Chapter 5: Could This Bird's Head Be Worth a Fortune?

With the last of his copper coins from his satchel, Li Gui went straight to the county yamen and handed them to the doorkeeper at the side gate.

"I am a steward in the Liu household to the west of the city. The old patriarch has business with the county magistrate and sent me to request an audience. Please announce me."

The doorkeeper took the coins and, seeing that this was a gift-bearing visitor, politely asked him to wait while he went inside to report.

If one meant to kill a man and make a name for oneself, then one had to choose a worthy target. The magistrate would do nicely.

A short while later, the doorkeeper returned and invited Li Gui in to meet the magistrate in the rear offices.

As he followed the man forward, Li Gui glanced to left and right, memorizing the routes around him.

It had always been the custom that officials did not keep their offices in repair.

That damned magistrate had skimmed plenty, yet the yamen still stood in shabby ruin, full of gaps and breaches. Escaping from it would not be difficult.

After a few more steps, the view before Li Gui suddenly opened up, and the scene changed completely.

The front halls belonged to the office and could not be casually renovated, but the rear quarters, where the magistrate and his family lived, were another matter entirely.

Even if the magistrate himself found it inconvenient to spend money on repairs, there would naturally be local gentry eager to contribute and take the initiative to tidy the place up.

Though still somewhat inferior to the mansions of the truly wealthy, the back courtyard was elegant beyond measure.

Red brick, green tiles, a small garden, all the proper amenities were there.

He crossed the gravel path, passed through the corridor, and entered the reception hall, where a middle-aged scholar sat in the seat of honor.

Though he wore no official robe, there could be no doubt: this was the local magistrate.

When the magistrate saw the wooden box cradled in both of Li Gui's hands, a flicker of satisfaction flashed through his eyes, yet he still put on airs before Li Gui and did not even offer him a seat or a cup of tea.

Li Gui was only a steward. What right had he to sit opposite a gentleman such as himself?

"How fares Old Master Liu?" the magistrate asked after a sip of tea, speaking with studied composure.

Li Gui looked around. The maids and servants were all standing outside the door. He wasted no words. Stepping forward, he set the box on the table, opened it, reached inside, and drew out a blade.

The foolish magistrate still did not know his death was at hand. Seeing that the box held not gold and silver but a weapon, he assumed that Old Master Liu had sent him a precious sabre as a gift, and he could not help frowning in displeasure.

He was just about to voice his dissatisfaction when he suddenly saw Li Gui's face twist into a savage snarl, murderous intent spilling from his eyes, his teeth glinting coldly. His heart lurched.

Before he could cry out for help, Li Gui raised the blade, drew it free, and with one swift stroke took the man's head clean off.

Clean and neat.

Only after the blood from the dog magistrate's neck spurted skyward did Li Gui leisurely step back a few paces to avoid the spray, while saying:

"Allow me to borrow your bird-head for a while. When I make my name known throughout the land one day, you shall be able to leave your mark in history through it."

With that said, Li Gui was about to turn and leave when, to his surprise, a streak of white light drifted up from the magistrate's body and swiftly entered his own.

In an instant, Li Gui felt his entire body grow at ease, as though even his strength had increased a few notches.

Then, from some dim and unseen place, an understanding came over him.

That strand of white light had been the dog magistrate's fortune. Because he had killed him, that fortune had somehow been taken by him instead.

Fortune was a wondrous and all-purpose thing. With only that one thread of white fortune, Li Gui felt his strength surge. Compared to someone who had trained in martial arts since childhood, he was probably not far behind at all.

As a transmigrator, Li Gui was far too familiar with this sort of thing.

This was plainly the cheat of a reincarnated traveler!

His thoughts turned at once, and he immediately altered his original plan.

He had intended to kill the magistrate, rise to fame, and then flee to the ends of the earth to throw in his lot with the heroes at Marshland Liangshan, slowly maneuvering his way into the leadership there.

But now that he had a cheat, why should he lower himself to serving under others? Would it not be better to gather a band of his own and raise a banner himself?

By then he would have emptied Liangshan of its heroes, driven off all the wastrels and scoundrels, and forged a new set of one hundred and eight generals.

Before, his strength had been insufficient, so he had needed to rely on small tricks. Once he killed a few more and his fortune grew full, what would he have to fear?

Then he could fight several great battles, stacking corpses into mountains and flowing blood into seas, making it true that one man rises while ten thousand bones are left to rot. After that, he would sweep the world before him, face south from the throne, and ascend the dragon seat. Would that not be glorious?

Thinking this, Li Gui lowered his head, wiped the blood from the blade onto the dog magistrate's clothes, sheathed it, then drew his waist sabre and hung it at his side. Only then did he strip off the magistrate's clothing, wrap the dog head in it at random, tie the bundle off, and carry it in his hand.

Just as he was about to leave, a sudden thought struck him. Using the cloth as his brush and the blood as his ink, he wrote a few bold characters on the wall behind the table:

Those who abuse their office for gain shall be slain.

In the jianghu, reputation was all about rightful cause.

If you killed an official, others would at most fear you.

But if you killed a corrupt official, then everyone would admire you. No matter how much they disliked your actions, they would still have to raise a thumb and praise you as a true hero acting on heaven's behalf.

After all, corrupt officials were enemies of all under heaven.

Did not even those rabble on Liangshan raise a great banner proclaiming they acted on heaven's behalf?

If Song Jiang could do it, why could he not?

Inside, Li Gui was killing with relish, while the two outside had nearly soiled themselves in terror.

Though the maid and the servant stood outside the door, they had to keep watch over what went on within, afraid of missing some command from their master.

