Severing Cause and Effect

The morning fog had not yet dissipated.

Zhou Laizi walked along the country road, carrying the straw mat he had stolen.

He was forty-two years old. When he was young, he worked as a hanger-on in the county town, running errands and collecting debts for the Liu family. He did some shady jobs. Later, he offended someone and was beaten so badly that he was crippled. He returned to the village in disgrace. After returning to the village, he was bad at farming and had no skills.

He spent all his savings on buying Ah Yue.

He didn't think he had done anything wrong.

"I bought it, it's my money, if she runs away, she's stealing my money."

He was actually quite happy when A-Yue first came, but A-Yue cried every day, made a fuss every day, and looked at him with that kind of gaze every day.

He was annoyed.

He didn't actually mean to break his leg that time; he'd had a few drinks, and that bitch kept running around, so he panicked.

Now that things have come to this, he blames A-Yue for running away, and he blames the villagers for not helping him keep an eye on his wife, but he doesn't blame Uncle Liu for tying A-Yue to the tree.

"You slut, you made me lose money and ruined my luck."

Zhou Laizi grew angrier the more he thought about it. Without stopping, a figure in the fog blocked his way.

"Give the straw mat back," the man said, his voice not loud and his stature not particularly tall.

Zhou Laizi was already holding back his anger, and upon hearing this, his lips immediately curled into a smirk.

"Yo."

He slung the straw mat over his shoulder, took half a step forward, and said, "You're that wild man?"

Shen Gui looked at him.

Zhou Laizi felt uneasy under that gaze, but someone had already opened the door.

If someone is watching, you can't back out.

Then Zhou Laizi's voice suddenly rose: "You dare touch my woman? Do you know who she is? She's the woman I bought with my own money. It's only natural for me to sleep with her, and it's a family matter if I beat her. What business is it of yours, an outsider?"

At this point, Zhou Laizi suddenly remembered that he had encountered similar situations before.

A bachelor in the next village took a lustful interest in A-Yue and tried to rape her, but A-Yue caught him in the act. Colluding with another woman is no small crime. If the laws of Yan Kingdom don't apply, it's fine, but if they do, A-Yue will at least lose a piece of flesh if she doesn't die.

That time, Zhou Laizi stood on his moral high ground and extorted a large sum of money from them.

It seems like this approach could work too!

Zhou Laizi's eyes lit up.

Whether or not someone was wrongly accused was not even considered.

"I've caught you!" he shouted, raising his voice so the whole village could hear. "Come quick, folks! This guy's here to steal our village's women!"

People poked their heads out of the fog. First it was Aunt Liu from next door, then Old Sun carrying a hoe, and then Erdan leading the ox. One by one they crawled out from the crack in the door, gathered around, and whispered among themselves.

The surroundings instantly became noisy.

"Isn't that Zhou Laizi?"

"Stealing women? You've got some nerve?"

"You know what, even though A-Yue is crazy, she's actually quite good-looking."

The old man also ran out from behind the tea stall. When he saw the gray-clad man's face, his heart sank. He quickly tried to persuade him, "Folks, it's not like that. This young master only arrived in our village last night—"

Before he could finish speaking, a middle-aged woman interrupted him in a shrill voice:

"Hey! That's strange. I saw it through the window last night; this person and A-Yue were kissing and cuddling under the tree!"

After the woman finished speaking, she winked at Zhou Laizi.

Zhou Laizi made no attempt to hide his chuckle and said, "After I've eaten the meat, I'll give you some soup."

Hearing this, the woman became even more agitated, as if she were the one directly involved, even more anxious than Zhou Laizi. She put her hands on her hips and shouted, "Where did this wild man come from, running rampant in our village? Didn't your parents teach you...?"

He only got halfway through his sentence.

Shen Gui raised his hand and slapped him across the face.

"Snapped!"

With a crisp sound, the woman's body flew up, traveling more than ten meters before crashing into a roadside earthen wall. She was buried under rubble and stones, and dust billowed up, dissipating very slowly in the mist.

The surroundings fell silent instantly.

Aunt Liu stared wide-eyed, her mouth agape.

The hoe that Old Sun was carrying on his shoulder slid down and hit his foot, but he didn't feel any pain.

Erdan's grip on the ox rope loosened, the ox ran away, and he remained frozen in place.

Ordinary people may not have practiced martial arts, but they have heard plenty of stories from storytellers. The ability to send someone flying more than ten meters with a single slap is not something that ordinary people can possess.

"He's definitely not an ordinary person," the old man sighed.

He'd kicked a hornet's nest; Zhou Laizi's face turned deathly pale.

He began to back away, placing the straw mat on the ground as he did so. His legs and lips were trembling. "My lord, it was a misunderstanding. I apologize. The straw mat is back, it's back."

Shen Gui took a step forward.

"Please forgive my rudeness. If you like that woman, you can take her with you. I don't want her anymore. I'll give her away for free."

Zhou Laizi retreated several steps, but he stumbled and fell backward into the mud, splashing water on his back.

Shen Gui walked up to him.

Zhou Laizi looked up and saw the man in gray not even glance at him, but walked straight past him towards the edge of the village, his boots making a dull sound as they stepped into the mud.

The footsteps faded into the distance.

gone?

Are you just going to let yourself off the hook like that?

No, this guy knows I'm running errands for Master Liu, so he... is afraid of Master Liu!

People always believe what they deduce, and Zhou Laizi was certain of this.

Gasping for breath after surviving the ordeal, he tried to get up, his hands slipping in the mud before he managed to steady himself. After a few breaths, before the fear in his heart had completely subsided, another emotion began to rise.

It is hatred.

It is a disgrace.

In front of the entire village, he knelt on the ground and begged for mercy, begging like a dog.

How can he hold his head up in the village if this gets out?

Zhou Laizi gritted his teeth. He wanted to turn around and see what the gray-clad man looked like, remember his face, and then go to Master Liu and embellish the story.

Zhou Laizi turned his head forcefully.

The neck didn't move.

I turned it again with force, but it still didn't move.

Zhou Laizi felt an itch around his neck.

The itch was strange; it wasn't the itch from mosquito bites, but the itch from when something cut your skin and the wound started to bleed.

He reached out to touch it.

What I touched was a ring of sticky, warm stuff.

He pulled his hand back and looked down.

My hands were covered in red.

blood.

Zhou Laizi opened his mouth, trying to shout, but no sound came out of his throat; only a hissing sound squeezed out.

Then he felt his gaze was slightly tilted.

Even though I wasn't looking down, my gaze kept drifting downwards, becoming more and more crooked and lower.

It dropped to the ground.

I saw the water in the mud pit, and on the surface of the water was a headless body kneeling, with blood gushing out from the severed neck, like firecrackers during the Lunar New Year.

That's my body.

Zhou Laizi thought, "That's my body."

His gaze went even lower, down to the mud, and he saw a pair of feet, the feet of a man in gray, his boots covered in mud.

Then I couldn't see anything anymore.

The head lay rolled in the mud, eyes still open, mouth still agape, maintaining the expression of wanting to call for help.

The surroundings were quiet for a couple of breaths.

Then it exploded.

Some people screamed, some ran backwards, some fell to the ground and had their fingers stepped on, and some squatted by the roadside and started retching.

"Murder—!"