Chapter 51 Suffering a Great Punishment "Hmm, his bones are really hard."
Lu Bing peeked into the kitchen, and seeing that his father and grandmother hadn't come out, he immediately retreated back into the house, closed the door, quickly peeled off his clothes, changed into comfortable casual clothes, and then crumpled up his bloodstained undergarments and hid them under the bed, planning to secretly take them to wash after dark.
The only problem was that he had to mend the hole in the clothes himself, but he was a grown man and didn't know how to sew. After thinking it over, Lu Bing asked his colleague's mother to help him sew it up, as long as it could fool his grandmother.
Lu Bing tightened his belt and went out of the house, stepping over the threshold of the main room towards the kitchen: "Father, Grandmother, is dinner ready?"
Hearing the approaching footsteps, Chen Ying glanced at the two corpses on the ground and silently hid between the kitchen door and wall. A drop of blood slid from the dagger in her hand and dripped onto the broken stalk of wheat.
As soon as Lu Bing pushes open the door, she can slit his throat with a single stroke.
"Dad—" Lu Bing raised his hand, and just as he touched the wooden door, Aunt Wang's voice rang out from outside the courtyard.
“Lu Bing, are you home today? Come quick, your grandmother asked me to go to the mill and bring her two pieces of tofu.”
"Okay." Lu Bing withdrew his hand from the door, turned and walked to the courtyard gate, taking the tofu that Aunt Wang handed him. "Thank you, Auntie. Did I pay you?"
“Your grandmother traded two catties of beans for it. Hurry up and take it inside. I’m going back now. Your uncle is cooking at home, waiting for the tofu to be put in the pot.”
Lu Bing glanced at Aunt Wang's chimney and saw smoke coming out, so he agreed to walk back. However, when he turned around, he found that there was not a trace of smoke coming out of the chimney on the roof of his own kitchen.
Cooking and heating dishes both require a fire, and black smoke would billow from the chimney, but this detail didn't bother Lu Bing: "Grandmother, Grandmother..."
The wet clothes on the melon trellis were blown to the ground by the wind. Lu Bing picked them up and shook off the dust, but it wasn't clean at all. He needed to wash them again.
However, the kitchen was quiet, and his grandmother did not respond to him; she would not refuse to respond.
"Grandmother—" Lu Bing, carrying tofu in one hand and dirty clothes in the other, raised his voice, "Father—"
There was no movement.
His father wouldn't refuse him either.
Lu Bing suddenly became alert and pushed open the kitchen wooden door. The old wooden door creaked, but it did not hit the stone wall due to its weight, as if something behind the door blocked it.
His father and grandmother never piled anything behind the door, including firewood; it was their custom.
The kitchen was small, and you could see from one end to the other at a glance, but his father and grandmother were nowhere to be seen.
Lu Bing looked around and subconsciously noticed a drop of blood on a broken stalk of wheat under the door. Immediately afterward, he smelled the stench of blood. Lu Bing's heart leaped into his throat, and an unprecedented fear gripped his throat.
The wooden door, which had failed to break through the wall, creaked and bounced back. Lu Bing gritted his teeth, threw down what he was holding, and kicked the door hard, pinning it down. He heard a low groan from behind the door. Lu Bing's heart tightened. He grabbed the machete stuck in the woodpile and pointed the blade at the person he had pinned between the door and the wall.
When Lu Bing saw the other person's face clearly, he was suddenly stunned.
Chen Ying grinned at him, actually giving Dao Feng a smile.
Before Lu Bing could react, a thick, long rope was suddenly looped around his neck and pulled back sharply. Caught off guard, Lu Bing was dragged to the ground by the rope around his neck. In that instant, Lu Bing saw his father and grandmother lying under the stove, covered in blood. His father stared blankly at him with his unseeing eyes.
Lu Bing's face was swollen and purple from being strangled by the hemp rope. He stared intently at his lifeless father, his bloodshot eyes brimming with tears, his pupils almost bulging out of their sockets. He managed to squeeze out a single word: "...Father..."
