CG Chapter 135: Five Steel Tigers of Mount Jiang
Time quickly flew, and a few days passed since Aretius had abandoned the village and started his journey toward the city of Black Cloud.
The long road was not easy for Aretius, as his old legs were going to give up on him a few times during the walk, but he didn't care about the pain passing through his old bones or the cracking sound he heard with every step.
He simply chose to cover the areas with herbs he picked and crushed along the way to make sure that no permanent injuries would be left behind.
From the memories of the old body's host, Aretius knew that the original Jin Mozi used to travel to the nearby city with a small merchant caravan.
Such caravans would usually visit the multiple scattered mountain villages to buy rare herbs like the ghost petal, black spider lily, and other goods for cheap, then sell them to the wealthy nobles.
That was especially true for those nobles who wanted to give their talentless children a chance to learn martial arts at double or even triple the price.
For example, an herb bought for fifty copper coins would later be sold for ten to twenty silver coins.
That was a total twentyfold increase in the value of the same product by simply taking it from the mountain to the city.
Of course, not everything was easy, or else the mountain peasants would have crowded the city with their goods.
For one, the herbs that could be sold at a twenty, or thirtyfold markup were not that easy to come by.
More important was the existence of road bandits.
They say that the mountain has its snake that gets a share of weak prey, and naturally the road had its bandits who would take their piece from anyone who wanted to cross, that is if you didn't have enough strength.
Sometimes these bandits would go so far as not only to take the goods but also the lives of the merchants.
If a young woman passed by, she would become their plaything, passed around among the brothers until they would get bored of her.
In dire and uncertain times, these bandits would even use their captured victims as meat after they were done playing with them.
Bang!
Coincidentally, just as Aretius was about to reach Black Cloud City, he heard a loud shout from the nearby trees and bushes.
"Halt, old man, and kneel before us, the Five Steel Tigers of Mount Jiang."
A hoarse voice spoke first before another followed shortly after.
"Pay your respects to us and you may pass. Or else…"
Once the second brother spoke, voices of giggles and loud laughter echoed as the five brothers stepped from their hiding spots.
The eldest brother had a large forehead and a dumb evil grin on his face.
The second was a thin man who looked like a scarecrow figure that could be blown away by the wind.
The third brother was a midget with a perverted smile.
The fourth brother had one big eye and one small one.
The fifth and last brother, however, was the strangest-looking.
He had no arms and slithered forward on his belly, droll oozing from his lips. His tongue was licking the dirt, leaving a damp spot behind from more than one spot.
The five brothers each had their unique taste, but they all looked extremely strange and otherworldly.
"What are you… waiting for? Give us the money, and kneel before you can leave."
The third spoke this time, holding two broken daggers in his hands as he tossed them into the air before skillfully catching them again.
Watching the five brothers standing in front of him, Aretius felt surprised not by their appearance but by the fact that even such weaklings could become bandits nowadays.
He did not know that, due to the recent war, the current empire was in a state of disarray.
It was trying to strengthen the border cities and stabilize its rule, so the capital didn't have any manpower left to waste on handling small hooligans like these.
However, he wouldn't have cared even if he knew, since it didn't affect him for the time being.
In the next second, without wasting a single breath…
Whoosh!
A sharp whistle sliced through the air, followed by the flicker of a spinning coin.
The second brother didn't even scream. The copper coin entered through his temple, crushed his brain, and exited from the other side, leaving only a tiny hole in its place.
Seeing this, silence followed.
Then the four remaining brothers screamed in pain at the death of their second brother.
Despite being bandits, they still had their own sense of kinship, having survived so long amid the struggles of the Jianghu and the pursuit of the government.
So, without hesitation or fear of death, the four remaining brothers ran toward Aretius, wanting to crush his bones and use his blood as an offering for their dead brother.
Aretius, of course, wasn't going to give them the chance.
As soon as the oldest brother reached his side, he skillfully used the wooden sword to throw him off balance, and once he fell…
Crack!
He swiftly stepped down with his full strength on the man's neck, twisting it and leaving his lifeless body behind with his eyes wide open.
Not wasting a second, he hurled the woodcarving knife toward the third brother, sending it through the open mouth and cutting off his breath.
Following that, he turned his attention to the two remaining brothers.
The fourth brother's big and small eyes started to shake as his body trembled in fear.
He had seen his brothers die one by one in an instant before his eyes.
He wanted to run away, but looking at his fifth brother crawling. his heart rate skyrocketed, and, as a tear fell from his big eye, he decided to…
Turn his back and run.
He chose not to waste his brothers' sacrifice and promised to build them a shrine where he would burn them incense sticks every year.
However, he didn't have the chance.
Whoosh!
The moment he turned his back, a flurry of copper coins flew, piercing every part of his body, including his two eyes.
His body dropped, riddled with holes, like a rotten sack of grain.
As for the last brother, the drool coming from his mouth stopped.
He started making strange noises, between crying and screaming, sounding like the cry of a thousand-year-old grieving banshee.
Still, Aretius didn't care.
He walked past him, and, with a flick of the wrist, the sharp end of his tobacco pipe pierced the skull of the last brother.
All of that might have seemed to take a long time to describe, but it all happened in the blink of an eye.
Aretius passed by their bodies and picked up what he deemed worthy before continuing his path toward the city.