Madam Qi changed her clothes, brought along a maidservant, then followed Jinxia Cen Shou to their residence.
“This is him!” Cen Shou pushed out the pirate, who was curling up in the corner of the room, he quickly took out the cloth that was stuffed in the pirate’s mouth, and reported to Madam Qi, “He is an expert in using flying weapons, yesterday he hid about 3 silver needles in his mouth.”
Jinxia excitedly brought Madam Qi a round stool, so she could sit comfortably while interrogating the pirate.
“Who are you? Where did you come from? What did you come to Xinhe city for?” Madam Qi directly asked him without any hesitation in her Japanese.
When the pirate heard her Japanese, he was stunned for a moment. He opened his mouth and start utter some words.
Jinxia asked curiously: “What did he say?”
Madam Qi gave a signal to stop Jinxia, then continued to interrogate the pirates in Japanese, and the two exchanged sentences. Jinxia and Cen Shou stood quietly on the side, they didn’t understand a single word, which make them very restless.
The two of them talked for a long time, Madam Qi’s eyebrows knitted as they talk, and her eyes were getting keener.
After the pirate slowly his last sentence, Madam Qi suddenly stood up, took a stick beside her, then with all her power swung towards the pirate’s head.
Cen Shou didn’t expect Madam Qi to be so angry, he immediately took a step back, and stretched out his hand to prevent it.
“It was difficult to catch one of them. Madam Qi, please don’t beat him to death.” Jinxia persuaded her.
Madam Qi violently threw the stick down, and angrily said: “He doesn’t want to tell the truth. He needs to see a little blood before he can speak.”
“Well, Madam Qi just leave it to me.” Cen Shou took the knife out of his holster, “I’ll cut his tendons in his leg first, if he still doesn’t want to talk, I’ll cut the tendons of his hands…”
“Good!” After fighting with pirates for so long, it’s safe to say that hating pirates to the bone has become normal. Madam Qi coldly laughed and passed Cen Shou’s words to the pirates.
The pirate’s face immediately changed drastically, as a fighter, he understood very well the meaning of severing the tendons of his hands and feet, he would become a cripple, and even walking and eating every day would be a problem.
Cen Shou also didn’t bother to talk much, the pirate was tied up tightly so he couldn’t run anywhere, he slowly walked toward him, and took off his shoes and socks, without hesitation, and the blade stabbed straight into his ankle.
The pirate immediately shouted loudly, his scream was so heartbreaking, people who heard it couldn’t help but also felt the pain.
“Okay,” Madam Qi said, “He said she would speak the truth, he would tell us everything.”
The knife had already been stabbed into his ankle, just a little deeper than it was enough to sever the tendons in his leg, Cen Shou didn’t rush to stab any further, he turned his head to ask: “He really wants to tell the truth? Or we can cut off one side of the tendon to scare him first?”
After all, Jinxia is a girl, seeing the pirate’s face full of fear and despair, her heart can’t bear it, she suggested: “Not yet, let us listen to what he has to say first, if he dares to lie to us, then you can decide.”
Madam Qi also said: “No hurry, let’s listen to his words first.”
Cen Shou who was only about to scare the pirates slowly pulled out his knife.
Seeing blood spurting out, knowing that the tendons hadn’t been severed, the pirate let out a sigh of relief. After experiencing extreme death pain, he didn’t dare to hide anything from them,
After hearing his words, Madam Qi’s face immediately darkened, for a moment she didn’t say anything.
“Madam, what did he say?” Jinxia couldn’t help but ask.
“He said….” Madam Qi took a deep breath first and just said, “The pirates who had just attacked Taizhou will turn around and attack Xinhe City. Dong San is a spy planted in this city.”
After listening to her words, Jinxia hastily asked: “How many pirates are there in the city altogether?”
“He said, including himself and his subordinates, there are approximately thirty pirates. There are also people he knows, and those that are in contact with him.” Madam Qi furrowed her eyebrows.
