A person sacrifices himself to become a saint in a chaotic world of martial arts.

Chapter 123 Trade Routes

"Didn't you hear me?"

Su Bai's voice rang out again. He looked at the constables, his gaze as calm as a stagnant pool, without even a ripple.

"Go. Lock them in."

Li, the jailer, was standing slightly behind Su Bai. Hearing the sound, he took a step forward, stretched out his arm, pushed aside the two young constables who were standing there dumbfounded, grabbed the iron bars of the prison door, and pulled hard to the side. The door was old and dilapidated, and the hinges were badly rusted. It usually took two people to lift it open, but today, for some reason, it creaked open when he pulled it.

"What are you all standing there for?" Warden Li turned and glared at the constables. "Chief Su has spoken!"

The two young constables, as if waking from a daze, tightened their grip and continued dragging Li Yuehu deeper into the corridor. Li Yuehu stomped his feet, the soles of his shoes scraping the stone pavement with a harsh sound, his body arching back desperately, veins bulging in his neck: "You dare! Do you know who I am?! I am the eldest son of the Li family! My father is an elder of the Li clan! You dare to lock me up today, but tomorrow you'll be in deep trouble!"

He shouted until he was hoarse, spitting all over the face of the constable next to him.

Su Bai watched him struggle expressionlessly, his gaze sweeping down his flushed face, his dusty brocade robe, his boots kicking wildly on the ground, and finally settling on the hand that was clinging tightly to the door frame.

The knuckles of that hand were white, and dirt was stuck in the crevices of its fingernails.

Li Yuehu was led to the entrance of the cell passage. Just as he was about to be dragged inside, he suddenly twisted his body, gripped the edge of the door frame tightly with both hands, and hung there like a gecko nailed to the wall.

He turned to Su Bai, his eyes bloodshot, and a roar escaped his throat: "You, Su, just you wait! Once the clearance process is over, the first thing I'll do when I get out is have someone skin you alive! What do you think a lowly prison warden is? In front of the Li family, you're not even worth a dog!"

The last few words were almost screamed out, echoing back and forth in the aisle, making people's ears go numb.

Su Bai made a move.

He walked over, his steps slow and deliberate, each step deliberate, the soles of his boots thumping on the stone slabs. Reaching Li Yuehu, he paused for a moment, then raised his right foot and kicked Li Yuehu in the lower back.

That kick was quite powerful.

Li Yuehu was thrown off the doorframe, his hands flailing wildly in the air, grabbing nothing, before crashing face-first into a pile of straw in the cell. The straw had been replaced last month, and it was already soaked in moisture, with a rotten layer at the bottom. He plunged headfirst into it, his mouth full of straw and mud, unable to even spit it out, only managing a series of muffled "mmm" sounds.

He struggled to get up, bracing himself against the haystack with his hands and knees, and as soon as he was halfway up, he cursed, "You fucking dare!"

Su Bai followed him in and kicked him again.

The kick landed squarely on Li Yuehu's abdomen. Li Yuehu had only managed to get halfway up when the kick caused him to fold over and curl up back down, like a beetle that had been flipped over, its limbs flailing wildly, but it couldn't get back on its feet.

"you----"

Su Bai kicked him in the buttocks for the third time.

This kick was lighter than the previous two, but Li Yuehu rolled on the ground, his head hitting the cell wall with a dull thud. He finally stopped cursing, covering his head with both hands, curling up into a ball in the corner, only whimpering and begging for mercy: "Stop—stop hitting me—stop hitting me—"

The voice leaked out from between his fingers, thin and weak, a stark contrast to his previous arrogance.

Su Bai stood in front of him, looking down at him.

The torchlight shone through the passageway, illuminating Su Bai's profile. His eyes were half-closed, his pupils reflecting the huddled figure in the corner. There was no anger, only a faint disgust and contempt.

The eldest son of the Li family.

Meat Training Realm.

When he beat three people to death in the street, he was so arrogant, his back straight, his eyes rolling to the sky, pointing at the onlookers and yelling, "What are you looking at? Look again and I'll beat you all too!" Now, after being kicked three times, he's become such a coward, wishing he could bury his head in a crack in the wall.

"The eldest son of the Li family?" Su Bai withdrew his foot, bent down to brush the dust off his boots, then straightened up, straightened his clothes, and said in a calm tone as if he were talking about the weather, "Is this all the eldest son of the Li family is capable of?"

Li Yuehu huddled in the corner, burying his head even deeper, not daring to utter a sound.

Su Bai turned and walked out of the cell, his steps unwavering, heading straight down the corridor. When he reached Warden Li, he paused, then without turning back, ordered, "Lock the door. Until the exoneration process is complete, he's a prisoner here. Anyone who wants him, tell him to come find me."

