Chapter 115 Death
Late at night, Yingchuan City was quiet, with almost every house closing its doors and extinguishing its candles.

Only a tavern at the west corner of the city was still open.

A few hours ago, the tavern suddenly welcomed a group of guests. They drank and chatted until late at night, but they had no intention of leaving. In fact, the shopkeeper had long wanted to drive them away, but he was submissive in front of this group of guests, not daring to show any impatience, and even dared not say a word.

This is because this group of drinkers are from the Donghu Gang, and the leader is the second in command of the Donghu Gang, Li Bao.

The Donghu Gang was notorious and usually ran rampant in the city, and no one dared to provoke them. Even the major businesses in Yingchuan City were afraid of them, let alone a small tavern with no power, no influence, and no one to rely on?
Therefore, even though the shopkeeper was extremely anxious, he could only grit his teeth and serve them carefully, and he was trembling with fear, fearing that he would be negligent. If he accidentally provoked them, not only would his wine shop be smashed, but he would also suffer physical pain, or even his life.

"Waiter, bring a few more jars of wine!" A sturdy man with a red face from drinking shouted to the shopkeeper in a hoarse voice, "Bring a few more jars this time, don't be so shy like a woman, bringing only one or two jars every time, what are you doing to send away the cats and dogs?"

"Liu San, why are you yelling at a wine seller? Sit down quickly and listen to what the second master has to say." Another drunken man urged in an unhappy tone, "This is a critical moment, stop interrupting!"

As soon as these words came out, they immediately attracted the echoes of the five or six men around them. They once again cast their expectant eyes on the drunken Li Bao. Liu San smiled flatteringly and said, "Second Master, you just said that the second wife of the Pan family and our gang leader have been in love for a long time, so what?"

"What else can I say?" Li Bao grinned evilly, his tongue tied, and he mumbled incoherently, "Of course it's a beautiful woman hidden in a golden house with endless springtime. Haha..." All of a sudden, the men around him all laughed out loud.

"For example, right now..." Li Bao burped and waved his hand, "Big brother is indulging himself in the gentle embrace with the second wife of the Pan family... Otherwise, how could I bring you guys out to have fun at night?"

"Second Master is so righteous. We are blessed to follow you and enjoy the good life!" Liu San complimented him. Then he rolled his eyes, licked his dry lips with his scarlet tongue, and said with a sly smile, "We brothers are all from poor backgrounds, and have never tasted the ladies of the mansions. What is it like... I wonder if it's different from the ladies in the brothels? Hehe..."

"Of course they are different." Another man curled his lips and said, "Women in brothels only care about money. As long as you give them enough money, they are even more aggressive than you and me. They don't have any feminine modesty at all. How can they be compared with those rich ladies? But don't expect it. We are destined to be with brothels and prostitutes in this life. We have no chance to be ladies from wealthy families. Haha..."

"I think the young lady of the Pan family is quite good, with fair skin, beautiful face and graceful figure. I heard that she is also a talented woman who is proficient in music, chess, calligraphy and painting. If I can spend a night with such a beautiful and talented woman... hehe... it would be worth it even if I die!"

Li Bao listened to their random jokes and sneered, "Dragons are paired with dragons, phoenixes are paired with phoenixes, and my eldest brother can only seduce one wife. How dare you bastards think about her? It's really like a toad wanting to eat swan meat." After that, Li Bao poured another bowl of yellow soup into his stomach, and then changed the subject and said with a sly smile, "But Pan Yuyin is indeed very beautiful. If I can really spend a night with her, it will be worth it for me to be a man in this life."

"Why? Second Master also has this idea?" Liu San said with an interested smile, "If that day really comes, when Second Master is happy, I wonder if he can also take care of us brothers? Hehe... I am also blinded by my thoughts. The Miss Pan family is like a person who lives in the clouds, and we are just carrots in the mud. There is a huge difference between us. How can we easily reach her?"