Xinhe City might have a possibility of thirty pirates scattered in various places of the city, and they’re just waiting for one signal to take action. Since General Qi and his troops are in Taizhou, there are barely any soldiers remaining here, definitely not enough to attack them. If the pirates want to plant more spies and push forward to take over Xinhe City, it definitely wouldn’t be hard for the pirates to win.
“This must be reported to the General as soon as possible!” Madam. Qi turned and ordered the servant, “Go!”
Cen Shou didn’t think that this matter would be so big, he was only thinking about arresting Dong San, and making him tell them all of the pirates’ secrets. Afterward, he can arrest all of Dong Sans’ subordinates.
Jinxia stood still, her mind was constantly flashing scenes of people in Xinhe City, women, children and elders…Is there a reason why the pirates let go of Taizhou and come to Xinhe City?
“We should arrest Dong San, what do you think?” Cen Shou asked her.
Jinxia seemed to have finally snapped out of her thoughts, she immediately chased after Madame Qi and said: “Madam, wait! I have something to say, please give me a minute.”
Madam Qi stopped in her footsteps, her brows furrowed: “What else is there to say?”
“Madam, if I may be a little presumptuous, this whole pirate plan is to lure the tiger away from its mountain. They want General Qi and his troops to come home, and then, they’ll have an opportunity to seize and attack Taizhou.” Jinxia said, “Xinhe City is General Qi’s home, plus you’re here, pretending to attack Xinhe City would be a great way to stir up chaos, and General Qi won’t have a choice but come home.”
Upon hearing this, Madam Qi considered it for a while, then asked: “You’re just guessing.”
“Actually, I’m not. May I ask madam, how many pirates are attacking Taizhou?”
“About twenty thousand people.”
“With that amount of pirates, twenty thousand people can easily seize Xinhe City, yet they’re only planting spies here, meaning they’re contacting with a bigger group outside of the city. If I may say, the people that come here claiming to attack Xinhe City seems to be too little, meaning Xinhe City is not their main target.”
Suddenly, her words made a lot of sense. Madam Qi carefully listen to her, afterward, she turned around and go back inside the room to continue asking Dong San more questions.
“He’s only responsible for passing information to Dong San, regarding other arrangements, he doesn’t know.” Madam Qi.
Cen Shou took out his knife again, walked up to the pirates and coldly said: “It’s not that he doesn’t know, maybe he just doesn’t want to speak.” As Cen Shou speak, he slowly crouched down, moving the shining blade towards the pirate’s ankle.
The pirate couldn’t even hide his fear, he could only keep screaming, his voice sounded hoarse, and even tears had flowed out.
“Stop it, I can see he’s telling the truth.” Madam Qi said, “It seems like this is a team, meaning the leader wouldn’t tell a lowly informant anything regarding their plan.”
In front of their eyes are two difficult decisions, it’s like putting a person in a foggy forest and telling them to choose a way. Right now, if they report the situation to General Qi and seek his help, it’s very likely they’ll fall into the pirate’s trap, giving them an opportunity to seize Taizhou; If they don’t seek General Qi’s help, there’s a possibility the pirates might attack Xinhe City.
It was really hard to choose, Jinxia became very annoyed. As for Cen Shou, he’s thinking about the order the Young Master gave him, which was to protect all of them. If the pirates really attack Xinhe City, how he can send them all out of here safely?
While both of them are thinking about which decision to make, Madam Qi already has the answer in her heart, she quickly asked Jinxia: “Where does Dong San live?”
“Down the small road, that leads up to Qingpo river. Madam, I’m afraid he might have some protectors around him. If we rush to catch him, we might recklessly shake the wood and disturbs the snake. The remainder thirty pirates might change their plan, which makes it harder to catch.” Jinxia reminded her.
Cen Shou said: “We can keep a close eye on Dong San, wait for him to give the order to one of the pirates, then follow the other pirates to learn more about their plan.”
“This plan is really good.” Madam Qi nodded her head, “There are only a few soldiers left, Cen Daren, I will leave it to you to arrange, all pirates must be arrested, don’t leave anyone behind.”
“I will.” Cen Shou raised his hand in salute.
Jinxia looked at Madam Qi: “Madam, General Qi….”
