Chapter 782
It turns out to be him
Upon hearing the masked man's words, Li Qingshi thought that robbing them would be the easiest thing to do. He figured that dealing with these bandits would be as simple as giving them some money.
Li Qingshi said, "I'm in a hurry to pick up the bride today, and I don't have time to waste with you. Since you want to rob me, I'll give you some!"
After saying this, Li Qingshi took out a bag of silver from his chest and threw it at the feet of the masked men.
The masked leader picked up the bag of silver, opened it, and looked at it with a fierce glint in his eyes. He said to Li Qingshi, "Is this all the silver you're trying to fool? You must leave me two thousand taels of silver before you can leave this place!"
Li Qingshi thought the bag of silver he had just given them was already a lot, but he never expected that these bandits would ask for two thousand taels of silver. This was something Li Qingshi never anticipated.
He had encountered bandits before, but he knew he was too weak to fight them, so he would just give them a little bit of silver. He never expected these bandits to be so arrogant.
What does two thousand taels mean? It means that even a soldier serving in the imperial court would only receive less than two taels of silver a month, and at most, less than 24 taels a year. The yamen runners in the government received even less; they were lucky to receive ten taels of silver a year.
Even the better-off families in the county town only had an annual income of thirty to a little over one hundred taels.
I've heard that the wealthiest families in the county only earn a little over a thousand taels of silver a year at most.
Who are these bandits? How dare they make such an unreasonable demand? Li Qingshi naturally cannot agree to it.
Although Li Qingshi is now a minor official in the Qingmu Prefecture and his income is quite considerable, it's impossible for him to suddenly come up with so much silver!
Even if he could come up with the money, he wouldn't give them such a large sum.
Seeing their extremely unreasonable demands, Li Qingshi bluntly said, "We don't have that many!"
The man who was in charge of the shop said, "Then it's 1,500 taels. Hand it over quickly!"
Li Qingshi said, "You bandits are really arrogant. You don't have that many!"
The masked man who was in charge continued, "Then it's one thousand taels, no less, or we won't do it!"
Li Qingshi said again, "There aren't that many! I only gave you what you need. If you don't comply, I'll take back what you already have, and then you won't get a single penny!"
The masked man in the lead was somewhat bewildered by Li Qingshi's words. His employer had instructed them beforehand that they would need at least a thousand taels of silver to pass through, and that they should resist him if they didn't have a thousand taels.
They originally planned to ask for more, since the extra would be theirs and they could earn more commission. However, they failed to get what they wanted, so they decided to just do things according to the minimum standard.
Thinking of this, the masked leader said, "At least a thousand taels. If you can't come up with a thousand taels, don't blame us for being impolite. We may have eyes, but the knives in our hands don't!"
Upon hearing the masked man's threatening words, the wedding procession following behind Li Qingshi panicked instantly and hurriedly said to Li Qingshi, "Brother Shi, what... what should we do?"
Li Qingshi turned to reassure everyone, saying, "Don't panic, everyone. I've brought you all here to welcome the bride today. As long as I, Li Qingshi, have a breath left, I will definitely protect you all."
Someone in the wedding procession said, "But Little Stone, they're all armed with knives, and they all look incredibly fierce. We may be strong and healthy, but we don't know kung fu. How are you going to fight them all by yourself?"
A man next to him quickly tugged at the speaker's sleeve and whispered, "You're exposing our weaknesses by saying that. Hurry up and be quiet, don't be impatient, let's see how Qing Shi arranges things. After all, he works in the government office now, he's seen much more of the world than we have! He should have a solution!"
The person who was very flustered inside managed to suppress his fear after hearing the advice of those around him, and tried his best to appear calm and composed.
Li Qingshi then reassured everyone, "Don't be afraid, everyone. Even if I, Li Qingshi, can't beat them, we still have the Mountain God to back us up. If we tell the Mountain God about this, he is on the side of justice and will definitely not stand by and watch these bandits run rampant here!"
When everyone heard Li Qingshi say that the Mountain God would help them, their anxious hearts instantly calmed down.
They were all from Kaoshan Village, so of course they knew how powerful the Mountain God was, and they also knew that the Mountain God would definitely take care of them.
If we tell Grandpa Mountain God about this, he will definitely not stand idly by.
Li Qingshi found that invoking the name of the Mountain God was very effective in calming everyone's impatient emotions.
After everyone's emotions calmed down...
Li Qingshi became even more composed in the face of the bandits. He looked at the bandits, about to speak, when he heard the leader say, "Hahaha, this is utterly absurd!"
How dare you say that the Mountain God will help you? Have we scared you so much you've gone mad? Trying to frighten us with some nonexistent deity? I'm warning you!
"For all these years, I've been living a life of constant danger, and no monsters or demons have ever come after us. We only believe that whoever has the strongest fist is the boss. Don't try to scare us with those superstitious nonsense; we won't fall for it!"
Li Qingshi responded with a cold laugh: "Anyway, I've said my piece. Believe it or not, it's up to you!"
The masked leader glared at Li Qingshi with wide eyes and said fiercely, "Don't give me any more nonsense. I'll say it one last time: hand over a thousand taels of silver, or we really won't be polite!"
Not to mention that Li Qingshi didn't have a thousand taels of silver on him at all, even if he added up all his possessions, he still couldn't scrape together a thousand taels of silver.
However, even if Li Qingshi had the money, he would never be so outrageous as to hand over a huge sum of one thousand taels of silver to these bandits. Wouldn't that be indirectly encouraging their arrogance?