"High up in the clouds?" Li Bao couldn't help but sneer, and said viciously, "I don't know how many people are hoping for the Pan family to get into trouble. When the family falls into decline, Pan Yuyin will also fall from the sky. By then, she might end up in a pig shed or a stable. What difference does it make?"

"What do you mean, Second Master?" Li Bao's words immediately aroused everyone's curiosity, and they all started to ask questions.

Tonight, Li Bao had revealed many secrets under the influence of alcohol. For example, the affair between Li Lao Hu and Ding Cui was caused by his drunkenness, and now he almost revealed the feud between the Pan family and the Qin family in Hexi. As the saying goes, a drunk person can still be sober, and Li Bao is not someone who does not know the seriousness of the matter. Therefore, under the questioning of everyone, he became more sober, so he shook his head repeatedly and babbled a few nonsense words, and others stopped asking more questions.

"By the way, I have already found out who caused trouble at the dock today." A big man came up to Li Bao and whispered, "I checked the goods they received, and they were birthday gifts from the Xianwang Mansion in Luoyang to Pan Chuba. The three people were later taken back to the Pan Mansion by Boss Pan, and the Pan family was very respectful to them, even more enthusiastic than when they saw our gang leader. So I guess those three people should be from the Xianwang Mansion."

"Are they really from the Xianwang Mansion?" Li Bao slowly put down his wine bowl, frowned slightly, and said in a deep voice, "No wonder they dare to speak so arrogantly in front of me, it turns out that the Xianwang Mansion is backing them up."

"Those three are very skilled in martial arts, and they have the support of the Xianwang Mansion behind them. In my opinion, we should avoid provoking them." Liu San reminded cautiously, "What if we push them into a corner..."

"What are you afraid of?" Li Bao interrupted unhappily, "It is said that the emperor is far away from the mountains. No matter how powerful the Xianwang Mansion is, it is far away in Luoyang. Don't forget that this is Yingchuan, the territory of our Donghu Gang. They dare not be too presumptuous! Today at the dock, I made a fool of myself in public and lost face. If it weren't for Boss Pan to intercede, I would have made them never come back!"

"The gang leader and the Pan family have always been in harmony and made money. Second Master stopped today while he was ahead. He was really wise. If we really anger the Pan family, I'm afraid that the gang leader... we won't be able to explain ourselves."

"Don't mention this matter again! In short, these three people should not fall into my hands again, otherwise I will never let them off easily!"

When Li Bao thought about what happened at the dock today, he felt upset, angry and annoyed. As the second in command of the Donghu Gang, he was restrained by Lin Fangda in public, which was really embarrassing and disgraceful. He knew that although others pretended to be indifferent on the surface, they would definitely laugh at his weakness and incompetence behind his back.

"Second Master, the Xianwang Mansion is different from the Pan Mansion. It is well-known in the martial arts world..."

Before Liu San finished speaking, Li Bao suddenly threw the wine bowl on the table. With a crisp "crack" sound, the wine bowl broke into pieces. Then, Li Bao stood up and shouted angrily: "So much nonsense! I don't want to drink anymore!"

Li Bao suddenly turned hostile, leaving the others at a loss. They looked at Li Bao in surprise, his expression changing from gloomy to bright, and the atmosphere was extremely awkward. Liu San forced himself to smile and said, "Where are you going next, Second Master..."

"Go pee!" Li Bao snorted coldly, "I'm so angry today that I wanted to take you out for a drink, but I didn't expect you guys to be so cowardly that you would only boost others' morale and destroy your own prestige. How hateful! Now go find me some women to serve me. If you can't find any, you don't have to go back to the East Lake Gang!"

After saying that, without waiting for Liu San and the others to beg for mercy, Li Bao turned around and walked towards the alley. The moonlight was weak tonight, and the alley was extremely dark. Li Bao staggered to the depths of the alley, took off his pants, and ejaculated.

Suddenly, he felt a cold wind blowing behind him, and his body shivered involuntarily. Still drunk, Li Bao turned his head subconsciously, but saw a figure suddenly appearing in the deep dark alley.

