Among the crowd, a twelve-year-old boy frowned, took one last look at the store, and left with his entourage.
After bypassing several alleys, the young man came to a house and knocked on the door.
The doorman recognized him and said politely, “Please come in, Young Master Wang, my son has been waiting for a long time.”
Wang Yunshi nodded and went in with a gloomy expression.
When he came to the entrance of the hall, he saw Yin Wen. The twenty one young master of the Yin family was wearing a sapphire blue robe. What kind of person was Yin Wen in his heart? He was lustful. He didn’t like the singers in brothels who openly received customers but insisted on provoking good girls.
“Fire is almost burning to the brows, but Brother Yin, you can still enjoy tea leisurely, which is really admirable,” Wang Yunshi said as he came in, shaking his folding fan.
He didn’t regard Yin Wen as a gentleman, and Yin Wen also knew that Wang Yunshi’s seemingly young and innocent youthful appearance hid a cunning heart.
“What burning?” Yin Wen put down the teacup and asked with a smile.
Wang Yunshi sat next to him, put away his fan, and pointed outside, “Liao Qiuniang is going to marry Feng Teng soon, don’t you know about this?”
Yin Wen’s eyes flashed fiercely, and he looked at him and said, “So what do you think? Do you dare to tell the Feng family about this?”
Liao Qiuniang and her father disclosed the matter in front of the old man and Yin Hui, which he gambled wrongly. But he did not believe that Liao Qiuniang dared to tell Feng Teng the truth. Which man would accept that his wife had gone through that kind of thing? Liao Qiuniang climbed to the high branches of the Feng family, unless she was stupid enough to expose her shortcomings.
Wang Yunshi also guessed the same, but he had been uneasy recently and said with a sullen face, “Even if the Feng family doesn’t know, will Liao Shisan rely on him to win the King’s respect, and then deal with us in turn?”
Yin Wen: “No, he is a person who keeps his promise, and he promised the old man not to pursue the matter.”
Wang Yunshi smiled, saying, “This is all in exchange for your hard work of being grounded for a year.”
He guessed it, but he didn’t know that in addition to grounding Yin Wen, he also received twenty heavy whips from Liao Shisan.
Yin Wen smirked, saying, “That’s why you came to me?”
Wang Yunshi said, “Yes, your Yin family still has a third lady, and Liao Shisan is afraid of you, but our Wang family don’t have any backers. I’m really afraid that Liao Shisan or the Feng family will take revenge.”
Yin Wen: “Leave Pingcheng if you’re afraid.”
Wang Yunshi: “I have this plan, but our old man dare not leave, saying that if he stays in Pingcheng, he can still share the same spirit with your Yin family. If he leaves, Liao Shisan may kill him. Hey, it would have been great if Liao Shisan would have sacrificed his life for the country in the fight against the Jin soldiers last year.”
Yin Wen sneered. He had this kind of dream too, but unfortunately, Liao Shisan’s life was so long that he could pass through the ghost gate several times but be saved.
“By the way, when will your old man come back?” Wang Yunshi asked, “Is he going to hold a birthday banquet when he comes back? My father hopes Brother Yin will speak a few words of kindness for him in front of Mr. Yin, so that our two families will get well again.”
Yin Wen lowered his eyes to look at the tea and said lightly, “I will find a way when he comes back.”
Wang Yunshi looked at his expression and said, “Your old man took your concubine brother with him when he went out, could it be that he wants to value a concubine born?”
Yin Wen smiled, looked at him, and said, “If you don’t talk, no one will treat you as dumb.”
Wang Yunshi quickly apologized to him, bidding farewell tactfully.
Yin Wen watched his retreating figure and slowly clenched the teacup in his hand.
At the end of March, Feng Teng could take a day off.
Mrs. Feng wanted to discuss the wedding banquet with her son, but she couldn’t find him after searching around.
