Chapter Seventy-Eight: An Eye for an Eye!

In a hidden cave behind the rear slopes of Ten Kings Peak.

The cave was most peculiar. First of all, its entrance was so well concealed that ordinary people would have great difficulty finding it at all.

What made it clever was this: once one entered the cave mouth and walked a few dozen paces inward, it widened out abruptly, with daylight spilling down through an open stretch of ground beneath the sky.

In theory, unless some great bird were flying directly over the summit of Ten Kings Peak, it would be almost impossible to discover this cave.

Fortunately, the men of the Cangshan Stronghold had spent decades living in the mountains, and Cangshan itself also had a cave where one could hide. So Zhou Liang and the others had truly managed to find this place.

By the time Li Yun and Liu Bo entered the cave, most of the people inside had already been dealt with by Zhang Hu, and those who needed binding had been bound.

Just as Zhou Liang had said, this cave did indeed hide quite a number of young men who looked fiercely capable, but nearly every one of them was injured, and badly so.

Tong, the chief, had been wounded in the shoulder, apparently stabbed with a knife, though the wound had already been bandaged.

Even so, he was still bound up by the stubborn Zhang Hu, and the pain in his shoulder had left his forehead slick with sweat.

The chief of the stronghold walked over beside him, glanced around the cave, then squatted down and looked at the broad-faced middle-aged man with a smile. “This really is a good place to hide people. No wonder ordinary folk could never find it.”

Tong, the chief, forced himself to endure the pain and closed his eyes, saying nothing.

Li Yun looked at the wound on his shoulder, clicked his tongue, and shook his head. “I remember that when you were at Cangshan, you didn’t have this injury. What happened? Did one of your own brothers stab you when you returned to the stronghold?”

Tong, the chief, opened his eyes, shot Li Yun a vicious glare, then spat on the ground and cursed, “You little bastard, if you’re going to kill me, then kill me. Stop chattering like a damned woman!”

The chief of the stronghold slapped him across the face at once, frowning. “Why are you cursing?”

“Your damned mother!”

Tong, the chief, flew into a rage and instinctively repeated his favorite curse.

Smack.

Another merciless slap.

After those two blows, blood had already seeped from the corner of Tong’s mouth, and he clenched his teeth without daring to speak, though his eyes remained venomous as he looked at Li Yun.

Li Yun gave him a sidelong glance and said coolly, “Don’t look at me like that. Last night, when I entered Ten Kings Stronghold, your lot put kidnapped commoners in the front ranks. Plenty of girls were shoved out there without even their clothes on.”

“When they were being abused, it was far worse than what you’re suffering now.”

With blood at the corner of his mouth, Tong still sneered. “If there hadn’t been a traitor inside the stronghold, do you think someone like you could have fought your way into Ten Kings Stronghold?”

Li Yun turned his head following Tong’s gaze. Not far away, the second leader, Ying Hao, whose back bore a shallow blade wound, had also been bound by Zhang Hu.

At that moment, Liu Bo was squatting in front of him, glaring at him with murderous fury.

“Two months ago, you made me kneel to enter Ten Kings Stronghold. Remember that?”

Liu Bo seized the second leader by the hair and sneered. “You said that if my face could turn your hand red, you’d carry the person out.”

“That’s what you said, wasn’t it?”

Liu Bo’s eyes burned with fury. He landed a vicious slap across Ying Hao’s face, and the middle-aged man, who had a rather heroic look, had his mouth knocked askew by the blow; his face swelled at once.

After being slapped several times in succession, the second leader turned a look of poisonous hatred on Liu Bo and ground out through clenched teeth, “If it weren’t for that old beast ruining my Ten Kings Stronghold in one battle, would a little whelp like you dare show that kind of expression in front of me?”

Not far away, Tong, whose cheeks were also swollen, flew into a rage at once and cursed loudly, “If it weren’t for you old beastly thing kidnapping people and chopping off one of their arms, would this grudge ever have been formed? Ten Kings Stronghold is what it is today because of you alone!”

Ying Hao was also furious, and was about to hurl more abuse when Liu Bo slapped him hard across the face again.

“My hand still isn’t red yet!”