“I will report to him the situation, accordingly to the information we’ve gathered, including your idea.” Madam Qi said, “As for whether he will return with his troops or not, let General Qi decide. We must prepare to defend the city.”
“…. Defense preparations!” Cen Shou let out a long sigh, “Madam, do you think the General can pause the fight in Taizhou, and come home to help? Pardon my presumptuous words, let’s say we were able to smoothly capture the pirates in the city, with our current strength, just two thousand pirates alone can defeat Xinhe City.”
“Defend the city first, if the city can’t be defended anymore, then we will fight, we will protect everyone.” Madam Qi confidently said, “In this city, there’s a lot of Ming soldiers that rather died than get caught by pirates.”
Her face was full of confidence, it was something that Jinxia had never seen before, she was subconsciously stunned by her words.
“The city is closed! The city is closed!”
The heavy city door is slowly being pushed, the gap was getting smaller and smaller, and the door was finally closed. Then, a heavy and long stick was inserted, and the gate is tightly locked.
Not only was Xinhe City’s door was closed, but even the entrance to the City from the Qingpo river was also closed, iron rods that are weight about 600kg, intertwined to form a floodgate, from the surface of the water to the bottom of the river everything was secured and firmly locked.
Xie Xiao who had good reason not to go fishing anymore also didn’t have to worry about being caught. As for Jinxia, because of the previous argument with Mrs. Shen, still felt bad and was unprepared to meet with her, so Jinxia went to help out YangYue in the kitchen.
“General Qi really can’t come home to help?” YangYue is currently preparing to salt mizuna leaves. Closing the city isn’t a trivial matter, can’t be resolved in one or two days, so they have to prepare a lot of food.
Jinxia’s focus was elsewhere, but her hands were still working to clean the vegetables: “He should right? This place is the home of all soldiers, plus Madame Qi is also here. It’s impossible for General Qi to leave his wife and child in danger.”
“Just a wife, no children.” Yang Yue corrected her, “You didn’t know? It’s because Madam Qi can’t give birth, so General Qi secretly has kids with several concubines, he even bought them houses, because he was afraid Madam Qi will cause trouble for them, so he never let them near Xinhe City.”
“……” Jinxia was speechless.
“There’s more, there were rumours that Madam Qi is a hot-tempered woman. General Qi is more afraid of her than he is of tigers.” YangYue sighed, “So, him coming back to help or not, it might be a difficult situation.”
Jinxia asked in surprise: “Where did you hear all this?”
“When I went to the market, all the houses around here are families of soldiers, they’re very talkative, they like to gossip. Just ask a question, and they’ll tell you everything.”
“It doesn’t mean it’s truth.” Jinxia thought of Madame Qi’s behaviour today, sighed and said, “Maybe, Madam Qi also knows in her heart that General Qi won’t come home, so she…”
Someone suddenly jumped into the courtyard, Jinxia quickly noticed the sudden movement, her hand reaching out for any available object and tossing it at the man. After throwing it, she realized the thing she threw at the person was the water scooper…
Easily catching the scooper, Cen Shou walked in, put the scooper on the side, and asked: “Is there anything to eat? I’ve been staying up all night, I’m starving to death. “
Since it was not yet time to eat, YangYue took a bun from the food basket, with an apologetic look, and said: “It’s cold, and a little bit hard.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine.” Cen Shou took the bun from YangYue’s hand, and while chewing, he said: “There is finally progress. Yesterday, after the city was closed, I saw something unusual from an unknown man. His candlelight went out after midnight, and then he got up very early, went to the Styphnolobium japonicum tree and carved some marks.”
“What was the mark?”
Cen Shou used his finger, dip it in the water, and on the kitchen table, he draw out the mark. Jinxia and YangYue are both dumbfounded looks at the mark.
“You don’t understand, do you?” Cen Shou laughed, “I don’t understand either, Madam Qi doesn’t understand either, so I ran to the prison again. The pirates we caught at that time said that this sign was to indicate that there would be a meeting tonight before three o’clock in the morning…. snakes, finally coming out of their nest!”
Jinxia also became excited: “Which also means, tonight we can catch them all at once!”