“This child didn’t stay at home before; why is he still out when he’s almost married?” Mrs. Feng complained to her husband.
Feng Su said leisurely, “Let him be; wait for the daughter-in-law to come in and take care of him, so you don’t have to worry about him.”
Mrs. Feng could only look forward to it.
At the same time, Feng Teng was sitting in a teahouse in gray cloth, drinking and listening to the storytelling of the old man in the teahouse.
The two captains who had been dispatched came back one after another and reported two pieces of news to him.
Feng Teng set down the wine bowl, left a piece of silver, and led the people away.
The spring was delightful, and Wang Yunshi went to Dongshan with a few affluent young masters. On the way, he decided to take a break and entered the woods alone.
The other young masters sat by the roadside, waiting for him. As time passed with no sign of his return, they began to suspect that something had happened. Hastily, they entered the woods to search for him. After an extensive search, they finally discovered Wang Yunshi unconscious at the bottom of a hillside. His purse was missing, and his face was beaten and bruised. To their dismay, despite their efforts, they couldn’t help Wang Yunshi.
A knowledgeable young man noticed that Wang Yunshi’s right leg was broken.
“What kind of thief is so vicious! Yunshi, did you see the other party’s face?”
Wang Yunshi hadn’t seen anything, and his mind couldn’t focus on such details. He was consumed by the realization that he was now crippled.
Meanwhile, Yin Wen was in the city, unaware of the events unfolding in Dongshan. The old man had amassed considerable assets to bring back, yet he left two stores for Yin Wen to manage. Despite staying in one of the stores all day, Yin Wen’s heart wasn’t invested; it was merely a facade for others.
Soon, there would be troubling news from Jiangnan, and Yin Wen didn’t want to display any peculiar behavior that might raise suspicion.
After being occupied until dusk, Yin Wen departed with the two guards newly assigned by the old man.
These two guards served more as monitors sent by the old man rather than protectors.
Yin Wen paid little attention to this fact; the old man was aging, and inevitably, the family business would be entrusted to him. At that point, all members of the Yin family would heed his commands.
As the sky darkened, and the street became sparsely populated, Yin Wen, anticipating his return home, grew uneasy. Deliberately slowing his pace, he strolled along the dimly lit street.
While passing through an alley, suddenly three figures emerged.
All three were masked, yet their tall and robust statue suggested they were skilled martial artists.
Yin Wen was well-versed in martial arts. Confronting these formidable adversaries, he and the two guards engaged in combat simultaneously.
Among them, the most robust masked man approached Yin Wen.
Yin Wen, once proud of his proficiency in both civil and military matters, had limited experience in actual combat. Despite having a sword at his waist, he found himself unable to draw it when confronted by the opponent’s ferocious iron fists. No matter how nimble his movements, striking the opponent’s body or arm felt akin to colliding with an impenetrable iron wall, numbing his own jaw without affecting the adversary.
“I don’t know what grievance you bear against me?” Noticing that the two guards struggled against the masked men and couldn’t intervene to aid him, Yin Wen began seeking an escape route. He asked, while dodging blows, “If you were hired to do someone else’s bidding, I would pay you ten times the amount.”
The masked man, seemingly indifferent to Yin Wen’s words, continued relentlessly hitting him. Eventually, Yin Wen took a punch to the chest, causing him to spew forth a mouthful of blood.
Exposed and vulnerable, Yin Wen faced further disadvantage as the masked man pounded him to the ground three times consecutively.
Halting at this point, the masked man coldly snorted as he observed Yin Wen struggling on the ground. He then callously stepped on Yin Wen’s crotch.
Accompanied by a piercing scream, Yin Wen’s contorted face reflected the excruciating pain before he instantly lost consciousness.
Attempting to inflict further harm, the masked man aimed to step on him again. However, the other two masked individuals rushed over, pulling him away, one on each side.
While capable of causing harm, they evidently drew the line at murder, recognizing the severity of such an act.