Lu Bing kicked his legs in agony, swinging his wood-chopping knife at the person strangling him from behind. He missed the first strike, but swung again. As the man dodged, the rope around his neck loosened slightly. Lu Bing seized the opportunity, grabbing the man's wrist and slashing down with the knife. The man groaned, and the rope around his neck suddenly loosened.
Lu Bing coughed violently, his swollen forehead and neck veins bulging. Without any chance to recover, Lu Bing suddenly turned and pounced on the masked man who wanted to kill him, raising his knife and slashing wildly without regard for direction.
The masked man grabbed Lu Bing's wrist and kicked him hard in the lower abdomen. Lu Bing ignored the pain and was determined to cut off the masked man's neck.
The two fought fiercely, with Lu Bing like a mad beast, his fists harder than stone, smashing one punch after another into the Iron Mask's head.
Chen Ying, who was watching from the sidelines, almost thought that the Iron Mask's brains were about to be smashed out, but in fact, not a single drop of blood was splattered.
With one last kick, the Iron-Masked Man finally knocked Lu Bing to the ground. He grabbed Lu Bing's wrist, which was holding the wood-chopping knife, and slammed it against the stone wall. However, Lu Bing held on tightly to the knife and tried to ram his head against the Iron-Masked Man's head.
Chen Ying stared at Lu Bing, who was so courageous, and respected him as a real man. She then stepped forward, squatted down, and plunged the dagger into his wrist.
Lu Bing screamed and turned his head to see Chen Ying forcefully stab his wrist, causing the woodcutter's knife to finally slip from his grasp.
Chen Ying looked down at Lu Bing, who was in excruciating pain, his face covered in sweat and tears.
Chen Ying asked in surprise, "Why are you crying? Does it hurt a lot?"
As he spoke, the dagger plunged down again, pinning Lu Bing's wrist to the ground.
Lu Bing gritted his teeth to keep himself from screaming. He said through gritted teeth, "You killed my father and my grandmother."
Chen Ying was completely at ease: "That's right, I'm going to kill you too, and send your whole family to the underworld for a reunion."
Lu Bing was pinned to the ground by the masked man, roaring hoarsely, "I'll kill you—"
Chen Ying stared at him like a stray dog and tried to reason with him: "I was originally going to leave the city and didn't want to stay in this wretched place anymore. I didn't intend to do anything to you, but you just wouldn't let me leave and insisted on blocking my way. You even teamed up with a bunch of stinky Taoist priests to search house to house, leaving me nowhere to hide. I really couldn't find anywhere to hide, so I came here to avoid the storm."
Lu Bing was consumed by hatred, wishing he could tear Chen Ying to pieces. Tears soaked into the floor as he cried out in grief and rage, "I'll kill you—"
"It must hurt a lot, right?" Chen Ying sighed, feigning pity. "Why didn't you just let me go? Then none of this would have happened. Why did you go to all this trouble to keep me here? Keeping me here will only cause me great suffering."
"I'll kill you!" Lu Bing struggled fiercely, raising his bloodied wrist and almost pulling the dagger out of the floor.
Chen Ying hissed as if she were in pain for him, but she pressed her palm firmly against the hilt of the dagger, pinning his wrist to the ground.
"Hmm, the bones are really hard."
The masked man silently grabbed Lu Bing's head and chin, about to snap his neck...
Chen Ying suddenly hesitated: "Wait a minute."
The stern-faced man paused.
"He seems alright to me, it would be a shame to kill him."
The masked man turned his head and looked at her silently, as if asking: What's so good about it?
Chen Ying carefully examined Lu Bing's face, then looked him up and down: "He's good-looking, strong, tough, and has guts."
Lu Bing struggled and resisted like a trapped beast, and the masked man almost couldn't hold him down.
With great effort, the man in the iron mask suppressed this man who was resisting to the death. He silently shook his head, meaning: do not spare him.
To eliminate trouble, one must nip it in the bud. They never leave any room for maneuver when they kill. Besides, Lu Bing is such a tough nut to crack; he's hard to control. If he gets a chance to retaliate, he'll definitely bite them to death.
She certainly understood what her accomplices meant: keeping Lu Bing alive could lead to unforeseen complications.
Chen Ying, however, didn't take it seriously and casually said, "Sever his tendons in his hands and feet."