Madam Qi changed her clothes, brought along a maidservant, then followed Jinxia Cen Shou to their residence.
“This is him!” Cen Shou pushed out the pirate, who was curling up in the corner of the room, he quickly took out the cloth that was stuffed in the pirate’s mouth, and reported to Madam Qi, “He is an expert in using flying weapons, yesterday he hid about 3 silver needles in his mouth.”
Jinxia excitedly brought Madam Qi a round stool, so she could sit comfortably while interrogating the pirate.
“Who are you? Where did you come from? What did you come to Xinhe city for?” Madam Qi directly asked him without any hesitation in her Japanese.
When the pirate heard her Japanese, he was stunned for a moment. He opened his mouth and start utter some words.
Jinxia asked curiously: “What did he say?”
Madam Qi gave a signal to stop Jinxia, then continued to interrogate the pirates in Japanese, and the two exchanged sentences. Jinxia and Cen Shou stood quietly on the side, they didn’t understand a single word, which make them very restless.
The two of them talked for a long time, Madam Qi’s eyebrows knitted as they talk, and her eyes were getting keener.
After the pirate slowly his last sentence, Madam Qi suddenly stood up, took a stick beside her, then with all her power swung towards the pirate’s head.
Cen Shou didn’t expect Madam Qi to be so angry, he immediately took a step back, and stretched out his hand to prevent it.
“It was difficult to catch one of them. Madam Qi, please don’t beat him to death.” Jinxia persuaded her.
Madam Qi violently threw the stick down, and angrily said: “He doesn’t want to tell the truth. He needs to see a little blood before he can speak.”
“Well, Madam Qi just leave it to me.” Cen Shou took the knife out of his holster, “I’ll cut his tendons in his leg first, if he still doesn’t want to talk, I’ll cut the tendons of his hands…”
“Good!” After fighting with pirates for so long, it’s safe to say that hating pirates to the bone has become normal. Madam Qi coldly laughed and passed Cen Shou’s words to the pirates.
The pirate’s face immediately changed drastically, as a fighter, he understood very well the meaning of severing the tendons of his hands and feet, he would become a cripple, and even walking and eating every day would be a problem.
Cen Shou also didn’t bother to talk much, the pirate was tied up tightly so he couldn’t run anywhere, he slowly walked toward him, and took off his shoes and socks, without hesitation, and the blade stabbed straight into his ankle.
The pirate immediately shouted loudly, his scream was so heartbreaking, people who heard it couldn’t help but also felt the pain.
“Okay,” Madam Qi said, “He said she would speak the truth, he would tell us everything.”
The knife had already been stabbed into his ankle, just a little deeper than it was enough to sever the tendons in his leg, Cen Shou didn’t rush to stab any further, he turned his head to ask: “He really wants to tell the truth? Or we can cut off one side of the tendon to scare him first?”
After all, Jinxia is a girl, seeing the pirate’s face full of fear and despair, her heart can’t bear it, she suggested: “Not yet, let us listen to what he has to say first, if he dares to lie to us, then you can decide.”
Madam Qi also said: “No hurry, let’s listen to his words first.”
Cen Shou who was only about to scare the pirates slowly pulled out his knife.
Seeing blood spurting out, knowing that the tendons hadn’t been severed, the pirate let out a sigh of relief. After experiencing extreme death pain, he didn’t dare to hide anything from them,
After hearing his words, Madam Qi’s face immediately darkened, for a moment she didn’t say anything.
“Madam, what did he say?” Jinxia couldn’t help but ask.
“He said….” Madam Qi took a deep breath first and just said, “The pirates who had just attacked Taizhou will turn around and attack Xinhe City. Dong San is a spy planted in this city.”
After listening to her words, Jinxia hastily asked: “How many pirates are there in the city altogether?”
“He said, including himself and his subordinates, there are approximately thirty pirates. There are also people he knows, and those that are in contact with him.” Madam Qi furrowed her eyebrows.
