Chapter 187: Appointing the Chieftain
At this point, he stepped on the severed head, looked around at the crowd, and pointed at the ground with his right index finger: "This man is a complete beast, utterly devoid of humanity!" He then walked up to a bearded man: "Do you have an old mother?"
The bearded man glared at him, defiantly replying, "Of course I do!"
Zui Mochou took two more steps and asked a man with his hair tied up high, "Were you born to your father?"
The man with his hair tied up frowned: "No."
"Huh?" Zui Mochou stretched and glared.
The man with his hair tied up said softly, "I was born of my mother!"
"Hahaha..." These words caused everyone to burst into laughter, and even Yi Qingxue, who was sitting on the ground, couldn't help but cover her mouth and chuckle.
Zui Mochou rolled her eyes at him, awkwardly touched her nose, and then walked up to a burly man in his thirties: "Do you have children?"
The burly man shrank his neck: "No!"
"Will there be more in the future?" Zui Mochou asked angrily, hands on her hips.
The burly man looked slightly nervous: "I...I don't know!"
Zui Mochou paused, then said, "Fine." He raised his hand, turned, and returned to the circle. His gaze swept over the crowd, and he declared loudly, "I don't care what you did before, from this day forward, you are forbidden from bullying the weak, oppressing the people, or abducting women! Otherwise, you will be my mortal enemies!"
"Zui Mochou?!" "I've heard of him..." "He's the Immortal of Wine!" A murmur arose from the crowd.
"You, come here!" Zui Mochou pointed at the burly man.
The burly man puffed out his chest and stepped forward: "What does senior want?"
"How about it?!" Zui Mochou put his hands on his hips, looked him up and down, and asked, "What's your name?"
The burly man, neither humble nor arrogant, declared: "Miao Kaijiang!"
Zui Mochou nodded in satisfaction, then his gaze fell on the bearded man, and he raised his hand to beckon him: "You, come here."
The bearded man shifted the flour sack hanging around his neck, slung his short knife over his right shoulder, and strode over with an arrogant expression: "I'm not afraid of you."
"Heh!" Zui Mochou scoffed, his eyes filled with contempt. "State your name!"
"You Tuotu!" he shouted, his voice booming like a bell.
Zui Mochou's gaze swept over Miao Kaijiang and You Tuotu's faces, and he laughed, "What a coincidence! Kaijiang and Tuotu are both here. This is a sign that something big is about to happen!" After saying that, he turned around, locked his eyes on the man with his hair tied up high in the crowd, and raised his hand and said, "You come here too."
The man with his hair tied up high was a handsome young man, about twenty-three or twenty-four years old, dressed in a black, close-fitting outfit, gripping a ring-pommel sword tightly in his hand. He strode up to Zui Mochou, clasped his hands in a fist salute, and said loudly, "What are your orders, senior?"
Zui Mochou nodded approvingly: "What should I call you?"
The young man cupped his hands in greeting again: "This junior is Miao Qingshan."
"Good!" Zui Mochou's face lit up with joy, and he looked around at everyone and said loudly, "Listen up, everyone! Today I, the old beggar, will select three new leaders for Golden Knife Stronghold—the First Leader Miao Kaijiang, the Second Leader You Tuotu, and the Third Leader Miao Qingshan!"
"A new leader?" "Can those three handle it?" "Why were three chosen?" "It's better than having no leader..." The crowd immediately erupted in discussion, with buzzing sounds rising and falling.
Amid the commotion, a loud voice suddenly rang out: "It's not appropriate for an outsider like you to interfere in the affairs of our Golden Knife Stronghold, is it?" Everyone looked in the direction of the voice and saw a man with a full beard and several small braids on his head.
As soon as he finished speaking, the sharp-mouthed man beside him immediately chimed in, "That's right! Why should you appoint our Golden Knife Stronghold's leader? Don't you all agree?" He jumped around in the crowd, waving his arms and urging them on, but few responded, only a few scattered low echoes: "Yes..." "Ultimately, this is our own business..."
Zui Mochou snorted coldly upon hearing this, his gaze fixed on the bearded man with daggers, but he deliberately raised his voice and shouted, "Which bastard is saying this? If you have the guts, stand up and say it, stand here!" He glanced contemptuously at the two men, pointing to the ground beneath his feet with his right hand.
The man with the pointed beak immediately felt guilty and hurriedly avoided Zui Mochou's gaze, looking obsequiously at the bearded man. The bearded man, however, brandished his guillotine, arrogantly pushed his way through the crowd, and glared at Zui Mochou with raised eyebrows: "I said it! What right do you, an outsider, have to interfere in the affairs of our Golden Knife Stronghold?"
"Why should I?!" Zui Mochou slowly untied the gourd from his waist, tilted his head back and took a big gulp. He smacked his lips, a look of lingering satisfaction on his face, and hung the gourd back on his waist. He said in a deep voice, "Just because of this!" As he spoke, he clenched his right fist. "If you want to be the chieftain, you'll have to try my old beggar's fist first and see if you have the ability!"
The bearded man, with his bulging cheeks, clearly had long coveted the position of chieftain, but he knew he was no match for Zui Mochou. He sneered a few times, "I disdain to fight you? Who becomes the chieftain is our own business, it's none of the business of outsiders!" After saying that, he glanced at the Golden Knife Stronghold members and raised his voice, "Let's go!"
Zui Mochou's inner energy suddenly erupted, his disheveled hair moving without wind, and his figure glided in front of him like a ghost, dust rising from his feet. He blocked his way: "You think you can just run away after robbing the people? Do you really think I, an old beggar, have been eating the food from every household for nothing? Make your move! Otherwise, you won't even have a chance to make a single move!"
"That old bastard is going too far!" Before the words were finished, the bearded man's cleaver, with a whooshing sound, cleaved Zui Mochou's head diagonally.
Zui Mochou spun around abruptly, falling backward toward him, simultaneously striking his right wrist with precise right palm and lifting his left foot to hit him squarely on the forehead. His left hand seized the back of the knife, snatching it away with a swift motion. He spun like a top, and in a flash of cold light, a "plop" was heard as blood gushed out, and the bearded man's head fell to the ground with a "thud."
The headless body crashed to the ground. Zui Mochou, holding a blood-dripping knife, looked around at the crowd: "Does anyone else have any objections?"
Seeing no one respond, he turned his blade and pointed it at the sharp-mouthed man: "You, come out here." His voice was icy, which made the sharp-mouthed man tremble.
The crowd parted instantly, and the sharp-mouthed man, with nowhere to hide, took two steps with trembling legs, then collapsed to the ground with a thud. He knelt and crawled toward Zui Mochou, grabbing his dirty, tattered trouser leg tightly, crying and begging for mercy: "Senior, spare my life! Please spare my life... Grandpa, spare my life!"
Zui Mochou, his face contorted with disgust, abruptly pulled back his trouser leg and cursed, “You spineless bastard! You always bully the weak, but now you’re playing the coward! How can you let me off so easily?” With that, he plunged the blood-stained cleaver into the ground with a “whoosh,” startling the sharp-mouthed man once again.
"Go ahead and do it! Just treat me like those unarmed women and children. Do whatever you want to me, old beggar, to bully me!" Zui Mochou looked down at him and shrugged.
The man with the pointed beak knelt on the ground, staring at the bloodstained knife, his limbs trembling like leaves. He noticed that there was no pity in Zui Mochou's eyes, and with a sudden, sharp cry, he pulled the bloodied knife from the ground and stabbed it into Zui Mochou's right waist.
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