After giving him several more slaps, Liu Bo’s frustration had all but vanished. He stood up, placed both hands on his hips, and cursed, “Later, I’ll tear off one of your arms too, you beast, and see whether you know what pain is!”

On the side, Li Yun watched Liu Bo’s performance at leisure. Once he noticed the wound on Ying Hao’s back, he went over to Tong’s side and inspected the injury on Tong’s shoulder. Then he suddenly said, “From the looks of it, both of you were struck from behind.”

He clicked his tongue and could not help shaking his head. “So each of you had the other side’s men planted beside you.”

Li Yun had not witnessed the infighting inside Ten Kings Stronghold, but just from those two wounds he had already guessed the general shape of what had happened.

More or less, during a meeting or while drinking, the turncoats behind the backs of Ten Kings Stronghold’s two great bosses had simultaneously moved against their own masters.

Tong, the chief, was slashed in the shoulder from behind.

Ying Hao, by contrast, was cut across the back. If he had not reacted quickly and thrown himself forward to avoid the fatal wound, his body would already be stinking by now.

And because of this, the internal strife in Ten Kings Stronghold had broken out completely. The two sides hacked at each other in a frenzy, and casualties were severe.

Thus, by the time Li Yun came to attack Ten Kings Stronghold, half, perhaps even more than half, of its fighting strength was already wounded and unable to continue battling.

Only that Giant Spirit King, Tu Sheng, remained, leading some forty able-bodied bandits and a host of cannon fodder to resist the attack by the anti-bandit force and the Cangshan Stronghold.

Then, in a single night, the famous Ten Kings Stronghold of Xuanzhou was utterly broken by Li Yun.

Hearing this, Tong clearly recalled what had happened that day, and his voice trembled with rage. “That beast, that beast!”

“Stop shouting.”

The chief of the stronghold rolled his eyes and said disdainfully, “You two are cut from the same cloth. Neither of you is any better.”

“If only either of you had a bit of brains, you would never have ended up like this.”

Tong took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and said, “Little... Chief Li, my Tong clan is finished, there’s no surviving me. But many in my stronghold are innocent. They never did anything wrong, never committed any wickedness.”

“I beg you to leave them a way to live.”

Li Yun turned back and looked at the women and children huddled together inside the cave, his expression unchanged. “If I don’t kill them now, will they kill me later?”

Tong laughed.

“The women were all snatched up, and the children were born after their clothes were stripped from them by force. Most of the brothers in the stronghold have bad tempers and beat women and children at the slightest provocation. Who would risk their lives for a bandit husband and fight you to the death?”

Tong said quietly, “Chief Li, you are also the master of a stronghold. If you take these women back, then the brothers in your own stronghold will have a home, won’t they?”

Li Yun grinned. “Hard to tell. The vicious and ruthless Tong the Chief also has a compassionate side.”

“I’m already at death’s door.”

Blood seeped from the corner of Tong’s mouth. “Vicious and ruthless? That’s just because this world forced us to be so.”

“To hell with that!”

Li Yun slapped him across the face with the back of his hand and cursed, “Kidnapping commoners up the mountain and shoving them in front of the enemy to die—was that also forced by this world? Colluding with the government and oppressing the people—was that also forced by this world?”

“Forced by your damned mother!”

After spewing those obscenities, Li Yun was just about to speak when, not far away, a heaven-shaking scream rang out.

Liu Bo stood there holding an axe, his face splattered with blood.

One of Ying Hao’s arms had already fallen to the ground. The second leader, writhing in agony, lay on the floor howling miserably, then very promptly fainted from the pain.

Liu Bo tossed the axe to the ground, let out a long breath, then turned and walked back to Li Yun. “Second brother, my revenge is done, and Blackie’s revenge too. What happens to him next is up to you, second brother.”

The chief of the stronghold looked at Liu Bo, whose face was covered in blood, and patted his shoulder.

“All right, Ninth Brother. Go get some sleep.”

Liu Bo lowered his head in acknowledgment and turned away.

After Liu Bo left, Li Yun looked at the people in the cave and waved a hand, saying in a deep voice, “Take them all back to the stronghold!”

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