"Wha...who is that person?"

The sudden appearance of the figure almost frightened Li Bao to death, and his drunkenness instantly dissipated. He quickly fastened his belt and squinted his eyes slightly, as if trying to see the man's face clearly.

Li Bao's question received no response, but the figure suddenly walked towards him. The man's steps were high and low, and he limped when he walked. He was actually a cripple.

For some reason, Li Bao suddenly felt an inexplicable fear. He subconsciously reached for the steel knife at his waist, but his hand was empty. He suddenly remembered that when they were drinking just now, Li Bao had thrown the steel knife on the table because he thought it was in the way.

"Who... who are you?" Li Bao swallowed hard, nervously looking at the lame man who kept approaching him without saying a word, and asked in a trembling voice, "I am the Second Master Li of the Donghu Gang. In the middle of the night... what are you doing hiding in the alley?"

Faced with Li Bao's questioning, the lame man remained silent, but his steps towards Li Bao became more and more hurried.

Li Bao's intuition told him that this person was not a good person. But before he could muster up the courage to ask again, he suddenly saw that the person had pulled out a sharp dagger with a cold glow from his right hand.

"What do you want to do?" Li Bao finally couldn't hold back his fear, and he shouted while backing away. On the other hand, the lame man was walking faster and faster, and suddenly stopped and ran towards him.

Seeing this, Li Bao's blood instantly turned cold. He no longer cared about his face. He screamed "Ah!" and turned around to run towards the entrance of the alley.

Perhaps he was too panicked, or perhaps he was still drunk, but Li Bao suddenly turned around and ran wildly. His feet tripped left and right, and he fell heavily to the ground with a bang before he could take two steps.

"Hurry...come quickly..."

At this moment, Li Bao didn't bother to check his injuries, and even forgot the pain. He rolled and crawled to his feet and fled for his life.

"call!"

Just as Li Bao was desperately trying to escape for his life, the lame man suddenly jumped up, walked close to the wall, and his feet skimmed the water on the side wall. In the blink of an eye, he jumped over Li Bao's head, flipped over and landed, blocking Li Bao's way.

"Master, spare my life! Master, spare my life!" Li Bao knew that his martial arts skills were not as good as that of the lame man, so he knelt down and begged for mercy. "Master and I are strangers, there must be some misunderstanding..."

Before Li Bao finished speaking, the lame man suddenly stabbed Li Bao in the throat with a knife, and then stabbed him more than ten times in a row with lightning speed. His movements were smooth and seamless, and every knife strike was fatal and merciless.

The lame man did not give Li Bao any chance to resist or struggle, leaving dozens of shocking bloody holes on his body. In an instant, blood flowed out, dyeing the painful Li Bao into a blood gourd.

"Woo woo..." Li Bao covered his neck tightly with both hands, looking at the lame man who had turned away unwillingly. From beginning to end, he did not see the lame man's face clearly. He could not close his eyes in death, and even as a ghost he did not know who to seek revenge on.

After killing Li Bao with lightning speed, the lame man threw something away without looking back and disappeared at the end of the pitch-black alley.

"Second Master?"

As if disturbed by the noise in the alley, Liu San and his men rushed over in a hurry. But when they arrived beside Li Bao, Li Bao, lying in a pool of blood, seemed to have no life at all, deader than dead.

"This..." The sudden change made everyone shocked. For a moment, they only felt the chilling wind in the alley, which was extremely terrifying.

"Look what this is?" A sharp-eyed man picked up the thing that the lame man had just dropped from beside Li Bao's body, shook off the blood, and hurriedly brought it to the others.

"Pan Huai Shipping Merchant... Bingzi Ferry?" In the dim moonlight, Liu San carefully identified the handwriting soaked in blood. After a moment of hesitation, his eyes suddenly changed and he exclaimed, "This is... a bill of lading..."

……

(End of this chapter)