In the past, Li Qingshi would never have shown mercy to such troublemakers. However, today was his wedding day, and he didn't want to get involved in any fighting. Unexpectedly, these bandits were so arrogant. Since things had come to this point, Li Qingshi said without backing down, "I'll say it one last time: if you still insist on one thousand taels of silver, the silver I have now will be mine, and you won't get a single penny!"
One of the masked robbers said to their leader, "Boss, it looks like he's going to fight us head-on. Let's stop wasting words and get to work!"
At this moment, the masked man hiding in the bushes saw that things were about to escalate, so he quickly jumped out and stood behind the group of masked men with swords and knives. He loudly said to Li Qingshi, who was riding on horseback, "How about this, if you really can't come up with a thousand taels of silver, then nine hundred taels will do, or even eight hundred taels will do!"
When Li Qingshi saw the masked man suddenly run out of the bushes and heard his words, he instantly realized that the person speaking was the one who had instigated the masked men.
Li Qingshi looked at the man and said, "What? Did you get anxious when you saw we were about to draw our swords? Are you worried about losing your money? Let me tell you, I don't have eight hundred taels either!"
Hearing Li Qingshi's words, the man became anxious and quickly said, "Well then, I won't waste any more words with you. Five hundred taels. If you can't even come up with that, then there's really no room for negotiation! You decide for yourself!"
Seeing that Li Qingshi was still reluctant to pay, the man directly stated his bottom line: five hundred taels was the lowest he could accept. If Li Qingshi was unwilling to pay even that, then he would have no choice but to order his men to take action.
Upon hearing this, Li Qingshi chuckled and said, "Heh, what kind of bandits are you? I've never seen anyone rob people like you before. Everyone else acts within their means, but you're trying to drive people to their deaths!"
The masked man behind the masked men said, "You don't need to know which bandits we are. The important thing is that if you don't come up with five hundred taels of silver as a bribe today, you can forget about passing through here!"
Li Qingshi said, "Then let me see what you're capable of that can stop me?"
The masked man behind the masked men continued, "It seems you won't budge on the five hundred taels of silver no matter what I say. Well then, let's see what we're capable of! All of you, attack! Take him down, I want him alive!"
Upon hearing the command from behind, the group of masked men in front drew their swords and surged forward, charging menacingly towards Li Qingshi and his companions.
Adhering to the principle of never troubling the Mountain God unless absolutely necessary, Li Qingshi was preparing to fight the bandits on his own when he shouted to the wedding procession following behind him, "Everyone, step back! Be careful not to get hurt by the swords!"
After Li Qingshi finished shouting, he prepared to personally face the enemy. Just then, Xu Bo'an made his move. He casually picked up a transparent card that looked like a bank card from the table and directly blocked the group of masked people.
Because the card Xu Bo'an was holding was made of transparent material, the group of masked men only felt a sudden gust of wind in front of them the moment Xu Bo'an placed the card, and could not see anything in front of them.
They hadn't run more than a few steps when they all crashed into the giant, transparent wall. They looked left and right but couldn't find anything unusual in their surroundings.
They continued to charge forward, but were still bounced back by the transparent wall. After several attempts, the transparent wall remained firmly standing there, unmoved.
However, they did not know what the transparent wall standing in front of them was, and thought that some master had cast a spell on them, making it completely insurmountable.
At this moment, the masked man standing at the back became anxious and shouted, "Hurry up and charge forward! What are you standing there for?"
The masked leader said, "It's not that we don't want to move forward, it's just that there's an invisible wall in front of us, and we simply can't get through!"
The masked man behind him grumbled as he hurried forward. When he reached the transparent wall where Xu Bo'an stood, he found that, as they had said, it was indeed impossible to get through.
I can't see anything here at all, so why is this happening? Anyway, even if the sky falls, I'm going to grab the silver, or I'll die a horrible death.
Thinking this, he said to the masked men wielding swords, "I don't care, you have to take him down today, or you won't get a single penny!"
The group continued trying for a while, but found that even with all their efforts, they still couldn't get past the obstacle. Exhausted, they said to the person in charge, "We've run out of ideas. We're not doing this job today."
After saying that, they prepared to leave with the bag of silver that Li Qingshi had just thrown to them. The man who had been directing them said, "You haven't done anything for me, why should you take the silver! Leave the silver behind before you go!"
The leader of the masked men said angrily, "Even if we didn't help you complete the mission, the brothers still put in a lot of effort. We deserve this bag of silver, even if we didn't get credit!"
The man who had just commanded them, adhering to the principle that even a small amount is still something, spoke quite firmly to the masked leader: "You didn't do my job, so you can't take it! Give it back to me now!"
His words thoroughly enraged the masked leader, who glared at him furiously, held a knife to his neck, and said menacingly, "These are the rules of our trade. If you dare to break the rules, be careful, I won't be polite to you!"
After the masked man finished speaking, he pressed the sword in his hand even closer to the man's neck. The man who had been in commanding him earlier immediately chickened out and dared not say another word.
Seeing that the masked man had become docile, the masked leader decided to leave quickly. After all, the invisible, insurmountable wall that had appeared out of nowhere meant that there must be a powerful figure in the middle. If they didn't leave quickly, their brothers might lose their lives here today.
Thinking this, the masked leader made a gesture to the group behind him, and everyone prepared to retreat.
Seeing that they were about to leave, Xu Bo'an remembered that Li Qingshi's money bag was still in their hands, so he reached in again and took the money bag that originally belonged to Li Qingshi directly out of the masked leader's arms.
Seeing the money bag fly out of his chest on its own, the masked leader completely forgot about the bag and turned to run for his life, terrified that he would be caught if he was even a step too slow. (End of Chapter)