Chapter 31: City Appearance

Inside the courtyard, two men and a woman had their hands tied behind their backs.

The three of them knelt at Shen Tang's feet, trembling like leaves.

"Who was it that just said they were God?"

Shen Tang used the stick in his hand to lift a person's chin.

He asked with a smile, "Is it you?"

The person whose name was called shook their head vigorously, trying to dodge Shen Tang's stick while simultaneously dodging backward, fearing she might suddenly lash out. They had no idea how things had turned out this way, and the beating left them completely dumbfounded.

Shen Tang then used a stick to lift up another person's chin.

"That's you?"

The person named was Lai Tou, who had tricked Shen Tang into coming.

"Not detailed enough—"

His voice was trembling with sobs, and he was speaking in a lisp; he was so scared that tears were welling up in his eyes.

No wonder he was so afraid.

Before he could even feel the pain from Shen Tang's flying kick, four or five of his teeth were knocked out, and the rest were on the verge of falling out. Blood from his gums smeared half of his face.

What happened next was like a dream; the three adults were subdued by a little blonde girl.

Completely unable to resist!

That's how this scene came about.

"Not you either?" Shen Tang's eyes crinkled with a smile as she used her long staff to impale the third person, the only woman among the three. "Then it's you?"

Without hesitation, the woman betrayed Lai Tou, shouting in a shrill voice, "I didn't say it! I really didn't say it! It was Lai Tou who said it!"

Shen Tang's gaze fell on Lai Tou, her eyelids slightly lowered.

"To lie even when facing death is an even greater crime!"

Upon hearing the word "death," Lai Tou was immediately terrified, tears and snot streaming down his face. He knelt on the ground, kowtowing repeatedly to Chen Tang, begging for mercy. He had only kowtowed three times when Chen Tang stopped him with a clothesline stick. She said indifferently, "Seeing that you have some remorse, I might give you a chance to atone for your sins. Tell me—besides me, where have all the innocent women you swindled using this method gone?"

She checked and found no other abducted persons in the yard.

If she had known this would happen, why would she have gone to all this trouble?

"They're all sold out..."

Lai Tou was so afraid that his tongue became uncontrollable, and he started to stutter.

"Sold? Sold to where? How many people were sold in total? How much money were made in total? Tell us everything in detail!" Shen Tang sat on a small stool, his left foot loose and his right leg bent so that his hand holding the stick could rest on his knee.

Her series of interrogations left the three scoundrels speechless with despair.

How did they answer that question?

Not answering will kill you, answering will kill you even faster.

The two men were clueless, afraid that if they answered incorrectly they would be hit on the head by Shen Tang. The woman, however, had a guess in her heart. She thought that Shen Tang had read too many folk tales and longed for the life of a chivalrous knight-errant. He was still a kid when he came out to uphold justice.

There are ways to deal with this kind of hothead.

She was on the verge of tears: "Young lady, you've misunderstood us. We've only made two or three mistakes, we really haven't done anything else that's morally wrong."

Shen Tang sneered: "Two or three times? I even ran into you once. If you have that kind of luck, why don't you go buy a lottery ticket?"

The woman clung to this explanation.

“We did sell a lot of goods… but we were also saving lives.” She carefully observed Shen Tang’s expression out of the corner of her eye, and only continued when she saw that she was not angry, “The goods we sold were all legitimately purchased; their parents received money from them. In this world, buying things only costs a few coins. We were just blinded by greed and made a big mistake. We will never lie again!”

Shen Tang laughed upon hearing this: "Save people?"

Seeing that Shen Tang could be persuaded, the woman was immediately filled with hope and argued, "These past few years of war have been tough for everyone. Families with many children have so many mouths to feed, how are they supposed to raise them? If we don't buy or sell, those children will either starve to death or be given to other families to eat. If they are sold, at least they will have somewhere to go and some food."

Shen Tang was amused by this distorted and fabricated argument.

With the stick pressed against their throats, he coldly issued his final ultimatum: "Stop arguing and confess! Otherwise, this stick will go in right now. You know how strong I am; I guarantee this stick will go from front to back, and then I'll string you three together on one stick."

With just a little force, she left a dark bruise on the woman's Adam's apple, causing the woman to scream in pain.

"I'll give it to you! I'll give it to you!"

"Have mercy, brave warrior!"

Shen Tang was slightly satisfied.

The butcher kept glancing at the sun outside, growing increasingly anxious as he wrung his hands nervously and sighed repeatedly.

"Old man, is what you said really true?"

To everyone's surprise, the customer smiled, picked up the packaged lotus leaf, gestured towards the end of the street, and said with a smile, "I won this round."

The butcher poked his head out and squinted in that direction for a long time—because of his work, he started butchering goods before dawn, and over time his eyes were ruined, so things that were a little far away were blurry—he squinted so hard his eyes were almost cramping, but he still couldn't see anything.

They only noticed the commotion in that direction.

It wasn't until Shen Tang got closer that he could see what had happened.

Then, the pretty young lady... no, the young gentleman, slowly swayed back, riding on the back of that beautiful mule, chewing on something.

She was holding a rope that strung together two men and a woman—

All three were beaten black and blue, and walked with a limp.

However, for those who frequently do business in this area, they would recognize these three despicable scourges even if they were reduced to ashes.

Shen Tang returned to the tavern and sat on a small stool to wait for the others. He flicked his fingers and ate three flat, round green plum pits. The three of them slammed their knees to the ground with a thud.

The dull thud sent chills down everyone's spines and made their knees ache.

Shen Tang pointed at the three of them, her killing intent palpable: "Kneel down, all of you."

The three men cowered and swallowed their cries of pain, daring not to disobey in the slightest.

guest:"……"

A hint of surprise flashed in his eyes.

He thought Shen Tang would kill the thugs who had ill intentions.

What kind of formation is this?

"Why don't you just kill them, young master?"

The onlookers, having enjoyed the spectacle, gradually dispersed, and the guest approached Shen Tang to strike up a conversation. Shen Tang, who was idly munching on a green plum and complaining about why Qi Shan hadn't arrived yet, turned to look at the person who had spoken.

He pointed to himself: "...You called me 'Young Master'?"

Guest: "What's wrong with that?"

His gaze lingered on the monogram on Shen Tang's waist for a second before moving away.

Shen Tang: "No, no, that's not right. You have a good eye, brother!"

Everything about her is fine, except she's just as blind as Qi Shan!

As for his question—

"Why not kill those three? Of course, because murder is against the law. How could I, a law-abiding citizen and a powerless artist, do such a bloody thing? They deserve to die, but they should be handed over to the Xiaocheng government office for processing..."

The real reason—

That courtyard is too remote and deserted. If these three people were killed there, their bodies would be exposed and rot and infested with maggots if left unattended, which would seriously affect the appearance of Xiaocheng.

Furthermore, it's not good for an artist to commit murder at will.

Therefore, she decided to cultivate her character and abide by the law.

The guest could barely understand Shen Tang's string of complaints and said, "If we hand them over to the government, they will be free in no time."

Shen Tang paused in her act of eating the green plum, and hesitated before saying, "Then—should I drag them outside the city later and kill them?"

(End of this chapter)