Prison Chief Li quickly agreed, rushed to the cell door, unfastened the bunch of keys from his waist, picked out the largest one, inserted it into the lock, and gave it a hard twist. With a click, the spring snapped in. He tugged at it a couple more times to make sure it was locked, then breathed a sigh of relief and fastened the keychain back to his belt.

He turned to look at Su Bai's retreating figure, his eyes filled with joy and admiration.

He'd spent twenty-three years in prison, rising from a lowly apprentice to a prison warden. What hadn't he seen? He'd seen plenty of those scions of wealthy families—they came in arrogant and haughty, and left with their noses in the air. In between, he'd have to serve them politely, afraid of offending someone he couldn't afford to mess with. Twenty-three years of pent-up frustration.

Today, I can finally vent my anger.

"Su Tou'er————"

He jogged a few steps to catch up with Su Bai, lowering his voice to say, "We brothers have been holding this in for a long time. Those scions of wealthy families, always so arrogant, think we're made of clay. That kick you gave us today really felt good!"

Su Bai waved his hand, said nothing, and continued walking out.

He stopped at the cell door and looked back.

Deep in the corridor, the iron door of the cell was tightly shut, and the iron lock on the door gleamed a dark red in the firelight.

A faint, intermittent sobbing sound came from behind the door, like a cat being choked.

He glanced again at the darkening sky outside the cell.

The last rays of light in the west were sinking below the horizon, the sky transitioning from deep blue to inky black, and a few stars were beginning to peek out.

A person was beaten to death in the street.

Just because he is the eldest son of a prominent family, does that mean he can go through a process to clear his name and then swagger out?

Su Bai withdrew his gaze, stepped out of the threshold, and disappeared behind the door.

It gets dark very quickly.

The nights in Fenjiang County were not as lively as in the prefectural city. After dark, one shop after another closed their doors, and fewer and fewer people walked by. Eventually, only a few stray dogs wandered back and forth on the empty streets, occasionally stopping to sniff at the base of a wall before leisurely strolling away. Only a few taverns still had their lights on, their dim yellow light seeping through the cracks in the doors, illuminating a small patch of bluestone pavement.

Su Bai sat in the guard's room of the prison cell, with a bowl of tea in front of him.

This tea was brewed at 3:45 PM and has long since cooled. The tea leaves have sunk to the bottom of the bowl, turning whitish, and a thin film has formed on the surface of the tea, which glows with a dark yellow light in the firelight.

The sound of the night watchman striking his clapper came from outside the window, three times in a row, dong, dong, dong.

It's 3:45 PM.

"Chief Su." Prison Chief Li pushed open the door, bringing in a gust of cool night air. He walked to the table, a hint of doubt on his face. "It's already dark, and there's still no movement from over there?"

Su Bai picked up the teacup and took a sip.

The cooled tea was bitter and astringent, with a stale, overnight smell. He didn't frown, swallowed it, put the teacup back on the table, and said nothing.

Prison Chief Li leaned closer, resting his hands on the edge of the table, and said in a low voice, "Logically speaking, if the Li family wanted to get their crimes cleared, all they needed to do was go through the motions. The people who went to report to the prefectural government set off just after noon, riding fast horses; they should have been back by now. But listen to this—the gongs have already been sounded outside, but there's been no acquittal from the prefectural government, and no one from the garrison has come to bail them out—"

He paused, cautiously glancing at Su Bai's expression. Su Bai's face remained expressionless, his eyes fixed on the night outside the window, as if he hadn't heard him.

"This—" Prison Chief Li's Adam's apple bobbed, "Isn't something a little off?"

Su Bai put down his teacup and looked out at the dark night outside the window.

The outline of the old locust tree outside the window was no longer visible, only a darker mass remaining, swaying slightly in the night. In the distance, a dog barked, barked a few times, paused, then barked a few more times.

Not right.

What's the normal procedure when a scion of a prominent family commits a crime and is arrested? Arrest, report it, go through the clearance process, and release him without charge. These three steps are completed in less than a day. Sometimes, the arrest is done in the morning, the paperwork is finished by noon, and he's released in the afternoon—so fast that even the straw in the cell doesn't have time to leave an imprint.

Li Yuehu has been locked up since morning, for at least seven or eight hours now, and there has been no news yet.

There was no response from the prefectural government.

There was no movement from the Zhenfu Division either.

It's like—

It's as if someone deliberately suppressed this matter.

Su Bai tapped his fingers lightly on the table, once, twice, three times. He stopped on the fourth tap, a slight smile playing on his lips.

"That's actually quite interesting."

Prison Chief Li was taken aback: "What's interesting?"

Su Bai stood up, the chair leg scraping softly on the brick floor. He patted his clothes, took the bunch of keys from his waist, and tossed them to Warden Li.