Xinhe City might have a possibility of thirty pirates scattered in various places of the city, and they’re just waiting for one signal to take action. Since General Qi and his troops are in Taizhou, there are barely any soldiers remaining here, definitely not enough to attack them. If the pirates want to plant more spies and push forward to take over Xinhe City, it definitely wouldn’t be hard for the pirates to win.
“This must be reported to the General as soon as possible!” Madam. Qi turned and ordered the servant, “Go!”
Cen Shou didn’t think that this matter would be so big, he was only thinking about arresting Dong San, and making him tell them all of the pirates’ secrets. Afterward, he can arrest all of Dong Sans’ subordinates.
Jinxia stood still, her mind was constantly flashing scenes of people in Xinhe City, women, children and elders…Is there a reason why the pirates let go of Taizhou and come to Xinhe City?
“We should arrest Dong San, what do you think?” Cen Shou asked her.
Jinxia seemed to have finally snapped out of her thoughts, she immediately chased after Madame Qi and said: “Madam, wait! I have something to say, please give me a minute.”
Madam Qi stopped in her footsteps, her brows furrowed: “What else is there to say?”
“Madam, if I may be a little presumptuous, this whole pirate plan is to lure the tiger away from its mountain. They want General Qi and his troops to come home, and then, they’ll have an opportunity to seize and attack Taizhou.” Jinxia said, “Xinhe City is General Qi’s home, plus you’re here, pretending to attack Xinhe City would be a great way to stir up chaos, and General Qi won’t have a choice but come home.”
Upon hearing this, Madam Qi considered it for a while, then asked: “You’re just guessing.”
“Actually, I’m not. May I ask madam, how many pirates are attacking Taizhou?”
“About twenty thousand people.”
“With that amount of pirates, twenty thousand people can easily seize Xinhe City, yet they’re only planting spies here, meaning they’re contacting with a bigger group outside of the city. If I may say, the people that come here claiming to attack Xinhe City seems to be too little, meaning Xinhe City is not their main target.”
Suddenly, her words made a lot of sense. Madam Qi carefully listen to her, afterward, she turned around and go back inside the room to continue asking Dong San more questions.
“He’s only responsible for passing information to Dong San, regarding other arrangements, he doesn’t know.” Madam Qi.
Cen Shou took out his knife again, walked up to the pirates and coldly said: “It’s not that he doesn’t know, maybe he just doesn’t want to speak.” As Cen Shou speak, he slowly crouched down, moving the shining blade towards the pirate’s ankle.
The pirate couldn’t even hide his fear, he could only keep screaming, his voice sounded hoarse, and even tears had flowed out.
“Stop it, I can see he’s telling the truth.” Madam Qi said, “It seems like this is a team, meaning the leader wouldn’t tell a lowly informant anything regarding their plan.”
In front of their eyes are two difficult decisions, it’s like putting a person in a foggy forest and telling them to choose a way. Right now, if they report the situation to General Qi and seek his help, it’s very likely they’ll fall into the pirate’s trap, giving them an opportunity to seize Taizhou; If they don’t seek General Qi’s help, there’s a possibility the pirates might attack Xinhe City.
It was really hard to choose, Jinxia became very annoyed. As for Cen Shou, he’s thinking about the order the Young Master gave him, which was to protect all of them. If the pirates really attack Xinhe City, how he can send them all out of here safely?
While both of them are thinking about which decision to make, Madam Qi already has the answer in her heart, she quickly asked Jinxia: “Where does Dong San live?”
“Down the small road, that leads up to Qingpo river. Madam, I’m afraid he might have some protectors around him. If we rush to catch him, we might recklessly shake the wood and disturbs the snake. The remainder thirty pirates might change their plan, which makes it harder to catch.” Jinxia reminded her.
Cen Shou said: “We can keep a close eye on Dong San, wait for him to give the order to one of the pirates, then follow the other pirates to learn more about their plan.”
“This plan is really good.” Madam Qi nodded her head, “There are only a few soldiers left, Cen Daren, I will leave it to you to arrange, all pirates must be arrested, don’t leave anyone behind.”
“I will.” Cen Shou raised his hand in salute.
Jinxia looked at Madam Qi: “Madam, General Qi….”
