this group of villains has come to our Shaanxi to run amok, can we let them off?"

  "No way!" The crowd of masters and disciples shouted in unison. These people all knew that if they could get involved with one of the top ten sects of Western Liang, Hanmu Fort, there would be countless benefits. They didn't take a group of horse bandits seriously, and everyone looked very excited.