Without hesitation, the man in the iron mask pulled out the dagger that had pierced Lu Bing's wrist and swiftly severed the tendons in both of his hands, as skillfully as a cook chopping melons and vegetables, showing that he was a proficient worker.
Before Lu Bing could scream, Chen Ying had already covered his mouth and quietly shushed him, as if coaxing him to obey, which was strangely intimate.
Then they severed his Achilles tendon. Lu Bing stared, heartbroken, at his father and grandmother, who lay dead with their eyes wide open. His bloodshot eyes were filled with tears, which streamed down his face and into his temples. He could only let out muffled sobs, as if he were crying out in unbearable pain: "...Father...Father...Grandmother...Grandmother..."
As the masked man's dagger rose and fell, excruciating pain spread throughout his body. Blood oozed from the severed tendons in Lu Bing's limp limbs. He was finally unable to struggle or resist, and his whole body convulsed as if on the verge of death.
The masked man lowered his head, wiped the blood off the dagger on Lu Bing's clothes, and deftly sheathed it.
Chen Ying was very satisfied: "This way, it saves me a lot of trouble."
The masked man glanced at her and gestured: Let's go.
Suddenly, a clap of thunder was heard, and the heavy rain finally poured down from the gloomy clouds. Lu Bing completely lost consciousness and was dragged out of the courtyard by the Iron-Faced Man, who grabbed one of his legs like a dead dog.
A long trail of blood stretched across the kitchen floor, reaching the yard where the heavy rain washed it away completely, leaving no trace.
Chen Ying entered the house and lingered in the Lu family's residence for a short while, then casually took an oil-paper umbrella and held it over her head before walking out without any restraint.
However, a gust of wind blew by, and the oil-paper umbrella couldn't shield her from the rain, which still soaked her completely.
Chen Ying really disliked rain; the unpaved ground quickly turned into mud, and her embroidered shoes and skirt were bound to be ruined. However, the coachman had already driven the carriage to the front and quickly opened the door, helping the masked man stuff the half-dead Lu Bing inside.
Chen Ying asked calmly, "How is it?"
The coachman said respectfully, "Everything has been arranged. The soldiers at the city gate have changed their posts and will not stop our carriage."
"Then let's leave the city."
After Chen Ying put away her umbrella and got into the carriage, the driver cracked his whip and spurred the horses straight out of the city.
A thin, frail figure was huddled under the seats in the carriage. When Lu Bing, covered in blood and mud, was thrown in, Qin San, who was bound hand and foot, trembled like a frightened bird. When he saw Lu Bing's face, Qin San's eyes widened in astonishment.
"Ugh!" she tried to shout, but her mouth was stuffed with a cloth.
Chen Ying glanced at Qin San indifferently and asked her, "Do you recognize him?"
Qin San, disheveled and unkempt, nodded.
Chen Ying asked, "Do you know how to serve people?"
Qin San just stared with terrified eyes.
Chen Ying said, "He's a cripple now, so there will inevitably be many inconveniences on the road. He'll need someone to take care of him with his eating, drinking, and toileting needs."
Qin San then noticed that Lu Bing's two wrists had been cut with extremely deep gashes, and blood was still flowing. She was so frightened that her face turned pale, and she kept muttering to herself, but Chen Ying ignored her and didn't care what she wanted to say. Instead, she turned her head, raised her hand and lifted a curtain to cover her face. Through the gap, she saw six or seven yamen runners rushing to the eaves to take shelter from the rain.
Hei Zi wiped the raindrops from his forehead: "This rain is really heavy, it just started raining like that."
The constable said, "We don't know where Chen Ying has gone; we've been looking for her for ages."
Raindrops splattered into the carriage through the open gap. Chen Ying closed the curtain, took Lu Bing and Qin San hostage, and swept past them. Then she turned at the fork in the road and passed by the small town's south inn.
Two young cultivators from the Taihang Sect stood guard under the inn's banner, like guardian deities, seemingly warding off evil.
The coachman drove the carriage past the two monks without looking to the side. The wheels rolled over a puddle, and the carriage lurched slightly, splashing only a tiny, insignificant drop of water.
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