Chapter 554 - 555: Succeeded
Chapter 554: Chapter 555: Succeeded
Bai Suihe didn’t dare go far. After all, her precious little treasure was still inside the house, so she and Nanny Pang stood guard just outside the courtyard.
The wait was agonizing, every passing second feeling like pure torture. Bai Suihe kept craning her neck in anticipation until she finally heard a commotion. These pirates had been active in this area for a long time and had already thoroughly mapped out the nearby villages. It didn’t take them long to reach the center of this one.
Seeing that they had fallen into the trap, Gu Kaiyuan and his men sprang into action.
They served the invaders an appetizer using the crossbows they had rushed to manufacture over the past few days. A wail of agony pierced the air, acting like a starting gun. Then, one scream followed another in rapid, escalating succession. Even through the darkness, Bai Suihe could hear their furious curses and the familiar barking sounds of their language. She knew right then that giving these men a taste of her poison was entirely justified.
She silently rearranged the pouches hanging at her waist. Nanny Pang glanced at her but didn’t say a word. These men were ruthless and had countless innocent lives on their hands. Making them suffer was just a way for them to atone for their sins.
Gu Kaiyuan’s men, however, were only hastily trained. Once the short-statured invaders regained their bearings, they began to counterattack.
With a single command, Gu Kaiyuan ordered his men to retreat. He lit a torch and, relying on his agility, took down a few more enemies. Feigning weakness, he deliberately left an opening, luring the remaining attackers straight toward their house. He had promised his wife earlier that he would bring her some live specimens. Since these men didn’t behave like human beings anyway, they would make perfect guinea pigs for her.
Hearing the commotion outside, Bai Suihe’s eyes lit up. It was a pity her ancestors couldn’t see this; otherwise, they would have dedicated an entire page in the family genealogy just for her.
Gu Kaiyuan stood at the front gates. Catching sight of her, he broke into a bright smile. "Madam, they didn’t bring many men. There are about seven or eight left here, which should be enough for now."
As for those who had been hit by arrows earlier, Gu Kaiyuan had no intention of letting them leave alive. He wasn’t about to put himself in danger out of misplaced mercy. The poison from Sword Peak had been personally formulated by Nanny Pang—it guaranteed instant death upon drawing blood.
When Ishishita Saburō saw Bai Suihe, his eyes narrowed with lust. This was exactly the kind of top-tier beauty he had been looking for. The village women he had encountered before were practically an insult to him.
"Beautiful," Tanaka Heikun said, his eyes darting around beadily. His Japanese sword was already pointed straight at Gu Kaiyuan. He knew his priorities; if he wanted to get what he desired, he had to take care of this man first. He had already realized that this man was no pushover and that he couldn’t defeat him alone. Thus, he roared, "Brothers, we need to take him out first! Everyone, coordinate your attacks!"
As for their fallen comrades, their deaths didn’t evoke the slightest ripple of emotion. Dead was dead; it just meant fewer people to share the spoils with. In an instant, the group surrounded Gu Kaiyuan. This was their standard tactic: kill the men first, and the rest would be easy pickings.
Bai Suihe and Nanny Pang naturally noticed the lecherous gazes from earlier and wished they could gouge the men’s eyes out on the spot.
The two women simultaneously reached into their robes.
"Husband, scatter!"
The moment Bai Suihe spoke, Gu Kaiyuan pushed off the ground with his toes and leapt high into the air. With a graceful flip mid-flight, he landed squarely on the roof, escaping their encirclement.
Before Ishishita Saburō and the others could even register their shock, a strange odor wafted over them. Then, before they could process a single thought, their bodies went limp, and they collapsed into heaps on the ground.
Bai Suihe clapped her hands clean and walked over with a curled lip. "That’s it?"
And here she had gone to the trouble of preparing so many medicinal pouches. There were only a handful of them, and she had taken them all out in one go.
Nanny Pang walked over and tossed another handful of powder over their bodies, just to be absolutely certain.
"Have someone check to see if that’s all of them," Bai Suihe said, remembering that they needed to clean up properly. They couldn’t afford to let any stragglers slip through the net. She still had major uses for these men, and she couldn’t let the local soldiers catch wind of this. After all, every single pirate was a walking bounty.
Gu Kaiyuan called out toward the concealed positions of his men, "Search from one end of the village to the other! Make sure no one is hiding!"
The village men had been bursting with impatience for quite some time. These supposedly terrifying pirates were nothing like they had imagined—they were utterly pathetic. The villagers had brainstormed so many tactics, only to find they had no chance to use them. Brimming with newfound confidence, they began patrolling the familiar corners of the village.
"Ba... Bastards!" Ishishita Saburō croaked. "What kind of sorcery is this? Let us go right now, or don’t blame us for being merciless!"
Bai Suihe clicked her tongue and shook her head. "Who taught you to howl like that? Do you honestly not understand your current situation?
"You’re nothing more than prisoners now. Shouldn’t you be begging us for mercy?
"Oh, but even if you cracked your heads open kowtowing right now, I still wouldn’t consider it.
"The way you looked at me just now made me very uncomfortable. What do you think we should do about that?"
As she spoke, Bai Suihe untied the pouches from her waist one by one and laid them out in front of the men. "I only rewarded you with one type of powder just now. I still have all of these, but I’ve forgotten what each of them does. Since you delivered yourselves right to my doorstep, you can do a good deed and help me identify them."
Ishishita Saburō and his men couldn’t grasp the meaning behind her words. They had been studying the Rong Dynasty’s language to slip into the local populace undetected, and they even communicated in it on a daily basis. They had studied it for a long time and usually had no problem conversing, so why couldn’t they understand what this young woman was saying?
They were here to pillage and get rich, not to do good deeds!
However, one thing was perfectly clear: the woman’s eyes brimmed with sheer malice, and their gut told them that nothing good was inside those pouches. As more and more pouches were laid out, the medicinal stench grew increasingly pungent. Connecting this with what had just happened to their bodies, a horrifying realization began to dawn on them.
"This is all a misunderstanding! We’re just here looking for someone!" Yamaguchi’s eyes darted around. "We have an enemy who supposedly moved to this area, so we came for revenge. But looking at your unfamiliar faces, we must have made a mistake."
"Don’t embarrass yourselves with such a lame excuse," Bai Suihe sneered. "We all know exactly who you are and why you’re here. You should have prepared yourselves to face the music a long time ago. Since you didn’t, you’d better accept your fate. If you’re obedient, I might just give you a quick death."
Gu Kaiyuan had long since climbed down from the roof. This had been part of their plan: he would retreat right as they struck, ensuring he wasn’t caught in the crossfire.
"Madam, since they’ve delivered themselves to us, the special place we prepared for them can finally be put to use," Nanny Pang said, her tone completely flat, as if she were discussing the weather.
She was capable of kindness and compassion, but she absolutely would not waste either on the men in front of her.