“I will report to him the situation, accordingly to the information we’ve gathered, including your idea.” Madam Qi said, “As for whether he will return with his troops or not, let General Qi decide. We must prepare to defend the city.”
“…. Defense preparations!” Cen Shou let out a long sigh, “Madam, do you think the General can pause the fight in Taizhou, and come home to help? Pardon my presumptuous words, let’s say we were able to smoothly capture the pirates in the city, with our current strength, just two thousand pirates alone can defeat Xinhe City.”
“Defend the city first, if the city can’t be defended anymore, then we will fight, we will protect everyone.” Madam Qi confidently said, “In this city, there’s a lot of Ming soldiers that rather died than get caught by pirates.”
Her face was full of confidence, it was something that Jinxia had never seen before, she was subconsciously stunned by her words.
“The city is closed! The city is closed!”
The heavy city door is slowly being pushed, the gap was getting smaller and smaller, and the door was finally closed. Then, a heavy and long stick was inserted, and the gate is tightly locked.
Not only was Xinhe City’s door was closed, but even the entrance to the City from the Qingpo river was also closed, iron rods that are weight about 600kg, intertwined to form a floodgate, from the surface of the water to the bottom of the river everything was secured and firmly locked.
Xie Xiao who had good reason not to go fishing anymore also didn’t have to worry about being caught. As for Jinxia, because of the previous argument with Mrs. Shen, still felt bad and was unprepared to meet with her, so Jinxia went to help out YangYue in the kitchen.
“General Qi really can’t come home to help?” YangYue is currently preparing to salt mizuna leaves. Closing the city isn’t a trivial matter, can’t be resolved in one or two days, so they have to prepare a lot of food.
Jinxia’s focus was elsewhere, but her hands were still working to clean the vegetables: “He should right? This place is the home of all soldiers, plus Madame Qi is also here. It’s impossible for General Qi to leave his wife and child in danger.”
“Just a wife, no children.” Yang Yue corrected her, “You didn’t know? It’s because Madam Qi can’t give birth, so General Qi secretly has kids with several concubines, he even bought them houses, because he was afraid Madam Qi will cause trouble for them, so he never let them near Xinhe City.”
“……” Jinxia was speechless.
“There’s more, there were rumours that Madam Qi is a hot-tempered woman. General Qi is more afraid of her than he is of tigers.” YangYue sighed, “So, him coming back to help or not, it might be a difficult situation.”
Jinxia asked in surprise: “Where did you hear all this?”
“When I went to the market, all the houses around here are families of soldiers, they’re very talkative, they like to gossip. Just ask a question, and they’ll tell you everything.”
“It doesn’t mean it’s truth.” Jinxia thought of Madame Qi’s behaviour today, sighed and said, “Maybe, Madam Qi also knows in her heart that General Qi won’t come home, so she…”
Someone suddenly jumped into the courtyard, Jinxia quickly noticed the sudden movement, her hand reaching out for any available object and tossing it at the man. After throwing it, she realized the thing she threw at the person was the water scooper…
Easily catching the scooper, Cen Shou walked in, put the scooper on the side, and asked: “Is there anything to eat? I’ve been staying up all night, I’m starving to death. “
Since it was not yet time to eat, YangYue took a bun from the food basket, with an apologetic look, and said: “It’s cold, and a little bit hard.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine.” Cen Shou took the bun from YangYue’s hand, and while chewing, he said: “There is finally progress. Yesterday, after the city was closed, I saw something unusual from an unknown man. His candlelight went out after midnight, and then he got up very early, went to the Styphnolobium japonicum tree and carved some marks.”
“What was the mark?”
Cen Shou used his finger, dip it in the water, and on the kitchen table, he draw out the mark. Jinxia and YangYue are both dumbfounded looks at the mark.
“You don’t understand, do you?” Cen Shou laughed, “I don’t understand either, Madam Qi doesn’t understand either, so I ran to the prison again. The pirates we caught at that time said that this sign was to indicate that there would be a meeting tonight before three o’clock in the morning…. snakes, finally coming out of their nest!”
Jinxia also became excited: “Which also means, tonight we can catch them all at once!”