When murderous intent suddenly exploded from inside the room, both of them were stunned.

Seeing the dark-faced brute inside wrap up their master's head, and fearing that he would burst out and kill them in the next instant, they were terrified to the point of losing their souls.

The maid did not make a sound. Her eyes rolled back, and she fainted dead away.

The servant, however, let out a shriek and fled with his head over his heels.

Li Gui did not kill him. Instead, carrying the bundle with the magistrate's head in his left hand and holding the knife in his right, he hurried after him.

At the front of the little court lay the office proper, where constables took turns on duty. Seeing the servant stumble out from the rear courtyard, they rushed over to ask what had happened.

Before the servant could even say that the magistrate was dead, Li Gui was already charging forward, bringing his blade down upon the constable in a single stroke.

Perhaps the servant himself had not done much evil, but the clerks and lesser officials in the county yamen were all cut from the same cloth. Every one of them had a death waiting for them.

The constable was empty-handed. Caught off guard by the blow from above, how could he survive?

After the blood from the constable's neck splashed over him, the servant could no longer bear the strain and toppled backward, also fainting.

Li Gui paid them no mind and strode onward, heading straight for the yamen's main gate.

Along the way, anyone who dared step forward to block him was met with a blade to the face.

After only two or three were killed, the rest were already trembling with fear and scattered like birds and beasts, no longer daring to stand in his way.

If someone had rallied them and led all the constables in a rush against him, then even if Li Gui had three heads and six arms, he would have perished here today.

But these men all lived off the emperor's grain. Who would want to provoke such a fierce outlaw for no reason?

This, too, was why Li Gui had not let them learn that the magistrate was dead; otherwise, getting away would not have been so easy.

After cutting his way out through the main gate of the yamen, Li Gui stood by the stone beast at the entrance and looked back. He saw a vast office compound, empty and desolate, not a trace of human life within, its military readiness neglected beyond measure.

The journey had gone too smoothly; perhaps it owed something to the white fortune he had just gained.

But the few constables he had slain only yielded gray fortune, and the increase to his own strength was negligible at best.

Having come to this realization, he put the lime powder he had prepared for the Azure-Eyed Tiger back into his sleeve pouch, sheathed his blade, slung the bundle over his shoulder, and headed straight for the Treasure Gathering Gambling Hall.

Before going up the mountain, he first had to settle scores and taste the pleasure of revenge.

Li Gui was a regular at the gambling hall, and a loafing idler at the door recognized him from far off and went inside at once to spread the word.

By the time Li Gui reached the entrance, the greeter was already waiting there, calling him brother with excessive warmth.

Li Gui paid him no mind and strode into the gambling hall.

By then it was well past breakfast time, and the hall was at its quietest. Most of the tables stood empty, with only a scattering of drifters still gambling.

The manager of the hall was named Huang Xiu, a notorious local bully. He wielded a fine cudgel, had fought his way through the surrounding counties, and was well acquainted with many gentry and gentlemen. Who on the street would dare refuse him some measure of respect?

It was this very man who, back when Li Gui still had some family assets, had called him brother and sworn him friend, only to win away every last bit of the meager inheritance his cheap old man had accumulated over decades.

Other men of the underworld still knew to leave some room for future dealings, but Huang Xiu not only drained Li Gui dry; he then turned around and lent him dozens of strings at usurious interest.

Had Li Gui not been possessed by a transmigrator, with his original character he would probably have dragged his second uncle, Li Liye, into the mess, and in the end that rotten debt would still have landed on Li Liye's head.

Once a man becomes a gambler, he is no longer a man.

Huang Xiu reclined in a rocking chair, a round fan in his hand, moving it slowly.

He wore a sleeveless undershirt, left open at the chest, with a carpet of chest hair from sternum to belly.

A green dragon coiled around both his arms; its tail looped about his right forearm, its head extended over his left shoulder and lay against his left chest, its dragon eyes half open, half shut.

When he saw Li Gui come in wearing fine clothes, Huang Xiu knew at once that Li Gui had truly made a windfall. He did not rise, but instead waved a hand with a smile that did not reach his eyes.

"Brother, you've come. Are you here to settle your debt?"

"Let's be clear first: even between brothers, accounts must be settled straight. Though it's only been half a day, the interest still has to be counted for a full month."

"I won't ask much of you. Nine out, thirteen back. With interest, the total comes to sixty-five strings."

"If that's inconvenient for you, you can pay the interest first. The principal need not be repaid in a hurry."

"Of course, you can also try your luck at the tables. Maybe today your fortune is good, and you'll win back both principal and interest in one go."

Li Gui hooked a bench over with his foot, sat down at the table opposite Huang Xiu, and chuckled.

"No need for all that trouble. Today I brought you a treasure, and I'll pay you back in full, principal and interest together."

Huang Xiu's eyes lit up. He hurriedly sat up, tossed aside the fan, and fixed his greedy gaze on the bundle in Li Gui's left hand.

Li Gui had walked all this way; the bloodstains on the bundle had long since dried, and no one could tell what lay within.

But the bundle itself was wrapped in the dog magistrate's clothes, and the fabric was plainly fine silk at a glance.

A faint stench of blood still seeped from it. Huang Xiu assumed Li Gui had gone out to rob the road and struck gold, and he did not take it to heart.

He cared only about money and did not mind in the least whether it was stolen goods.

Indeed, stolen goods were even better, since they made it easier to drive the price down.

Huang Xiu's greedy expression fell into Li Gui's eyes, and he gave a cold smile at once. He set the bundle on the table, opened it with a casual tug, and pointed.

"Come now, take a look. Is this bird-head worth a hundred strings?"