"It's nothing. You keep an eye on things, I'm going out for a bit."

Li, the jailer, hurriedly caught the keychain, and when he looked up, Su Bai had already reached the door.

"Hey Su, where are you going so late?"

Without turning his head, Su Bai's voice drifted in from outside the door: "Go find someone and ask about the situation."

Ning Yuechan lived in a quiet, two-courtyard house on the east side of the county town. The courtyard wall was made of old blue bricks, with clumps of moss growing in the cracks and half-dead vines climbing on the top. Su Bai walked to the door and knocked.

The door wasn't closed properly; it opened with a push.

An old locust tree stood in the courtyard, its trunk so thick that it took two people to encircle it, its branches spreading out to shade half of the yard. Under the tree was a stone table and two stone stools, and Ning Yuechan was sitting on one of the stools, drinking tea.

She was dressed casually—a pale white jacket over a plain skirt, her hair loosely tied in a bun and secured with a wooden hairpin, much more relaxed than when she was on duty at the Zhenfu Division. An oil lamp sat on the stone table; its wick, long burned, had formed a small wick, and the flame flickered, casting her shadow in shifting shadows.

But when she looked up at Su Bai, her eyes still held their usual calmness and insight, the flickering light of the lamp reflected in them like two cold stars.

"You're here?" Ning Yuechan pointed to the stone bench opposite her. "Have a seat."

Su Bai sat down and didn't beat around the bush: "You guessed I'd come?"

Ning Yuechan poured him a cup of tea. The teapot was made of purple clay, with a long, thin spout, and the tea was still steaming. She pushed the teacup towards him and smiled faintly: "Li Yuehu's matter is known throughout the city. You, as the jailer, have kept him locked up for a whole afternoon and haven't released him yet. It would be strange if you didn't come to see me."

Su Bai picked up his teacup but didn't drink it, his gaze falling on Ning Yuechan's face. In the lamplight, her face was half-lit and half-shadowed, her eyes carrying a half-smile.

"So, you were behind Li Yuehu's affair?"

Ning Yuechan did not deny it. She picked up her teacup, lowered her head and gently blew on it, causing fine ripples to spread across the tea surface.

After she finished playing, she looked up at him.

What do you think?

Su Bai remained silent for a while.

The wick of the oil lamp had grown longer, the flame flickered more slowly, and the light dimmed slightly. Ning Yuechan didn't trim it; she simply raised her eyes and looked at him through the flickering light.

Su Bai's face was half hidden in the shadows, while the other half was illuminated by the lamplight. His brows were slightly furrowed, and his gaze was fixed on the texture of the stone table, as if he were slowly gathering up all the events of the night in his mind.

He already had some guesses, but he didn't know the specific reasons behind them.

Ning Yuechan put down her teacup, the bottom of which struck the stone table with a soft, crisp sound.

"Fenjiang County is my Ning family's territory." She spoke, her voice not loud, but every word clear. "Half of the people in the county's garrison are my men. The people who arrested Li Yuehu today were arranged by me. The people who escorted him to your prison were also arranged by me."

Su Bai raised his head and looked at her face.

In the lamplight, her expression remained unchanged, as if she were talking about something utterly ordinary. Only her eyes appeared exceptionally deep in the dim light, with two points of light reflected in her pupils, like two cold stars sunk to the bottom of water.

"Why do you do this?" Su Bai asked.

"Li Yuehu beat someone to death in the street," Ning Yuechan said calmly, pouring herself another half-cup of tea. As she lifted the teapot, the steam from the spout appeared as a thin white line under the lamplight, quickly dissipating into the night. "This leverage is worthless under normal circumstances. But if someone is willing to use it, it can become very valuable."

She put the teapot back in its place, and the bottom of the pot landed on the stone table with a soft thud.

Su Bai stared at the purple clay teapot, his gaze lingering for a moment before shifting away.

He got it.

Li Yuehu did commit a crime, and the process of clearing his name was also genuine.

But if someone tampers with this process, delaying and making the Li family anxious, giving their enemies an opportunity—

"You're using Li Yuehu as a bargaining chip," Su Bai said.

"It wasn't me," Ning Yuechan corrected him, tracing a half-circle with her index finger along the rim of the teacup. "It was my Ning family."

The Ning family was behind Li Yuehu's affair. Our aim was to control the Li family and gain an advantage in the subsequent distribution of profits.

Su Bai remained silent.

A night breeze blew by, and the locust tree leaves overhead rustled for a while.

A few leaves drifted down and landed on the stone table, falling into the lamplight. One leaf drifted right into the edge of the oil lamp's glow, was licked by the flame, and immediately curled up, emitting a wisp of smoke and a burnt smell.